Ashtead Park

About

Ashtead Park is a 24.2-hectare (60-acre) Local Nature Reserve in Ashtead in Surrey. It is owned by Mole Valley District Council. It contains several important listed buildings. The Park itself has remains of a Roman building, four lakes/ponds and the school's playing fields and is Grade II listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.

In 1563, Queen Elizabeth I granted the manor at Ashtead to Henry Fitzalan, 12th Earl of Arundel. It passed into the hands of the Howard family through his daughter Lady Mary FitzAlan, who married Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk. Their son, Philip Howard, 13th Earl of Arundel, inherited his grandfather's land and title, uniting the Howards with the Arundel estates. Owing to their Catholic faith, the Howards later had their titles and lands attainted by Elizabeth, but they were restored in 1603 when the Stuarts took the throne. In 1680, Henry Howard, 7th Duke of Norfolk sold Ashtead to a distant cousin Sir Robert Howard (son of Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Berkshire), a playwright who lived primarily in London. At this time, the manor house was a timber building of "considerable antiquity" dating no later...