Catalogue description WEST HILL ESTATE

Many, of the deeds relate to these purchases of the main estate. Others relate to additional purchases, each with their supporting title deeds of earlier date referring to previous owners. There is a series of members pencilled on the majority of these later deeds, and this order has been strictly maintained in this list.

The following groups of deeds were tied in bundles:

D1/16-29

D1/34-50

D1/52-55

D1/56-65

British Records Association deposit no. 2355 from Collyer-Bristow, solicitors.

• Sutherland-Leveson-Gower family of Sutherland, Dukes
• Pitt family of Barons Rivers
• Rainsford-Hannay family of Kirkdale
• Rucker family of Wandsworth

These are the main title deeds for the West Hill Estate, Wandsworth, which extended from West Hill in the north to what are now Gressenhall Road and Granville Road in the south. Later additions extended it on the west to Tibbets Corner, and on the east and south-east into South Field. Later still, a large part of the Spencers' Wimbledon Park was added to the south. The deeds end with this purchase by the second Duke of Sutherland in 1838. In the next decade the estate was purchased by John Augustus Beaumont for building development.

The estate was first purchased, as part of the demesne of the manor of Downe, from the Duke of Bedford in 1759. The new owner was Mrs Penelope Pitt, wife of George Pitt (who later became Lord Rivers) and sister and heiress of Sir Richard Atkins of Clapham Bt. She sold it in 1786 to Sir Samuel Hannay, a Scottish baronet. Mrs Pitt had built a mansion house called West Hill House on the estate, but had not extended the grounds. John Anthony Rucker, a merchant originally from Hamburg, who bought the estate in 1789, and all later owners added to the lands by purchase.

In 1804 Daniel Henry Rucker inherited the estate from his uncle; it was settled in trust on his marriage to Caroline Gardiner in 1805, and eventually put on sale by public auction in 1825. The main purchaser, by private contract before the auction, was George Granville Leveson-Gower, Marquess of Stafford, later 1st Duke of Sutherland. He, through his wife the Countess of Sutherland in her own right had added most of the county of Sutherland to his vast estates in the north of England.

On his death in 1833, his son the second Duke inherited.

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