Place Name
Mount Ararat House was built at Richmond Hill in the 1740s by Thomas H Warren and leased almost immediately by Daniel Wray a trustee of the British Museum. Given the importance to antiquity of Mount Ararat as the resting place of Noah’s Ark, it’s uncertain which of the two men named the property. Wray (1701 – 1783) was an antiquary and Fellow of the Royal Society and after graduating from Cambridge University spent a long period living in Italy before moving to Richmond following his marriage to Mary Dorell who already lived in the parish. The house appears on a map of 1771 but is not named. However it does feature in an advert of 1803: “A MOST desirable COPYHOLD FAMILY MANSION, pleasantly situate on a gentle eminence at Mount Ararat, Richmond, Surrey; the property and late residence of Mrs. WRAY, deceased, rich in luxuriant prospects extending to Harrow, commanding the view of the Pagoda at Kew, and encompassed in part with a few noble elm trees, standing for 2 carriages, stabling for 8 horses, lawn, pleasureground, laid out in walks, planted with choice shrubs, an excellent kitchen garden, a considerable range of walls cloathed with full-bearing fruit trees, gardener’s cottage and orchard; comprising in the whole 3 acres, part freehold; together with near 3 acres of profitable pasture land, immediately opposite the mansion, held on lease.” In the late 1840s the house was occupied by Field Marshall Thomas Grosvenor who served in the Army during the French Revolutionary Wars and was a Member of Parliament. He died at Mount Ararat on June 20, 1851. The final known occupant of the house was Admiral Robert Stopford (1811 – 1891) a distinguished Royal Navy officer who was Commander-in-Chief of the Channel Squadron. He lived at Mount Ararat from the early 1870s until his death. The house eventually demolished sometime around 1897 and the road laid out.
