Lord Charles Wotton’s mother, Catherine, the eldest of the four daughters and co-heirs of Thomas Lord Wotton, of Wotton in Kent, married for her third husband Daniel O’Neale, Esq., Gentleman of the Bedchamber to Charles II., to whom the grant of Belsize had been renewed in 1660. This lady had married, firstly, Henry, Lord Stanhope,[289] eldest son of Philip, first Earl of Chesterfield, by whom she had one son. Her second husband was Poliander de Kirkhoven, Lord of Hemsfleet in Holland, by whom she also had one son, Lord Charles Henry Kirkhoven, who, on account of his mother’s descent, was created Lord Wotton in 1650; to whom on her demise in 1667, without issue by Mr. O’Neale, her third husband, the grant of the manor and demesne of Belsize was renewed.
Upon the death of Lord Wotton without issue 1682, his half-brother, Philip, Earl of Chesterfield,[290] obtained a renewal of the grant of the estate.
Park states that after Lord Wotton’s death the manor had always been in the occupation of under-tenants. But though the manor might be so let, it seems quite feasible that the mansion and demesne should be retained by the owner. It is hardly to be supposed that the beautiful gardens and the house (which at some period in Charles II.’s time had been rebuilt) would be immediately deserted by the new proprietor. It appears not only possible, but extremely probable, that the second Earl of Chesterfield resided here at times until his death in 1713; and five years afterwards we find that the gardens required putting in order, a proof, I think, that intermediately they had been kept up and attended to. In one of Swift’s letters to Stella, dated September 7, 1710, three years before the death of the second Earl of Chesterfield, he tells her that ‘going into the City to see his old schoolfellow, Straford the Hombourg merchant,’ and turning into the Bull on Ludgate Hill, where they met, the latter forced him to go to dinner with him at his house at Hampstead, ‘among a great deal of ill company, Hoadley (afterwards Bishop) being one of them.’ But he adds, ‘I was glad to be at Hampstead, where I saw Lady Lucy and Moll Stanhope.’ And he notes on the 24th of the same month, ‘I dined to-day at Hampstead with Lady Lucy.’ True, he does not name Belsize; but neither does Pepys when describing Lord Wotton’s gardens. But Evelyn does, and says that O’Neale built Belsize House.
Philip, second Earl of Chesterfield, is said to have sold his interest in the estate. It was either before or immediately after the death of this nobleman that it was let to Mr. Charles Povey, who appears to have been the first tenant.
In 1733 we find the late Earl’s grandson, Philip Dormer Stanhope, fourth Earl of Chesterfield, obtaining a renewal for three lives of the manor and demesne of Belsize; and in 1751 he again procured a renewal of the grant.
The estate continued in the possession of his kinsman, Philip Stanhope, Esq.,[291] son of Arthur Stanhope, deceased, lineally descended from the first Earl of Chesterfield, who succeeded to his titles and estates, till 1807, when, having obtained an Act of Parliament for selling this and several estates, it was jointly purchased by four gentlemen resident at Hampstead,[292] who in the next year divided the estate, containing about 234 acres, into four allotments.
On this partition the mansion of Belsize devolved to James Abel, Esq., the proprietor when Park published his ‘History of Hampstead.’
When Mr. Povey, a retired coal-merchant, entered upon his occupation of Belsize House, he very soon found his possession a white elephant. A man of many grievances against the Whig Government, he strove to avenge them by publishing a violent pamphlet entitled ‘England’s Inquisition; or Money raised by New, Secret, Extinct Law, without Act of Parliament.’ He complained of a series of unjust extortions and persecutions practised upon his person, property, and estate by Commissioners of Excise and others, and enumerates amongst other services and sacrifices he claims to have made for his country, and which had been ungratefully overlooked by those in power, his having refused to let Belsize House to the Duc d’Aumont, the French Ambassador, who had offered him £1,000 per annum for the use of it during his residence in England, being resolved that the new chapel attached to the mansion should not be used as a ‘mass-house.’
Subsequently, in the profoundness of his patriotism, he had made an offer of Belsize to the Prince of Wales, as an occasional retirement or as a constant residence. But though he had taken care to inform the Prince of the tempting offer he had had, and of his self-sacrifice in refusing it for conscience’ sake, his future King (George II.), with scant courtesy, never even honoured him with an answer, though he ‘waited in expectation of it, and kept the mansion house and park unlet for a considerable time.’
In the meanwhile, as I have elsewhere said, Hampstead, under the magisterial rule of Hicks’s Hall, and subjected to the inquisition of the Head-boroughs and their men at unexpected moments, sank rapidly in the affections of the populace. The time for a new place of entertainment was ripe, and Mr. Povey in despair, when one Howell, who appears to have been the Barnum of his day, conceived the idea of converting Belsize House, with its spacious park and beautiful gardens, into a place of amusement for the public on a more than usually magnificent scale. He made his offer, which, after two years of Belsize unlet, Mr. Povey accepted, and one can imagine the disgust society people must have felt on the appearance of the following announcement in Mist’s Journal of April 16, 1720: