Woodchester Mansion | |
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![]() View of the south front | |
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General information | |
Architectural style | Gothic Revival |
Location | Nympsfield, Gloucestershire, England |
Construction started | 1858 |
Completed | 1870 (partially) |
Client | William Leigh |
Technical details | |
Structural system | Cotswold stone /vaulting |
Design and construction | |
Architect(s) | Benjamin Bucknall |
Woodchester Mansion is an unfinished, Gothic revival mansion house in Nympsfield, Gloucestershire, England. It is on the site of an earlier house known as Spring Park. The mansion is a Grade I listed building. [1]
The mansion was abandoned by its builders in the middle of construction, leaving behind a building that appears complete from the outside, but with floors, plaster and whole rooms missing inside. It has remained in this state since the mid-1870s.
The mansion's creator William Leigh bought the Woodchester Park estate for £100,000 in 1854, demolishing the existing house, which had been home to the Ducie family.
A colony of approximately 200 greater horseshoe bats reside within the attic of the mansion, and have been studied continuously since the mid-1950s. [2]
The original manor house for Woodchester was in the heart of the settlement of Woodchester, next to the old church. After a succession of owners, the manor was granted to George Huntley in 1564. [3] Subsequently, he decided to create a deer park, a little distance from the manor house, by both purchase and through the enclosure of common agricultural land in the Inchbrook Valley. [4] A seven-mile long boundary wall surrounded the park and by 1610 a hunting lodge was built at the western end. [5]
The expense of creating the park is thought to have nearly bankrupted the Huntleys and the manor and park were sold to Sir Robert Ducie in 1631. Later generations of the Ducie family decided to build a grand country house and, at the same time, create a magnificent landscaped park out of the deer park. Quite why this site was chosen will forever remain an enigma. The steep sides of the valley mean that for much of the year the sun is obscured. The house being positioned halfway down the length of the valley reduces the dramatic views that would have surely been seen if it had been built on a higher spot. The site is neither convenient nor easy for transport. As it was not the Ducie's principal residence, they may have looked at it more as an isolated retreat. In any case, they decided to extend and adapt the hunting lodge and lay out a formal garden, and although a precise start date is not known, the house – called Spring Park – was constructed during the 1740s. Certainly by 1750 it was finished, as Frederick, Prince of Wales stayed – and in 1788, George III visited. [6]
Before the visit of George III – and only 30 years after the formal gardens were established – a start was made on extensively re-landscaping the grounds from plans drawn-up by John Speyers, working with Capability Brown. [1] This plan removed the more formal aspect of the garden to create a naturalistic park. Part of the plan also turned a group of small fishponds into a series of lakes – and this was done in the late 18th or early 19th century. [7]
Not only was the park remodelled but the house too – several times in the 1770s and 1830s (including the reintroduction of a more formal garden area by Humphry Repton) but in 1840 when the 2nd Earl Ducie wanted further alterations and repairs, the estimate was thought to be too great and the estate was sold to William Leigh, a wealthy merchant.
William Leigh was born in Liverpool, and educated at Oxford and Eton. At the time of the purchase he was living at Little Aston Hall in Staffordshire, where he had recently converted to the Roman Catholic faith. This and the Gothic Revival style in architecture were fashionable, and formed the ideology for the new house. He approached Augustus Pugin to draw up the plans. [3]
Pugin drew up plans for the house but in 1846 he became ill and the project was allowed to drop. Leigh meanwhile gave land in South Woodchester to a community of Roman Catholic Passionist fathers for a monastery and church. He then turned to Charles Francis Hansom, whose brother designed the famous Hansom cab of Victorian London, to take over the architectural planning. [8]
In 1857 Leigh dropped Hansom, and unexpectedly hired Benjamin Bucknall, [1] a young man who was an aspiring architect and assistant to Hansom, but very inexperienced. [9] Bucknall set about studying Gothic Revival architecture – the result, Woodchester Mansion, is Bucknall's masterpiece.
Woodchester Mansion was constructed from 1858 to 1870, and finally in 1873, when William Leigh died, all work stopped.
It may be surmised that Leigh's surviving family were less keen on the design for shortly after Leigh's death they asked another architect, James Wilson of Bath, Somerset, to propose a new design. This he did in his flamboyant Italianate style, but the cost of completing a new mansion was too great for any of them to afford. (Indeed, it raises the question of how they ever thought they could both demolish and build a completely new building, but clearly it underlines that they did not share their father's passion for living in monastic conditions.) Wilson had his own opinion of the site and wanted the family to build, if they were going to, in a new location in the valley.
