Chessington
Samuel Crisp
1707-1783
Chesington Hall, (now Chessington) about 12 miles south-west of London, was where “Daddy Crisp” lived. Poor Samuel Crisp had retreated there bruised and broke after having spent most of his money travelling in Europe, entertaining in Hampton, disappointed over the failure of his play “Virginia” and suffering from gout.
Lord Macauley gave a rather unsympathetic account of him in an article he wrote on Fanny, but it provides an interesting picture:
“She [Fanny] began to keep a diary, and she corresponded largely with a person who seems to have had the chief share in the formation of her mind. This was Samuel Crisp, an old friend of her father. His name, well known, near a century ago, in the most splendid circles of London, has long been forgotten. His history is, however, so interesting and instructive, that it tempts us to venture on a digression. Long before Frances Burney was born, Mr. Crisp had made his entrance into the world, with every advantage. He was well connected and well educated. His face and figure were conspicuously handsome; his manners were polished; his fortune was easy; his character was without stain; he lived in the best society; he had read much; he talked well; his taste in literature, music, painting, architecture, sculpture, was held in high esteem. Nothing that the world can give seemed to be wanting to his happiness and respectability, except that he should understand the limits of his powers, and should not throw away distinctions which were within his reach in the pursuit of distinctions which were unattainable.”
[Referring to his attempt as a playwright).
Dr Burney, however, wrote a much more affectionate tribute in an article on the Harpsicord in the encyclopaedia of Abraham Rees:
“The first harpsichord with hammers brought to England was made by an English monk at Rome, Father Wood, for an English friend (the late Samuel Crisp, Esq., of Chessington, author of Virginia, a tragedy) and a man of learning and exquisite taste in all the fine arts.”
This instrument which was in fact an early pianoforte, had to be sold along with Mr Crisp’s books, prints, pictures and other works of art when he got into debt. It was sold to Greville Fulke (for whom Charles Burney had worked as a young man) for 100 guineas. And in his epitaph on Samuel Crisp, Dr. Burney wrote of how great a part he might have played -
‘Had he through life been blest by Nature kind With health robust of body, as of mind.’
What was said about Chessington Hall
“A solitary mansion belonging to an old friend (of Mr Crisp), Christopher Hamilton, who, like himself, had lost the battle of life, and desired to be considered as dead to mankind….Chesington Hall, which thenceforth became the joint residence of this pair of hermits, stood on an eminence rising from a wide and nearly desolate common, about midway between the towns of Epsom and Kingston; the neglected buildings were crumbling to pieces from age, having been begun in the same year in which Wolsey laid the first stone of Hampton Court; and the homestead was surrounded by fields, that for a long period had been so ploughed up as to leave no road or even regular footpath open across them. In this hiding-place Crisp fixed his abode for the rest of his life. So isolated was the spot that strangers could not reach it without a guide. Directions were only given to particularly close friends, mainly the Burney family.”
“It stood (now stands only in a drawing by Edward Burney) in pure air, on high ground rising gradually from a wide common. It had many spacious rooms, large gardens wide ‘prospects’ over a charming country ample supplies of milk and chicken, eggs and fruit..….That Chesington could not be reached by an carriage-road; that there was only one tolerable track across the common for Dr. Burney’s occasional post-chaises; that Hook Lane and Gascoign Lane lay deep in mud all winter; that Mr Thrale must use four horses when he drove to Chesington, from which his own Streatham could be seen with a telescope, as Chesington could be from Epsom when Fanny used her glass; that there was no regular delivery of letters except by the baker, that “the Parson” brought them , or anyone else who came from Kingston, were grievances not peculiar to Chesington…”
“My father had your Letter from the Parson – I was in such a hurry for it that I persuaded Kitty to walk with me to meet him – He asked us if we were going to fetch a walk! Surely Fielding never drew a more poor creature this man among his Country Parsons!
(The “Parson”, was the curate at Chesington, Thomas Fisher. He brought the mail on Sundays.)”
There was anxiety when Susan Burney was to come to Chesington by coach “as there was only one safe route across the wild common.” Fanny was able to describe the inside of the Hall by way of an entry in “Memoirs of Doctor Burney” about a visit of the Thrales and Dr. Johnson who, she says, were much entertained by the place itself, which they prowled over with gay curiosity.
“Not a nook or corner; nor a dark passage ‘leading to nothing’; nor a hanging tapestry of prim demoiselles and grim cavaliers; nor a tall canopied bed tied up to the ceiling; nor japan cabinets of two or three hundred drawers of different dimensions; nor an oaken corner-cupboard, carved with heads, thrown in every direction, save such as might let them fall on men’s shoulders; nor a window stuck in some angle close to the ceiling of a lofty slip of a room; nor a quarter of a staircase, leading to some quaint unfrequented apartment; nor a wooden chimney-piece, cut in diamonds, squares, and round knobs, surmounting another of blue and white tiles, representing, vis-à-vis, a dog and a cat, as symbols of married life and harmony; missed their scrutinizing eyes. They even visited the attics, where they were much diverted by the shapes as well as the quantity…they peeped also through little window casements, of which the panes of glass were hardly so wide as their clumsy frames to survey long ridges of lead that entwined the motley spiral roofs of the multitude of separate cells, rather than chambers that composed the top of the mansion; afforded from it a view sixteen miles in circumference of the adjacent country.”
