Weybridge is the home of several estates which were the product of the celebrated collaboration between architects Eric Lyons and Ivor Cunningham and the developer Span.

Construction of Holme Chase started in 1964 and concluded in 1966. The estate was built on the site of two old houses – the eponymous Holme Chase and Orchard Syde. Along with nearby Brackley, Castle Green, Templemere and Weymede, it was built to offer attractive, accessible and modern housing in carefully designed landscape. The highly influential and sometimes contraversial work of Lyons and Span is featured in an excellent 1969 edition of the BBC Omnibus programme, in which Lyons rails against the ‘four houses an acre’ conservatism typical of Surrey suburbia.

Holme Chase features in the Surrey volume of Pevsner’s The Buildings of England. Critic Ian Nairn, who wrote much of that volume, describes ‘exclusive small estates built recently in older gardens, the best by Eric Lyons of Span’. He describes Holme Chase as having ‘cottagey terraces, again of yellow brick, with much stepping back and monopitch and butterfly roofs of different heights’.

Each original purchaser bought a 99 year lease of the house and private rear garden and usually the garage. Ownership of the rest of the estate – referred to as the grounds – resided with the landlord. The properties were – and remain – for resident owners, who were to manage the estate through an elected committee of the Residents Society. Each purchaser was required to become a member of the society through the purchase of a £15 share. Purchasers were not to make changes to the external appearance of the buildings or grounds without the permission of the landlord. As is the case today, the Society was responsible for looking after the grounds, window cleaning and exterior painting to ensure a high standard of maintenance and appearance across the estate.

In 1967 leasehold reform gave leaseholders the right to buy the freehold on their home, which over time everyone did. As part of this process, the landlord transferred the grounds to the Society which now manages their appearance and collective amenity.

The homes were highly popular with young professionals, some of whom moved on to the estate in the 1960s and remain here today. They have been joined by families of all ages who continue to enjoy the peaceful setting, beautiful grounds and sense of community.