Lives in Cricket No 13 - AP Lucas

into the newly fashionable village. In 1838 the coming of the railway to Esher reduced journey times to London, and there was a further influx of wealthy people. Presumably it was this that encouraged the Lucases to move from their rather remote Norfolk village. The journey to Esher station would have been no great problem for a wealthy family able to keep a stable and groom. Loseberry is a large and imposing house which was then set in some fifty acres of its own grounds, and is still an important feature of the Green Belt. The household would not have been able to function without servants. In 1861 there was a nurse, an under-nurse, a cook, a housemaid and a groom. They were all born in Norfolk, which suggests that Orton Lucas took them with him from Ingham, or retained links with the family there. Later censuses show that, although the exact make-up varied, there were usually five or six servants living in the house: a gardener and laundress in the next-door cottage may also have been employed by the Lucases. Orton Lucas died in August 1884, just two months after his daughter Fanny. The family had donated a stained-glass window in Philip’s memory to Holy Trinity church at Claygate, and donated another in memory of Fanny and Orton. 14 In his will, Orton left £58,916, equivalent to over £3.5 14 The Lucas family A comfortable life. Loseberry, at Claygate near Esher in Surrey, was the Lucas family home for nearly forty years in Victorian times. 14 Holy Trinity church, Claygate, List of gravestones to be removed , published by the church in 1997.