THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB.
269
property, and died unmarried in 1769, devising it to his cousin, the. Rev
Richard Monins, who, in accordance with the wish of the testator, assumed
the family name of Eaton.
The property remained in this family's ownership, with various
occupiers, until 1854, in which year Mr. Washington Single, father of the
present owner, purchased it : at that date the grounds, comprising 40 acres,
extended northwards to abut on those of Woodford Hall and southwards
to Fraser's Nurseries, while to the west they reached as far as the Woodford
New Road.
The new owner divided the mansion into two holdings, one of which
Mr. Squire Single now occupies.
From here the party walked along the High Road to Salway Hill
where the next house to be visited, by kind invitation of Mr. S. H.
Scoffin, the present owner, was that now known as "Hurst House," in
Broomhill Walk, formerly known by the romantic name of "The Naked
Beauty." Our leader has investigated in detail the past history of this
18th century house, and it is from his researches that the following notes
are taken.
The house was erected about the second decade of the eighteenth
century, when a wealthy brewer of Wapping, Henry Raine, appears in
a list of ratepayers as the (probable) occupier. He was godfather to James,
son of the Reverend James Altham, who was rector of Woodford from
1729 to 1766. By the year 1738 he was succeeded in the tenancy by
William Duffm, his great-nephew and a partner in the brewing firm at
Wapping. William Duffin's name occurs, in connection with this residence,
in Warner's Plantae Woodfordienses (1771), where the occurrence of the
rest-harrow (Ononis spinosa) is noted "in plenty in the footway from
Woodford Row to Woodford Church, under the garden wall belonging to
the House commonly called 'The Naked Beauty,' Mr. Duffin's, in great
plenty." This entry has been of service in helping to decide the actual
position of the "Naked Beauty," concerning which there has been some
controversy. Mr. Duffin evidently enjoyed a long occupancy of this
palatial building, which then possessed 20 acres of land, but by 1772 he
had been supplanted by William Wallis. The next succeeding tenant
was Alderman Nathaniel Thomas, Sheriff of London in 1776-7, at whose
death in 1781 the "Naked Beauty" was sold by public auction. From
about the year 1816 the premises were occupied for many years as a school,
kept by the Rev. Holt Okes, CD. (and afterwards by Mr. Francis Worrall
Stevens), when the name of the "Naked Beauty," perhaps considered by
Okes as being too frivolous for a scholastic establishment, was changed
to "Woodford House School." An old print in the Club's Pictorial Survey
engraved by R. W. Smart, shows the garden front of the house as it then
was. A fire is said to have destroyed the northern wing of the building,
and the premises were divided into two, the rebuilt portion being known
as "Woodford House," while the undamaged southern portion remains
to-day as "Hurst House." This separation was already effected by
1864 ; but long before that date, in all probability, the original "Naked
Beauty" estate had been cut up into smaller holdings and separate
houses erected upon them.
Hurst House has a fine stuccoed front with Corinthian pilasters and
a handsome pedimented doorway. The garden front, with its large