[3] In 1449, John Timperley, steward to Henry VI, was given permission to enclose the land and, two years later, the manor was granted the privilege of sending two members to Parliament, which it retained, as a "rotten borough", until the Parliamentary reform of 1832.

Beneath the west wing was a small, brick-built chamber, which may had been used as a strong room or safe deposit for valuable items.

The archaeologist, S. E. Winbolt, who investigated the site, suggested that this early house might have been constructed during a time of religious persecution.

[6] Following the death of the previous owner, William Newland, in 1749, James Colebrooke acquired Gatton Park in 1751.

[7][8][9] To create the lakes, Colebrooke appropriated around 40 acres (16 ha) of glebe land and damned the tributaries of the River Mole that ran across it.

[10] In 1789 Thomas Kingscote went to live at Gatton Park after his friend, Robert Ladbroke, had bought it in the same year.

The main portico, bronze gates and a statue entitled The Athlete in Repose had survived intact and were incorporated into the new structure.

[24] The church, essentially a chapel for the estate that is reached from the house by a covered walkway, was richly improved within its simple exterior with imported woodwork in 1834: the pulpit and altar, bought from Nuremberg, were optimistically attributed at the time to Albrecht Dürer; the carved doors came from Rouen; the presbytery stalls from a disestablished monastery in Ghent,[c] the altar rails came from Tongeren;[4] stained glass for the windows, and the wainscoting of the nave and carved canopies came from Aarschot, near Leuven.

[25] "Gatton, rebuilt in the 1830s, is a bijou" reported Nikolaus Pevsner "perhaps the best example in the country of the tendency for the church to become an extension of the landlord's parlour or sculpture gallery.

[28] Attributed to the architect, Robert Taylor, it consists of a pedimented roof, supported by six cast iron Doric columns.

Behind the structure is a stone urn, carved with serpents entwined, on a deep moulded plinth inscribed "in memory of the deceased Borough".