Monument Type(s):

• GARDEN (Late 18th century to Early 19th century - 1760 AD to 1837 AD)

Summary

A late 18th/early 19th century garden, associated with Whitchurch Rectory (PRN 12592).

Related records

Associated Finds: None recorded

Associated Events

• ESA6652 - 2010 landscape assessment of land at London Road, Whitchurch, Shropshire by Northamptonshire Archaeology
• ESA6653 - 2010 historic buildings assessment in and around London Road, Whitchurch by Jeffrey W. George and Associates
• ESA6657 - 1996 DBA and site visit to The Old Rectory, Whitchurch by SCCAS

Description

In 1784 William Emes drew up a plan showing proposed improvements to the setting of the Rectory (PRN 12592, built 1749) for the Revd. Henry Egerton (S.R.O. 3127) <1>

The new rectory was built on the east side of the moated area (PRN 00905), clear of the site of the previous rectory cum manor house. A plan of Whitchurch in 1761 does show the new Rectory complex, but at a very small scale. It indicates that the whole of the moat interior west of the new house was given over to a pleasure garden, including a ?walled court or terrace (the site of the old house) containing the turning circle and with an apsidal projection to the west. A part of this enclosure survives today, abutting the house. From the apse the rest of the garden was overlooked, laid out in serpentine-edged flower beds typical of the rococo gardening fashions of the mid C18. In 1781 the rectory of Whitchurch was taken by Francis Henry Egerton. In 1784 he commissioned William Emes to suggest improvements to the rectory, and a plan shows what he proposed. As there is no plan showing the grounds in their present state in 1784, what Emes was proposing to remove or add can only be a matter of surmise. It would seem likely that his proposals were fairly modest, and limited to a tree planting scheme designed to increase the privacy of the house and give the agricultural landscape around it the aspect of a park. It is interesting that the plan effectively ignores the substantial moat around the house and there is no indication that Emes intended that it be exploited as a garden or landscape feature. In 1941 the house was used a Post Office Reserve Wireless Station. Two large, embanked air raid shelters on the north west edge of the island and an ancillary structure close to the north-west corner of the moat are of Second World War date. No longer extant are the arrays of aerials erected in the fields to the north and east of the house. <2>

A plan of the Rectory and demesne lands made in 1784 appears to have been a design for landscaping by William Emes, although it is not clear what features were proposed and what already existed. William Emes was a landscape gardener of some note whose style was similar to Capability Brown. Emes often drew up a plan for a client and then left them to carry it out and this may have occurred here. The plan appears to be typical of the landscaping of that period with the use of sinuous pathways and drives; the use of belts of trees to screen areas such as the stables, farmyard and ice house and small copses in the wider landscape to provide focal points or more screening. It states that the area of the kitchen garden to the north of the site is to be left in its present state. It is not clear whether the curving southern boundary of the kitchen garden was an earlier feature or one suggested for the new scheme. A shaded rectangular feature in the northern corner of the kitchen garden may relate to the rectangular depression still evident today.->

-> A plan of the rectory demesne lands made in 1791 appears to show few of the features in the earlier plan, perhaps suggesting that few elements of Emes’ plan were carried out.The main drive to the rectory enters from Claypit Street; there is no indication that the sinuous drive from Bargates was ever constructed, although a path is indicated leading from the rectory to the church. An Ordnance Survey town plan of 1880 shows the gardens in detail. The kitchen gardens were still in use at that period and two greenhouses are visible. To the north lie a pump and trough. There are formal divisions within the garden and there is a footbridge across the moat. Just to the east of the site boundary is a summer house. The rectory was sold in 1923 and sales particulars prepared at the time briefly describe the gardens. ->

-> There is little above ground evidence of the former gardens at the Rectory; it has been suggested that many of the trees may have been felled when the house was requisitioned during the Second World War and it was probably during this period when many of the more formal elements of the garden were also lost. There may also be the remains of ancillary structures related to the wartime occupation of the house, which, due to the secrecy of the work, have not previously been recorded. The southern part of the garden was lost when London Road was built in the 1920s. An existing curving hedge-line may be the original boundary which separated the kitchen garden from the rest of the site and the line of pollarded beech trees surrounding the rectangular earthwork may also be a remnant of the garden. A group of mature trees surrounding the ice house may be those shown on the 1880 Ordnance Survey map. <4>

A number of garden features were identified in site visits undertaken for preparation of an historic building assessment undertaken in July 2010. In the extreme northern part of the site in a wooded area, are the prominent remains of a fairly deep pond, dry at the time of inspection. This is likely to have been part of a former garden layout. SE of this pond are the collapsed remains of a former greenhouse. Surviving sections of the former brick base point to a late Victorian date. <5>

A biref history of the Old Rectory, focused on the development of its gardens was written in 1996. The earliest reference to gardens on this site dates from 1612, with a terrier referring to inter alia a garden with dovehouse. A plan of 1761 indicates that the whole of the moat interior west of the house was given over to a pleasure garden including a possible walled court or terrace (the site of the old house) containing the turning circle and with an apsidal projection to the west. From the apse the rest of the garden was overlooked, laid out in serpentine edged flower beds typical of the rococo gardening fashions of the mid 18th century. Enlogated kitchen gardens west of the moat post-date 1761, but were present by 1784. Emes, as outlined above, was about 1784 comissioned to suggests improvements to the gardens, and the plans of his proposals exists. <6>

Sources

Search results generated by the HBSMR Gateway from exeGesIS SDM Ltd.