Moore Place

For the country house in Hertfordshire, see Moor Place, Hertfordshire.

Moore Place was a historic mansion in Surrey, England. It was known as the "gateway to Esher", the town in which it stood.^[1]

Moore Place
Pictured in 2010
General information
Address	Portsmouth Road
Town or city	Esher, Surrey
Country	England
Coordinates	51.366340°N 0.369912°W / 51.366340; -0.369912
Completed	c. 1900
Technical details
Floor count	2.5

The building's listed gate lodge

The building's gate lodge, completed in 1905, is Grade II listed.^[2] Moore Place was listed in The Survey Gazetteer of the British Isles in 1914.^[3]

History

Built in the late 18th century or early 19th century,^[4] replacing a house which had been there since the Middle Ages,^[5] the mansion had a glasshouse and formal garden, along with a nine-hole golf course which was opened in 1926.^[6][7]

Alfred Hayes was living at Moore Place in 1860.^[8] Edmund Henry Hayes was the occupant three years later.^[9] Lady Byron, widow of Lord Byron, lived at the mansion in the first half of the 19th century.^[5][10][11]

In the 1920s, the building became a hotel and restaurant. It was later painted purple, which became a talking point.^[5][12]

In 2004, Gordon Ramsay visited the restaurant in an early episode of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. The restaurant had been recently purchased by Richard Hodgson and Nick Whitehouse. They sold the business in 2006, when it became another bar and restaurant, Esteem. That business also failed, and the property was purchased by Moore Place Holdings. They were given permission to demolish the building, which happened in 2010.^[5] It was replaced two years later by a care home.^[5][13]

The adjacent golf club and course closed in 2019,^[14] after almost a century in business.^[7][13][15] In 2025, plans were submitted to build around 300 homes on the land.^[15]