Sutton Place, 3 miles (4.8 km) north-east[n 1] of Guildford in Surrey, is a large Grade I listed[1] Tudor prodigy house built c. 1525[2] by Sir Richard Weston (d. 1541), a courtier of Henry VIII.

In modern times, the estate has had a series of wealthy owners, initially J. Paul Getty, then the world's richest private citizen,[3] who spent the last 17 years of his life there.

[8] Weston was certainly daring in his choice of eye-catching decoration above his front-door, for which he surely risked being ridiculed by his manly friends, including the king himself: innocent loving children at play: the amorini.

Was this a signal by an avant-gard Sir Richard to his visitors, many of whom must have been valiant and experienced soldiers, that his house was to be a haven where love and play were de rigueur, not the old-fashioned militaristic conversations and behaviours?

What a different message this was to that placed above the gates of Dante's Inferno: Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here".

The symbolism of the short stretch of crenellated parapet on the roofline above the front-door, one of the most potent aspects of the old defensive fortress, has been disarmed and cancelled-out by the almost jarring sight of a covering of yet more playful amorini.

Such Italianate influence had perhaps never before been seen in English architecture, and is thought to have resulted from designs seen by Weston during his travels on embassies to France, where he might have seen some of the newly built chateaux on the Loire.

[12] The terracotta has, however, undergone, in the 1980s, a £12 million refurbishment, involving much replacement, by the specialist firm Hathernware Ceramics Ltd, which used 18 different colour blends of clay to match the original variety of shades.

[14] Prior to that, it seems the only new elements were from 1875 when 10 new terracotta mullions and window-frames made by Messrs Blashfield of Stamford, from moulds of existing windows, replaced sash-windows inserted in the 18th century.

[15] Other terracotta decorative elements include framed monograms of "R W", the builder, and reliefs of his rebus of the concave-ended barrel, probably signifying a "waisted-tun".

[16] Apart from family arms, the arms of King Richard III and emblems of the Roses, Red and White are also shown; all relate to the Battle of Bosworth at which Edmund Weston, Governor of Guernsey, father of Sir Richard, is thought to have assisted Henry Tudor by providing the use of money, ships or even a contingent of soldiers.

[21] Within Sutton Place was once the blood-stained ruff of St Thomas More and a crystal pomegranate that once belonged to Queen Catherine of Aragon.

Successive occupants thus lived as retiring country gentlemen of reduced means, which meant that the house escaped remodelling through the ages.

He leased the house out to tenants, including the family of the historian Frederic Harrison, who wrote the definitive history of Sutton Place.

[31] From 1900, the tenant was Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe (d. 1922)[32] On the death of Francis Salvin in 1904, the estate passed to his niece's son Philip Witham (1842–1921), a solicitor.

The incumbent whereof is Anthony Cawsey clerke of the age of l (i.e.50) yeres...which said chauntrey and obite are worth lands and tenements by the yere x li (i.e. £20) whereof to the pore xxvii s iiii d. (i.e. 27 shillings & 4 pence) and so remayneth clere viii li iiii d (i.e. £8 4d) plate parcel gilt viii oz di.

"[36]The Weston family maintained their Catholic faith throughout the English Reformation and beyond, which was a great sacrifice for them as it prevented them from holding public office and brought much suspicion on them from government officials throughout the ages.

The tablet was erected by her grateful distant Catholic cousin John Webbe-Weston (d.1823) to whom she bequeathed all her estates, including Sutton Place.

The effigy is of a recumbent woman wearing a ruff and lies on a chest tomb sculpted with skulls showing behind a grille.