Home Of Compassion
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| last of the Summer Fairs - June 2007. Photo by Lesley |
In 1785-1792 Charlotte Boyle Walsingham had a large and elegant mansion, Boyle Farm, built to replace smaller buildings known as Forde's Farm. Subsequent owners included the Lord Chancellor before it was sold a century ago by Herbert Robertson, church warden of St. Nicholas, to the Reverend Mother of the Community of the Compassion of Jesus. This was a Church of England community caring for the sick and deprived that also occupied the Newlands in Weston Green, where there was an orphanage.
The Sisters added a chapel and cloister and the building became known as the Home of Compassion. When the last surviving Sisters died some forty years ago, the Home of Compassion passed to a Trust under the patronage of the Bishop of Guildford, providing respite care for elderly and frail local people. The Home remained an integral part of life in Thames Ditton, using local suppliers and engaging the willing support of villagers for the Charity Shop and the annual Summer Fair.
Latterly, the Trust planned works to bring the Home up to the standard required by increasingly onerous regulation, but the costs were substantial and when Surrey's NHS authorities withdrew from funding promises, the Trust had to find another solution. A year ago it announced that the Home would be sold to a private operator, Caring Homes, ensuring that this historic, listed building would stay a home of respite. The Trust would use the proceeds to establish a new charity to help fund care for the infirm.
Putting the sale into effect has not been without problems. Covenants meant that residents of Boyle Farm Estate had to approve the acquisition of the Home by a private company. At a public presentation of plans at the Home on 19 July this year, company representatives confirmed that negotiations had concluded with an agreement whereby the inhabitants of the private Boyle Farm Estate would get a strip of land giving access to the river, and a slipway and small pontoon, subject to planning permission being obtained. "The covenants will be altered to allow Caring Homes to acquire and run the Home and in all other respects they will remain as before," the company's Development Director Philip Osborne told us. "This will preclude sale onwards to any other company without approval and should act as a safeguard against the Home's acquisition for unenvisaged purposes."
Caring Homes have worked up plans for extension and modernisation, an investment that will total some £12 million. Architects Scurr and Partners, consulting informally with Elmbridge Council planning officers, have opted for traditional materials and design harmonising with the present listed structure, rather than markedly different, modernistic additions. We asked for images which they kindly supplied: click here for the elevations.
The sale is finalised. Income from the proceeds of just over £3 million will fund a new Trust, Walsingham Care, for local people in need of respite care at home or in nursing homes, including the Home of Compassion, and provide continuity for currently funded inmates of the Home. The new Trust has no plans to engage in fundraising: the Charity Shop will close, and the Summer Fairs have ended. However, the Home's new owners say they'd contemplate villagers using the grounds for similar charitable events if they wish to organise them.
footnote: following the preparation of this article, the Trustees decided that they would in fact continue fundraising for the new trust. The Charity shop reopens at 68 Bridge Rd, East Molesey in early 2009
