Sir Gregory Page, second baronet (1689–1775) his Life
Sir Gregory Page, second baronet (1689–1775) his Life
In August the fall of the South Sea Company started and the stock began to fall, in September just as the "insiders" had sold out, it became serious. Instead of being a buyer, everyone became a seller, with the result that in a few days, the stock fell to 175, and in November it fell to 185. Thousands were ruined and many who were committed to heavy payments fled the country. The popular cry was for speedy and severe vengeance, both for members of the government and on the directory of the unfortunate company. Parliament was called together on the 8th. December 1720 at both houses proceeded to investigate the Company. An Act of Parliament was passed in January 1721, which restrained the directors from leaving the country and compelled them to declare the value of their estates. The Government Committee of Secrecy reported in February 1721 and proved there had been fraud and corruption on a large scale. The chief persons implicated were John Aislabie (1670—1742) Chancellor of the Exchequer, James Craggs, joint postmaster General, his son James Craggs, Secretary of State; and to a lesser degree, the Earl of Sunderland.
John Aislabie Was found guilty by the House of Commons of the "most notorious dangerous and infamous corruption"; and was expelled from the House and imprisoned. Both the elder and younger Craggs died in March. By Act of Parliament, the estates of the directors were confiscated, these were valued at £2,014,123 of which £354,600 was returned to them for maintenance, the balance being devoted to the relief of the sufferers.
The South Sea crash must have had a devastating effect on both the Page and Turner families, as both of their families had directors at the time of the crash. Quite how this affected the two families is difficult to say, though both appear to have replenished their coffers by the time of their respective deaths. John Turner when he died in 1760, some 40 years after the crash, beside his estate in land, he was able to leave a single legacy of £100,000 to his nephew, Sir Edward Turner 2nd. Bart and £10,000 to each of Edward's five children. Ambrose Page who died somewhat earlier in 1743, had only 20 years to repair his fortune and appears to have been not quite so successful, for besides his landed estate, the biggest single legacy he leaves is £6,000 to his daughter Mary. The South Sea Company continued to exist, but not to flourish. Various changes were made to the structure of its capital, and in 1750 it received £100,000 from the Spanish government for the surrender of certain rights. Its commercial history then ended, but its exclusive privileges were not taken away until 1807. In 1853 the existing South Sea annuities were either redeemed or converted into government stock.
Gregory Page was 33 on the death of his father; at which time he was still unmarried and living with his mother at the Red House. We know that soon after the death of his father, he was to enlarge the house, by adding the library, an extremely large room, measuring 57 feet by 19 feet.
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| Sir Gregory Page 2nd Bt |
Crayford, Kent, some 9 miles east of Greenwich, up Shooters Hill and about 1.1/2 miles from Dartford was his first purchase; approximately 200 acres of agricultural land, for which he paid £3,500 and on the whole the land was let to tenant farmers. Indeed throughout the 1720's the second baronet purchased so much land to the southeast of London, that he became one of the major landowners in the Home Counties. In 1722 there was another smaller purchase at Maze Hill, East Greenwich for £750. In 1723 Wricklemarsh Estate was purchased (about 280 acres) from the Morden's Trustees for £9,000; in 1724 the Westcombe Estate was added, with the purchase from the Biddulph family (approximately 500 acres) for £12,000; in 1726 land at Kidbrook for £350; in 1727 a further holding at Lewisham from Lord Dartmouth for £500, this was followed in the same year by the purchase of a much larger block, the Well Hall Estate, Eltham (approximately 700 acres) for £19,000. The land still known as the Page Estate at Eltham, was bought by Woolwich Borough Council, to build houses for munition—workers at Woolwich Arsenal during the 1914 — 18 War. In 1734 more land at Lee, Eltham, and Kidbrook was acquired from Mr. Lewin for £2,400 and another block at Lee was added in 1742, all the latter being situated around Blackheath. It was said at the time — "It was possible to walk for a day in northwest Kent without leaving Page property" ( Blackheath Village Environs 1790 —1970 by Neil Rhind). There were also purchases of property in the City of London during this period to augment that already owned at Wapping and Whitechapel, in 1724 various properties in Mark and Seething Lanes, were purchased from Sir John Eyles- This was by no means the end of the growth in land holdings again in 1724, about 5,000 acres were purchased in Bedfordshire. Milton Briant was purchased from Lord Huthurst for £12,300, also Drovers Lees in Battlesden and timber at Potsgrove for £2,408, and Battlesden and Potsgrove from Lady Bathurst in the same year for £38,000; resulting in the Pages becoming one of the ten largest landowners in Bedfordshire (Joyce Godher, the Story of Bedfordshire). This of course was in the year before Gregory's brother, Thomas married the Hon. Juliana Howe, both of whom were to live at Battlesden Park throughout their married life and Juliana for an additional 17 years of widowhood. (Details of all these land purchases can be found in the Blaydes, Page and Turner Evidences, Vol IV, and a Rent Book for 1730/1731, giving details of all land owned and to whom let, survives among the family archives).
