Volume: Wrest Park, Silsoe, Bedfordshire

Description

615 drawings relating to the maintenance, management and interpretation of Wrest Park and its associated sites.

The earliest sheets are Ordnance Survey maps showing the house and gardens from 1924. From the 1940s and 1950s there are plans of the house, grounds and buildings including the Archer Pavilion, the Orangery and the Bowling Green House. There are also site plans showing work required to paths and hedges, and stone edging to the flower beds.

From the 1960s, there are drawings showing existing drainage, doors and joinery for the Archer Pavilion and stone paving for the Orangery, a survey of the Hermitage, including details of the floor and ceiling of the bath chamber, details of ornamental vases, and drawings showing repairs to the stone coping of the Chinese Bridge and stonework for the East Half-House. There are some publication plans of the house and gardens made between 1963 and 1972.

A large number of drawings from 1967 to 1996 relate to buildings in the National Institute for Agricultural Engineering (later the AFRC Institute of Engineering Research and the Silsoe Research Institute), in the Wrest Park grounds.

Other 1970s drawings include sheets showing drainage to the area around the Archer Pavilion, and surveys of Long Water, weirs, sluices and the drainage scheme. There are floor and roof plans of the house, drawings of the shell fountain as existing and reconstructed, proposed repairs to the roof balustrade of Bowling Green House, and repairs and construction work to the Chinese Temple. There are also deed plans made between 1975 and 1985.

From the 1980s and 1990s there are details of a sundial base plate and gnomon, and the roof ornament of the Chinese Temple. Other sheets show electrical services to the Orangery, and plans of the gardens and lakes.

There are a number of survey sheets, including topographical surveys of the site from 1977 and of the gardens from between 1991 and 1993. There is a tree planting survey from 1993 and other 1990s surveys of the Bowling Green House, Ceres Gate and the Archer Pavilion.

The most recent sheets are from the early years of the twenty-first century and include photogrammetric surveys of the Archer Pavilion, rectified photography of the old park weir and spillway, and a survey of the mansion from 2012.

Content

This is part of the Series: EHC01/022 English Heritage Plans and Measured Drawings; within the Collection: EHC01 English Heritage(EH):Archive

Rights

© Crown Copyright. Historic England Archive

© Historic England Archive

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