Portobello Tower, Hilton Hall, Staffordshire

Travellers on the M6 might have called in to Hilton Services to break their journey. Few will know that only a few fields away stands a tall prospect tower, although they may have caught a glimpse of it from the motorway. The belvedere was built in the middle of the eighteenth century by Henry Vernon of Hilton Park in commemoration of the taking of Portobello in 1739.

Hilton Park, ancient seat of the Vernon family, was remodelled in the early decades of the eighteenth century. It stood within a moat and was surrounded by an extensive park in which the Portobello Tower was erected by Henry Vernon (1718-1765) in commemoration of Admiral Vernon’s taking of Portobello (or Porto Bello) in Panama in November 1739. Admiral Vernon was declared a hero for taking the enemy unawares and capturing the important port with a tiny fleet of only six ships.

In the nineteenth century some texts claimed that Henry Vernon was Admiral Vernon’s nephew, but he was in fact a distant relative. Henry Vernon may have appreciated that the Admiral was his namesake, but the tower seems to have been built as a patriotic act to commemorate a naval hero rather than an immediate member of his family.

The fullest description of how the monument came to be is on the tower itself, as recorded by Historic England. A plaque announces that:

THIS TOWER WAS ERECTED BY
HENRY VERNON OF HILTON PARK
BORN 13th SEPTEMBER 1718, DIED 1765
TO COMMEMORATE THE TAKING OF PORTOBELLO
WITH SIX SHIPS OF THE LINE NOV 22nd 1739 BY
ADMIRAL VERNON
BORN 12th NOVEMBER 1684. DIED 1757.
IN 1763 A MONUMENT WAS ERECTED TO
ADMIRAL VERNON IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY
A.L.V. 1911

However, as the final line makes clear, that inscription was added by Augustus Leveson Vernon in 1911, perhaps replacing a degraded earlier inscription, and it seems impossible to discover what, if anything, was recorded on the tower before that date. Finding earlier sources of information is not easy – especially as no-one seems to agree on a name for the building, with variants including Vernon Tower, Hilton Monument and Portobello Tower.

At the time of the naval victory Henry Vernon was on the Grand Tour. It is unlikely that work on the tower started until at least 1741, as Vernon was still in Florence in September 1740. Assuming that the inscription is correct, then work must have been complete before Henry Vernon died in 1765. The first pictorial evidence for the monument (found to date) is a map dated 1796 which has a charming little view of the tower.

William Pitt describes Hilton Park in his A Topographical History of Staffordshire, published in 1817. He wrote that the grounds are ‘very pleasant and secluded’ and notes that the ‘Hilton Monument is erected on the highest eminence in the grounds’, but sadly he adds nothing of its history.

Later nineteenth century guides and histories agree that the tower commemorates Admiral Vernon’s success at Portobello, and describe the ‘magnificent landscape that can be seen from the summit’ of the ‘very pretty landmark’. In the first half of the century it is noted as the ‘Vernon Monument’, but later in the century it has become the ‘Vernon Tower’, and this is echoed on the Ordnance Survey maps: on the 1834 and 1886 maps it is ‘The Monument’, but on the 1900 map it has become ‘The Tower’.

In 1955 the Vernon family sold the mansion and surrounding parkland to Sidney Pickard, a local businessman. Pickard’s plan was to build a new house in the grounds and exploit the minerals on the estate. He wasn’t interested in the fine mansion, and in 1958 he sold it to nuns from the Order of St Joseph of Bordeaux who planned to run a ‘guest house’ for elderly people. As well as pocketing the cash from the sale, the canny Pickard was counting on the nuns reviving the walled gardens and keeping him and his family supplied with produce. Pickard became unpopular after closing off paths which had long been considered rights of way, but which he asserted were private. It would appear he won the argument, as no public footpaths pass anywhere near the tower today.

A visitor in the 1950s was saddened by the encroaching industry, but could still admire the view from the house. Across the moat (still full of water at that date) was a panorama of ‘lawns, rhododendron banks, silver green cornfields and the Portobello Tower in a grove of trees’.

Although Barbara Jones had been told about the tower, she didn’t manage to see it before she published the second edition of Follies & Grottoes in 1974. Had she visited, she would have found the battlements gone and the tower in a poor condition, as shown above. The nuns left Hilton Hall in 1984 and the house was later used as a Head Office by Tarmac. It is now home to serviced offices and meeting rooms.

Meanwhile the surrounding parkland had remained in separate ownership, and the monument was left to decline. The tower (Grade II), which is built of stone around a brick core, is now roofless and in a poor condition.

Barbara Jones concluded that the tower ‘might’ be visible from the M6. Today Hilton Park sits in a triangle of land bordered by the M6, the M54 and a minor road, and as the motorways are somewhat busier than in Jones’s day the Flâneuse suggests that one only tries to spot the tower if one is a passenger. The tower stands on private land, and there is no pedestrian access, although it can be seen from the grounds of Hilton Hall. The best view you will get is in this YouTube film.

Another ornamental structure in Hilton Park has been restored. The delightful domed conservatory stands in the gardens close to the house, and is supported by a central column that houses a chimney.

Thanks to Nicholas Kingsley, author of the Landed Families blog, which investigates the landowning families of the British Isles, for confirming the distant family link between Henry Vernon and the Admiral.

Hilton Hall now provides serviced offices and meeting rooms.

As ever, your thoughts and further information are most welcome. There’s a comments box at the foot of the page. Thank you for reading.