| Parkstead House | |
|---|---|
 House façade | |
  Parkstead House Location in theLondon Borough of Wandsworth | |
| Former names | Manresa House Bessborough House |
| General information | |
| Architectural style | Palladian |
| Location | Roehampton, United Kingdom |
| Coordinates | 51°26′55″N0°14′36″W / 51.4487°N 0.2433°W /51.4487; -0.2433 |
| Groundbreaking | 1760 |
| Completed | 1768 |
| Owner | Whitelands College |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect | William Chambers |
| Other designers | Joseph John Scoles Frederick Walters |
| Designations | Grade I listed |
Parkstead House, formerly known asManresa House andBessborough House, is a neo-classical Palladian villa inRoehampton, London, built in the 1760s. The house and remaining grounds are nowWhitelands College, part of theUniversity of Roehampton. It is situated on Holybourne Avenue, offRoehampton Lane, next to theRichmond Park Golf Course in theLondon Borough of Wandsworth. In 1955 it was designatedGrade I on theNational Heritage List for England.[1]
It was built for the2nd Earl of Bessborough, anAnglo-Irishpeer. Construction on the building started circa 1760, by the architectSir William Chambers, who also designedSomerset House in London. It was completed in circa 1768. The building was inspired byChiswick House andFoots Cray Place.[2]
A resident of Parkstead was the wife of the3rd Earl of Bessborough,Henrietta Ponsonby, Countess of Bessborough, aWhig hostess, gambler and socialite.[3][4] Lady Bessborough had a relationship withGranville Leveson-Gower, 1st Earl Granville, which produced two children.[3] She had four children with her husband, Lord Bessborough. These were:John Ponsonby, 4th Earl of Bessborough,Frederick Ponsonby,Lady Caroline Lamb andWilliam Ponsonby, 1st Baron de Mauley.[3] On the death of Henrietta in 1821, the 3rd Earl leased the property to a politician,Abraham Robarts, who made it his permanent home. When Robarts died in 1858, the5th Earl of Bessborough sold the house and forty-two acres of parkland to the Conservative Land Society for division into smallholdings.[3]
In 1861, the house and 42 acres of surrounding land was sold to theSociety of Jesus, the Jesuitreligious order. The Jesuits used the building to house theirnovitiate and a retreat house forIgnatian spirituality. The house was renamed Manresa House after the town in Spain whereIgnatius of Loyola developed hisSpiritual Exercises. Within the property, the Jesuits created a cemetery. The first burial was in 1867. The cemetery contained only Jesuits, includingAlban Goodier SJ, theArchbishop of Bombay from 1919 to 1926.[5] From Manresa House, the Jesuits served the local Catholic congregations. In the following decades, various churches were built and staffed by the Jesuits, such asChrist the King Church, Wimbledon Park, in 1877,St Joseph Church, Roehampton, in 1881,Sacred Heart Church, Wimbledon, in 1884,Corpus Christi Church, Brixton, in 1886 andSt Winefride Church, South Wimbledon, in 1904.
In 1860, they commissionedJoseph John Scoles to design the chapel.[2] It was completed after his death, in 1864, by his pupil S.I. Nicholl. In the 1870s,Henry Clutton designed the north aisle which expanded the chapel. Clutton later designed the long gallery connecting the chapel to the refectory in the new north wing, which was built in 1880. In 1885, the south wing, designed byFrederick Walters, was added.[2] It copied the elevation of the north wing. With the completion of these two wings the original stable blocks were demolished.[6]
One of the Jesuits at Manresa House was the poetGerard Manley Hopkins. He was a novice from September 1868 until September 1870. In the 1950s,London County Council compulsorily purchased the surrounding land and part of the Jesuit land for housing.[6] The last burial in the cemetery was in 1962.[5] By 1962, the Jesuits decided that Manresa would no longer be suitable for a novitiate, when the design of the housing estate was altered to include high rise flats adjacent to their land.[6] According to one source, they sold the property to the council and the house became part of theBattersea College of Domestic Science. In October 1966 the college was opened byShirley Williams who also signed the order for its subsequent closure in 1979.[6] In 1963,Garnett College moved to Roehampton and later it made use of Manresa House. In 1986, Manresa House was part of the campus when Garnett College became absorbed into Thames Polytechnic, and teaching ended there in 1987, with the students moving to Avery Hill.[citation needed]
During a large part of the 1990s, the Manresa House premises was utilized by Wandsworth Council for community recreational purposes, providing adult life sculpture, pottery, painting and drawing and photography classes for local residents.[citation needed]
The house was acquired as the new home of Whitelands College in 2001, which renamed the estate Whitelands College but referred to the original house as Parkstead House once more. It is now part of the University of Roehampton.[7]
Under the guidance of English Heritage the college added extensive new buildings to incorporate lecture theatres, laboratories, classrooms and student facilities.[7]
In the 1880s,Whitelands College, while they were based in Chelsea, commissionedMorris & Co. to make stained glass for their first chapel. This was moved with the college to Putney in 1930. In 2006, the stained glass was moved to Parkstead House. This commissioning of the work happened through the efforts ofJohn Ruskin. In 1883, he wrote toEdward Burne-Jones, on behalf of the college, asking for him and William Morris to do the work. Of the fifteen windows the college received from Morris & Co., twelve were designed by Burne-Jones and three he made with Morris. Burne-Jones used some of designs he had previously created for the windows showing saints Agnes, Celia, Catherine, Dorothy, and Margaret. All of the others were made specifically for the college. In 1886, thereredos behind the altar in the chapel was installed. Although it was designed by William Morris, it was built by Kate Faulkner, sister ofCharles Faulkner.[2]
