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John Evelyn (October 31, 1620 – February 27, 1706) was a writer, landowner, gardener, courtier, and government official. He is mainly known for his diary, which runs from his student days in 1640 until just before his death. Evelyn visited Henry Coventry at West Lodge. The West Lodge Park Hotel website states: “[Coventry was] an important minister, Secretary of State to Charles II, he lived at West Lodge and was visited there in June 1676 by the writer John Evelyn, who wrote a favourable description of the place in his diary. Henry Coventry’s portrait hangs in the hall at the foot of the main staircase, and John Evelyn’s diary extract is attached.” Evelyn’s diary provides firsthand accounts of major events in 17th-century England, such as the execution of Charles I, Cromwell’s rule, the Great Plague, and the Great Fire of London. Although later overshadowed by Samuel Pepys, Evelyn’s diary, first published in 1818, is still an important historical source showing his varied interests in art, culture, politics, and religion. He was born into a rich family in Surrey, educated at Oxford and the Middle Temple, and traveled widely in Europe during the Civil War. He was interested early in art and science, contributing specimens to the Royal Society and commissioning the carved Evelyn Cabinet. He married Mary Browne, daughter of the English ambassador in Paris, and settled at Sayes Court in Deptford, where he made well-known gardens and discovered the woodcarver Grinling Gibbons. He stayed loyal to the royalists during the Commonwealth and, after the Restoration, held minor posts. He helped found the Royal Society and wrote about pollution, architecture, theology, and coins. Evelyn’s most famous work was Sylva (1664), a treatise urging landowners to plant trees for timber, which influenced forestry and had many editions. He also translated French gardening books, wrote the satirical Fumifugium on London’s smoke, the study Parallel of Ancient and Modern Architecture, and the gardening handbook Elysium Britannicum, published after his death and worked on for decades. His writings reveal him as a devout Anglican, book lover, and active in court society. His interest in gardens included designing pleasure grounds and writing useful horticulture guides. Evelyn inherited the family estate at Wotton late in life. Tsar Peter the Great damaged his Deptford home during a stay. Evelyn died in 1706 at the age of 85.
