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MONKS ORCHARD AND BETHLEM ROYAL HOSPITAL Cont'd

Lewis also had a house in town at 20 Hyde Park Gardens, SW7.
Although only a few garden balustrades remain of the Monks Orchard mansion, his father Edward’s residence, Coombe House, is still in existence.  Named after a Croydon MP, Geoffrey Harris, it is now used as a Day Centre by the Croydon Health Authority. It was a costly venture to save the eighteenth century building but English Heritage advised on the remedial works to conserve it as a Grade II house.  Its icehouse in the grounds is similarly Grade II listed and consists of a domed circular storage chamber half sunk into the ground.

Another historic building close by is Coombe Wood house, now the restaurant, Chateau Napoleon, built by Arthur Lloyd in 1898.  There were three Lloyd brothers although they are not related to the Loyds. Arthur has a striking memorial at St John’s church in a graveyard full of impressive gravestones.  There is also Coombe Farm off Oaks Rd, now a hostel, consisting of a Tudor building with 19th century additions by Herbert Lloyd. To complete the trio there was Frank Lloyd, newspaper magnate who bought Coombe House in 1892 and discovered the Pilgrims Well in the grounds.  Lloyds Park owes its name to these Lloyd brothers.

Since Lewis and Frances had no children of their own, his heir was his brother Edward’s eldest son, Frederic Edward Loyd of Amwell Grove, Ware, Hertfordshire. In the 1920 sale of the Monks Orchard Estate by Frederic, the true extent of the Loyd’s estate can be realised.  There were forty six lots which stretched as far as Long Lane in the west, to Spring Park Woods in the south and down past Oak Lodge along Upper Elmers End Rd to Elmers End. You can see the 1,538 acres listed in the table.

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