Condover Hall

Summary

Formal garden with terraces and parterre garden of the late 1860s recently identified as the work of George Devey for Reginald Cholmondeley, and late-C16 park associated with a country house of the 1580s.

Reasons for Designation

The landscape at Condover Hall is registered at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

* Date and rarity: as a landscape originating in around 1600 and retaining principal structural features from the C17 and C18, with a key phase of in the C19, when the formal gardens were laid out, incorporating earlier structures;
* Authorship: the parterre and terraced gardens have recently been identified as having been designed by George Devey, contributing to our understanding of the architect’s significance in the design of formal landscapes;
* Documentation: a good set of documentation, including paintings of the hall and landscape, survives from the C18 and C19, aiding understanding of its development;
* Group value: very strong group value with Condover Hall, listed at Grade I, and with several listed ancillary and landscape structures.

History

The manor of Condover was acquired in 1586 by Thomas Owen, the eldest son of a Shrewsbury merchant, who had followed a successful legal career and become a member of the Council in the Marches of Wales and a Justice of the Common Pleas. He immediately began to rebuild the Hall (listed at Grade I), and in due course laid out gardens around it looking out into a new deer park. In 1802, N O Smthye Owen (d 1803) fled to Paris to escape his creditors. The estate passed to his nephew Edward William Smythe Pemberton, who assumed the name Owen and came of age in 1814. The estate passed to Thomas Cholmondeley in 1863, then following his death a year later, passed to his younger brother, Reginald. Reginal was succeeded in 1896 by Revd Richard Cholmondeley, and the estate was sold E B Fielden. After passing through various hands the Hall and most of the park was bought in 1946 by the Royal National Institute for the Blind, in whose ownership it remained until 2005. It was subsequently used as school for special educational needs, and then as a children’s activity holiday centre.

Reginald Cholmondeley (1826-1896) commissioned George Devey (1820-1886) for a scheme of works to the grounds, probably in the late 1860s. Two undated plans exist in the RIBA archive showing the layout of the parterre garden to the north-west of the house. While no plans have been found to chart the design of the formal gardens to the south-west, a series of images shows the development from the late-C18 and through the C19 enabling the principal works to be dated to between 1868 and 1872, adapting and incorporating some earlier features. Stylistically the scheme resembles Devey’s hand, and incorporates characteristic features found at other sites of his work. While Devey is better known as an architect, Tenneson’s recent thesis has proved his significant contribution and influence in the revival of formal garden design in the mid-C19.

Details

Formal garden with terraces and parterre garden of the late 1860s and late-C16 park associated with a country house of the 1580s.

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING: Condover Hall lies about 7km south of Shrewsbury on the edge of Condover village. The Hall's immediate grounds are bounded to the south by the Cound Brook, and the garden front of the Hall looks across this to the gently rising ground of the deer park beyond. The park is largely defined by unclassified roads: to the east from Condover to Frodesley, to the west to Dorrington and to the south by a minor road off the latter to Wheathall. The area here registered is about 165ha.

ENTRANCES AND APPROACHES: the Hall's north-east forecourt is approached by a straight drive from the main gate 100m to the north-east. The drive was laid out in 1794, and the old walled forecourt removed following the movement north-east, away from the Hall, of the public road. An arched gateway (listed at Grade II) was erected in the early-C19; it may have been rebuilt in the later C19 as part of Devey's works to the gardens.

PRINCIPAL BUILDING: Condover Hall (listed at Grade I) was begun for Thomas Owen around 1586 and was still being fitted out in 1598. It is an E-plan, built of sandstone, displaying a considerable Renaissance influence in its decoration and detailing. It is the grandest house of the period in Shropshire. Who was responsible for the design is uncertain, although the masons Walter Hancock of Much Wenlock and Lawrence Shipway of Stafford both had significant roles in the building campaign. It is of two principal storeys set above a basement and with an attic storey, the front originally closed off by a forecourt. Gables, canted ends to the wings, towers, and chimneys add height and interest to the profile of the Hall. To the rear was a loggia or arcade of nine bays, now enclosed.

