The Sale of Oatlands - 19 May 1846

This sale  is, far and away, the most important single event in the history of Oatlands as a village. It marks the 'birth of Oatlands' as a village - every building in what we would now consider to be "Old Oatlands", as a community seperate from the mansion, is built on a plot that changed hands on the 19th of May 1846 or immediately afterwards.

Fortunately virtually all the information necessary to to determine exactly what happened at this sale has been preserved, though some of it lies well hidden within the large number of boxes containing the uncatalogued documents known as "The Ball Hughes Papers" at Surrey History Centre.

Of the 64 lots offered, only nine do not have a purchaser listed against them in the book of sale agreements - these were:

Lot 1  - Oatlands. A Renowned & Magnificent Mansion House with 97 Acres
Lot 2   - Oatlands Farm.
Lot 36 - A very desirable & valuable Plot of Building Ground.
Lot 37 - Another very desirable Plot for Building.
Lot 40 - A very valuable Parcel of Walled Kitchen Garden.
Lot 41 - A valuable and compact Parcel of Rich Arable and Meadow Land.
Lot 61 - A valuable Parcel of meadow land and eyot.

The remaing two lots were sold shortly after the sale, as the do not appear in subsequent sales:

Lot 28 - A valuable Plot for Building. Purchased after the sale by W G Lyle - the actual date is currently unknown.
Lot 29 - ,Another similar Plot, adapted for Building.. Purchased after the sale by J W Peppercorne - the actual date is currently unknown.

Once again the newspaper reports of the sale in the press were a little wide of the mark, reporting that the entire estate as sold for a total of £64,496, exclusive of the timber which was claimed to have raised a further total of £6,142. The actual total according to the book of Sales Agreements was £41,610 with the timber accounting for a further £3,615