{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Infobox historic site | name = Horsley Towers | image = Horsley Towers from the lake.jpg | caption = Horsley Towers seen across the lake | type = House | locmapin = Surrey | map_relief = | coordinates = {{coord|51.2654|-0.4272 |region:GB|format=dms|display=inline,title}} | location = East Horsley, Surrey | area = | built = 1834, 1855-60 | architect = Charles Barry, William King-Noel, 1st Earl of Lovelace | architecture = Tudor Revival, Romanesque Revival | governing_body = De Vere (hotel operator) | designation1 = Grade II* | designation1_offname = Horsley Towers | designation1_date = 14 June 1967 | designation1_number = 1294810 | designation2 = Grade II listed building | designation2_offname = Entrance Walls, Gardeners Cottage and Horsley Towers Cottage | designation2_date = 25 November 1985 | designation2_number = 1029424 | designation3 = Grade II listed building | designation3_offname = Pavilion 100 yards northwest of cloisters of Horsley Towers | designation3_date = 25 November 1985 | designation3_number = 1029425 | designation4 = Grade II listed building | designation4_offname = Wall and Pavilion 300 yards southwest of Horsley Towers | designation4_date = 25 November 1985 | designation4_number = 1188298 | designation5 = Grade II listed building | designation5_offname = Walls to former kitchen garden of Horsley Towers | designation5_date = 25 November 1985 | designation5_number = 1377818 }} '''Horsley Towers''', East Horsley, Surrey, England is a country house dating from the 19th century. The house was designed by Charles Barry for the banker William Currie. The East Horsley estate was later sold to William King-Noel, 1st Earl of Lovelace who undertook two major expansions of the house to his own designs. Lovelace lived at the Towers with his wife, Ada, daughter of Lord Byron, a pioneering mathematician, friend of Charles Babbage and described as among the first computer programmers. In 1919, the Towers was purchased by Thomas Sopwith, the aviator and businessman, who named his plane, the Hawker Horsley, after his home. Now a hotel, wedding and conference venue set in parkland with a total area of about 50 acres, Horsley Towers is a Grade II* listed building.
==History== William Currie was a banker and distiller, who had inherited a substantial fortune from his father, on the latter's death in 1781. In 1820, Currie engaged Charles Barry to replace the existing Georgian manor house on his East Horsley estate.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/surrey/vol3/pp349-352#h2-0001|title=Parishes: East Horsley|publisher=British History Online|website=www.british-history.ac.uk|accessdate=10 June 2020}}</ref> It was an early commission for Barry, then aged 25, who opened the London office of his architectural practice only in 1821.{{sfn|Brodie|Felstead|Franklin|Pinfield|2001|p=123}} Following Currie's death in 1829, the Horsley estate was bought by William King, who was raised in the peerage to Earl of Lovelace in 1838<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.lyonandturnbull.com/news/article/From-the-Estate-of-the-Late-5th-Earl-of-Lovelace/?i=520|title=From the Estate of the Late 5th Earl of Lovelace|publisher=Lyon & Turnbull|website=www.lyonandturnbull.com|accessdate=10 June 2020}}</ref> and served as Lord Lieutenant of Surrey from 1840 until his death in 1893.<ref name="auto1">{{Cite web|url=https://www.exploringsurreyspast.org.uk/themes/places/surrey/guildford/east_horsley/east_horsley_william_king_1st_earl_of_lovelace|title=East Horsley, William King – 1st Earl of Lovelace|publisher=Exploring Surrey's Past|accessdate=10 June 2020}}</ref> King had married Augusta Ada Byron, Lord Byron's only legitimate offspring in 1833.<ref>{{Cite magazine|url=https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/ada-lovelace-the-first-tech-visionary|title=Ada Lovelace, the First Tech Visionary|first=Betsy|last=Morais|date= 15 October 2013|magazine=The New Yorker}}</ref>
