Place Name
Thought to be named after the mercurial Laurence Hyde (March 1642 – May 2, 1711), 1st Earl of Rochester, who was a statesman and writer. He was originally a supporter of his brother-in-law James II but later supported the Glorious Revolution in 1688. He held high office under Queen Anne, who was his sister’s daughter, but their frequent disagreements limited his influence. Following the Restoration, he sat as Member of Parliament, first for Newport, Cornwall and later for the University of Oxford, from 1660 to 1679. His connection with the local area comes from the fact that he was a tenant at the former Petersham Lodge in Richmond Park, taking it over from Elizabeth, Countess of Dysart, and her husband Sir Lionel Tollemache, following his death. By 1692 Rochester had demolished the Lodge and replaced it with a splendid new mansion in New Park. In 1721, a new Petersham Lodge was built to replace it after a fire. This Petersham Lodge was demolished in 1835. However, a perhaps altogether more celebrated family member may have been remembered here. Catherine Hyde, afterwards Duchess of Queensberry (1701 – June 17, 1777), the 1st Earl’s granddaughter, was an eccentric socialite and a patron of the dramatist John Gay, who lived at the new Petersham Lodge. H M Cundall in Bygone Richmond writes: “It was to this house she moved her share of paintings, known as the Clarendon portraits, books and manuscripts collected by the famous Lord Chancellor. The witty and eccentric Duchess, ‘Kitty beautiful and young and wild as a colt untamed’ of Prior, was one off the most celebrated women of her day. Her wit and kindness of heart won for her the friendship and admiration of the principal men of letters. Her odd whims and freaks, however, strained the forbearance of her friends. So much so that Horace Walpole, her neighbour at Strawberry Hill, on one occasion exclaimed, ‘Ham walls bound my prospect, but thank God the Thames is between me and the Duchess of Queensberry.’ Up to the time of her death she insisted upon dressing in the style in vogue when she was a young girl: according to Swift she showed her contempt for the fashions of the period by refusing ‘to cut and curl my hair like a sheep’s head to to wear one of their trolloping sacks.'”
