Galsworthy country: head teacher Kathleen Hayes runs Holy Cross school in the author's old house
  
 
Welcome to the Forsyte Frontier
  
     
 
Leafy Kingston was the setting that inspired John Galsworthy's Victorian saga, says Danny Buckland
The fortunes of the fictitious
Forsyte family were built on
property; grand houses on
London's Park Lane designed
to impress visitors with their owners'
wealth and social standing.
   The millions of television viewers
now gripped by ITV's dramatisation
of John Galsworthy's Victorian saga
have followed solicitor Soames
Forsyte as he builds Robin Hill, the
house of his dreams, southwest of
London. Soames's bitter falling-out
with his architect over a £350
overspend (and interest in his wife)
was the key to last week's episode.
   The costume drama, which peaked
at 10m viewers, has been filmed on
location in Cheshire, Manchester and
Liverpool — but the real bricks and
mortar that helped inspire the story of
a family at love and war still exist in
an affluent enclave of Surrey.
   The names of characters now
familiar in living rooms across
Britain are peppered around leafy
Kingston Hill, where the Nobel
prize-winning Galsworthy was born
and spent his formative years.
   Galsworthy wrote to the local
paper in 1929 about Kingston Hill; in
the 1860s, he said, the area "was very
different — much as I described it in
the opening of The Man of Property"
(the first book of the Forsyte saga).
He said his father was the template for the Old Jolyon character, played by Corin Redgrave in the new drama.
   The fictional Robin Hill is based on three ambitious Victorian houses built by Galsworthy's father, an early practitioner of property speculation
   
   The family lived at various times
in all three of the houses that
Galsworthy built for his burgeoning
property portfolio, but it was Coombe
Leigh the children loved best. It
exists with many of its original
features intact as Holy Cross
Preparatory School, catering for 250
girls aged four to 11.
   Young John Galsworthy's bedroom
is now a Year 4 classroom and Year
6 girls have lessons in the drawing
room, which has views across the
school's eight acres. The library was
once a dining room and the serving
hatch is still visible in one comer.
   It boasted 11 bedrooms and was
staffed by eight indoor and six
outdoor servants. The extensive
grounds featured a cricket pitch and
tennis courts and glasshouses
produced peaches, grapes and
pineapples to grace impressive dinner
parties held by the Galsworthys.
   The building's internal geography
provides a lesson in the structure of a
Victorian household. The north-facing side has small rooms that were used by the servants and the warmer, south-facing rooms are illuminated with huge leaded windows that gaze over the fountain and gardens. The servants' quarters had "pipes fitted and bathroom — no bath", according to original documents.
         "It is a joy to be in a building with
such a history," says head teacher
Kathleen Hayes. "Apart from obvious
adaptations, the house exists in pretty
much the style it did in Galsworthy's
day." Her office is a former butler's
room and is on the chilly side. Her
cupboards are original wardrobes and
the divisions are arranged to allow
for a collection of top hats.
   "They are quite a handy size for
files as well," she notes. "But it is
fascinating to open doors all over this
building and be reminded of the past.
It is clear that a lot of this .house is in
The Forsyte Saga and we know that
he used to sit and relax by the pond
in the grounds to gain inspiration.
   "The TV series is causing renewed
interest, but the girls have not seen it
because it is after the watershed."
   The Galsworthy family sold
Coombe Leigh in 1886 for £12,000.
It was a shrewd reading of the property market by John senior —- it was sold some years later for £7,500.
They moved into central London after John junior finished at Harrow.
    The Man of Property propelled
Galsworthy to fame in 1906. He
produced 20 novels, 27 plays, 173
short stories 'and a library of letters,
essays and poetry. He was awarded
the 1932 Nobel prize for Literature,
but died the following year.
   Other houses on Kingston Hill —
which remains an aspirational venue
for property magnates, businessmen,
showbiz stars and professional
footballers — have names such as
Soames House and Fleur House.
   Kingston Hospital is on
Galsworthy Road and opposite the
main entrance is a modem block
called Forsyte Court. The author's
birthplace, Parkfield, has been
renamed Galsworthy House and is now a nursing home.

-end-

  
     The first house, Coombe Warren,
was demolished shortly after
Galsworthy's death in 1933. Part of
the site is now home to a gated
development of four ultra-modem
houses built by Latchmere Properties,
which have been named after
characters from The Forsyte Saga.
They were recently sold for between
£1.5m and £1.85m. each.
   "The Galsworthy houses were
magnificent and if anything, the TV
series does not do them enough
justice," says Chris Hart, of Knight
Frank, which sold the new
development. "To put them into
perspective, we have a similar house
built in 1870 on Kingston Hill, which
is on the market for £4.5m.
   "Latchmere researched the area
thoroughly at the start of the build
and discovered the Galsworthy
connection. We used the Forsyte theme for the houses because the
heritage is important."
   John Galsworthy senior was a
solicitor with ambitions. He bought a
93-year lease on 24 acres of land
from the 2nd Duke of Cambridge in
what was farmland on the edge of
Richmond Park, and started to build.   His son John was born during a
violent thunderstorm in August 1867,
the second of four children.		    
Scenes from ITV's Forsyte Saga