History...
The Hand and Spear was built by Lord King, Baron of Ockham, as a summer house for his family between 1830 and 1833. In 1833 Lord King died and his land in Weybridge was passed to his second son, Peter Locke King, who brought his widowed mother to live in Woburn House.(Now St. Georges College.)
When the railway was built and opened, Peter Locke King realised that his summer house could be a business asset and turned it into a hotel.
He called it the Hand and Spear from his family crest which shows a hand grasping a spear.
Source: Elmbridge Museum.
There are also links to the author of Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson.
"My mouth was empty: there was not one word of TREASURE ISLAND in my bosom: and here were the proofs of the beginning already waiting me at the 'Hand and Spear!'
Then I corrected them, living for the most part alone, walking on the heath at Weybridge in dewy autumn mornings, a good deal pleased with what I had done, and more appalled than I can depict to you in words at what remained for me to do."
Robert Louis Stevenson
The Hand and Spear
c1880
