Journal of Proceedings. xliii
Fisher Unwin gave a short account of the old Luxborough House, of
which only some portions of the outbuildings and the extensive garden-
walls now remain. Mr. Unwin said that the first mention he could find
of the manor was in 1605, when Sir Robert Wroth died seised of it, and
since then it had always passed with the adjoining manor of Chigwell
Hall. Early in the last century the demesne lands were purchased by
Robert Knight, cashier to the famous swindle, the South Sea Company,
who pulled down the old house and built a mansion. This was seized by
the Company when the crash came, but it was eventually re-purchased by
Knight, who was succeeded in 1744 by his son. Robert Knight was
created an Irish peer in 1746, by the title of Baron Luxborough, and in
1763 Earl of Catherlough. He sold the estates in 1749, and they came in
rapid succession through various owners, including Sir Edward Walpole,
to Sir Edward Hughes, an eminent naval officer, who made it his country
house, and died there in 1794. His widow, Lady Hughes, sold the estates
in 1799 to James Hatch, of Clayberry Hall, who had long wished to obtain
them, and he immediately pulled the house down. Tradition says that he
could not bear that there should be a grander house than his own so near.
Neither Mr. Unwin nor Mr. Walter Crouch (to whom we are indebted
for this slight sketch) had been able to find any mention of the original
Manor House ; and therefore we may fairly presume, in the words of the
latter gentleman, " That it was not one above the usual average of such
buildings; but the one built by Robert Knight—and this in less than a
century razed in a fit of jealousy—was of large and even imposing
appearance, square built, probably of Portland stone. It must have been,
judging by the engravings, by which alone we know it, to some extent a
rival (and perhaps a partial copy) of the magnificent house which Sir
Richard Child built in 1715 at Wanstead—having like that a fine portico
in front with six Corinthian pillars supporting a pediment, and with bold
cornice and balustrading over the wings. It faced the pond which still
remains on the other side of Luxborough Lane. On the left was the
garden, facing the lawn, and on the right a courtyard with outbuildings
and stables, one of which with weathercock on top still remains. Sic
transit gloria mundi."
Mr. Unwin alluded to the mention of Luxborough as a locality for
plants by Richard Warner in his ' Plantae Woodfordienses,' and exhibited
some views of the house.
The party then left the fruit-garden and walked through the lane to
Chigwell, making frequent stoppages by the way to examine some pond
or wayside weed. In a pond lying in a portion of the scanty remains of
the once grand forest of Henault, Mr. W. W. Reeves (Assistant Sec. to the
Royal Microscopical Society) pointed out a quantity of the water thyme
or American weed (Anacharis alsinastrum) in vigorous bloom. It is
seldom found in flower, and only female blossoms are generally found,
the male flowers being extremely rare in Britain, and hare been observed
by very few botanists. Perhaps it is a happy circumstance for the keepers