East & West Molesey

A Dictionary of Local History

Rowland G. M. Baker, 1972

THE GROVE (WM)

This is the last of the great houses of West Molesey still standing. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries it was owned by the Palmer family, lords of the manor of Walton, and occupied for a time by Colonel Hotham son of Beaumont 2nd Lord Hotham. In 1829 the house was remodelled by the architect Decimus Burton for the Rt. Hon. John Wilson Croker, Secretary of the Admiralty, Member of Parliament, and Privy Councillor. Croker was a noted politician and man of letters in the first half of the nineteenth century and the man who is generally accredited with suggesting the name "Conservative" for the Tory party. The house later devolved on the Barrow family. Around 1930 the estate was turned into a sports club for Faraday House Electrical College. During the last war it was used as a "British Restaurant" and afterwards became a sports ground for Bentalls the Kingston store.