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| Lady Page, nee Martha Kenward, married Gregory Page 2nd Bt in 1721 |
Martha Kenward married Gregory Page second Baronet, in 1721 they had no children. was the youngest daughter of Robert and Martha Kenward of Yalding near
Maidstone, Kent. The family was resident in Yalding from the tile of Henry VIII
and owned a country seat not far from the town. In 1907 a house built in the
Queen Anne style was sold and may well have been the home of Martha Kenward
when she married Sir Gregory Page Bt in 1721. She died in 1767 and was buried in
the Page vault at Greenwich Parish Church. Her brother John Kenward married
Alicia youngest daughter of Frank Brooke of Rochester. It was their daughter
Martha (niece of Lady Page and same name) who in 1752 married Sir John Shaw Bt
of Eltham (the owner of Eltham Lodge). The land still known as the Page Estate at
Eltham was bought by the Woolwich Borough Council to build houses for
munition—workers at Woolwich Arsenal during the 1914—18 War. Sir Micheal
Biddulph alienated (i.e. sold) the Manor or Lordship of West Combe (East
Greenwich) on 31 August 1724 to Sir Gregory Page of Wricklemersh. On July 11th, 1732 Lady Elizabeth Doring, Lady Susannah
Wynne, and Katherine Henshaw sold the donors of Esathorn & Wellhall (both in
Eltham) with the house It Welhall then recently erected and the right of
presentation to the Vicarage of Eltham (St John's) to Sir Gregory Page Bt for
£1900, He pulled down the Manor House of Wellhall and there remained only the
farmhouse. The Wellhall Manor had once been the home of the Ropers, allied by
marriage to Sir Thomas More in the reign of Henry Vlll. Sir Gregory Page held
the manor until his death in 1775 and his descendants held it until 1848.
Lady
Morden died in 1721 but the complications of her
will meant that Page was not able to take full possession of Wricklemarsh until
1723. The estate had first been advertised in the Daily
Courant on 7 September
1721, on a sixty-one-year lease for £2,500 premium and a rent of £ 100 a year.
This did not come to fruition however as, later that year, it was sold freehold
to Page for the sum of £9,000; a figure that included the
mansion house, a twenty-two acre park, and 271 acres of agricultural land. Page
has been described as 'the richest commoner in England' and was on good
terms with most of London's high society, including the King. He
would have required a large country house to support this position and, as soon
as he had taken possession of the old Morden Mansion in September 1723, he
demolished it and began to build in earnest.
Almost at once
the construction of a new house was begun, Page's ample fortune ensuring an astonishing
rate of progress. He chose as his architect John James of Greenwich, who had
succeeded Nicholas Hawksmoor as
clerk of the works at Greenwich, and who designed a restrained Palladian house:
a ground plan and cross-section through the rooms were included in the fourth
volume of Vitruvius Britannicus,
(1739). According to a contemporary description, Wricklemarsh was one of the
finest mansions in England, resembling a royal palace rather than a residence of a gentleman'
(Sutton, 364). The viewer goes on to describe elegantly
laid out gardens, rooms hung with green or crimson silk damask, cornices,
doorcases and chair frames carved in gilt, and chimneypieces of polished
marble. Sir Gregory
Page repeated this style at his newly built neo-Palladian Wricklemarsh, at
Blackheath, where he also created a landscape of simplified formalism, based
upon the straight rides and avenues of London and Wise but with lawns between,
not planting. The layout of the grounds at Wricklemarsh, which were created
between 1723 and 1724 has been described by Sir John Clerk of Penicuik as
follows:
“The Gardens are very rural and of a new Taste consisting of only a few Gravel walks with large squares and slopes of green turf, few or no Evergreen Trees or shrubs.”
