Cardinal Wolsey, who possessed Esher Place as Bishop of Winchester, was kept under house arrest here after his fall from power.

In 1716 its wider agricultural estate was separated from what was its manor house, that is, sold to the first Duke of Newcastle, who owned Claremont in the same parish.

The house (and immediate grounds), passed through two owners, including Peter Delaperte, one of the directors of the South Sea Company, and came into the ownership of the Duke's younger brother, Henry Pelham, in 1729.

Pelham hired William Kent to renovate the property who did so by having demolished much of the medieval and Tudor portions — except for the gatehouse — and adding wings and some of the earliest Gothic revival ornamentation in England.

[4] In the late 1890s, this building was then incorporated as a wing into the current French Renaissance style house on the site, designed by G.T.

Vincent — Lord D'Abernon after 1914 — had guests including Edward VIII (the British King in much of the year 1936) when Prince of Wales, Cecil Rhodes, and Anna Pavlova.