In yesterday’s EastSheenMatters Graham Kench examined the relationship of Sheen House to the London to Brighton Veteran Car Run.

Local historian Raymond Gill talked in 1976 about Sheen House at a meeting of the Barnes and Mortlake History Society. That produced a response from a local resident, shown below, drawing attention to the cycle track and the Run.

For the first annual Commemoration Run in 1897 the Motor Car Club drove from Whitehall Place to the Sheen House Club, described as a distance of about eight miles. For the second Commemoration Run in 1898 the Club again drove to Sheen House. It was described as ‘a much larger and better organised affair than in 1897, [at which] some 280 members of the Club enjoyed a concert and a five course luncheon with fine wines’.

The fin de siecle history of the Sheen House Club may provide one explanation of why it became the destination of choice for the Motor Car Club. The Sheen House Cycling Club Ltd had been formed on 26 November 1896 and became the Sheen House Club the following year.

The Committee comprised the Great (and the Good?).

The prospectus for the Club reads :

“Ex-Queen Isabella of Spain was amongst those who honoured the House by her presence, and in this train came most of the principlal personages of the day……. The class of Members whose names appear on the list of the Sheen House Club, speaks eloquently for the care which has been taken in the Election of Members…….. thus creating a Social Club of high standing, united to one which gives encouragement to all branches of Amateur Athletics. “

It may be safe to assume that most of them had the new-fangled motor cars!

The name Teck is honoured today by the Plantation near Sheen Gate. The Duke of Teck was an Austrian born nobleman, whose wife was a first cousin of Queen Victoria and maternal grandfather of Edward VIII and George VI. He died at White Lodge on 21 January 1900.

Source : Local Studies Lending Library at the Richmond Old Town Hall.