Page's formal setting for Wricklemarsh was described by Campbell in Vitruvius Britannicus as:
“very pleasant, being in the center of the park on a rising ground, and commanding several extensive views, particularly from the North front over the country of Kent, and
from
the south and east over Shooter's Hill and Eltham. There is a basin of water on
the north front and another on the south front.”
The house was built of stone and Fisher's "Kentish Travellors Companion" published in 1776, contains a curious story; "The seat of the late Sir Gregory Page is at the southeast extremity of Blackheath, and in eleven months was this stately and elegant mansion raised from the foundation and covered in. Two reasons are assigned to the amazing expedition with which so large a fabric was erected; one that the baronet is reported to have been allowed the liberty of using a sufficient quantity of the materials prepared at Greenwich for the buildings intended to be added to that Hospital (now the Royal Naval College); and the other, that Sir Gregory could purchase stones out of the same quarry from the governors of that charitable institution expected to be supplied, when they, for a very obvious reason, could not procure them. And the fact is certain, that the works at the hospital were suspended during the whole year that the mansion upon Blackheath was built. The park and kitchen garden without, and the masterly paintings, rich hangings, marbles and alto-relievos within this house, commanded the attention of every person of genius and taste".
The new Wricklemarsh House is reliably recorded, to have cost Sir Gregory between £90,000 and £123,000 (the wide variation has always puzzled me and I tend to feel, that the house may well have cost some £90,000, while the demolition of the old house, cottages and other buildings, plus the landscaping of the park etc. might well have been some £30,000), this is perhaps born out in the publication of Beauties of England and Wales, Vol. 1, page 65, quoted in Drakes Hundred of Blackheath, page 125, which also gives the cost of the new Wricklemarsh House as £90,000.
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| Rocques's Map 1741-1746 Sir Gregory Page's Wricklemarsh Morden College and Greenwich Park |
John Rocque's map of Wricklemarsh, Blackheath, and Kidbrooke of 1746 adds to the understanding of Wricklemarsh's setting and shows that it was centered on a double, and in places triple, lined avenue of trees that extended from both the north and south fronts of the great mansion. Neo-Palladian architecture had stripped away the exuberance of the Baroque to leave a stark and unadorned classicism and in the same way garden design appeared to absorb some of this approach; the pioneering design at the famous Wricklemarsh, exhibited so close to London, heralding a new era in landscape style. This simplification of a previous formality seems to have begun sometime after 1715, with landscapes such as Wanstead and Ebberston Lodge in Yorkshire, and gathered momentum so that new neo-Palladian houses in the 1720s were commonly set within simplified formal landscapes. No areas of planting or parterres adorn the neo-Palladian landscapes of Studley, Wricklemarsh, or Ebberston; these are gardens that reflected the unadorned, minimal neo-Palladian approach to classicism in architecture.
The completed Wricklemarsh was
demolished in 1783 and is therefore only available for analysis today through
contemporary engravings and paintings. It achieved a degree of notoriety in its
day due to its size and grandeur and the speed with which it was erected. The
contemporary written descriptions of it that survive are evidence of a general
consensus that the building was above all striking and stunning in the first
impression it made upon its viewers, rather than being an architectural
masterpiece. Defoe describes the mansion as being 'one of the finest seats not
only in this country but in England' ,83 whilst John Brushe draws attention to
another description of the house by Vertue who stated that 'in my poor
judgment of all the houses I have seen, it has the best and finest noble idea,
neither too great, not too small, both within and without the completest I saw
and indeed a model for others' . Henry Dryden was of the same mind as Vertue
and wrote about the 'princely majesty of his [Page's] residence; his park and
domestics surpassed everything in point of grandeur that had been exhibited by
a citizen of London since the days of ... Sir Thomas Gresham,.85 When viewing
the engravings of Wricklemarsh (see Plates 48 and 49) however one wonders how
this building could have merited such effusive praise. That it was large, grand, and shockingly new in its neo-Palladian style is not in question; to suggest
however that it was one of the finest houses in England at that time and worthy
to be used as a model for others must surely be outright flattery of this very
wealthy man whose character was not strong, as will be demonstrated below. The
house was designed for Page in stark neo-Palladian style by John James and was
as unimaginative as it was heavy and stolid in its appearance. The channeled basement storey of the south front is overly deep, competing with the
building's piano nobile for prominence, a competition it wins when the
house is viewed square on. This great, almost fortified strength of the
basement is accentuated by the wide portico that casts the central three bays
of the piano nobile into shadow. precisely where this centerpiece of the building should be prominent in order to balance the very weighty
end bays of the elevation.
