{{Short description|Palladian mansion house in Surrey, England}} {{Use dmy dates|date=June 2020}} {{Use British English|date=June 2020}} {{Infobox historic site | name = | native_name = | native_language = | image = Botley Park Mansion, Chertsey - geograph.org.uk - 1756426.jpg | caption = Botleys Mansion | type = | locmapin = Surrey | coordinates = {{coord|51|22|26.1|N|0|32|1.8|W|type:landmark_region:GB|display=inline,title}} | gbgridref = TQ 02142 64884 | location = Chertsey, Surrey | area = | built = 1760s | architect = Kenton Couse | architecture = Palladian | governing_body = | owner = Bijou Wedding Venues | designation1 = Grade II* | designation1_offname = Botleys Park Hospital | designation1_date = 9 July 1972 | designation1_number = {{Listed building England|1029181}} | designation2 = | designation2_offname = | designation2_date = | designation2_number = | designation3 = | designation3_offname = | designation3_date = | designation3_number = | designation4 = | designation4_offname = | designation4_date = | designation4_number = | designation5 = | designation5_offname = | designation5_date = | designation5_number = }} '''Botleys Mansion''' (previously known as ''Botleys Park'')<ref name="SurreyAdvertiser1930-MentalHospitals">{{cite news |title=Over £600,000 New Expenditure for Mental Hospitals and Defectives. |work=The Surrey Advertiser, County Times |date=29 November 1930 |page=4 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-surrey-advertiser-county-times-over/182677030/ |via=Newspapers.com |url-access=subscription |access-date=10 October 2025}}</ref><ref name="SurreyAdvertiser1929-BotleysPark">{{cite news |title=Botleys Park, Chertsey: Reported Purchase by County Council |work=The Surrey Advertiser, County Times |date=30 November 1929 |page=9 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-surrey-advertiser-county-times-botl/182677074/ |via=Newspapers.com |url-access=subscription |access-date=10 October 2025}}</ref><ref name="SurreyAdvertiser1929-SurreyWills">{{cite news |title=Surrey Wills. Former High Sheriff Leaves £839,000. |work=The Surrey Advertiser, County Times |date=13 April 1929 |page=9 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-surrey-advertiser-county-times-surr/182677157/ |via=Newspapers.com |url-access=subscription |access-date=10 October 2025}}</ref> is a Palladian mansion house in the south of Chertsey, Surrey, England, just south of St Peter's Hospital. The house was built in the 1760s by builders funded by Joseph Mawbey and to designs by Kenton Couse. The elevated site once bore a 14th-century manor house seized along with all the other manors of Chertsey from Chertsey Abbey, a very rich abbey, under Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries and today much of its land is owned by two hospitals, one public, one private, and the local council authority. The remaining mansion and the near park surrounding were used for some decades as a colony hospital and as a private care home. The building is owned and used by a wedding venues company.
It is a Grade II* listed building.<ref name="park_entrance"/>
==History== The building standing today was built c.1765<ref name="park_entrance"/> as a replacement of an old manor.<ref name="bijoubotleys"/><ref name="brayley221"/> The mansion's ownership was transferred often throughout its history.<ref name="museum"/>
The House and the surrounding 344 acre estate was purchased by Surrey County Council in late 1929 for a reported sum of £31,000 ({{Inflation|UK|31000|1929|fmt=eq|cursign=£|r=0}}).<ref name="SurreyAdvertiser1929-BotleysPark"/> A psychiatric facility known as the ''Botley's Colony'' was established at the House during the 1930s. The plan for the new layout of the new buildings was by the architects J.M. Sheppard & co circa 1935.<ref name="park_entrance"/>
The Metropolitan Asylums Board was dissolved in 1930 and responsibility for caring for the mentally deficient was passed to the (local government) Councils.<ref name="mab"/> Surrey County Council decided set up new buildings to house patients while the mansion housed the hospital staff becoming designated from 1932 Botley's Park hospital, which specialised in patients with psychiatric disorders.<ref name="archives"/> It was reported in 1931 that the Surrey County Council had voted approximately £440,000 ({{Inflation|UK|440000|1931|fmt=eq|cursign=£|r=0}}) for the expansion of the Botleys Colony, which would allow it to accommodate up to 1,500 patients.<ref name="SurreyAdvertiser1930-MentalHospitals"/>
The first section of the new hospital was opened on 24 June 1939 by Lady Henriques, wife of then chairman of the Council Sir Philip Henriques.<ref name="archives"/> In September of the same year, many of the hospital's patients were moved to Murray House in nearby Ottershaw so that Botleys could receive wounded soldiers from the war. During this time, the mansion was adapted into a nurses' home.<ref name="heroes"/>
The mansion was damaged by fire in 1994 and within two years, most of the nurses' home closed down.<ref name="lost"/> It was restored by P&O Developments between 1996 and 1997.<ref name="park_entrance"/>
==Architecture== In architecture it is Grade II* listed, the middle category of listing, which as with the top category (Grade I) applies to less than one third of listed buildings.<ref name="bijoubotleys"/><ref name=nhle>{{NHLE|num=1029181|desc= Botleys Park Hospital|accessdate=6 November 2014}}</ref>
