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Summary - not yet available

Monument Types

• LANDSCAPE PARK (Post Medieval - 1501 AD to 1900 AD)
• ORNAMENTAL GARDEN (Post Medieval - 1501 AD to 1900 AD)

Associated Events

• Landscape survey of an area at Moor Park Golf Club, Batchworth Heath, Rickmansworth, 2014 (Ref: HMPG 14)
• Test pitting at Moor Park Golf Club, Batchworth Heath, Rickmansworth, 2014 (Ref: HMPG 14)

Protected Status

• Listed Building (II) 158839: URN IN ITALIAN GARDEN ABOUT 40 METRES EAST NORTH EAST OF MOOR PARK
• Listed Building (II) 158846: STATUE IN OLD PLEASURE GROUNDS ABOUT 290 METRES SOUTH EAST OF MOOR PARK
• Registered Park or Garden 39: Moor Park
• Listed Building (I) 158835: MOOR PARK AND ORANGERY/STABLE BLOCK
• Listed Building (II) 158845: STEPS, WALLS AND GATES TO OLD PLEASURE GROUNDS ABOUT 250 METRES SOUTH EAST OF MOOR PARK
• Listed Building (II) 158842: URN IN ITALIAN GARDEN ABOUT 45 METRES NORTH NORTH EAST OF MOOR PARK
• Listed Building (II) 158844: WALL ENCLOSING ITALIAN GARDEN TO SOUTH EAST AND NORTH EAST OF MOOR PARK
• Listed Building (II) 158838: SUNDIAL IN ITALIAN GARDEN ABOUT 30 METRES NORTH EAST OF MOOR PARK
• Listed Building (II) 158843: FOUNTAIN IN ITALIAN GARDEN ABOUT 50 METRES NORTH EAST OF MOOR PARK
• Listed Building (II) 158836: PUTTO IN ITALIAN GARDEN ABOUT 15 METRES EAST NORTH EAST OF MOOR PARK
• Listed Building (II) 158841: URN IN ITALIAN GARDEN ABOUT 45 METRES EAST NORTH EAST OF MOOR PARK
• Listed Building (II) 158837: PUTTO IN ITALIAN GARDEN ABOUT 15 METRES NORTH NORTH EAST OF MOOR PARK
• Listed Building (II) 158840: URN IN ITALIAN GARDEN ABOUT 40 METRES NORTH NORTH EAST
• Listed Building (II) 158880
• Listed Building (II) 158825: GARDEN WALL ABOUT 40 METRES SOUTH WEST OF HOME FARM HOUSE (NOT LISTED)

Full description

Moor Park was originally a medieval deer park <2> [17931] east of the post-medieval landscape park. The post-medieval park, with origins in 16th century extensions to the medieval park, at its most extensive covered c.240 ha. with remains of 19th and 20th century formal gardens of 3 ha. Now mainly golf courses. Work done in the mid 17th and early 18th centuries has now gone. Work carried out by Capability Brown in the mid 1700s included a lake and temple (now gone). An Italian formal garden developed in the 1830s was much simplified in the 20th century. Remains of late 17th or early 18th century walls at the walled kitchen garden have also survived <1>; see [30670].
The Temple of the Winds [16303] was demolished c.1936 <7>. It stood by the lake, within what was called the pleasure ground, designed by Capability Brown as a kind of amphitheatre full of trees and shrubs, around a small lake, with the temple on the highest ground. In the 1930s, following the break-up of the estate at Lord Ebury's death in 1919 and the setting up of Moor Park Ltd, an exclusive development of houses [16302] was built within the pleasure ground around the lake; many of the trees survive <7>.
Mr Styles levelled the area NE of the house, which had previously been the site of the 17th century formal gardens with a view down to the river; it is possible that traces of these gardens survive beneath the made ground <8>. Designs for a major formal garden were drawn up for Mr Styles by Charles Bridgeman c.1724 <10>, and elements of it [30807] resulting from this landscaping NE of the house are visible on LiDaR <11>.
Test pitting north of the canal in 2014 revealed a long series of 18th to 20th century landscaping phases <9>. Portions of 18th century wall foundations were recorded in two test pits at the western end of the area. Being relatively narrow, these were more likely to have been garden walls than buildings. Traces of 19th century landscaping were found in half the test pits. Removal of the trees in the same area allowed a survey which identified several earthwork features; 'most if not all of these features relate to 20th century landscaping of the golf course' <9>.
In the 1750s Lord Anson employed Capability Brown at huge expense 'to erase the formal gardens designed by Charles Bridgeman thirty years earlier'; this involved 'a great deal of earth-moving in the park', removing the grand canal and basin [30807] NE of the house and 'remodelling the cruciform lake and cascade on the south-east axis' <12>. The most prominent feature of the park on the 1766 map <13>, however, is 'the network of straight avenues, many, if not all, of which predated' both Bridgeman and Brown <12>.

Page, W (ed.), 1908, VCH Hertfordshire vol.2, - p375 (Bibliographic reference). SHT9314.

Bevan, Tom, 1924, Notes on Rickmansworth; Trans St Albans & Herts Archit & Archaeol Soc 1924, 60-68, - p68 (Article in serial). SHT9763.

<1> English Heritage Register of Historic Parks and Gardens, G1122 (Unpublished document). SHT3281.

<2> Cantor, Leonard, 1983, The medieval parks of England: a gazetteer (Bibliographic reference). SHT6459.

<3> Centre for the Conservation of Historic Parks and Gardens, Survey and inventory form 1: site recommendations (Unpublished document). SHT7200.

<4> HCC Planning Dept, 1979-82, Historic parklands and gardens in Hertfordshire; record sheets & supplementary material (Unpublished document). SHT8294.

<5> English Heritage Register of Historic Parks and Gardens (revised), GD1164 (Unpublished document). SHT3285.

<6> Rowe, Anne, 2009, Medieval parks of Hertfordshire, - p180-3 (Bibliographic reference). SHT6026.

<7> Derrick, Andrew, 2010, Architectural and historical assessment, 12 Temple Gardens, Moor Park, Hertfordshire, RNO 2517 (Report). SHT5949.

<8> Information from Dr Sally Jeffery, 19 January 2013 (Verbal communication). SHT4206.

<9> Cipin, Ian, 2015, Initial archaeological investigation at Moor Park Golf Club, Moor Park, Hertfordshire, WD3 1QL, RNO 3366 (Report). SHT2361.

<10> Hertfordshire Gardens Trust & Williamson, Tom, 2000, The parks and gardens of west Hertfordshire, Fig.16 (Bibliographic reference). SHT7939.

<11> Environment Agency, LiDAR coverage of Hertfordshire (Aerial Photograph). SHT9250.

<12> Rowe, Anne, 2016, Brownian landscapes on the map of Hertfordshire by Dury and Andrews; Hertfordshire Gardens Trust Newsletter (spring 2016), 8-11 (Article in serial). SHT9827.

<13> Dury & Andrews, 1766, A topographical map of Hartford-shire, from an actual survey… (Cartographic material). SHT3062.

Sources and further reading

Related records

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