Based in part, surely, on the Queen's House at Greenwich which Page would have
seen every day as a boy who grew up in that village, it lacks the finesse and
elegance that characterize Inigo Jones' masterpiece of simplicity. If the
contemporary descriptions of the building were not solely due to flattery,
perhaps part of the wonder and fascination with Wricklemarsh can be explained
by the incredible speed with which it was built.
Contemporary newspaper reports claim that Page built his mansion and covered it within eleven months at a cost of between £90,000 and £120,000. Brushe has confined these reports in his discussion of the tax assessments for the estate and the payments which rose suddenly in an extremely short space of time.87 For a house of this size, such a construction time is astonishing but may be partly due to the architect chosen for the task. As stated, John James (VB) was selected to design Wricklemarsh, a choice that has been described by Rhind as 'curious' on the basis that Page could have afforded the leading architects of the day, men such as Colin Campbell, James Gibbs or Lord Burlington. His choice of architect is not at all odd however when Page's roots are considered as Rhind goes on to accede.88 Page's father, Gregory II, had moved the family to Greenwich in 1699, where, as a leading family in Greenwich society, they would have been aware of John James of Greenwich (VB), who was employed as Store-Keeper and assistant Clerk of the Works at Greenwich to Nicholas Hawksmoor. James' status was elevated in 1711 when he became Master Carpenter to St Paul's Cathedral and again in 1715 when he became Assistant Surveyor to Sir Christopher Wren. In 1718 James went on to become Joint Clerk of the Works with Hawksmoor, remaining in charge of Greenwich Hospital until his death. This local connection between James and Page, and the convenience of having James, based in Greenwich, so close to the site at Blackheath, make James a very sensible choice for Page and explain the lack of delay in the building's construction. Sally Jeffery highlights the probability of an even stronger connection between Page and James which was made by the nineteenth-century Greenwich antiquarian, Henry Richardson, who attributes Paynesfield House, Maze Hill, the house built by Page's father in 1699, to John James. 90 It may also be that Page Ill's choice of James was influenced by the timescales within which he wanted to have completed his mansion: better-known architects such as Campbell and Gibbs would probably never have been able to comply with Page's rapid schedule for the construction of the mansion.
A few years after the construction of Wricklemarsh Page began a series of unsuccessful attempts to take his own life, a course of action that appears to have been derived from boredom and an identity crisis. The diary entry of the 1st Earl of Egmont (1683-1748) who lived at the nearby Charlton House is worth quoting in full and starts on Saturday 27 March 1736: This day I heard that last Thursday Sir G P my neighbour at Blackheath hanged himself but was cut down while still warm and recovered so as to walk about his room ... I believe it was for want of knowing how to employ his time, for he was thoroughly neglected in his education by his father, which made him avoid company; and being alone he knew no way to amuse himself but by walking out of one room into another and ordering the dust to be swept from comers, grates to be scoured, his shirts pleated and the like. It could not I think be apprehension of want, for his father left him so much money that in the year 1721 he had £24,000, nor was he covetous till of late years, since he built his fine house at Blackheath, which they say cost him £ 150,000. The building of such a house ... his generosities to sufferers by fire; his marriage of a lady without a farthing portion etc .. are no signs of a covetous temper ... Neither had he reason to be jealous of his wife, who behaved in all things to his humour without reproach. It is safer to believe that melancholy, blood and tediousness for life prevailed upon him to commit this action. 'Tis said he attempted this twice before. Some say the
reduction of interest on East India
bonds to three percent, of which he had a value of £100,000 ... concurred to
fix him in this attempt. Egmont's diary
entry for Sunday 28 March goes on to relate another suicide attempt two days
after he hanged himself: 'went in the evening to the chapel. This day I heard Sir
Gregory determined not to live had shot himself. fortunately, Sir Gregory
survived the shooting and he went on to live until 1775.
