History of the house and the Bowles family

Image credit: RHS collection

Bowles had Huguenot ancestors - the Garnaults – who lived in Bowling Green House, an Elizabethan building that stood near this site. The Garnaults settled in England in the late 17th century after they fled from religious persecution in France. They made their fortune as craftsmen jewellers and went on to use their wealth to buy controlling shares in the New River Company.

At around the same time, the Bowles family were working as printers and publishers in St Paul’s Churchyard, in London. They produced maps, portraits and political cartoons - including William Hogarth’s famous series, The Rake’s Progress.

The two families were united in February 1799, when Henry Carrington Bowles married Anne Garnault. Anne inherited the Bowling Green House Estate. She died in 1812, when she was only 41. After her death, and despite his success in business, Henry Carrington Bowles felt ashamed of being associated with “trade”,. And he wanted to escape his title: Mr Bowles of Bowling Green House! He demolished the Elizabethan house and replaced it with a smarter more imposing, fashionable, yellow brick residence. The new family home was named Myddelton House - after Sir Hugh Myddelton, the imaginative engineer who built the New River. A section of that river used to flow through the garden.