Denbies

Denbies is a large estate to the northwest of Dorking in Surrey, England. A farmhouse and surrounding land originally owned by John Denby was purchased in 1734 by Jonathan Tyers, the proprietor of Vauxhall Gardens in London, and converted into a weekend retreat. The house he built appears to have been of little architectural significance, but the Gothic garden he developed in the grounds on the theme of death achieved some notoriety, despite being short-lived. The estate was bought by Lord King of Ockham following Tyers's death in 1767, and the macabre artefacts he had installed, including two stone coffins topped by human skulls, were removed.

Joseph Denison, a wealthy banker, purchased the estate in about 1787, and it remained in the Denison family until 1849, when it passed to Thomas Cubitt, a master builder. At the time, Cubitt was working on Osborne House for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and the mansion he designed to replace the old one was a more modest version of Osborne. It was, however, still a substantial building, in the Italianate style, with almost 100 rooms on three storeys. In the nineteenth century Denison and later Cubitt served as local Members of Parliament, for West Surrey.

The payment of death duties and the difficulty of maintaining a large domestic estate during the Second World War forced the family to begin selling parcels of land. Cubitt's mansion was abandoned until its demolition in 1953, by which time the family was living in a Regency-style house converted from the housing of the garden and stable staff in more affluent times.

What remained of the estate – about 635 acres (2.57 km²) – was put on the market in 1984 and bought by Biwater, a water-treatment company. Two years later the company chairman Adrian White established Denbies Wine Estate, using 268 acres (1.08 km²) on a south-facing piece of land to plant vines.