Watercolour. 7 by 4¾ in.
The St. John family became Lords of the Manor of Battersea in the
early part of the seventeenth century. Henry, Viscount Bolingbroke,
retired to the manor-house when nearing the end of his career, and died
there in 1751. In 1763 the manor was sold to Lord Spencer, and much
of the house is said to have been pulled down not long afterwards.
The remainder was enclosed in ground attached to a mill built about
1794, and it stands in the premises of the existing flour mill near
the parish church, but is now dilapidated.
This old drawing represents the house much as it was a few years
ago. It contained a panelled room, a good staircase, and remains of
a seventeenth-century plaster ceiling still there in 1920.
_Lent by Mr. P. Norman._