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Summary

Former landscape park around surviving early 19th century house, largely developed for housing in the 20th century

Monument Type(s):

• LANDSCAPE PARK (19th century to Mid 20th century - 1801 AD? to 1950 AD?)

Full Description

An area of parkland formerly existed around the Grade II listed mansion which was designed in 1795 by James Wyatt and started in 1801 <1> <2><3>. The owner of the estate, Anthony Morris Storer, also commissioned Humphry Repton to produce a 'Red Book' for Purley Magna in 1793 <8>, although it is not clear how many of the recommendations in this landscape design were completed.

The parkland around Purley Park was divided in two by the coming of the railway before 1840, isolating the house from the low-lying church <2>. Residential development had begun near to the church by the mid 20th century <4>, and continued afterwards around Purley Park. According to a history of the area <7> land along the river had been sold to campers in the 1930s, the plots being used as weekend retreats. During and after World War Two the plots began to be occupied permanently, with old railway carriages and huts being used for accommodation due to the shortage of building materials. Many of these houses suffered in floods in 1947 <7>.

Little seems to have be written about this park and any surviving parkland features, although a site visit by a West Berkshire Council Countryside officer in 2002 <5> did note the existence of an archway and cast iron staircase near the railway line; subsequently the remains of a fountain were also reported <6>.

The 1879 First Edition Ordnance Survey mapping <9> depicts the parkland crossed from south-east to north-west by both the Great Western Railway and the Reading to Oxford road. A pair of gate lodges at SU66463 75670 (subsequently demolished) are on the wrong (south) side of the Oxford Road to have functioned as an entry point to Purley Park here, and might therefore lie on a former drive to the mansion approaching from the south. This would also suggest that the course of the Oxford Road was cut through the designed landscape, although the Ordnance Survey Drawing of 1809 <10> appears to show it following a similar line to that in the later 19th century, which is a curving one. Rocque's map of 1761 <11> depicts the Reading to Oxford Road as a relatively straight route, with a small track running north from it to Purley village; no parkland is shown. It would seem there must have been a relatively short period of time between the creation of Purley Park's designed landscape in about 1800, presumably involving some road diversions, and the disruption caused by the coming of the railway, perhaps again necessitating new roads.

Other parkland features shown in 1879 <9> near the mansion are an icehouse, greenhouse and fountain. North of the railway there was a large area of apparently open park scattered with trees, although a more densely planted oval enclosure probably represented an older phase of Purley Magna. Within this enclosure was St Mary's Church and a walled garden with various buildings. To the east, by the river Thames was a boat house <12>.

The GIS polygon of the former park has been created using Historic Landscape Characterisation data.

Sources and further reading

Related Monuments

Associated Excavations and Fieldwork

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