Syon Monastery - Replacement By Mansion of Syon House

Replacement By Mansion of Syon House

After dissolution, the estate came into the possession of Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, Lord Protector to the young Edward VI, who started work on building the first Syon House in the Italian Renaissance style, apparently incorporating the west end of the monastery church. Following the Duke's execution for treason in 1552, it was confiscated for the crown under Queen Mary, who briefly re-established the community there during 1557 to 1558. Her successor Queen Elizabeth I granted in 1594 a lease of the manor to Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland on his marriage to Dorothy Devereux the younger daughter of Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex, who later received a grant of the freehold from King James I in 1604. The square house seen today is a Georgian remodelling of the first house by Hugh Percy, 1st Duke of Northumberland(1714–1786), in about 1760. The first Duke was born Hugh Smithson, and married Lady Elizabeth Seymour (daughter and heiress of Algernon Seymour, 7th Duke of Somerset(d.1750), a direct descendant of Protector Somerset), whose grandmother Lady Elizabeth Percy(d.1722) was the heiress of the 15th and last Percy Earl of Northumberland, from whom Syon House thus devolved onto the first Duke of Northumberland. In 1750, 10 years after his marriage, he adopted the name Percy in lieu of his patronymic.