The first mention of the Carew family at Beddington is in 1350s. In 1497, Sir Richard Carew was knighted by Henry VII while his son Nicholas entertained Henry VIII here in 1538 – the same year that Henry finished building Nonsuch Palace, a few miles south-west of Beddington.

But the following year, Carew fell out of favour with the King and was executed for treason at Tower Hill. The property passed to his son Francis –  he was nine years old.

Carew had four sisters, one of whom married Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, ambassador to France. Not much is known about Carew’s character although it is known that he visited his sister and brother-in-law in Paris in 1561. Carew was twice considered as a future ambassador to France but when Sir William Cecil asked Throckmorton whether he believed Carew would be a suitable successor, Throckmorton wrote: ‘although there was in him some meet parts, yet there lacks in him a second and greater degree than to be a good courtier, that is, skill in negotiation, not having been traded nor given thereunto, but chiefly to pleasure.’ Francis’s fame lies in his creation of a garden at Beddington that was so celebrated, it was often grouped with the royal palaces at Nonsuch and Wimbledon.

Although fountains had been used in sixteenth century English gardens, water had not been developed as a feature and it was this element that most impressed visitors to this ‘most lovely garden’. In 1600, Baron Waldstein visited Beddington after seeing Nonsuch and described a square-shaped rock with a stream running underneath it.  He commented on the various statues in the water including one of Polyphome playing his pipes surrounded by animals and a portrayal of Hydra.  Ten years later, Duke of Wurttemberg also visited ‘one of the most pleasant and ornamental gardens in England’ but it was a gentleman from Hesse that gave the most extensive account.  Written in May, 1611, the visitor described an atmospheric garden which was divided up into different areas with little figures around the stream:

In the first garden we saw a very fine fountain with neatly made fishes, frogs etc. swimming in the fountain as if they were alive…in the other garden we saw a great number of figs, oranges, lemons…Not far away ther is a stream of water cheerfully running out of a little hill which is handsomely furnished with all sorts of neatly made animals and little men as though they were alive.  Further down are two little corn mills…driven by the water.  There are also small boats and a little naval vessel lying at anchor on the water.

The visitor from Hesse also described two pleasure houses, one decorated by shells and the other with paintings of ‘Flanders, Holland [and] Zealand.’

Roy Strong argues that one of the pleasure houses was probably situated midstream and as such was one of the first grottoes ever constructed in England. It seems likely that Carew was influenced by the gardens which he saw when in France – he also employed numerous French gardeners. Four pieces of pottery similar to that produced by Bernard Palissy in France during the 1550s have also been found in the stream. Famous for depictions of animals, plants and shells, Palissy decorated the ceramic grotto for Anne de Montmorency at Ecoyen which suggests he also decorated the grotto at Beddington.

Elizabeth I visited Beddington on thirteen different occasions between 1567 and 1600. On one occasion, knowing of the Queen’s fondness for cherries, Carew succeeded in delaying their ripening so that they would be ready for her visit:

[Carew] led her Majesty to a cherry-tree, whose fruit he had of purpose kept back from ripening, at the least one month after all Cherries had taken their farewell of England.  This secret he performed, by straining a Tent or cover of canavas over the whole tree, and wetting the same now and then with a scoop of horn, as the heat of the weather required.

In 1690s, John Gibson visited the garden. He was particularly impressed by the orange and lemon trees which were thirteen feet high and planted in the ground rather than in pots. Housed in a building ‘above two hundred feet long’ they had, according to the gardener, produced over ten thousand oranges the previous year. Apart from a few myrtles growing amongst the citrus trees and ‘a clear silver stream running through it’, Gibson commented that ‘the rest of the garden is all out of order’.

Nothing had changed when John Evelyn visited in 1700:

decaying with the house its selfe, heretofore adorned with ample Gardens, & the first Orange trees that ever were seene in England, planted in the open ground… thus standing 120 yeares large & goodly Trees & laden with fruite, but now in decay as well as the Grotts & other curiosities, cabinets and fountaines in the house & abroade, thro the debauchery & negligence of the Heires….the negligence of a few years, ruining the elegances of many.

After Francis’s death, the gardens were inherited by his brother-in-law, Nicholas Throckmorton who changed his name to Carew.

Gradually the land at Beddington was sold off until 1762 when the Royal Female Orphanage acquired what was left. They occupied the site until 1968 when it was developed into council offices and Carew Academy. It is likely the School stands on the site of the original house.

The orange-house was rebuilt with sash windows and a removable roof sometime in the eighteenth century and although the south side of this building had been demolished by 1820, the northern part still survives. To the right of the avenue  of oak trees leading to Beddington Park is the River Wandle. To the left the ground rises which could signify the remains of a raised terrace as this would have been a good viewing point to see the River stretching away into the distance.