Kingswood Lodge

Original titleKingswood Lodge, Coopers Hill, Surrey, Seat of Bickerwycke, esq. 
Year painted1805
Museum reference numberP258
Address and postcodeKingswood Hall Royal Holloway, University of London, Coopers Hill Lane, Englefield Green, Egham, TW20 0LG
Listed building numbern/a
Construction date of building depicted and major alterationsSaid to have been built by William Smith. Late seventeenth century. It was much enlarged and extended sometime between 1811 and 1821.
History of ownership/residents and useKingswood Lodge was built by William Smith. In 1803 it was purchased by Gideon Bickerdike, a wealthy Dutch cotton merchant based in Manchester. Bickerdike died in 1811 at Kingswood. 

The house was later owned by John Reid, a partner in the successful Reid and Meaux brewery in London. Reid died in 1821 and bequeathed the estate to his wife Ann. She erected Reid’s almshouses in memory of her husband. Ann married her second husband, Major Charles Stewart, sometime after 1832 and is recorded as living as a widow at Kingswood by 1842. 

By 1849 Kingswood Lodge was occupied by John Remington Mills, a Liberal Party politician and silk manufacturer. Mills was an active member of the Egham Congregational Church and a member of the Religious Freedom Society.

By 1871 Kingswood Lodge was owned by merchant William Bignall Eastwood. Eastwood died in 1891 and left Kingswood to his wife Emelyn and, after her death, to his son from a previous marriage, William Walter Rashleigh Eastwood.
Location’s present statusNow the site of Royal Holloway’s Kingswood Hall
Links and referencesSurrey History Centre: Sale particulars from 1803 SHC G85/2/1/1/51