Sheen House to Barnes Home Guard Association
The loss of the beautiful Sheen House enabled the emergence of the Barnes Home Guard Association decades later
The first Sheen House was built and completed by 1617. This was then superseded by a second house, which was built between 1786 and 1806, backing onto Sheen Lane, with the grounds stretching from Upper Richmond to Vicarage Road. It was regarded as the finest of the Sheen country houses. In 1867 Edward Darley replaced a fence surrounding the grounds with a wall, part of which still exists to this day between what are now Palewell Park and Richmond Park Road.
Sir Henry Bruce Meux was the last private owner of Sheen House and resided there from 1877 to 1886. He then leased the property until 1892 to Louis Philippe Albert, Comte de Paris, the heir-apparent to the French throne, when he was exiled. He held parties there and royalty were frequent visitors. Added to the grounds were a purpose-built cycle track and a lake.
Meux died in 1900, leaving the estate to his widow, Valerie, known as ‘a flamboyant and controversial figure, never accepted by her husband’s family or by polite society’. She met Admiral Sir Hedworth Lambton and was impressed with his involvement in the relief of Ladysmith, during the Second Boer War. She made him her heir on condition that he changed his name to Meux, which he did, and he inherited the land in 1910.
Sheen House was then demolished – its grounds gradually to be replaced by housing and a tennis club. Little is known about the use of the club between the war years of 1914 and 1944.
But in June 1945 the Barnes (HG) Co Ltd was formed by former members of ‘B’ Company of the London Battalion Home Guard, who bought the land, which included the clubhouse.
In 1970 the Barnes Home Guard Association bought the property from the Barnes Club ‘in the hope that future members would maintain the spirit of the Home Guard and give their services freely with enthusiasm’.
In the early 1970s plans were submitted to build a new clubhouse which, when completed in 1977, was officially opened in April of that year by Cyril Bottomley, a former Captain of ‘B’Company.
The Barnes Home Guard Association is now a social club with some 800 members and a swimming pool and provides a regular programme of entertainment, open to members and non-members. Jamming sessions take place on the second Thursday of every month.
Richard White writes a regular blog on current and historical matters of local interest to residents in Mortlake and East Sheen at EastSheenMatters and is a member of the Barnes & Mortlake History Society. barnes-history.org.uk
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