Foxlease 02
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. . . she desired is still a secret, but tradition tells that King Charles planted a tree in the garden on the hill behind the house.
After this incident there comes a long period of silence. The lady, her husband and the King himself passed on. Only the house remained and the little tree, a Scots Pine, sprouting upwards year by year.
Somewhere about 1770 the house came to life again. The owner then was Sir Phillip Jennings-Clarke, a man of taste according to his day and of a firm intention. It is on record that he built Foxlease as we know it today. How much remained in his time of the old Tudor building is not known. He left the hall and the two front rooms to bear witness that there had been a house before him, but whether he demolished much or found a ruin cannot be said. What he actually did or caused to be done is beyond doubt. The house rose up in white stucco, two storied, well proportioned and, in all probability, much enlarged. Of the interior decoration there is a great thing to tell. Sir Phillip had a friend, Mr. Horace Walpole, whose villa at Strawberry Hill had been decorated, in the latest style and the best . . .
