Model of Walton Manor House

Standing for more than six centuries, this medieval manor house is the oldest surviving building in the Elmbridge area, thought to have been built around 1400. It originally served as the manor house of Walton Leigh at the heart of a working estate that shaped the surrounding landscape.

Model of Walton Manor House (81.1971)

In 1537, during the reign of Henry VIII, the manor was purchased by the Crown. Centuries later, following the agricultural enclosures of the early 1800s, much of the land around the house was sold off for farmland. The once important manor was gradually let to tenants. By the 1870s it had fallen into a state of serious neglect. 

Just before the outbreak of the First World War, the building was saved from ruin by Mr Lowther Bridger. He restored the house and offered it to Walton Urban District Council as a potential council office. The offer was declined. In 1937 the house was once again offered to Surrey County Council as a gift, on condition that Walton and Weybridge Urban District Council paid for its upkeep. This offer was also declined.  

The manor’s fortunes finally changed after the Second World War when a series of private owners took on the challenge of restoring the building. Over time they carefully brought it back to something close to its original medieval character.  

In 1972 the Victorian cottages of Manor Place, that had obscured the frontage of the house, were condemned as unfit for habitation and demolished. For the first time in over a century, the manor’s frontage could be seen once again.

Today the house remains in private ownership, but it is occasionally opened to the public, offering a rare glimpse into one of Elmbridge’s most remarkable surviving pieces of medieval heritage. 

This model of Walton Manor house came into the museum’s collection in 1971. It was made by Mr C. Ross of Weybridge.