Vista Steps at Shrubland Hall

Summary

A flight of ornamental steps terminating the Green Terrace vista at Shrubland Park, created in the mid-C19, probably in association with Sir Charles Barry's landscape improvements.

Reasons for Designation

The vista steps at Shrubland Hall are listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* they are finely considered and embellished with architectural detail such that they were clearly intended for display and to impress;

* they are associated with Sir Charles Barry's Italianate landscaping and form an important part of the major vista that runs through the pleasure grounds of the historic estate.

Historic interest:

* they make an important contribution to Shrubland Park, widely considered to contain the most elaborate and famous gardens in Suffolk.

Group value:

* they have strong group value with the Grade I registered park and garden and the Grade II listed Hall, along with the many other listed buildings situated throughout the estate.

History

The Shrubland estate is thought to have originated with the building of the Old Hall by the Booth family in the early C16 but in the 1770s the architect James Paine (1717-89) was commissioned by John Bacon to design a new hall on a new site.  This Georgian building still forms the core of the present hall and occupies a dramatic site at the top of a steep escarpment.  Sir William Middleton purchased Shrubland in 1788 and the same year commissioned Humphry Repton (1752-1818) to suggest improvements, some of which were carried out.  Sir William Fowle Fowle Middleton inherited the estate from his father in 1830 and had the Hall extensively remodelled by the architect J P Gandy-Deering.  In association with his nationally renowned head gardener Donald Beaton (who remained in charge at Shrubland until 1852), Sir William and Lady Middleton developed an elaborate and complex collection of gardens by the Hall and at the foot of the escarpment.  In the late 1840s (possibly 1848) they commissioned Charles Barry (1795-1860) to continue to turn their ideas for an Italianate house and garden into reality, and it was during this time that Barry oversaw the creation of the Balcony Garden, the Descent, and the Lower or Panel Garden.  The gardens were finally finished in 1854.  After his death in 1860, Sir William's cousin Sir George Nathaniel Broke Middleton took over the estate which in 1882 passed to his niece and her husband James St Vincent, fourth Baron de Saumarez. During their period William Robinson was consulted on modernising some of the planting. The Hall was used as a convalescent home during the First World War and the Old Hall as a brigade HQ during the Second World War. In 1965 a health clinic was established in the Hall by the sixth Baron and on his death the estate passed to the seventh Baron.  The site has since been sold and remains (2021) in private ownership.

The Vista Steps stand within the Tower Plantation, an area of woodland surrounding the Prospect Tower, built in the 1770s (Grade II, NHLE 1033242). The steps stand at the northern end of a vista called the Green Terrace which runs for over 740m through avenues of trees down to the southern edge of the pleasure grounds where it terminates at a Grade II listed gateway (NHLE 1352053).

Parts of the Green Terrace are likely to have originated as a road or carriage drive in the C17, but the current extent of the vista dates to the mid-C19. The steps are likely to date to the period around 1850 when Barry's pleasure grounds were completed.

The steps have been very little altered since their construction. Between 1958 and 1969 a modernist house called 'Shrubland Vista' was built a short distance to the north.

Details

A flight of ornamental steps terminating the Green Terrace vista at Shrubland Park, built in the mid-C19, probably in association with Sir Charles Barry's landscape improvements.

MATERIALS

The nosing and balustrade of the steps are made of limestone, with the treads covered in cement. The terrace is built of yellow brick.

PLAN

The steps are located at the northern end of the Green Terrace.

DESCRIPTION

The staircase has a flared base of five steps that curls outwards to terminate in an empty round plinth at each end of the curtail step. The upper ten steps are balustraded with square plinths at each end. They rise to a rectangular, stone-flagged terrace, balustraded to the south, east and west. The base of the terrace is built of rusticated yellow brick.

Sources

Books and journals
Bettley, J, Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: Suffolk: East, (2015)
Williamson, Tom, Suffolk’s Gardens and Parks: Designed Landscapes from the Tudors to the Victorians, (2000)

Other
Country Life, 10 (2 November 1901), p560; 114 (24 September 1953), p948; (19 November 1953), p1654; (26 November 1953), p1734.
Tom Williamson, The Landscape of Shrubland Park. A Short History (1997)

End of official list entry

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