The original house built around 1520, and this one, described by Fanny, was demolished in 1832 and replaced by a new house. The 1832 house was in turn demolished in 1946 when the estate was purchased by a compulsory purchase order of Kingston Borough Council. A housing estate was built on the estate with suburban cul-de-sacs and a safari adventure park.
Life at Chessington
cousin Charles Burney husband of Hetty
Portrait by Richard Burney of Fanny in Vandyke gown
Cecilia: or Memoirs of a Heiress
After the enormous success of Evelina, Fanny, fearful of living up to it, turned to a different literary form – a play; but after the first reading at Chesington, she was persuaded by Mr Crisp and her father to abandon it. Using some of the characters from the aborted play, she started on a novel. Cecilia, the heroine, was transferred into an orphaned heiress looking for a husband who would change his name to hers upon marriage. In various attempts to get on with her writing, Fanny stayed at Chesington and as she always did, she listened and observed the minutiae of their daily life. Although she tells her father that when she looks at the world she sees “astonishing contrariety of opinions, and bigoted adherence of characters to their own way of thinking” surely it wasn’t the world of Chesington she was referring to though she is very amusing in her letters and diary entries from there. She worked on this novel over two years eventually producing it in 5 volumes totalling 900 pages. It was published in July 1782 and despite its length, became even more popular than “Evelina.”
Edmund Burke, the great Irish statesman and philosopher, was so delighted with it that he asked Sir Joshua Reynolds to invite Fanny to dinner so he could meet her. Afterwards he wrote a most flattering letter to her with one line particularly agreeable to her “In an age distinguished by producing extraordinary women, I hardly dare to tell you where my opinion would place you amongst them.” It was her skill in making her characters known by their own words which he admired.
Favourable, long reviews and word-of-mouth praise from the Queen downwards through the Dowager Duchess of Portland and Mrs Delany ensured that the first edition of 2,000 copies sold out in a few months. One of the final lines of the book is:
“The whole of this unfortunate business…has been the result of Pride and Prejudice”.
Later used by Jane Austen who greatly admired Fanny’s novels and was a subscriber to the next of Fanny’s novels, Camilla. There are other references in Jane Austen’s novels to characters in Fanny’s such as Miss Larolles in Cecilia. In Persuasion, Jane Austen has Ann Elliot, comparing herself to the “inimitable Miss Larolles” contriving to sit at the end of the bench so Captain Wentworth would come over but “without much happier effect”. And in Northanger Abbey:
“And what are you reading, Miss — ?” “Oh! It is only a novel!” replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. “It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda”; or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.”
According to Dr Johnson one could hear in Cecilia
“The free flow of London Talk”
“A Camera Obscura in a window of Piccadilly”
-As described by Mrs Thrale
My Trip to Chessington
After months of Covid 19 lockdown, a friend and I set out on a beautiful June morning to look at the places in Surrey associated with Fanny Burney. We started with Chessington only an hour from central London by car on the A3 motorway. Despite the sunshine, it was rather depressing driving through endless lines of suburban shops and houses. How very different from Fanny’s description of the muddy, wild, wooded route. We came off the A3 at Hook Road which we followed past number 207, Enid Blyton’s house with a currently endangered blue plaque (her books being regarded as racist and xenophobic by challengers) passing many signs to Chessington World of Adventures (theme park, zoo and hotel complex). There being no longer any Hall, the estate having been bought up by the local authority for housing development, and where amidst the cul de sacs would there be any remains we couldn’t imagine, so we aimed for St. Mary the Virgin C of E church which Fanny could walk to and whose Parson would bring mail up to the Hall (in the map above, the straight path between church and Hall is shown). After winding around two lane streets, following buses, trucks and other cars we found the pretty church on a curved corner of Garrison and Church Lanes. It is a Grade II listed building. The grounds of the church were looking lovely with flowering beds and tall, old evergreen trees and a couple of Yews with gravestones tucked amongst them. But leading away from one side of the burial area was an absolute oasis of peace and harmony created by trees, wild flowers, tall grasses extending past the backs of a series of houses and opening up into a larger area the size of a football field dotted with gravestones. However tucked amongst the graves was a notice - Garden of Remembrance.
The church was locked and there was no sign of the vicar so we could not look inside for the grave of Samuel Crisp with its moving inscription by Charles Burney or the graves of the other residents of Chesington Hall. Looking around the adjacent streets we searched for a clue to the path to the Hall. Maybe along what is now a street with blocks of flats on either side. There was certainly no feeling of being “on an eminence rising from a wide and nearly desolate common”.
So we decided to find a cup of coffee. Not an easy task, not a shop in sight and what with the street being blocked by a rubbish truck, then buses it was some time before we were back on the A243 (Hook Road) with a line of shops including a café offering full breakfast. Not great coffee, but the Halal shop next door was a source of delicious fruit and vegetables for us to take home.
Next stop Mickleham.