Lovelace, who began his career as a diplomat, turned to scientific investigation and engineering after inheriting his title. A roof truss in the great hall he designed at Horsley carries an inscription recording that Lovelace had moulded the beam with the use of steam.<ref name="auto1"/> Ada gained even greater prominence for her scientific endeavours; through her friendship with Charles Babbage she wrote a commentary on his analytical engine, arguably the earliest mechanical computer. Her commentary has been described as containing "one of the earliest computer programmes".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.theiet.org/publishing/library-archives/the-iet-archives/biographies/ada-countess-of-lovelace/|title=Archives Biographies: Ada Countess of Lovelace|publisher=The Institution for Engineering and Technology|website=www.theiet.org|accessdate=10 June 2020}}</ref>
In 1919 the third earl sold the East Horsley estate to Thomas Sopwith, the aviator and businessman for £150,000.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/property/4809813/Inside-story-Compton-House.html|title=Inside story: Compton House|first=Matthew|last=Gwyther|date=14 July 2000|publisher=The Telegraph}}</ref> While resident at the Towers, Sopwith named one of his aircraft, the Hawker Horsley, after the house.{{sfn|Robertson|1970|p=147}} After World War II, the house was purchased by the Electricity Council for use as a management training college.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7petixCM5k8C&q=Electricity+Council+horsley+towers&pg=PA702|title=New Scientist|date=27 September 1962|publisher=Reed Business Information}}</ref> It is now a wedding and conference venue operated by De Vere.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.devere.co.uk/horsley-estate/|title=De Vere Horsley Estate|date=16 May 2016|publisher=De Vere Hotels}}</ref>
==Architecture and description== Pevsner describes the approach to the Towers as "one of the most sensational in England".{{sfn|Nairn|Pevsner|Cherry|1971|pp=204-205}} The core of the present house is Barry's building of 1820–1829, undertaken in the Tudor Revival style.<ref name="auto">{{NHLE|desc=Horsley Towers|num=1294810|grade=II*|accessdate=10 June 2020}}</ref> This is enveloped with a great hall, built by Lovelace in 1849, and by even larger flanking towers, in Romanesque and Rhenish styles, and a chapel, all dating from 1859 and after, and drawing inspiration from a long European tour Lovelace undertook following Ada's death in 1852.<ref name="auto"/> The whole is encircled by a complex of walls, tunnels, arches, bastions and a lengthy cloister.{{efn|Lovelace had a particular fondness for tunnels and bridges, constructing a complex of fifteen such structures, the Lovelace Bridges, on his wider East Horsley Estate.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.exploringsurreyspast.org.uk/themes/places/surrey/guildford/east_horsley/east_horsley_the_lovelace_bridges/|title=East Horsley, The Lovelace Bridges|publisher=Exploring Surrey's Past|access-date=10 June 2020}}</ref>}}{{sfn|Nairn|Pevsner|Cherry|1971|pp=204-205}}<ref name="auto"/> The construction materials are mainly local flint and brick, Lovelace purchasing a brickworks at Ockham to ensure a ready supply.<ref name="auto1"/>
Horsley Towers is a Grade II* listed building.<ref name="auto"/> The flanking walls and pavilions to the northwest<ref>{{NHLE|desc=Pavilion 100 yards northwest of Horsley Towers|num=1029425|grade=II|accessdate=10 June 2020}}</ref> and southwest,<ref>{{NHLE|desc=Walls and pavilion 300 yards southwest of Horsley Towers|num=1188298|grade=II|accessdate=10 June 2020}}</ref> the entrance walls and lodges,<ref>{{NHLE|desc=Entrance walls, gardener's Cottage and Horsley Towers cottage|num=1029424|grade=II|accessdate=10 June 2020}}</ref> one of which Nairn describes as "particularly violent",{{efn|John Julius Norwich recorded his impressions of the lodge in his ''Architecture of Southern England''; "The first sight of that tremendous Neo-Norman two-storey entrance lodge is enough to send your car into the ditch".{{sfn|Norwich|1985|p=617}}}}{{sfn|Nairn|Pevsner|Cherry|1971|pp=204-205}} and the walls to the former kitchen garden, all have their own Grade II listings.<ref>{{NHLE|desc=Walls to former kitchen garden of Horsley Towers|num=1377818|grade=II|accessdate=3 April 2020}}</ref>