Sir Gregory and his wife entertained lavishly, and Wricklemarsh was often the venue for parties, balls, and grand dinners. George II was to dine there on a number of occasions, indeed a London newspaper reported in 1728 :
“We hear that His Majesty (George II) hath promised to dine at Sir Gregory Page's at Greenwich next Saturday, after reviewing Kirke's and Harrisons Regiment on Blackheath".
A further account of life at Wricklemarsh is recorded in a letter published in the “Country Life" of July 4th. 1947, which quotes a manuscript letter of Sir Henry Dryden Bart, (Sir Gregory's great-great nephew) although without a date:
"Sir Gregory Page betook himself from commerce and lived with great splendour and hospitality at his noble mansion at Blackheath; indeed the princely magnificence of his residence, his park, and his domestics surpassed everything in point of grandeur that had been exhibited by a citizen of London since the days of the magnificent Sir Thomas Gresham, and almost equal to the Italian merchants of the ducal house of Medici".
There was also a report of a grand wedding feast at Wricklemarsh, given for Sir John Shaw 4th Bart. of Eltham (the owner of Eltham Lodge) in 1752, when he married a niece of Martha, Lady Page, another Martha and the orphan daughter of her brother John Kenward of Yalding (he died 1749) and Alice his wife who died in 1732. Hence the reason for the wedding and festivities taking place at Wricklemarsh and presumably Sir Gregory gave the bride away. Sir John's ancestor, Sir John Shaw 1st. Bart. was a banker who financed King Charles ll in exile, and at the restoration was rewarded by a lease of a large part of the park of Eltham Palace, where he built the splendid Eltham Lodge, now the clubhouse of the Royal Blackheath Golf Club.
We are given another contemporary picture of Sir Gregory and Wricklemarsh, that of John, 1st. Earl of Egmont (1683—1748), who lived at nearby Charlton House. Egmont kept a full diary for many years and in March 1736, he wrote about Sir Gregory in some detail: Saturday 27 _
"This day I heard that last Thursday Sir Gregory Page, my neighbour at Blackheath, hanged himself, but was out down while warm, and recovered to walk about his room. People talk variously about it. Some say it was for fear of starving; others that he was jealous of his wife; but I believe it was for want of knowing how to employ his time, for he was thoroughly neglected in his education by his father, which made him avoid company, and being alone he knew no way to amuse himself but walking out of one room into another and ordering the dust to be swept from corners, grates to be scoured, his shirts pleated and the like. It could not, I should think, be apprehension of want, for his father left him so much money that in the year 1721 he had £24,000 (£5.2 Million) per annum dividend out of the funds, nor was he covetous till of late years since he built his fine house at Blackheath, which they say cost him £150,000, though he designed £30,000 as he told me. The building such a house, his giving £2,000 per annum in the land to his younger brother, his generosities to sufferers by fire, his marriage of a lady without a farthing portion, etc., is no sign of a covetous temper, but of late indeed he grew more sparing, even to his not paying for his servants' physic when sick and turning off his gardener (now mine) because he would not continue him the same wages. Neither had he reason to be jealous of his wife, who behaved in all things to his humour without reproach. It is safe to believe that melancholy blood and tediousness for life prevailed on him to commit this action. 'Tis said he attempted this twice before, but this was not known before. He had £3,000 in land and owned to Governor Peachey a little while ago that he had above £200,000 in money. Some say the reduction of interest on East India bonds to 3 percent, of which he had to the value of £100,000, and the breaking of a farmer in his A debt concurred to fix him in this attempt. His father, old Sir Gregory, had been a drayman to Sir Charles Ayres of Kew Green, but being a man of parts rose to become a Director of the East India Company and a Knight Baronet. He left him the immense fortune he enjoyed which some made to mount to 5, 6, or £700,000. (£154 Million) Sunday 28 — Went to the chapel in the morning; afterward visited Jr. Clarke. Then went to the Court. Went in the evening to the chapel. This day I heard Sir Gregory being determined not to live had shot himself yesterday”.
