Wanstead House (c.1770) and a watercolour from Repton's
'Plans for the Improvement of the Grounds at Wanstead House, Essex' (1813)
Originally a 300 acre park, Wanstead is thought to have been created in 1545 as an enclosure from Epping
Forest. Purchased by Sir Josiah Child in 1667, he laid out magnificent gardens and his son Richard (later Earl
Tylney) commissioned the architect Colen Campbell to design the palladian mansion in 1715. The house was
eventually inherited by Catherine Tylney Long in 1812 and Humphry Repton was engaged to produce sug-
gested alterations to the grounds in 1813. The resultant watercolours, much to Repton's chagrin, were however
not bound into a "Red Book" on his client's instruction (although they were later bound). Catherine's husband,
the nephew of the Duke of Wellington, dissipated her fortune within ten years and Wanstead House was
demolished in 1824.
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Essex Parks (2004)