Hollywood Lodge
Where: Epsom, Surrey
Built: c. 1760
Architect: Unknown
Abandoned: 2003
Listed: No
Visited: 2009-15
Last Known Condition: Derelict and badly fire damaged. The interior floors collapsed some time in 2013.
Page Updated: March 2016
Standing near to the Christchurch Road west of Epsom is Hollywood Lodge.
This ruined mansion of sandy-hued imitation stone and rendered brick was originally called Horton Lodge
and once stood in landscaped grounds which included a walled garden, stables, ornamental ponds and an
icehouse. It was
built in c.1760 on land from Horton Manor bequeathed by Charles Calvert,
5th Lord Baltimore to John and the Hon. Louisa Browning (the latter being Baltimore's daughter).
Now it is beyond restoration
The Hon. Louisa Browning was widowed in 1792 but continued to live at Horton Lodge until 1814,
when the "elegant modern villa, situate in the centre of its own grounds,
encompassed with beautiful shrubberies and plantations of curious exotics and evergreens"
was offered for lease on a term of nine years. The Hon. Mrs Browning died intestate in 1821, having been
declared insane, and the estate was sold.
In the 1840s, the estate was bought by Henry Willis, a Lombard Street banker, late of Blackfriars; Willis lived between Epsom and London with his wife Eliza, eiight children and 11 staff. He died at Brighton in 1876, leaving the Horton Lodge estate to his son, Henry Willis Jr, who had followed in his father's footsteps at the family firm, Willis, Percival & Co. The younger Willis was a prominent benefactor of local sporting and athletic clubs, and himself an accomplished county cricketer. After Willis' death in 1926, the house was bought by the London County Council to serve as an annexe to the Manor Hospital for patients with intellectual disabilities.
Hollywood Lodge (as it was re-named) later became a care home for the Elderly Mentally Ill under the NHS, but this closed in 2003. Plans to convert the mansion into apartments were shelved by an arson attack in February 2005; the fire destroyed the eastern half of the building's interior and unroofed the upper storey. It spent the next nine years slowly collapsing in on itself and it is now understood that new housing will built on the footprint with only the south and east façades being retained.
Epilogue
In late Summer 2011, Hollywood Lodge had all of its windows and doors bricked up with breeze blocks and the external fire escape removed. This coincided with the demolition works at neighbouring West Park. By Spring 2014 the upper floor had collapsed, filling the downstairs rooms with rubble.