All this is said to have taken place when Sir Gregory was 41 years of age, as he lived for another 39 years after these events it is difficult to comprehend, and we can only speculate as to how much of it was idle gossip! He was certainly no recluse and had by no means left public life, as will be seen from the forthcoming events.
With the second Jacobite Revolt in 1745, when the Young Pretender, Prince Charles Edward Stuart landed in Scotland and raised the Highlanders to his cause at Glen Finnan; and with pluck and daring took Edinburgh in what is known as the "Canter of Calt Bragg". So greatly encouraged was the Jacobite army 0f clansmen, that they marched into England in preparation for taking London by storm. The resulting panic in the Capital, and Sir Gregory's friendship with King George II, must have spurred him into action. He raised and equipped at his own expense a small "private army" of defense volunteers, numbering 500 men, who were assembled and drilled on Blackheath, as the southward march of the Young Pretender created a scare in London. In the event, they got no further than Derby before retreating back to Scotland, where they were eventually defeated by the Duke of Cumberland (1721-1765 younger son of George ll) at Culloden in 1746, where he was to massacre the Jacobite army.
In 1741 Sir Gregory attempted to divert a watercourse in the middle of what was to become Blackheath Village but was fined by the local Court and instructed to replace the stream on its proper course. He also closed up an old public right of way called Mount Echo Walk - but was required to find some other footpath. This act came about when Sir Gregory came to an agreement with Lewisham Parish officers to enclose part of the waste of Blackheath into his formal parkland. By 1727 and in April of that year, the parish officers granted the baronet the right to enclose this land, but solely for herbage and grazing purposes, in other words not for building thereon. They charged him £4. 10s a year and the terms of the lease were to run for 1000 years; to confirm the agreement, the Earl of Dartmouth (Lord of the Manor) agreed to the lease by charging Sir Gregory only a peppercorn rent. The area involved was just 8.1/2 acres, although in February 1756 a little piece of tidying up to the northeast of the grant, added another .1/4 of an acre.
The records show that Sir Gregory contributed to local charitable ventures throughout his life and even afterward, earmarking in his will £400 for the poor of East Greenwich. In 1753 Sir Gregory was one of the local gentry who subscribed to form an Association to Suppress Lawlessness on Blackheath, he was a £5 contributor, and the Earl of Chesterfield and two others gave £10 each, but the majority of subscribers gave only £2 apiece. The Association appointed a Constable: Joseph Cox and drew up a table of rewards for information leading to a successful conviction of malefactors, depending upon the crime, from £20 for housebreaking, down to £2 for stealing from a fishpond or orchard, goods to the value of 5/— or more. Although all local landowners supported the scheme, which covered crimes from Kidbrook Stone to the New Cross Turnpike Road and a 3-mile radius of those points, it seems to have had little success, and the newspaper reports of robbery and highwaymen on Blackheath, within sight of the baronets' mansion, did not decrease. A newspaper report of July 20th. 1758, states :
"This day one John Merrit was capitally convicted at Maidstone Assizes for stealing 106 sheep and lambs from Sir Gregory Page" and on the 3rd. August, in the same year, a further report states, "Jonathan Merrit a Kentish drover convicted of stealing 106 sheep and lambs from Sir Gregory Page Bart., was executed near Maidstone in Kent. He confessed to his guilt but refused to impeach his accomplices".
