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Courtesy of: COUNTRY LIFE---OCTOBER 17, 1968
"The entrance front at Bear Wood is an exercise in
Muscularity."
BEAR WOOD, BERKSHIRE---1
The Home of Bearwood College ---by Mark Girouard
Bearwood, near Wokingham, was built in 1865-74 by
John Walter, the chief proprietor of The Times, to the design of Robert
Kerr and is a formidable off-shoot of the prosperity and reputation of The
Times in mid-Victorian days.
Until 150 years ago there was
nothing at Bear Wood but a small marshy pool surrounded by wood and heath.
The wood was part beech, part oak; "bear" is thought to be a corruption
from bere, the Saxon for beech. Bear Wood used to belong to the Bishops
of Salisbury, and was sometimes known as Bishop's Bere Wood. In 1574 it
became Crown property, and remained so for the next 250 years. There was
never a house on it; it was an outlying portion of Windsor Forest, the
great sandy waste of wood and heathland that stretched south and west from
Windsor nearly as far as Reading. In the 19th century this despised and
empty territory, so convenient
to London began to be exploited.
The Garden front, which is nearly 100 yards long.
The Staff College, Wellington and Broadmoor. On
October 30, 1816, the 158 acres of Bear Wood and 146 acres of
adjoining land were put up for auction by the Crown. John Walter II,
the chief proprietor of The Times bought them for 3,050 pounds; the
price was exclusive of timber, which was later bought on valuation for
7,964 pounds |
Gentleman, especially City
gentlemen, carved rhododendroned and conifered properties out of it;
it was found a handy receptacle for a number of great 19th-century
institutions, such as Sandhurst,
John Walter's main relaxation from a crowded and
controversial life was fishing; the pool at Bear Wood was probably one
of the inducements for buying it. Over the ensuing years the pool was
expanded by stages into a large lake with five islands. The land was
part-cleared, drained and a park and gardens laid out.
By 1822 an agreeable
classical villa had been built above the lake; the architect was J.W.
Sanderson an obscure pupil of James Wyatt, practising at Reading. John
Walter II was a generous landlord, known locally as the "people's friend"
and at the gates of the park appeared the village of Sindlesham, a school,
a clubhouse, a cricket-field, and finally, in 1846, a church.
He died next year, and the property was inherited by his son.
Seventeen years later John Walter III rebuilt the house. He had
married twice, in 1842 and 1861, and the ostensible reason for rebuilding
was to accommodate his large and growing family--eight children, and five
to come. But it was perhaps as much to accommodate his large and growing
fortune, for the building that replaced his father's house could have
contained his family many times over. In 1817 the circulation of The Times
had been only 7000, though growing fast. By 1865 it was 65,000; this seems
small beer today, but at the time it was the largest newspaper circulation
in the world.
The 300 acres that John Walter II had bought in 1816
had grown by 1875 to nearly 8,000 with a rent-roll of 10,000 pounds a
year. John Walter III's income in 1865 was
probably in excess of 50,000 pounds, the greater part of which came not
from The Times newspaper, of which he owned only an eighth share, but The
Times printing-works, of which he was sole proprietor. The first glimpse
of Bear Wood, down its long avenue of Wellingtonias, is impressive enough
but it does not prepare one for the full extent of palpitating brick and
stone that hits one at the end of the avenue. Victorian newspaper
proprietors, one concludes, could afford to do themselves pretty well.
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But John Walter III was not a mere newspaper proprietor; he was the chief
proprietor of The Times. |
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