The old Duncombe Farm, now called Duncombe Cottage, still exists and is hidden behind Lovelace’s new Duncombe Farm house, which is shown below.
The old Duncombe Farm House originally belonged to the Archbishop of Canterbury. In 1627 the Snelling family, who were the lease holders, sold off their land including this farm to George Duncombe of Shalford, who had been steward to Lord Montague at West Horsley Place when he was younger. He had most of the old house rebuilt with a brick chimney in situ.
The reason Lord Lovelace was unable to pull the old house down was because some of the Ockham Park farm labourers were living in it. Instead he built the new farmhouse beside the road. There is a tenancy agreement dated 1895 between Captain the Hon LF King-Noel, Lord Lovelaces’s Land Agent, who was also a relation of his, and a farmer from Dorking called Thomas Charman, who was taking over the tenancy of the new Duncombe Farm.
During World War II it became a cake shop and caf?It is now the office of an Insurance Agents.
From the fact that there is a difference in the colour of the flintwork, the house appears to be in two different builds. It is decorated in the usual way with a string course of clay tiles with rose shapes impressed on them, elaborate dentils, the usual metal windows, and the Lovelace family escutcheon, Noel quartered with King, with an earl’s crown above and a diamond shape containing the date of building.
Duncombe Farm Barn – 1867
This is a handsome barn built in the same year as the new farmhouse. During World War II, it is said that the barn was used for storage of several old vehicles, including Malcolm Campbell’s ‘Bluebird’. It is now the Horsley Evangelical Church, founded in 1952.
The barn is decorated with the same string course as the house, and with a row of ‘arrow slits’ below for ventilation.
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