Among the family archives, there are several documents dealing with Wricklemarsh and Kent estate, aside from the 1775 inventory. Of which there is at least one leather hound rental book for the years 1730 -1731, containing a list of properties and the names of the tenants. The Westcombe Park estate had sixteen; Sir Gregory had purchased this estate of the heirs of Sir Michael Biddulph on the 31st. August 1724 for the sum of £12,000. When Bucks' view of the mansion thereon was taken in 1739, it was occupied by the Earl of Pembroke, the lease afterward passed to Charles, 3rd. Duke of Bolton, who lived there for several years with the actress — Lavinia Fenton, the celebrated Polly Peacham, whom he married soon after the death of his Duchess, on the 20th. September 1751. The house was successively occupied by Lord Clive, the Marquis of Lothian, the Duchess of Athol, Mr. Halliday the banker, and William Petrie Esq; all of whom were tenants of Sir Gregory or his heirs. In 1717, Sir Gregory Page-Turner the 3rd. baronet, devisee of the Westcombe Estate under the will of his great uncle and godfather, paid a relief of 3/—(shillings) and all arrears of quit rent and was admitted tenant. In 1805 Sir Gregory Osborne Page-Turner, his son and 4th. baronet paid the same. Westcombe in 1730 paid a total rental to Sir Gregory of £450. Mark and Seething Lane in the City, paid a total of £655 and it must be of interest that the biggest of the three tenants, was the East Indian Company, paying £450 per annum. The Crayford Estate paid £200 and had eight tenants and recorded the Great House was empty. Wricklemarsh had only one tenant, Edward Sadler Who paid £4. per annum. West Ham produced £114 and East Ham £470 in Essex. Kentish Town with four tenants another £800 and the Isle of Dogs £112. East Greenwich with another three tenants £54 and 5 shillings, while Fish Street Hill with five tenants paid £148, Mill Meads £110 and the Wapping Brewhouse £100, and a property in Middlesex, Crutched Fryers produced an annual rental of £260. In addition, the Battlesden Estate produced £1840 sixteen shillings and six pence. Therefore in 1730, the total rent roll for property amounted to £4813. ls. 6d.; at today's values, I suppose we are talking of something in the region of £1.2 Million. It was not until two and a half years later, that Sir Gregory purchased the Eastbourne and Wellhall Estate; Drake's Blackheath, page 190 informs us "Lady Elizabeth Daring, Lady Susannah Wynne, and Katherine Henshaw joined together on 11th. July 1733 in the sale of the above manors with the house recently erected, and the presentation to the Vicarage (patronage to Sir Gregory Page of Wricklemarsh in the parish of Charlton, Bart. For £19,000, who pulled down the mansion at Wellhall, and there remains only the farmhouse which, with the demesnes, he devised in the tail by his will to his great nephew Sir Gregory Turner (3rd. Bart. and later Page-Turner) of Ambrosden, co. Oxfordshire, Bart. When Hasted wrote his History of Kent, Wellhall farm consisted of about 200 acres let at £195 per annum”. There are further references to Wellhall in the family archives — quoting Ibid page 205 and reads
"Wellhall is now occupied (1866) by Mr. E. Langley. Sir Gregory Page rebuilt the house, and workshops were added to it in about 1800 by Arnold the chronometer maker to George 111. Mr. Lee, the banker of Lombard Street, Mr Jeffreyes, and the Rev. C. G. Fryer have since lived there". The Reverend Charles Gulliver Fryer, sometime vicar of Eltham (a living which was in the gift of the Page-Turner family) had married on the 22nd. August 1838, Helen Elizabeth, the only surviving child of Sir Gregory Osborne Page—Turner, the 4th. baronet and by Royal license, dated 27th. April 1876 assumed the additional surname of Page. A further quote from the same Ibid, pages 199-200 mentions "Eltham — Sir Gregory Page—Turner (3rd. Bart.) had 592 acres in the parish of Eltham. The advowson (living) of the Vicarage was in the Roper family and passed with the Wellhall Estate to Sir Gregory Page (2nd.) Bart".
Sir Gregory had
already reached more than the normal allotted span of life, 78 years of age and
we have no record of any infirmity when Martha died on the 28th. September,
1767, at the age of 63. One wonders with what sadness they entered the
declining years of their lives, with no children to succeed and inherit the
magnificent house and estate at Wricklemarsh. Though before Mathals death, Sir
Gregory had already selected his heir, as can be seen from his will dated 16th.
