This site was previously occupied by an Elizabethan red-brick building known as Bowling Green House. In 1613 Hugh Myddelton, constructed the New River, the course of which bisected the land around the house.
In 1724 Michael Garnault (d 1746) purchased the property which stayed in the family until 1809 when Anne Bowles ((1771 - 1812, neé Garnault) inherited it. She had married Henry Carrington Bowles (1763 - 1830) in 1799. Bowles was one of five generations of print and map-makers, based at St Paul’s Churchyard.
When Anne died in 1812 Bowles replaced Bowling Green House with Myddelton House, completed in 1818 by George Ferry & John Wallen. The house was named in honour of Hugh Myddelton.
c.1900 the gardens were created by E. A. Bowles, whose life and works are the subject of a museum in the grounds. The gardens are now (2020) open to the public. The New River was diverted to another course in 1968.
The listing entry is informative and gives some later history of the house, as follows: "The property stayed in the Bowles family until it was inherited by Henry Carrington Treacher through the female line in 1852, on the condition that he assume the surname of Bowles. Edward Augustus Bowles (1865-1954) resided at his father's house and from the 1890s began to develop the gardens there. From 1895, his brother, Henry Ferryman Bowles (1858-1943) lived at Forty Hall, which had been purchased for him in that year by his father. H C Bowles died in 1918 and E A Bowles inherited the property.
"Bowles died in 1954 and the gardens and house were transferred jointly to the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine and to the University of London's School of Pharmacy. The gardens were managed under the guidance of a Gardens Advisory Committee chaired by the garden writer Frances Perry. In 1968 the gardens and house were sold to the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority {see Alec Roy}, who use it as their headquarters. The School of Pharmacy Department retained the kitchen gardens and the Royal Free Hospital retained the fields, to be used as sports pitches. Since 1984 many of the garden areas have been restored by the garden team in the style of Bowles, with a restoration date of c 1920."
Henry Carrington Bowles Treacher (1830 - 1918, Governor of the New River Company) married Cornelia Bowles and changed his name to Henry Carington Bowles Bowles in order to inherit Myddelton House. See William Burdett-Coutts for more people who have changed their names as a condition of inheritance.
We believe the family who have owned this property have always had a close business relationship with the New River Company. For example, Samuel Garnault (d.1827) was treasurer of the New River Company "for more then twenty two years".
Building London reports that until his death in 1954 Bowles lived in the house without electricity, gas or water.
