Monument Type(s):

• PARK (19th century - 1800 AD to 1899 AD)

Summary

Hopton Court (PRN 10930) was extensively remodelled at the beginning of the 19th century,and the grounds may have been modified at the same by Repton. The early 19th century park was more extensive than that of the end of that century.

Related records

Associated Finds: None recorded

Associated Events: None recorded

Description

Hopton Court, just outside the village of Hopton Wafers and in the eastern lee of Titterstone Clee Hill, is a small stone country house of the later 18th and early 19th century set in its own grounds. There seems a reasonable probability that John Nash worked on the house, and in the later 19th century it was claimed that Repton modified the grounds. As the estate papers for that period are entirely lacking it is impossible to investigate those claims in terms of written evidence. Of the mid 19th century is a notable conservatory.->

-> In 1756 Hopton Court (Listed Grade II: 825/23/8) was sold to Joseph Oldham, a paper manufacturer, who in 1770 built, a new house at the top of a slope down to a tributary of the Hopton Brook (para. Based on T.S.A.S. 3 ser. 9, 274-6; B. Botfleld, Stemmata Botvilliana (1858), ccxxxi-ccxxxii). In 1779 he sold the property to John Hale. In 1798 Hale's son or nephew (the sources differ) sold Hopton Court to Thomas Botfield (d. 1843), who during his long ownership made substantial changes there. He was resident there from 1803, and it seems that in the preceding five years the house had been largely rebuilt, retaining only the kitchen and offices of Oldham's house. Of that work his son wrote…->

-> 'Mr. [J.C.] Loudon, in his work on Forming, Improving, and Managing Country Residences gives, in plate 29, a view of Hopton Court as built by Mr. Oldham, suggesting its alteration in the castellated style, as shown in plate 30 of the quarto edition of that work, published at London in 1806. This plan was not adopted, but another by Mr. Nash, in the Italian style, was preferred, with the addition of a third storey and an ornamental portico… A terrace on the south front affords a pleasing view of the retired valley and the village church. ' ->

-> By 1812 a guide to the Ludlow area was able to observe that the 'plantations, garden and hot houses are laid out in an elegant manner' (Anon, A Description of the Town of Ludlow (1812), 118). ->

-> That church-was itself rebuilt by Botfield, in 1827 (Pevsner, Shropshire (1958), 154). He was succeeded by his nephew Beriah Botfield, on whose death without issue in 1863 the estate passed, under the terms of his uncle's will, to Thomas Woodward, a nephew of Mrs. Thomas Botfield's. Woodward died without issue in 1888, being succeeded by his brother the Revd. Samuel Woodward (d. .1890), and he in turn by a third brother, Robert, later Vice-Admiral Robert Woodward, C.B., R.N. (d.1907). His heir was his son Robert, and the property remained in the Woodward family in 1994. ->

-> The statement that the grounds at Hopton were the work of Humphry Repton was made in 1858 by Beriah Botfield, the commission having been given some 55 years earlier by his father. He says (op. cit. ccxxxi)… ->

-> 'The grounds, formed under the direction of Mr. Repton, are adapted to the course of the dingle, and by the means of walks all its parts are easily accessible. ' ->

-> Although uncorroborated the statement is plausible, as it was during the period that Hopton was apparently transformed (1798 x 1803) that Nash and Repton were working together, their partnership lasting from 1795 until 1800. ->

-> The map evidence (O.S. 1", LV.NE (1832)) suggests that in the early 19th century the Botfield estate centred on Hopton Court was far more extensive than later, then extending west of the Hopton Brook, north of the track to Sproseley, and south to the Hopton Wafers - Cleobury Mortimer road, where a lodge lay south-east of Hopton bridge at the principal entrance, with iron gates and stone gate piers, from the south. That lodge comprised a small stone cottage, slightly extended and made picturesque in the gothic style (more of Nash's work ?) in the early 19th century. By the later 19th century (O.S. 6", LXXX.NW (1894)) the park had been reduced to the lawn around the house, defined to the south by the pool, to the west by the Hopton Brook, and to the north by the Sproseley road. The whole park area, however, contains a good selection of mature specimen trees. ->

-> The fish pool or pond was the main feature of the grounds, being overlooked by the house from a short distance (75 m) to the north. The dam at its west end was crossed by the main drive, iron gates on stone gate piers (the piers later 20th- century replacements of iron originals) just to its south marking the point where the drive entered the lawn around the house. West along the stream bottom (or dingle) from the drive, and extending north and south along both banks of Hopton Brook, ran plantations already present by 1839 (Hopton Wafers tithe map: copy at Hopton Court). Among these ran paths (presumably the 'walks' noted by Botfield in 1858: op. cit. ccxxxi), especially down the southern arm of the plantation. Paths or walks also looped north from the house in the 19th century, through Ravine Plantation (Hopton Wafers tithe map; O.S. 6", LXXX.NW (1894)). ->

-> About 100 m east of the house a cast iron conservatory was erected, probably in the third quarter of the 19th century. It faced the house, and was approached from it along a broad terraced grass walk. It was built against a tall north-south heated brick wall with grilled vents along its top. The cast iron framing ran up a straight front face before arching in a graceful curve, in which curved glass was employed, to the brick wall. The sides were vertical. Iron grills ran across the floor, covering the channels for the heating pipes. The brick wall was pierced in the centre by a round arched doorway, which led through into a rear room, across the centre third of the wall, above which was an arched glass roof. Its rear wall was of rendered brick, also used to construct the two rooms which flanked it (functions uncertain), the more northerly having in its basement the boiler room. In 1994 most of the glass was missing from the conservatory, and it was deteriorating rapidly. About 1990 a short avenue of Whitebeam as planted along the terraced approach to the conservatory . ->

-> The conservatory abutted (and thus post-dates) the outside of the south-west corner of a large, brick walled kitchen garden (not on tithe map 1839 but presumably built very soon afterwards), c. 125 x 60 m. The walls survived in good condition in 1994, with regular external buttresses, but little was to be seen of the glasshouses (including a vinery: photo at Hopton Court)which had once lain in its northern part. ->

-> West of the north end of the kitchen garden lay a mid 19th-century stables court (not on tithe map of 1839), extant and in good condition in 1994. <2>

Photographed during aerial survey in 2008. <3><4>

Sources

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