A family rooted in the old parish
The King family belongs firmly within the history of Wisborough Green because Loxwood formed the northern part of the old parish for centuries. Their principal residence, first called Greathouse and later known as Loxwood House or Loxwood Hall, stood close to the Surrey boundary in a landscape of farms, woods, chapel property and roads leading towards Alfold and Rudgwick.
The surviving evidence traces the family across nearly four hundred years. Chapel deeds, probate inventories, wills, trustee minutes, newspapers and estate plans record successive Kings as yeomen, landowners, magistrates, county officers, architects and custodians of local records. Their history links the management of land with worship, transport, education, recreation, architecture and the public life of Wisborough Green and Loxwood.
The first trustees and the rise of Greathouse
The King name appears among the trustees of Loxwood Chapel by 1530, when John King of Loxwood was recorded in the administration of the chapel endowment. Later appointments included Richard, John and Walter King. Trustees managed the land, rents and property that supported worship in Loxwood, giving the family a practical responsibility within the parish.
By the early seventeenth century a branch of the family was established at Greathouse. A feoffment dated 13 September 1652 describes John King of Greathouse in Wisborough Green as a yeoman and names his son George and brother Robert. The document concerns chapel property including fields, coppices, cottages and a house near the chapel. A 1659 will appointed John King of Greathouse as an overseer, showing the confidence placed in his judgement within local legal and property affairs.
The language of later deeds records the family’s advance in status. In 1652 John King was described as a yeoman; by 1759 a later John King of Greathouse was styled gentleman. His sons entered the chapel trust alongside members of the Napper, Onslow, Seward and Tribe families. Marriage strengthened these connections, particularly the union of John King and Mary Napper in 1768.
Land, navigation and county office
The Kings participated in the economic development of the wider district. The River Arun Navigation Act of 1785 names John King among the proprietors authorised to improve the river from Houghton Bridge to Pallingham Wharf and extend navigation towards Newbridge. The project connected the northern Weald more effectively with the Arun valley and the coast.
The most prominent member of the next generation was John King of Loxwood House, born in 1770. He served as High Sheriff of Sussex in 1818, became a Deputy Lieutenant and sat as a magistrate at Petworth. Newspaper reports place him on the bench dealing with poor rates, petty offences and parish matters. His public standing reflected the family’s development from substantial rural householders into the county gentry.
John King died at Loxwood House on 26 May 1844. Contemporary reporting remembered his extensive local respect and his support for the labouring poor. His life provides the clearest point at which the King estate, chapel trusteeship and county office came together.
Marriage, music and the Broadwood connection
The family also formed an important connection with the Broadwoods. Charlotte King, daughter of John and Mary King of Loxwood House, married the Reverend John Broadwood at Wisborough Green in 1825. Broadwood later published Old English Songs, one of the earliest important collections of traditional music from the Surrey and Sussex Weald.
This marriage connected the Kings with a family already prominent in music, manufacture and local philanthropy. The relationship reappeared in later generations and in buildings associated with the Broadwood name. It also adds a cultural dimension to the family story: the King network extended beyond land and public office into the preservation of regional song and musical tradition.
The east window at St Peter ad Vincula
The strongest surviving memorial to the family in Wisborough Green is the east window of St Peter ad Vincula. Signed by H. Hughes and dated 1877, the three-light window depicts the Annunciation, the Nativity and the Ascension. It commemorates John King of Loxwood House and places the memory of a leading Loxwood landowner within the parish church that had served the whole historic parish.
The window also forms a visible link between Wisborough Green and Loxwood. The King family had supported the Loxwood chapel endowment for generations, and later members continued that responsibility after Loxwood became a separate ecclesiastical parish in 1873. The memorial glass therefore belongs to the shared religious history of both communities.
John Loxwood King: architect and trustee
John Loxwood King carried the family tradition into Victorian professional life. He trained with Henry Woodyer and then spent several years in the office of Alfred Waterhouse, one of the leading architects of the period. He became an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1882. His professional sponsors included Alfred Waterhouse, James Brooks and Rowland Plumbe.
King’s known architectural work included Tiffin’s Endowed Schools at Kingston, Surbiton Cottage Hospital and Hawkshill Place at Esher, a substantial country house completed in 1883–84. Historic England also attributes the former Charlotte Broadwood Hospital at Capel to him. These commissions show experience in educational, medical and domestic architecture.
His architectural knowledge also served local responsibilities. The Loxwood Chapel trustees’ minute book records his involvement with specifications, repairs, drainage, insurance, cottage property and the custody of deeds. He signed the deed appointing trustees in March 1880, supervised building work and became chairman in March 1895. He resigned the chair in 1899 after years of detailed administrative service.
Rowland Plumbe and the new Loxwood church
John Loxwood King’s professional connection with Rowland Plumbe became especially significant when Plumbe designed the new Church of St John the Baptist at Loxwood. Plumbe had supported King’s admission to the RIBA, and King’s chairmanship of the chapel trustees overlapped the period when the new church project was taking shape.
Construction began in 1900, and the church opened in 1901. The new building provided a permanent parish church and burial ground for Loxwood. Furnishings transferred from the earlier chapel included the font, lectern, desk, harmonium and medieval benches. The project brought together the long history of the chapel trust, the architectural profession and the creation of a distinct parish centre for Loxwood.
The closing years of the estate
The later King ownership of Loxwood House passed through the branch descended from Henry King, a younger son of the High Sheriff. Walter George King died in January 1905, and the estate was subsequently offered for sale.
The sale material describes a residential and sporting estate of about 1,200 acres, with parkland, woodland, lake, shooting, fishing, farms, cottages and extensive domestic accommodation. The division of the estate ended approximately three centuries of continuous King association with Greathouse and Loxwood House, while many farms, roads, woods and field boundaries remained visible in the landscape.
A lasting record
John Loxwood King also preserved the family archive. He supplied John Charles Buckwell with inventories, deeds, the family pedigree, chapel documents and the covenant connected with the High Sheriff’s office. Buckwell used this material in Stories of Loxwood, published in 1914, ensuring that evidence from the private estate papers entered the wider historical record.
The King legacy survives through buildings, documents and memorials. The east window at Wisborough Green commemorates John King of Loxwood House. St John the Baptist at Loxwood preserves the architectural connection between John Loxwood King and Rowland Plumbe. Hawkshill Place and other commissions record King’s professional career, while estate plans retain the shape of Loxwood House, its lake and surrounding farms.
Across four centuries, the Kings moved from chapel trusteeship and yeoman farming to landed status, county office and architectural practice. Their continuing importance rests in that combination of land, worship, public responsibility and historical preservation, all rooted in the old parish of Wisborough Green.
