The Colmans at Nork Park

OVER THE LAST YEAR exploring the local history of Nork we have looked at how the area became known as Nork, the history of the parish church of Burgh in Nork Park (which preceded the churches of St. Paul’s in Warren Road and St. Mary’s at Burgh Heath) from Norman times to its demolition in the Nineteenth Century (C19th), the local worship by the Romans of their various deities - particularly Robiga, Goddess of Mildew, and the history and archaeology of the Tumble Beacon - the great barrow in The Drive after which our area was originally named (Great Barrowe or Burgh).

We all know that the heart of our community is Nork Park, and that this was originally the gardens around Nork House, a very grand mansion built in 1740 by the Buckle family who were living opposite it in the manor house at Great Burgh. [The current Great Burgh building, next door to Toyota’s HQ in Yew Tree Bottom Road, was built as a replacement in the early C20th to the original Great Burgh, and is actually heavily inspired by Nork House.] The final owners of Nork House, however, were the Colman family, who were perhaps better known than the previous occupiers - the Buckles, Lord and Lady Arden, and the Earl of Egmont. The Ardens and Egmonts were really the Percival family - enobled initially as 2nd Baron Arden (Lord of His Majesty’s Bedchamber), the family later promoted to an earldom - becoming the Earls of Egmont. However, because the early houses built in Nork in the 1920s contained, as part of their deeds, a big bundle of documents relating to the sale of Nork House and the estate, more people are perhaps familiar with the last owners, the Colmans, even though the Colmans only moved in at the end of the C19th, in 1890.

Facing is a map which I’ve redrawn from the Poor Law Map of 1841. The Banstead Poor Law Map is a huge thing on a roll that fills a room when fully rolled out, so has to be unwound like an ancient scroll and viewed inch by inch. It certainly doesn’t fit in a photocopier, but I have redrawn the area around Nork House, and added some extra information onto it which is included in the Banstead Tithe Survey of 1843. This is the first good map of the house, although there’s another early map dating from 1819 in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The original 1841 map is in colour - with inhabited buildings shown in pink and water shown as blue. To orientate yourself, East Acre (800) in the bottom right is where the tennis courts and skateboard ramp are now. The main house was where we now have picnic benches overlooking London and was specifically sited to look towards Hampton Court Palace, the garden layout of which it replicates on a modest scale, and was sited in Nork Meadow - a field so-called as it was possibly a “nook” or corner of flat ground at the top of a slope.

In 1890, Nork House, described as a “noble and substantial mansion in a grandly timbered park”, was sold by the 7th Earl of Egmont, together with 2,430 acres of land. The trees uphill of the house, which we now call the “arboretum” are mainly a collection of conifers ( a “pinetum”) planted in the early days of the house with C19th and early C20th additions. These were inspired by the close friendship of the original builders - the Buckle family - with John Evelyn, diarist, author of a famous book on trees “Sylva”, and founder of The Royal Society.

Recently one of the yew trees in the avenue that borders the ancient “Church Lane” - a sunken track that can still be seen running parallel to, and on the downhill side of, the tennis courts, blew over, and the tree rings suggest it was planted about 110 years ago, so maybe a little before the First World War. Elsewhere woods in the grounds, such as Park Wood near the Community Association Hall, or the wood that later gave its name to Larchwood Close (a few of these larches also survive as verge trees in Nork Way), were planted for the use of one of the Colman sons who was rather keen on hunting and shooting. Another branch of the Colman family also lived at Gatton Park (now a school) overlooking Reigate. Much as many would like to romanticise it though, there is no evidence that the Colman family were growing mustard in Nork, although they have reused the Nork name in East Anglia as a tribute to their time here, and several of their racehorses included “Nork” in their names.

THE KITCHEN GARDEN The remaining members of the Colman family continued to occupy the house until 1923, when it was put up for sale and, although occupied by a caretaker and his wife for the next fifteen years who terrified the local schoolchildren inclined to dare each other to trespass in the grounds, continued to slowly deteriorate. Eventually most of it was demolished and requisitioned by the War Department, although the kitchen garden continued in use during the war.

We now hope to begin restoration of the kitchen garden by, initially, stabiising the brickwork and steps, planting heritage fruit trees and incorporating public seating around the restored central gravel path. A few years ago, a reminder of the Colmans turned-up in the park -a very rusty fragment of a Colman’s Mustard enamel advertising sign. It seems many of these were originally left behind, abandoned in the old stables to the house (maybe used for making temporary hot-beds in the Melon Ground), and some, reportedly, ended up in Beacon Way, for use in a garden, though presumably long disintegrated now. Cllr PETER HARP