December 1763, in which he bequeaths Wricklemarsh and lands in Kent, Middlesex, and Bedfordshire, with contents of Wricklemarsh (except linen) to his wife for
life and then to his nephew, Sir Edward Turner 2nd. Baronet of Ambrosden.
Martha was buried in the family vault at St. Alfege's Church, Greenwich on the
11th. October 1767; a year after their nephew Sir Edward Turner had himself
died, when the heir then became his great-nephew, Sir Gregory Turner 3rd.
Baronet of Ambrosden, then aged 20 and at the time engaged on the Grand Tour.
We hear a little more of Sir Gregory the 2nd. Baronet until his death some eight
years later aged 86. Though from all accounts he appears to have retained his
agility and sharpness of mind, for the "Amorous Widower" sometime
after the death of Martha, he seems to have considered himself not past
marrying again, and perhaps even yet producing an heir. A letter can be found
among the family papers, which shows that he sent to a young lady of his acquaintance, a gift of a pair of gloves together with a verse which shows that
he sent to a young lady of his acquaintance a gift of gloves together with a
verse which said:
“Take G from glove
There remains Love.
Which I send thee,"
However, the lady was not
to be caught by this. She returned the gloves and replied:
“Take P from Page
There remains Age,
Which won't suit me.”
A complete list of Page's collection of pictures was printed in the first volume of London and its Environs Described, published in 1761 by R. and J. D. Dodsley. It comprised 118 pictures, with paintings by Claude, Poussin, Veronese, Van Dyck, Rubens, Salvator Rosa, Nicolaes Berchem, and a group of ten pictures by Adriaen van der Werff, a contemporary Dutch classicist painter much admired in the eighteenth century. Page presumably had links with the Dutch East India Company: six Dutch East India wood chairs inlaid with the Page/Kenward arms in mother-of-pearl are now in Sir John Soane's Museum.
He supported the creation of a new charity in London called the Foundling Hospital. In its Royal
Charter, issued in 1739, he is listed as one of the
original governors. The charity worked to save abandoned children from the
streets of the capital.
Page was the founder and patron of the dining club the Free and Easy Society, for which a number of Qianlong Chinese armorial
punchbowls were made in about 1755.
Page died at Wricklemarsh on 4 August 1775 and was buried
alongside his wife in the family vault at St Alfege, Greenwich.
There was no heir to the baronetcy but the title to the Page estates passed to
his great-nephew, Sir Gregory Turner. grandson of Sir Edward Turner and of
Mary, daughter of the first Sir Gregory Page. Sir Edward Turner had already
inherited his own family baronetcy but now. at his great-uncle's wish, took by
Royal license the arms of Page and the name Page-Turner. In Sir Gregory’s will, there were numerous bequests to relatives including £20,000 to his
sister-in-law, Juliana, and £5,000 to her nephew Richard, then Viscount Howe,
who was Sir Gregory’s executor Wricklemarsh was occupied successively by
several prominent personages, including the Earl of Suffolk, the Lord
Chancellor Thurlow and Viscount Townshend, but in 1781, following the death of
Juliana who had been left an interest in it, a private Act of Parliament was
obtained which enabled the house and its 281-acre estate to be sold, partly to
provide for the £10,000 in legacies which then fell due. The property was
purchased in 1783 by John Cator for £22,550 and the house was largely demolished in
1787 though some ruins remained until 1823, The portico of the mansion and one
of the fire-places were installed by Cator at his house, Beckenham Place
He left Wricklemarsh and its collections to his great-nephew Sir Gregory Turner, baronet, of Ambrosden in Oxfordshire, who took the name and arms of Page in compliance with his great-uncle's request. Turner did not live at Wricklemarsh, but let it to a succession of tenants. Horace Walpole (later fourth earl of Orford), wrote in 1779 that 'half the van der Werffs, which cost an immense sum … are spoiled since Sir Gregory Page's death by servants neglecting to shut out the sun' (Horace Walpole's Correspondence, ed. W. S. Lewis, 33, 1965, p. 137). The picture collection was sold in parts in 1775, 1783, and 1787. Wricklemarsh was sold in 1784 to John Cator, who instructed Christie's to auction the materials of the house in 1787; its shell was finally demolished in 1800.
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