It is a Couse stone-built house in simple Palladian architecture without wings, with walls clad in stone<ref name="park_entrance"/> and surrounded by park land and iron gates.<ref name="bijoubotleys"/><ref name="brayley221"/> The stone came from quarries at Headington, Oxfordshire and Barrington, Cambridgeshire.<ref name="brayley223"/>
The house is almost cubic in form, and the estate was about two miles in circumference, today about a mile; and approximately square, thus {{convert|0.25|mi2}}. A double flight of steps leads to the marble-paved entrance hall of the house. The entrance hall ceiling is supported by Scagliola columns and Ionic pilasters.<ref name=nhle/>
==Ownership== In 1319, the original Botleys Park Estate was either owned by John de Butteley or John Manory of Chertsey. In 1505, de Butteley's son Thomas gave the House to Richard Merland, Thomas Pervoche, and Henry Wykes; soon after though, Wykes became the sole owner of the mansion, then called Botlese Mansion. Ownership of the mansion changed hands several times and was owned by Henry VIII in 1541, after he purchased it from Sir Roger Cholmeley. In 1763, the mansion was transferred to Joseph Mawbey, the man responsible for the house's reconstruction. The mansion was passed around after Mawbey's death until it was purchased by Robert Gosling in 1822.<ref name="museum2">{{cite web |title=Chertsey Museum – From Manor House to Medicine |url=https://chertseymuseum.org/st_peters_hospital |website=chertseymuseum.org |accessdate=10 December 2019 |language=en}}</ref>
Botleys Park remained in the ownership of the Gosling family until 1929; the final private owner of the house was Barclays Director and 1901 High Sheriff of Surrey Herbert Gosling.<ref name="SurreyAdvertiser1929-SurreyWills" /> The 1921 Census of England returns for Chertsey, Surrey record that Gosling employed a large household at Botleys Park, which included seven indoor servants (a Butler, Cook, kitchen maid, scullery maid, footman, and two housemaids) and eight outdoor servants (a head gardener, two gardeners, a groom, stableman, stockman, farm carter and carpenter).<ref name="1921Census-Ancestry">{{cite web |title=1921 England Census — Surrey, Chertsey RD 02; ED 05–06 (images 369–394) |website=Ancestry |publisher=Ancestry.com Operations, Inc. |date=2025 |url=https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/63150/ |via=The Wikipedia Library (AncestryInstitution) |url-access=subscription |language=English |quote=From The National Archives (UK), 1921 Census of England and Wales, series RG 15; county: Surrey; registration district: Chertsey (02); enumeration districts: 05–06; images 369–394. |access-date=10 October 2025}}</ref>
Gosling died on 25 February 1929; his gross estate was valued at £839,130 ({{Inflation|UK|839130|1929|fmt=eq|cursign=£|r=0}}) for probate, with some £270,000 in death duties deducted from the £773,116 net estate.<ref name="SurreyAdvertiser1929-SurreyWills" /> Following his death the Surrey County Council purchased the Botleys Park and its 344-acre estate for a reported £31,000.<ref name="museum"/><ref name="park_entrance"/>
The mansion was bought and restored by a company, Bijou Wedding Venues, in 2010 and is used to host weddings and events.<ref name="bijoubotleys"/>
==References== ;Footnotes {{Reflist|refs=
<ref name="brayley221">{{Harvnb|Brayley|1841|p=221}}</ref> <ref name="brayley223">{{Harvnb|Brayley|1841|p=223}}</ref>
<ref name="bijoubotleys">{{cite web | last =Cutmore-Scott | first =Mark | title =About Botleys Mansion: History | publisher =Bijou Wedding Venues | url =https://bijouweddingvenues.co.uk/venue/botleys-mansion/}}</ref>
<ref name="museum">{{cite web | last =Chertsey Museum | title =From Manor House to Medicine | publisher =Runymede Borough Council | url =http://chertseymuseum.org/sph}}</ref>
<ref name="archives">{{cite web | last =National Archives | title =Botleys Park Hospital, Chertsey: Records | publisher =Surrey History Service | url =http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/records.aspx?cat=176-6206&cid=-1#-1}}</ref>
<ref name="heroes">{{cite web | last =Runymede Government | title =Local Heroes 1 | url =http://ww2.runnymede.gov.uk/leisure/indoors/chertsey/education/Education_resources/index_files/Page727.htm | archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20140407104804/http://ww2.runnymede.gov.uk/leisure/indoors/chertsey/education/Education_resources/index_files/Page727.htm | url-status =dead | archive-date =2014-04-07 }}</ref>
<ref name="mab">{{cite web | last =Higginbotham | first =Peter | title =The Metropolitan Asylums Board | url =http://www.workhouses.org.uk/MAB/}}</ref>
<ref name="lost">{{cite web | title =Botleys Park|publisher=Lost Hospitals of London | url =https://ezitis.myzen.co.uk/botleyspark.html|accessdate=2 December 2018}}</ref>
<ref name="park_entrance">{{cite web | title =Homewood Park Entrance Signage|publisher=Mark Hartnady | url =https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Homewood_Park_Entrance_Information.jpg|accessdate=10 November 2022}}</ref>
}}
;Bibliography *{{Anchor|CITEREFBrayley1841}}{{cite book | last1 =Brayley | first1 =Edward | last2 =Britton | first2 =John | title =A Topographical History of Surrey | publisher =Oxford University | year =1841 | pages =221–223 | url =https://books.google.com/books?id=9bYHAAAAQAAJ&dq=Botleys+Mansion&pg=PA470}}
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Category:Country houses in Surrey Category:Palladian Revival architecture in Surrey Category:Grade II* listed buildings in Surrey Category:Lakes of Surrey