SHAWE, Richard 1755-1816. Barrister. Shawe was leading counsel for Warren Hastings when he was impeached on charges of corruption in the administration of Bengal, and tried between 1788-1795. Hastings was acquitted, but the seven-year trial cost him between £40,000 and £80,000, and financially ruined him. On the other hand, it greatly enriched Shawe, and with the proceeds he bought, in around 1800, an estate in Dulwich on Red Post Hill, where he probably commissioned John Nash to design him a villa, ‘Cassino’ (otherwise ‘Casino’, or ‘Cassina’), and Humphrey Repton to landscape the grounds.
Shawe died in 1816 and is interred in a splendid chest tomb in the Village Burial Ground. His villa was pulled down in 1906, and the site and grounds almost completely covered immediately after WW1 by the Casino housing estate. Sunray Gardens, with its irregular lake, is all that remains of Repton’s design.
Hilary Rosser