The Vache

The Vache was the family seat of the Fleetwood family. In 1660 George Fleetwood was found guilty of the regicide of King Charles I in January 1649, and although his life was spared, his estate of The Vache was confiscated and given to the then Duke of York, the future King James II.[1] The site was acquired by Admiral Sir Hugh Palliser in 1771.[2] Following Palliser’s death in 1796, the building passed to his son and was then sold to a Mr Thomas Allen in 1826; the house passed down the Allen family until it was sold to James Robertson in 1902.[3]

After the Second World War homelessness and overcrowding sparked a nationwide movement of squatting. One of the first of these occurred at The Vache in September 1946. The leader was an ex-Commando, John Mann, of Chalfont St. Giles, who had been sharing a small cottage with his wife, his five-year-old son, and ten strangers. At the local pub one night, Mann heard a Polish captain say that a deserted army camp at nearby Vache Park was being readied for Polish soldiers of General Władysław Anders' army in exile. Mann decided to get there first.[4] At dawn, he and a handful of homeless veterans bloodlessly routed three Polish guards and seized Vache Park. Next day, 120 families had moved into the spacious army huts. After a flurry of resistance, local authorities capitulated.[4]

Captain James Cook monument

The Vache is the site of monument to Captain James Cook erected by Admiral Sir Hugh Palliser.[5]

'To the memory of Captain James Cook/the ablest and most renowned Navigator this or any country hath produced', 'He raised himself solely by his merit/from a very obscure birth, to the rank/of a Post Captain in the Royal Navy,and/was unfortunately killed by the Savages/of the island Owhyee on the 14th of/February 1779 ...[5]

Cook frequently visited the estate and named a South Sea island Vache Island.[6]