Thatched House Lodge
Thatched House Lodge | |
---|---|
Sir John Soane in 1771 | |
Governing body | Crown Estate |
Listed Building – Grade II | |
Official name | Thatched House Lodge |
Designated | 6 October 1983 |
Reference no. | 1242619[1] |
Thatched House Lodge is a Grade II-listed building,[1] dating from the 17th century, in Richmond Park in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames in London, England.[2] It was the home of British prime minister Sir Robert Walpole and, since 1963, has been a royal residence, being leased from the Crown Estate by Princess Alexandra, The Honourable Lady Ogilvy (born Princess Alexandra of Kent),[3][4] and, until his death in 2004, her husband, Sir Angus Ogilvy.
The main house has six reception rooms and six bedrooms, and it stands in four acres (1.6 hectares) of grounds. The property includes gardens, an 18th-century two-room thatched summer house which gave the main house its name, a gardener's cottage, stabling and other buildings.
History
The residence was originally built as two houses in 1673 for two
The house was used as a
Thatched House Lodge was the home of
Leasehold details
The house was acquired on the open market by Angus Ogilvy through the purchase in 1963 of a sublease of the property from Clare, Duchess of Sutherland; he subsequently purchased the leasehold.[10] The asking price for the sublease was £150,000, a considerable amount at the time.[11] The property was held on a lease from the Crown Estate. In 1994, the Crown Estate granted Ogilvy an extension of the lease, to run for 150 years from 1994. Under the 1994 lease, a premium of £670,000 was payable to the Crown Estate, together with an annual rent of £1,000 for the first 25 years, rising in defined stages every 25 years to £6,000 per annum for the last 25 years. The lease required the leaseholder to put the property "in good and substantial repair" and to maintain it as such, to preserve the character of the property. According to the National Audit Office report on Thatched House Lodge, "considerable sums have been spent during the last 40 years of occupation".[8]
The leasehold arrangements reflect the fact that the property was acquired by Ogilvy on a purely commercial basis, having acquired the sublease of the property for market value on the open market. The commercial nature of the leasehold is shown by the very considerable premium of £670,000 paid on the 1994 extension of the lease, with all maintenance at the expense of the leaseholder, and no charges resulting to the Crown Estate. Independent advice from a leading firm of
The leasehold arrangements concerning Thatched House Lodge differ from the arrangements relating to other royal residences leased from the Crown Estate, Royal Lodge and Bagshot Park, leased by the Duke of York and Duke of Edinburgh respectively. In particular the Crown Estate never made a contribution towards restructuring Thatched House Lodge, as it did in the case of Royal Lodge and Bagshot Park, showing the non-commercial considerations which influenced those leases as opposed to Thatched House Lodge.
See also
References
- ^ a b c Historic England (6 October 1983). "Thatched House Lodge (1242619)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 16 September 2016.
- ^ "Thatched House Lodge". Wikimapia. Retrieved 4 January 2012.
- ^ "1964: Royal baby for leap year day". BBC News. 29 February 1964. Retrieved 4 January 2012.
- ^ "Royal love nests". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 17 July 2013.
- ^ ISBN 0-14-0710-47-7.)
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link - ISBN 978-0300118506.
- ^ "Sir Edmund Monson's Retrospect. The announcement that King Edward has placed Thatched House Lodge..." The Spectator. 7 January 1905. pp. 15–16. Retrieved 16 August 2016.
- ^ a b c "The Crown Estate – Property Leases with the Royal Family". Report. National Audit Office (United Kingdom). 2005. Retrieved 18 April 2015.
- ISBN 978-1-4050-4924-5.
- ^ "Obituary: Sir Angus Ogilvy". The Daily Telegraph. London. 27 December 2004. Retrieved 18 April 2015.
- ^ Corby, Tom (27 December 2004). "Sir Angus Ogilvy". The Guardian. Retrieved 18 April 2015.
Further reading
- Pasmore, Stephen (1996). "Thatched House Lodge, Richmond Park, in 1918". ISSN 0263-0958.