Dorney Court

Dorney Court
Dorney Court, front facade
General information
Type	Stately home

Dorney Court is a grade I listed early Tudor manor house, dating from around 1440, located in the village of Dorney, Buckinghamshire. It is owned and lived in by the Palmer family.

Dorney Manor is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086, as having been held before the Norman Conquest by Aldred, a man of Earl Morcar. In 1086, it was among the lands of Miles Crispin, and his tenant was a certain Ralf. From here it passed successively to families named Cave, Parker, Newnham, Paraunt, Carbonell, Scott, Restwold, Lytton, Bray, and Hill. In 1542, James Hill sold Dorney to Sir William Garrard, later Lord Mayor of London, and ancestor of the Palmer family which still owns and occupies Dorney Court today.

Sir William Garrard, who bought the manor of Dorney from James Hill in 1542, served as Lord Mayor of London in 1555. He died in 1571, and was succeeded by his elder son, also called Sir William Garrard, who died in 1607 to be succeeded by his younger brother, Sir John Garrard.

The daughter of Sir William Garrard was Martha (died 1617), who married James Palmer (later Sir James Palmer, knighted 1629), and Dorney Court was acquired by her husband in 1624. This followed disputes within the Garrard family over the property, centred on Martha's brother Thomas Garrard, who married against the wishes of his father and whose own wife with her family also embroiled him in disputes.

Sir James Palmer (1585–1658), first of the Palmers of Dorney Court, was a younger son of Sir Thomas Palmer, baronet, of Wingham, Kent. He was Gentleman of the Bedchamber to James I and Charles I, Chancellor of the Order of the Garter (from 1645), a personal friend of Charles II, and an artist and miniature painter. He was also an adviser to the royal collection, and governor of the Royal Tapestry Works, Mortlake. His portrait of James I is in the Victoria & Albert Museum collection, his portrait of the Earl of Southampton is in the Fitzwilliam Collection, Cambridge and his portrait of the Earl of Northampton is in the Royal Collection.

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