Friday Hill House

Friday Hill House stands on the site of the C16th manor house of Chingford Earls. Records of the manor go back to 1066 and over the years it passed through numerous hands, including the Earl of Essex, from whence the name may come. Owned by Henry VIII in the early 1540s, at Mary I's accession the manor was granted to Susan Tonge, one of the ladies of her bedchamber. The Chingford Earls estate at one time comprised some 600 acres of land, mainly around Friday Hill. The manor was purchased by Thomas Boothby in 1608 whose family owned it until 1774 when it was bequeathed to Lydia Heathcote, half-sister to Robert Boothby. A schedule of 1631 in Essex Records Office contains references to a ‘best garden’, a kitchen garden, a moat, an orchard with three doors, two arbours, a tree arbour, a vine on a frame, a ‘bridge of planks', numerous seats and a ‘stonne to rowle the allies’. A Boothby Estate Map of Chingford dated 1738, commissioned from Jared Hill, provides a visual record, revealing that the orchard was walled and lay to the south of the main garden, also walled and containing the moat. The tree arbour was situated to the north of the house in Bute Field with a seat ‘in the middle of the stairs’ and ‘a loft and one table with three corner seats'. An advertisement for the lease of house and grounds c.1774/5 described pleasure grounds and gardens comprising of lawns, shrubberies, grass plats and gravel walks, which were ‘displayed with great taste and elegance'. The site was about a mile in acreage and was ‘refreshed with canals and fishponds'. The Chapman and Andre Map of 1777 records a formal garden to the east of the house and an orchard to the south but does not record the moat. Another advertisement in 1782 claimed the gardens were laid out in an ‘agreeable style’ and there were ‘choice fruit trees’ in the orchard. In 1798 the garden was described in The European Magazine as having a ‘beautiful prospect’ and ‘offering to the sight a most extensive view over London, Middlesex etc.’

By 1838 the estate included Pimp Hall (q.v.) when Robert Boothby Heathcote, the Rector of nearby Chingford parish church of All Saints (q.v.), became the new Lord of the Manor. The old manor house was demolished, having deteriorated during its occupancy by tenants, and Boothby Heathcote commissioned London architect Lewis Vulliamy, known for his ecclesiastical as well as secular works, to build a new residence, Friday Hill House. Vulliamy was later commissioned by the Rector to build the new parish church of St Peter and St Paul's (q.v.). Friday Hill House, a Tudor style building in yellow brick, was built in 1839-40 with the outbuildings and garden works completed by 1847. Vulliamy may have provided designs for the garden but none have so far emerged. The property served not only as a family home but as a farmhouse, rectory and estate office as a result of which there were many outbuildings including stables and a brew house, the latter remaining today although only a fragment of the original garden remains. The first OS map of 1870 shows a pond next to a mound on the side of which was a brick wall entrance to an ice chamber, which was later removed when the road was widened and the LCC estate built. The gardens at that time appear to have remained on the same site as those illustrated on the Jared Hill and Chapman and Andre maps. The OS shows paths, deciduous and evergreen trees, walls and glasshouses and a conservatory; a formal garden lies to the west of the house and an informal woodland area with meandering paths to the east. A tree situated at the west end of the terrace is most probably the listed London Plane tree that stands there today. The orchard is not recorded but this was still in use in 1838 when the Chingford Tithe map was printed. At the back of the house the sloping garden contained a rectangular lake, curving towards the house at each end, which may have been the relic of the moat surrounding the previous house. The fine London Plane adjacent to the house was successfully nominated for the Great Trees of London Scheme.

The property remained in the Heathcote family until the 1930s when the London County Council purchased the estate for housing development, although Miss Louisa Heathcote lived in Friday Hill House until her death in 1941. A sketch by Dennis Flanders RWS, RBA, clearly records the rear of Friday Hill House and its garden in 1938, with the moat in the foreground and the London Plane and the conservatory shown. Until 1940 the surrounding countryside was fields and farmland. An aerial view of Friday Hill House taken in 1946/7 shows the garden amidst a developing housing estate. Roads have already been ploughed through the site of the orchard and the woodland and there are signs of building to the north, east and west of the site. The west garden, although slightly overgrown, is recognisable from the 1870 OS map; the paths remain the same and the moat and plane tree can still be seen. The 1963/4 OS map reveals the extent of the LCC’s estate building; much of the west garden has disappeared under houses and all that remains of the woodland is a thin belt of trees. A little of the orchard remained but by 1993 that had also succumbed to bricks and mortar.

Much of the former grounds are now covered by the Friday Hill Estate and the house was used by LB Waltham Forest as a community and adult education centre until c.2012. Like the house, the stables were converted into classrooms for arts and crafts. The original gates and railings have gone but the brick piers remain on Simmons Lane; original Victorian criss-cross paving bricks survive in yards surrounding the outbuildings, with replacements made to match. Friday Hill House contained various family treasures including an oak table on which James I is reputed to have dubbed a loin of roast beef 'Sir Loin', a panel from a state coach of Queen Elizabeth I and Dick Turpin's blunderbuss; fine Jacobean panelling and chimney pieces survive. The remains of the garden was laid to grass with some trees, the remains of the moat infilled. The south facing terrace was restored c.2008. What was the west-facing formal garden was built over and the site of the Victorian conservatory under the main car park. A small plantation of 6 silver birch trees and 5 Italian alders were planted on the southern boundary, with oaks, yews and sycamore on the east and west boundaries. Friday Hill House was opened to the public as part of London Open House.

In 2012 the property, no longer in use as a community centre, was put up for sale by LB Waltham Forest and purchased by developers. The house and stables were subsequently converted into private apartments, with new build houses constructed on the former grounds as part of a gated development.