Wilson wrote:
I consider the situation far from the best that might have been selected on the estate; it is low, damp, and has much shut-in on the south, west and north, so that a free circulation of air is impeded. Its position is much too close to the high bank on the north, which will always keep the house damp, and if this bank were sloped off and formed into terraces (which must be allowed with a large outlay) still there would be a closeness and humidity, which would always prove to be detrimental.
In the meantime, Bucknall had moved to Algiers where he worked on domestic projects and villas. The reason for his move is unknown, although poor health is one reason put forward, but without doubt he must have been bitterly disappointed that his grand vision and architectural statement had not been realised. Indeed, in 1878 he wrote to Leigh's son:
there is nothing more sad to the sight than an unfinished work and it is even more forlorn than a ruin of a building which has served its purpose...
In 1894 Cardinal Vaughan paid a visit to the house, [10] and the drawing room was updated, but from that day on the house stood often empty. The next heir, Vincent Leigh, briefly lived in part of the house, and his sisters in the gatehouse.
In 1938, William Leigh's granddaughters, Blanche and Beatrice, sold the house – and what was left of the estate – to a mental health charity, the Barnwood House Trust. They intended to convert the mansion into a mental hospital, but subsequently this plan was shelved. [11] During the Second World War, the grounds were used as a billet for Canadian and American troops, and the mansion itself used by St Paul's Teacher Training College. It was then abandoned to the elements. Fortunately, its isolated position meant it did not suffer from vandalism; it was not redeveloped.
Local people ensured it never fell into total disrepair and the mansion and a small area of surrounding land was eventually purchased by Stroud District Council, who leased it to a building restoration trust, the Woodchester Mansion Trust, [12] in 1992. A board of Trustees manage the mansion and open it to the public from April 1 to October 31 on Fridays to Sundays and Bank Holiday Mondays (i.e. closed every Monday unless a Bank Holiday) with the aid of volunteers. The Trust also operates a programme of training courses in stone conservation and craftsmanship at the mansion.
The parkland around the mansion is owned by the National Trust, and is open to the public as part of its Woodchester Park. Woodchester Park includes several buildings including a gatehouse, boathouse, several cottages and an ice house. There are several large lakes with many paths and walks through the fields and woods. [13] Much of Woodchester village was owned by Woodchester Park. Entrance to the park is free with a National Trust pay-and-display car park near the entrance, situated at the western end of the park, off the B4066 road. Toilets for Mansion visitors are provided near the mansion, these are only open when the Mansion is open to the public. The mansion itself has an entrance fee.
In 1982 a programme in the BBC wildlife series Naturewatch, starring Julian Pettifer, was filmed in Woodchester Park. The topic was Magnetoreception. [14]
In 2002 a team of six sceptics and believers of the paranormal, visited the mansion for an episode of LivingTV's Scream Team. [15] [16]
The television programme Most Haunted Live featured the house in 2003, and again in 2005. It has become a regular haunt for ghost hunters. The building has featured on several television programmes, including the ghost hunting show Hauntings and Scariest Places On Earth . The mansion is also featured on an episode of Ghost Hunters International . [14] Woodchester Mansion was the focus of a two-part special in episodes 66 and 67 of the popular "How Haunted?" podcast.
In November 2003, several scenes from an episode of ITV's Magick Eve starring Emma-Jane Portch and concerning the Gothic subculture were filmed within the house along with a performance by the UK Goth band Cauda Pavonis. In the 2006 BBC production of Dracula , Woodchester Mansion was used as Dracula's (played by Marc Warren) dilapidated castle. The library on the ground floor (one of only a few rooms completed within the house) was used as the guest bedroom in which Jonathan Harker (Rafe Spall) was murdered and Abraham Van Helsing (David Suchet) attacked by Dracula.
Woodchester Park, including the mansion, was the setting for much of the action in the 2012 novel Caballito by Robin Baker. Under the fictional name of Inchfield Park the valley is occupied by a commune made up of Animists and Wiccans and becomes the scene of a suspected murder.
The mansion is shown (with some temporary adjustments) as Gordonstoun in the second series of The Crown. More recently, opening scenes for HBO's His Dark Materials were filmed with the mansion acting as Jordan College, Oxford. [17]
The Cotswolds is a region of central South West England, along a range of rolling hills that rise from the meadows of the upper River Thames to an escarpment above the Severn Valley and the Vale of Evesham. The area is defined by the bedrock of Jurassic limestone that creates a type of grassland habitat that is quarried for the golden-coloured Cotswold stone. The predominantly rural landscape contains stone-built villages, towns, stately homes and gardens featuring the local stone.
