After his great success in keeping Great Britain safe from Napoleon Bonaparte, the Duke of Wellington was asked to choose an estate which would be funded by a grateful nation. In 1817 he saw Stratfield Saye, and decided to make it his home. He lived there until his death in 1852, and it remains the seat of his descendants. In 1845 Queen Victoria announced that she and Prince Albert, together with their courtiers, were coming to stay with the ‘good old Duke’.
garden history
Codger Fort, Rothley, Northumberland
A short distance from Rothley Castle, on land which was once part of the Wallington Hall estate near Morpeth, is a sham fort known today as Codger Fort. It was built as an eye-catcher by Sir Walter Calverley Blackett in around 1770 as part of a programme of improvements at Rothley.
Rothley Castle, Rothley, Northumberland
In the middle of the 18th century Wallington Hall, west of Morpeth in Northumberland, was the seat of Sir Walter Calverley Blackett. Like many men of his time, he remodelled his park and introduced fashionable landscape features. On Rothley Crags, a windswept outcrop of rock north of Wallington Hall, he erected a sham castle which served as a distant eye-catcher from the house.
The Palladian Bridge, Wilton House, Wiltshire
The Palladian Bridge at Wilton House, in Wiltshire, was built in 1736-37 for Henry Herbert, the 9th Earl of Pembroke. The design was his own, and such was his passion for building that he became known as the ‘Architect Earl’. The bridge crosses the River Nadder which forms the boundary between the formal gardens and informal landscape.
Pope’s Seat, Cirencester Park, Gloucestershire
In the vast park of Cirencester House, adjoining the town of the same name, a pretty rusticated temple sits in an opening called Seven Rides. This is the point where avenues cut through the woodland meet, giving long vistas in each direction. It was named Pope’s Seat after the poet, Alexander, who designed it for his friend Lord Bathurst.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744) was a good friend of Allen Bathurst, 1st Earl of Bathurst (1684-1775), who in the early eighteenth century was laying out pleasure grounds and parkland at his seat on the edge of the town of Cirencester. By 1742 Lord Bathurst’s demesne was described as ‘a fine park […] adornd wth several beautifull buildings’. Pope is said to have offered advice on this landscaping and designed this alcove, which was named in his honour – ‘POPES SEAT’ is engraved on a stone above the entrance.
The Flâneuse is delighted to announce that a diminutive new version of the summerhouse has been added to the Cirencester Park landscape. Bristol based woodcarver Andy O’Neill started his working life as a graphic designer, before a desire to work outdoors led to a new career as a tree surgeon. Then, combining his creative and arboricultural talents, he began to create sculptures with a chainsaw.
When a decaying cedar had to be felled in Cirencester Park, Lord Bathurst saw the opportunity to use some of the timber to create a bench on the Broad Avenue, which runs for around six miles through the estate. In consultation with Andy it was decided to decorate it with Pope’s Seat in miniature.
Pope’s Seat is listed at grade II*. It and other fascinating ornaments can be seen when exploring Cirencester Park. For more information visit https://www.bathurstestate.co.uk
For more on Andy’s work see https://wildwoodcarving.co.uk
Thank you for reading and do get in touch if you have any thoughts you’d like to share. Scroll down to the foot of the page to find the comments box.
The Orangery, Clapham, London
Surrounded by a twentieth century housing estate in south London, this classical building comes as something of a surprise. The Orangery, as it is known today, was once a feature of the pleasure grounds of Robert Thornton’s house on the edge of Clapham Common.
The Tower, Rosherville Gardens, Gravesend, Kent
In 1837 George Jones opened a pleasure garden by the Thames at Gravesend. It was a great success, and new features were quickly added to tempt visitors. By 1849 it was said that the gardens were ‘sweet, safe, shady and salubrious’ and the ‘prettiest thing’ between the Thames and the Tiber.
The Egyptian Springs, Hartwell House, Buckinghamshire
Searching for an image of the Egyptian Spring, a garden ornament at Hartwell House in Buckinghamshire, the Folly Flâneuse found a picture postcard from the early years of the 20th century. But instead of the usual cheery message to a friend, the back of the card promised palatable prizes. So why was a folly being used to promote foodstuffs?
The Dromana Gate, Co. Waterford, Ireland
Dromana House in County Waterford enjoys wonderful views over the mighty Blackwater river, but the approach to the house crosses a tributary, the Finnisk, and there’s a surprise for anyone visiting for the first time. The road curves, and suddenly there is the most perfect of scenes: a tranquil river crossed by a bridge leading to a lodge built in a magnificent melange of the gothic and the oriental.