The interior of the Hall was largely remodelled in a heavy Jacobean style after 1864 by Frederick Pepys Cockerell, assisted by the then owner, Reginald Cholmondeley, an enthusiastic amateur sculptor. Further internal changes were made in 1927 by Rex Cohen.

Stables and service buildings to the south-east of the Hall have seen much modernisation and adaptation to new uses in the later C20, and there has also been some purpose-built accommodation constructed in the same area.

GARDENS AND PLEASURE GROUNDS: the main gardens around the Hall comprise formal terraces, lawns and topiary work. To either side of the main drive north-east from the Hall are clipped, domed yew bushes on flat lawns. A few mature specimen trees survive. A screen of trees and shrubs separates the lawn from the compartment to its north-west, parallel to it and extending across the north end of the Hall. At the south-west end of this compartment are two box-hedged compartments, each about 8m square, diagonally subdivided and with clipped evergreens within. These are two survivors of Devey’s scheme where there were originally eight compartments, laid out in four rows of two in a geometrical parterre garden. Single clipped yew bushes mark the position of the lost compartments. Their line is continued to the north-east by rows of Irish yews. Later C19 photos (SRRC) show tubs and flower beds set at regular intervals between the yews. A modern post and wire fence cuts across the line of the yews to create a playground; swings and other play equipment stand behind fences to the north of the compartment.

Paths down either side of the long north-west compartment lead to terracing along the south-west front of the Hall. The top two broad terraces date to between 1791 and 1868. After 1868, evidence suggests George Devey developed the area, formalising the upper terrace through the addition of a central gravel path and a stone balustrade, and excavating a third lower terrace. At the south-east end of the upper terrace there is access to a grass viewing platform on the roof of the Buttery, a large, bastion-like projection. A passage leads via steps beneath this to emerge south-east of the terraces. The passage is vaulted, with four storage bays off an arcade to either side. Steps descend the terraces on the north-west side, where there is an apsidal stone bench seat, also part of Devey’s scheme. In front of it is a square arrangement of hedges and topiary, mirrored by a similar design at the south-east end of the terrace. Steps also descend at this end of the garden.The terraced garden walls, steps, seat and bastion are listed at Grade II.

Beyond the wall along the bottom of the terraces is a level patch of meadow ground extending to the Cound Brook which loops around it. A path has been laid along the bank with seats allowing the view across the park to be enjoyed.

A terrace walk, supported on a low stone wall, continues the line of the bottom of the terraces north-west for about 100m. At the south-east end is a semi-circular bastion providing views back along the main terraces to the Hall and west across the park. Set above the bastion is a life-size sculpture, purported to be of Richard Tarlton, and probably carved in the later C19 by Reginald Cholmondeley (listed at Grade II). A second projecting bastion lies midway along the walk. East of the walk the ground slopes uphill, away from the Cound Brook. Part of this ground, adjoining the main terraces, is an orchard, the remainder rough woodland with a few mature specimen trees. A path runs along the crest of the slope, running north-west from the Hall to the vicarage. Until the new gardens were laid out in the late 1860s there was an orangery and flower beds hereabouts.

The Hall was built with a long gallery above its loggia and this presumably overlooked what in the late C16 was the main garden. In 1598, as work on the Hall neared completion, the great walk was turfed and a bowling alley laid out. In the 1650s the south walk was where Sir Roger Owen seems to have concentrated most of his soft fruits, including vines.

Both the early C18 painting of the Hall (see Sources) and 1767 survey show the south-east forecourt then to have been walled. In the centre of its turning circle stood a lead statue of Hercules (removed from Condover in 1804, now in the Quarry Park, Shrewsbury, (listed Grade II), probably from the Van Nost workshop. No designer is known. In the early C18 elaborate topiary spirals and twists stood in beds around the forecourt edge. To the rear of the Hall at this time the loggia opened onto a small walled court. Elements of this are probably incorporated in the complex walling which retains the south-east end of the terraces. Below this was a flight of grass terraces which ran in a southerly direction from the south side of the churchyard, aligned east/west. Those terraces, therefore, were on a slightly different alignment to the present ones, which are parallel to the Hall and aligned north-west to south-east. An account written in 1932 (Auden 1932, 25) stated, that the present topiary gardens and terraces at Condover were laid out around 1850, though research by Tenneson (2022) dates the developments to the late 1860s, to designs by Devey.

