W.G. Tarrant – Master Builder
If you have heard of “Tarrant Houses”, you probably associate them with St Georges Hill, Weybridge or Wentworth Estate, Wentworth. Indeed, Walter George Tarrant’s firm, W G Tarrant Limited, did develop both St Georges Hill and Wentworth Estate.
The 964 acres the firm bought on St Georges Hill in 1911 was developed into a golf course and over 100 houses, cottages and lodges. What you may not know was that until 1933 some of St Georges Hill was in the Byfleet Parish of the Chertsey Urban District Council. Wentworth was started in 1922 and also had a golf course designed by H. S. Colt.
Tarrant built a lot of large houses all across NW Surrey
However, did you know W G Tarrant also built many other types of houses including council estates in the locality, like in Stoughton Guildford. Here in Pyrford and West Byfleet, many dwellings were built along the Old Woking Road, Pyrford Road, Oakcroft Road and Coldharbour Road. Many of these houses still survive today but sadly some have been demolished.
There is also a very strong local connection with Walter George Tarrant as he lived with his family in Ridgway, Pyrford and Byfleet and he had a major works site in Chertsey Road, Byfleet which in the 1920’s employed 5,000 people.
Who was Walter George Tarrant.
Quoting from a Pyrford Heritage Snippet available on the Pyrford Forum website here, which is taken from ‘WG Tarrant: Master Builder and Developer’ by Mavis Swenarton, first published as Monograph 24 by the Walton and Weybridge Local History Society:
“W.G. Tarrant was one of the most influential and prolific builders in Surrey in the first third of the 20th century. Today the term ‘Tarrant-built’ is used widely to describe houses on St. George’s Hill and Wentworth estates and in Pyrford, West Byfleet and Woking, and it is recognised as indicating an exceptionally high standard of material and workmanship.
Walter George Tarrant was born on 8th April 1875 at Brockhurst, a village near Gosport in Hampshire. His father was a police constable who later served in Aldershot and Hook, on the Hampshire/Surrey border. On leaving school, `WG’, as he was known, was apprenticed as a carpenter. In 1895 Tarrant set up his own business in Byfleet, first as a carpenter and later as a builder. In the early 1900s he built extensively in Pyrford, West Byfleet and Woking, commuter areas of Surrey, easily accessible from London by the excellent train service from Waterloo”.
By 1911, his premises in ChertseyRoad, Byfleet covered over five acres and included workshops for joinery, wrought iron and leaded lights, a stonemason’s yard and a timber mill with drying sheds. The men employed were specialists in their respective crafts. The brickfields connected with this business are situated at Chobham, Surrey, where is found clay similar to that used in the old Surrey farmhouses and still most suitable for producing the hand-made bricks and tiles which have helped to make Surrey the beautiful county it is. The nurseries to provide shrubs and plants for the laying out of gardens are also in Surrey at Pyrford and Addlestone, where acres of charming young trees, shrubs, conifers etc. can be seen.
The company employed 5,000 people at Byfleet in the 1920s but towards the end of the decade the Depression reduced the demand for large expensive houses. However, Tarrant continued to win contracts for many new council houses in the Guildford and Woking areas.
Guildford Borough Council had prepared a scheme and in May 1919, Tarrant was awarded a contract to build 83 houses on an eight-acre site at Stoughton, near Guildford. On 12 June 1919, Dr Addison, President of the Local Government Board and the minister responsible for implementing the government’s housing policy, cut the first sod at Stoughton, using a spade presented by Tarrant and now preserved in the Guildhall at Guildford. This development was one of the first to be built under the 1919 Housing Act. In 1920, Tarrant was contracted to build fifty houses on Guildford Park Estate, and he also built council houses at Byfleet, Pyrford and Lightwater.
Extensive research into his housebuilding was carried out by Mavis Swenarton who in 1992 described Tarrant as “a man of vision and enterprise with a reputation for high quality materials and good workmanship. He was an imposing figure, over six ft tall and a thick beard which gave him a striking resemblance to King Edward VII”. Some of her papers are in the Surrey History centre and a summary of her work on GW Tarrant can be found here.
The picture heading this article is a picture of him taken from the front cover of “The Life & Works of Walter George Tarrant by Richard Norris (available through West Byfleet library).
The Tarrants lived at York Terrace, Chertsey Road, Byfleet, and then, in 1906, moved to Cilgwyn Ridgway (Richard Norriss p33), a house which WG Tarrant kept from the development in Ridgway, Pyrford. The electoral records call the house Cooleen, but later it seems the name was changed to Threeways. They lived there until 1914, when he moved to Lake House, Chertsey.
The family are recorded in the 1911 census as shown below..
The Tarrant family recorded in the 1911 Census
Locally, he built at least 15 houses that still survive but further details of this local heritage must wait for next month.
WG Tarrant was elected to Byfleet Parish Council in 1911 and served until 1914. Later in April 1936 he was elected Councillor for Byfleet Ward on Woking Urban District Council until he resigned in April 1939. He moved to Hafod Wales in 1940 but passed away in London in March 1942.
In August 1931, W G Tarrant Ltd entered receivership, but the building department survived, reforming as Tarrant Builders Ltd with Tarrant’s eldest son Percy as a director. This company built many houses in Virginia Water before and after World War II and the original company’s land became owned by Wentworth Estates Ltd.
By courtesy of Andy Grimshaw.