Sanderstead Court
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sanderstead Court was a country house most often associated with the Atwood family of Sanderstead, Surrey, England. It was located next to the All Saint’s Parish Church (c. 1230) in Sanderstead. This manor house evolved over the centuries to become a significant country house and the seat of power of the Atwood family.
The first mention of the Atwood family in Sanderstead is in 1346 when Justice Peter Atte Wood (Atte Wode) and his wife Laurencia purchased land there. The Atte Wode’s had originally lived nearby in Coulsdon, first at Hooley House and then at Wood Place. Some time in the 15th century they moved to Sanderstead and began improving the property there. By the time John Atwood died in 1525, the family seems to have made the transition to Sanderstead, and he mentions Sanderstead manor in his will.
The Atwood family were benefactors to the Sanderstead Parish Church which was adjacent to their home, and John Atwood (Atwodde) and his wife, Denys, have a brass plaque in the church dated 1525. John’s grand son, Nicholas Wood, who died in 1565, is identified as “of Sandersted Corte who served quene Elizabeth sens the second yearr of her rayne” on his brass in the church. Nicholas lost a portion Sanderstead to Sir John Gresham, Lord Mayor of London, when King Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries in 1536 and conveyed their property to some of his favorites.
After a series of complicated transactions and inheritances, the Atwood’s regained control of Sanderstead Court, and Harman Atwood, Jr. transformed Sanderstead into a significant country house in the 1670’s. The Atwood crest, the initials “H.A.,” and the date “1675” were once were carved in stone over the home’s main entry. The house had a great room, two stories in height, with fluted columns and Corinthian capitals; this great room was probably constructed by an earlier Atwood in the 16th century.
Harman Atwood, Jr. (1608-1676) was an attorney (solicitor) in London and Sanderstead was at the center of his vast holdings of real estate. Harman appears to have been a patron of the arts and had a friendship with John Oldham (poet). Oldham's poem, Pindarique, was written "to the memory of Harman Atwood upon his death." According to Charles Atwood "in a short biography of John Oldham prefixed to his poems...Harman Atwood was his liberal patron, that he died in 1676, that he was of Sanderstead, in Surrey County, England, where the name and family had been of long duration in a lineal descent."
Harman died childless in 1676 and left Sanderstead Court to his sister Dame Olivia Atwood (1614-1681). Olivia also died childless, and the house passed through a succession of distant Atwood relations until it passed out of the family line entirely in 1759. Later owners included members of the Wigsell family.
In the early 20th century, Sanderstead Court was converted to a hotel and renamed “Selsdon Court.” During World War II it was used by the Royal Air Force. Sadly, Sanderstead Court burned to the ground in 1944.
[edit] References
Atwood, Charles, History of the Atwood Family in England and the United Sates, to which is Appended a History of the Tenney Family, 1888
Atwood, Elijah Francis, Ye Atte Wode Annals, Sisseton, SD: Atwood publishing Co., June 1928
History of All Saint’s Parish Church, (view online at: http://www.sanderstead-parish.org.uk/html/all_saints_history.html
Neal, John Preston, Views of the Seats of Noblemen and Gentlemen in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, London: W. H. Reid, 1818-1823, 6 vols.
”Parishes: Sanderstead', A History of the County of Surrey: Volume 4 (1912), pp. 237-43. (view online at: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=43057.