PARK: the park extends south from the Hall for over a kilometre. A stone wall, under construction in 1600 and about 1.5m high, runs around the southern two-thirds of the park. On the south side of the Cound Brook is a c400m wide zone of permanent pasture, at first level and then rising up a slight ridge, with numerous specimen and park trees and along the north-west boundary of the park a lime avenue. Most of the rest of the park, fairly level ground on the far (south) side of the ridge, is arable farmland. Several plantations date from the later C18 or early C19 (see below) when the park was subdivided. The various pools, notably Wheathall Pool on the south boundary of the park, probably originated as marl pits. Most pre-date 1767. Condover Park, in the southern half of the park, is a development of detached houses, spaciously laid out, built in the 1960s and 1970s. It is approached by a road from the east.

Condover Park was formed by around 1600, presumably laid out by Thomas Owen as an appropriate setting for his new house. On the first surviving map, of 1767, the park occupied essentially the same area as defined by the registered area. The current (2020s) ornamental parkland (then Great and Little Meadows) was already separate from the rest of the park which then lay open, with a lodge at its centre. By 1840 the main internal divisions of the park had been created, and some fields were under arable cultivation.

KITCHEN GARDEN : a tunnel runs beneath the road past the front of the Hall, from the north-east corner of the front garden, to a smaller, walled, largely derelict (1998) pleasure garden. This occupies part of the area occupied in the C19 and early C20 by kitchen gardens and glasshouses.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

2121

Legacy System:

Parks and Gardens

Sources

Books and journals
Stamper, P, Historic Parks and Gardens of Shropshire, (1996), 9-10, 17-18, 25-7, 31-2, 83
Binney, M, Hills, A, Elysian Gardens: A Strategy for Their Survival, (1979), 24

Websites
Preliminary designs for parterres, Condover Hall, Shropshire, for Reginald Cholmondley: plan (RIBA125969), Devey, George, 1870, The Devey Collection, PB8004/12, RIBA, accessed 14/04/2025 from https://www.ribapix.com/Preliminary-designs-for-parterres-Condover-Hall-Shropshire-for-Reginald-Cholmondley-plan_RIBA125969?ribasearch=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cucmliYXBpeC5jb20vc2VhcmNoP3E9Y29uZG92ZXI=
Preliminary designs for parterres, Condover Hall, Shropshire, for Reginald Cholmondley: plan (RIBA125970), Devey, George, 1870, The Devey Collection, PB8004/12, RIBA, accessed 14/04/2025 from https://www.ribapix.com/Preliminary-designs-for-parterres-Condover-Hall-Shropshire-for-Reginald-Cholmondley-plan_RIBA125970?ribasearch=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cucmliYXBpeC5jb20vc2VhcmNoP3E9Y29uZG92ZXI=

Other
J Rocque, Map of Shropshire, 1752
Map of Condover demesne, 1767 (2789), (Shropshire Records and Research Centre) [includes views of the Hall]
R Baugh, Map of Shropshire, 1808
C and J Greenwood, Map of Shropshire, 1827
Tithe map for Condover, 1840 (Shropshire Records and Research Centre)
OS 6" to 1 mile: 1st edition surveyed 1881-2, published 1890 2nd edition surveyed 1901, published 1903 OS 25" to 1 mile: 1st edition surveyed 1881, published 1882 2nd edition surveyed 1901, published 1902
Country Life, 3 (26 March 1898), 368-70; (2 April 1898), 400-2; 43 (1 June 1918), 508-13; (8 June 1918), 530-6
H M Auden, Notes on Condover (1932), 25
The Victoria History of the County of Shropshire viii, (1968), 28-40, 44
Archaeol J 138, (1981), 34-5
Oil painting of Condover Hall and north-east forecourt, early C18 (at Hall 1998)
Watercolour of Hall and gardens, c 1880 (at Hall 1998)
Tenneson, Sara (2022) The revival of the formal garden in the late nineteenth century and the contribution of architects George Devey (1820-1886) and Sir Reginald Blomfield (1856-1942). Doctoral thesis, Institute of Historical Research

End of official list entry

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