Here her ladyship indulged her love for botany by building extensive hot-houses and conservatories, and collecting and introducing into England rare exotics.
“She had purchased,” says her biographer, “a fine old mansion, with extensive grounds well walled in, and there she had brought exotics from the Cape, and was in a way of raising continually an increase to her collection, when, by her fatal marriage, the cruel spoiler came and threw them, like loathsome weeds, away.”
Mr. Lochee, before mentioned, purchased Stanley Grove from the Countess of Strathmore and her husband, Mr. Bowes. It was afterwards occupied by Dr. Richard Warren, the eminent physician, who died in 1797, and who is said to have acquired by the honourable practice of his profession no less a sum than £150,000. In January 1808, Mr. Leonard Morse, of the War Office, died at his residence, Stanley House, and about 1815 it was purchased by the late Mr. William Richard Hamilton, who ranks as one of the first scholars and antiquaries of his day. Between that year and 1840 Mr. Hamilton resided here at various periods, having occasionally let it. He made a considerable addition to the house by building a spacious room as a wing on the east side, in the walls of which casts from the frieze and metopes of the Elgin marbles were let in.
When Mr. Hamilton proceeded as envoy to the court of Naples in 1821, Stanley Grove House became the residence
of Mrs. Gregor, and is thus described by Miss Burney, who was an inmate at this time, in the following playful letter [133] to a friend, dated 24th September, 1821:—
“Whilst you have been traversing sea and land, scrambling up rocks and shuddering beside precipices, I have been stationary, with no other variety than such as turning to the right instead of the left when walking in the garden, or sometimes driving into town through Westminster, and, at other times, through Piccadilly. Poor Miss Gregor continues to be a complete invalid, and, for her sake, we give up all society at home and all engagements abroad. Luckily, the house, rented by Mrs. Gregor from William Hamilton, Esq. (who accompanied Lord Elgin into Greece) abounds with interesting specimens in almost every branch of the fine arts. Here are statues, casts from the frieze of the Parthenon, pictures, prints, books, and minerals; four pianofortes of different sizes, and an excellent harp. All this to study does Desdemona (that’s me) seriously incline; and the more I study the more I want to know and to see. In short, I am crazy to travel in Greece! The danger is that some good-for-nothing bashaw should seize upon me to poke me into his harem, there to bury my charms for life, and condemn me for ever to blush unseen. However, I could easily strangle or stab him, set fire to his castle, and run away by the light of it, accompanied by some handsome pirate, with whom I might henceforward live at my ease in a cavern on the sea-shore, dressing his dinners one moment, and my own sweet person the next in pearls and rubies, stolen by him, during some of his plundering expeditions, from the fair throat and arms of a shrieking Circassian beauty, whose lord he had knocked on the head. Till these genteel adventures of mine begin, I beg you to believe me, dear Miss ---,
“Yours most truly,
“S. H. Burney.”
Theodore Hook notes, in one of his manuscript journals, “5th July, 1826. W. Hamilton’s party. Stanley Grove.”
About 1828, Stanley Grove was occupied by the
Marquess of Queensberry; and, in 1830–31, by Colonel Grant, at the rent, it was said, of £1000 per annum.
On the west side of the house the National Society added a quadrangle, built in the Italian style after the design of Mr. Blore; and, in the grounds near the chapel, an octagonal building as a Practising School, for teaching the poor children of the neighbourhood.