In 1850, Samuel Jones Loyd was Commissioner for the Great Exhibition and Senator of London University.  He sold Wickham Park, Spring Park farm, Eden farm and the Rising Sun with its cottages to his cousin Lewis in 1853 and in 1861 he had a new house built in Northants called Overstone Park at the wish of his wife, Harriet. His wife died just over three years later and from then he preferred to live with his daughter at Lockinge or in London in Carlton Gardens.  He was declared in 1865 as one of the wealthiest people in the world with a fortune of five million pounds.

The Dower House remains something of a mystery.  The 1851 census shows Wickham Park to be a house of considerable size but the Dower House described in the 1920 Monks Orchard sale is much smaller with only two bedrooms. Perhaps Lewis Loyd had the old house replaced by a house more suitable for his wife than his Monks Orchard mansion upon his death.  Hence the name “Dower” House although Lewis’s widow was still living at the mansion according to the 1901 census. The present Dower House was built in about 1929 but is likely to disappear with the proposed extension of the hospital.  Let us hope that the tulip tree, Liriodendron tulipa, in the garden survives the upheaval.

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