Neither Barry nor Lovelace's efforts have been much appreciated by critics. The Victorian Web notes that "the building, like much Victorian gothic, displays a good deal of eccentricity and mixes many styles".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.victorianweb.org/art/architecture/homes/5.html|title=Horsley Towers|first=Jacqueline|last=Banerjee|publisher=The Victorian Web|accessdate=10 June 2020}}</ref> Ian Nairn, the main author of the Surrey Pevsner, wrote of Barry's Tudor Revival house; "a sober, dull design with the [...] lack of enthusiasm which taints so many of Barry's non-Classical buildings".{{efn|Nairn's lasting impression of the house and of Lovelace was one of sadness; "sad that such an inventive engineering talent thought of architecture as something to be added on to structure, not to grow inevitably out of it".{{sfn|Nairn|Pevsner|Cherry|1971|pp=204-205}}}}{{sfn|Nairn|Pevsner|Cherry|1971|pp=204-205}} Of Lovelace's work, Mark Girouard, the architectural historian, described the "extraordinary embellishments, in flint and polychrome brick made by the Earl, working to his own designs".{{sfn|Girouard|1979|p=410}} The writer John Julius Norwich considered the whole "a grotesque Victorian Disneyland which has to be seen to be believed - and may not be even then", concluding that, unusually, his inclusion of Horsley Towers in his study ''The Architecture of Southern England'', should serve as a warning rather than an inducement.{{sfn|Norwich|1985|p=617}}
==Gallery== <gallery widths="200px" heights="200px"> Horsley Towers entrance.jpg | The entrance front - Pevsner called the approach to the house "one of the most sensational in England" Horsley Towers across the lawn.jpg | View from across the lawn - The Victorian Web described Lovelace's Romanesque tower as "a church tower to which someone has attached cylinders" Horsley Towers over the Meadow - geograph.org.uk - 438820.jpg | The rear frontage of the house - the central block is by Barry, the towers Lovelace's additions Former Gatehouse to Horsley Towers - geograph.org.uk - 438854.jpg | A view of one of the gatehouses, the design of which Ian Nairn described as "particularly violent" Horsley Towers chapel.jpg|Horsley Towers - the Church inside the Tower building </gallery>
==Footnotes== {{notes}}
==References== {{reflist}}
==Sources== * {{cite book |last1=Brodie | first1=Antonia|last2=Felstead|first2=Alison|last3=Franklin|first3=Jonathan|last4=Pinfield|first4=Leslie|last5=Oldfield|first5=Jane |title=Directory of British Architects 1834–1914 Volume 1:A-K |date=2001 |publisher=RIBA |location=London |isbn=9780826449634 | oclc=491544613 }} * {{Cite book |authorlink=Mark Girouard |last=Girouard |first=Mark |title=The Victorian Country House |url=https://archive.org/details/victoriancountry0000giro |url-access=registration |year=1979 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven, US |isbn=9780300023909 }} * {{cite book |last1=Nairn |first1=Ian |last2=Pevsner | first2=Nikolaus |last3=Cherry | first3=Bridget |authorlink1=Ian Nairn |authorlink2=Nikolaus Pevsner |year=1971 |title=Surrey |series=The Buildings of England |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5b6dCBlfCLUC&q=The+Buildings+of+England:+Surrey |publisher=Penguin Books |location=Middlesex, England |isbn=0-300-09675-5 }} * {{Cite book |last=Norwich |first=John Julius |authorlink=John Julius Norwich |title=The Architecture of Southern England |year=1985 |publisher=Macmillan |location=London |isbn=9780333220375 |oclc=473443897 }} * {{Cite book |last=Robertson |first=Bruce |title=Sopwith: The man and his aircraft |year=1970 |publisher=Air Review Ltd |location=Letchworth, UK |oclc=156428 }}
Category:1834 establishments in England Category:Houses completed in 1834 Category:Country houses in Surrey Category:Grade II* listed houses in Surrey Category:Ada Lovelace