Baynards Park

Baynards Park is a 2,000 acres (810 ha) estate and site of a demolished country house with extant outbuildings, privately owned, in the south of the parishes of Cranleigh and Ewhurst, Surrey.

In 1447 William Sydney the younger obtained a licence to impark (i.e. enclose) 800 acres (320 ha) appertaining to his 'manor' of Baynards, however its exact status at that time is dubious, being possibly still held as an under-tenant of Pollingfold Manor to the south-west.

As the wealth of the elite grew but before the heyday of the British Empire, the Elizabethan architecture manor house was built by More, on taking possession in 1587, using his wife, Constantia's money.

However the house descended through Evelyn's heirs, becoming a farm-house by the time of being owned by one, Arthur Onslow, the noted Speaker (of the House of Commons), who while in possession resided at Knowle Manor, Cranleigh, and whose son and later heirs made their principal homes at Imber Court, East Molesey (demolished and subdivided) and at Clandon Park, Clandon (intact).

[1] Baynards, by then a proper adjoining small hamlet, saw a return to its grand house, transformed at the time in a somewhat old-fashioned but majestic, classical Georgian style 1832-40 primarily by employing Thomas Rickman and Benjamin Ferrey under Wyatt.

[6] After clearance of the manor house site, today only the walled gardens, cottages, bell-tower, gatehouse and four lodges survive, many somewhat neglected.