The bridge was originally a wooden structure, with a central drawbridge allowing boats to pass in the days when the river was navigable. Old postcards show that the bridge originally had ogee-arched railings to match the lodge, but even by 1928 the bridge was becoming worn ‘under the strain of heavy traffic’, and strengthening and safety works in the later twentieth century saw the wooden bridge and railings replaced with concrete and steel.
In the early nineteenth century Dromana was the seat of Henry Villiers Stuart (1803-1874), created 1st Baron de Decies in 1839. The tale is told that a papier-mâché arch was erected, where the lodge stands today, to welcome Stuart when he returned to Dromana with his new bride in 1826. The arch was said to have been fashioned in an indo-gothic style to help the happy couple remember their honeymoon in Brighton, where they would have seen George IV’s Royal Pavilion. Stuart and his wife were apparently so taken with the design that they decided to recreate it in a more substantial fashion.
No records can be found to corroborate this story (although such ephemeral celebratory arches were certainly in vogue in this period). In fact, the whole story of Villiers Stuart’s marriage is rather mysterious. He is said to have married Theresia Pauline Ott (c.1802-1867), a Viennese-born widow, in a Catholic ceremony in London in 1826, and a son, Henry, was born in 1827. In 1839 the marriage was solemnised in Christ Church, Marylebone, when the curate noted in the register that the couple had been ‘heretofore married in the city of Dublin according to the Ritual Ceremonies of the Roman Catholic Church’, but crucially no date is given. No records of an 1826 marriage could be found after Lord de Decie’s death in 1874, making his son illegitimate, and therefore unable to inherit the title. This was a ’cause celebre‘ of the day, and the ‘exceptionally interesting peerage case’, filled the courtroom and the newspapers for some weeks in 1876.
Surprisingly few accounts of the lovely lodge can be found, but we do know it was extant by 1835 when a Scottish tourist, Robert Graham, saw a ‘remarkable bridge’ with a building with a ‘pear-shaped cupola’ at the end of it.* The ‘costly fanciful structure’ was noted by another writer in 1844, and in 1848 John Bernard Burke (of ‘Peerage’ fame) described it as ‘singularly fanciful and striking’ and ‘looking like some romantic scene in the Arabian Nights’.
The architect is thought to be Martin Day (?1797-?1860), who is known to have worked at Dromana in the correct period. Surviving drawings of the lodge by Day are dated 1849, suggesting that it was perhaps remodelled or renovated at that date. The inspiration behind the lodge remains a mystery – is the Brighton honeymoon story true (probably not – the court case suggests they went straight to Scotland after the wedding)? Had Villiers Stuart or his architect seen Oriental Scenery, the volumes of views of India produced by the Daniell brothers in 1795-1807 (above)? Were they aware of Sezincote, the Mughal palace in the Cotswolds built by Samuel Pepys Cockerell, with the assistance of Thomas Daniell, for his brother Charles in the first years of the nineteenth century? Wherever the idea came from, we should be grateful it did, and that this joyful structure survives today.
The Irish Georgian Society restored the decrepit lodge in 1968, and further repairs were made in the 1990s, but the lodge is once again in need of some care. In 2023 the IGS gave a grant to support the preparation of a building report to investigate how to ‘reinstate this structure to its former glory’.
The bridge and lodge are freely accessible. The house at Dromana was reduced to a more manageable size in the twentieth century and remains the home of the Villiers Stuart family. You can read more about the history and visiting here https://dromanahouse.com
That’s the last folly (for now, at least) from the Flâneuse’s recent Irish jaunt. If all goes to plan next week’s post will go off at a tasty tangent. Thank you for reading, and as ever you can share thoughts and comments at the foot of the page.
*This information is from J.A.K. Dean’s impressive gazetteer of the gate lodges of Ireland, and in particular the volume for the province of Munster.
Newminster Abbey, Morpeth, Northumberland
In 1138 Newminster Abbey was established close to the River Wansbeck on the edge of Morpeth, Northumberland. The first inhabitants were Cistercian monks from Fountains Abbey, in Yorkshire, who remained until the abbey’s dissolution in 1537. By the 19th century little could be seen apart from scattered masonry and bumps in the ground. Early in the 20th century parts were rebuilt as a grand garden ornament and tourist attraction, with perhaps not quite the academic rigour one might expect today.