History

“At last, the famous St George’s Hill at Weybridge, in Surrey has come on to the market, and is to be developed for the erection of a limited number of high-class country houses on lines worthy of its traditions. The Estate consists of nearly a thousand acres of high and finely wooded land, the greater elevations commanding superb views over the surrounding country. Weybridge can be reached in half an hour from Waterloo by numerous fast trains that bring it within easier reach of the Metropolis than many other favourite residential towns that lie nearer London.”

WG Tarrant

1911

W. G. Tarrant buys 964 acres of land

In 1911, Surrey master builder W. G. Tarrant bought 964 acres of land on St George’s Hill, Weybridge, from the Egerton family, and set about planning his ideal residential estate, where wealthy professionals and captains of industry could enjoy peace and privacy in surroundings of natural beauty. Facilities for sport and exercise were an essential element of Tarrant’s vision, and he immediately commissioned golf course designer H. S. Colt to create a private 18-hole course on the estate.

1911

1912

Planning approved

The first plans, for two houses and an estate office at Weybridge station, were approved by Weybridge Urban District Council on 3rd April 1912; plans for a further three houses and an entrance lodge at Byfleet Road were approved by the Council on 1st June 1912; all the houses were near the main entrance in Byfleet Road, now Brooklands Road. Tarrant’s system was to build three houses at the same time, with a gang of about a hundred men under one foreman. The men worked a ten-hour day, 56 1/2 hours a week, from 6 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. Mondays to Fridays, with half an hour off 8 to 8.30 a.m. and one hour from 1 to 2 p.m., and from 6 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturdays, with half an hour’s break.

Text © Mavis Swenarton 1993

1912

1913

Tarrant’s workforce 5000 strong

In 1913 the wages for labourers were 6d an hour, for bricklayers and carpenters 81/2d, and for plasterers 9d an hour, plastering being skilled and heavy work; thatchers received one shilling an hour. Tarrant’s workforce is said to have numbered about 5000 in the 1920s, with an administrative staff of around seventy.

1913

1914

Outbreak of war

Development on St. George’s Hill continued steadily until the outbreak of war in August 1914. By October 1914 Tarrant was under contract to the Director of Works (France) to build portable wooden huts for the British Expeditionary Force.

1914

1916

Women trained as carpenters

In 1916, when the shortage of timber and labour in France had become acute, he trained women carpenters at his works at Byfleet to build the huts, which were then dismantled and shipped across the Channel, while the women travelled to France to re-assemble them.

1916

1920

High building standards continue

The early houses built by Tarrant on St. George’s Hill were mostly of three storeys and several were very large and imposing. The houses built in the 1920s on St. George’s Hill and Wentworth Estate were mostly smaller, of only two storeys, but built to an equally high standard.