Esher Place

Esher Place is a Grade-II listed country house, since 1953 used as a college by the trade union Unite, in Esher, Surrey, United Kingdom. The building is at least the fourth on approximately the same site and mainly dates to the 1890s. It incorporates traces and small parts of some its earlier forebears.

The first recorded predecessor was acquired by or for Peter des Roches, Bishop of Winchester, for his bishopric, early in the 13th century. The house was torn down in the latter half of the 15th century by William Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester and Lord Chancellor, to make way for a large brick residence that stands today). Cardinal Wolsey, who possessed Esher Place as Bishop of Winchester, was kept under house arrest here after his fall from power. The estate was then seized by Henry VIII, restored to the Bishop of Winchester by Mary I, and the lease was then re-purchased by the Crown under Elizabeth I, who granted it to her Lord High Admiral, Lord Howard of Effingham, who granted it to Sir Francis Drake's cousin Richard Drake. After the defeat of the Spanish Armada, three captured Spanish admirals and their retinue were held at Esher for over five years. It remained in the Drake family until 1634. Over the next 75 years, the house which had more land than today was held by at least seven individuals, the last two being Sir Thomas Lynch, an early English governor of Jamaica, and John Latton, a pluralistic office-holder under William III .

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