Gloucestershire is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Herefordshire to the north-west, Worcestershire to the north, Warwickshire to the north-east, Oxfordshire to the east, Wiltshire to the south, Bristol and Somerset to the south-west, and the Welsh county of Monmouthshire to the west. The city of Gloucester is the largest settlement and the county town.
Stroud is a market town and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England. It is the main town in Stroud District. The town's population was 13,500 in 2021.
Earl of Ducie is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1837 for Thomas Reynolds Moreton, 4th Baron Ducie.
Woodchester is a Gloucestershire village in the Nailsworth Valley, a valley in the South Cotswolds in England, running southwards from Stroud along the A46 road to Nailsworth. The parish population taken at the 2011 census was 1,206.
Samuel Sanders Teulon was an English Gothic Revival architect, noted for his use of polychrome brickwork and the complex planning of his buildings.
Uley is a village and civil parish in the county of Gloucestershire, England. The parish includes the hamlets of Elcombe and Shadwell and Bencombe, all to the south of the village of Uley, and the hamlet of Crawley to the north. The village is situated in a wooded valley in the Cotswold escarpment, on the B4066 road between Dursley and Stroud.
Adlestrop is a village and civil parish in the Cotswolds, 3 miles (5 km) east of Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire, England, on the county boundary with Oxfordshire. The River Evenlode forms the southwest boundary of the parish. The village is on a stream that flows southwest to join the river.
Sir Edward Guy Dawber, RA was an English architect working in the late Arts and Crafts style, whose work is particularly associated with the Cotswolds.
Owlpen Manor is a Tudor Grade I listed manor house of the Mander family, situated in the village of Owlpen in the Stroud district in Gloucestershire, England. There is an associated estate set in a valley within the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The manor house is about 1 mi (1.6 km) east of Uley, and 3 mi (4.8 km) east of Dursley.
Chavenage House, Tetbury, Gloucestershire is a country house dating from the late 16th century. The house was built in 1576 and is constructed of Cotswold stone, with a Cotswold stone tiled roof. David Verey and Alan Brooks, in their Gloucestershire Pevsner, describe the house as "the ideal sixteenth-century Cotswold stone manor house". Chavenage is a Grade I listed building.
Rodborough is a large village and civil parish in the district of Stroud, Gloucestershire, in South West England. It is directly south of the town of Stroud, north of the town of Nailsworth and north-west of the town of Minchinhampton. The parish includes the settlements of Bagpath, Butterrow, Kingscourt, Lightpill and Rooksmoor, and is adjacent to the Stroud suburb of Dudbridge. The population taken at the 2011 census was 5,334.
Selsley is a village within the civil parish of King's Stanley and district of Stroud, in Gloucestershire, England. It is composed of around 175 houses, scattered around the western and eastern edge of a Cotswold spur, located approximately 2 miles (3.2 km) south of Stroud.
Nympsfield is a village and civil parish in the English county of Gloucestershire. It is located around four miles south-west of the town of Stroud. As well as Nympsfield village, the parish contains the hamlet of Cockadilly. The population taken at the 2011 census was 382.
St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church is located on the South Parade in the south-east section of Bath City Centre – the old Ham District where John Wood the Elder, the Georgian architect, had originally planned his gigantic "Forum".
Charles Francis Hansom was a prominent Roman Catholic Victorian architect who primarily designed in the Gothic Revival style.
Benjamin Bucknall was an English architect of the Gothic Revival in South West England and South Wales, and then of neo-Moorish architecture in Algeria. His most noted works include the uncompleted Woodchester Mansion in Gloucestershire, England and his restoration of the Villa Montfeld in El Biar, Algiers.
Ellenborough Park Hotel is a country house hotel in Southam, about 2+1⁄2 miles (4.0 km) northeast of the centre of Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England. It is a Grade II* listed building.
The Church of Our Lady and St Michael in Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, is a Roman Catholic parish church. A Grade II* listed building, it was built between 1858 and 1860 to a design by Benjamin Bucknall.
Woodchester Park is a 214.9-hectare (531-acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest in Gloucestershire, notified in 1966. The park grounds are owned and maintained by the National Trust, with Woodchester Mansion managed by the Woodchester Mansion Trust.