The Earl of Leicester (c1532-1588) was, for a time, the major land owner hereabouts. He had received from Queen Elizabeth I: the estates which had been his father's consisting of Syon on the Brentford bank and the properties that had belonged to the Somersets, the Suffolks and the Greys on the Kew bank; and the lands of the catholic Courtney family. Supposedly an elm on the river bank in what is now the car park for Kew Gardens was the trysting place for his meetings with Queen to which she rode from Richmond Palace. Following the decline in his influence with Elizabeth he sold the Kew estates.

O/S Co-ords:1734.7655
Source(s):

Kew Past