Woodchester Mansion
Woodchester Mansion and Park.. The history behind the Mansion.
Woodchester is mentioned in the Doomsday book under the heading "The land of the King's Theogns' - " In Blacklow Hundred Brictric holds Woodchester of the king. He held it himself in the time of King Edward. There is 1 hide paying tax. There are 16 villains and 12 bordars with 16 ploughs.
The land was held by the Maltravers family and by the 14th century he estate had been passed to the earls of Arundal who put the springs oin the valley to use to make the Mill-ponds. The 10th Earl was beheaded and this resulted in the land being reverted back to the crown.
In 1564 Queen Elizabeth I stayed with the Huntley family at Frocester on her way to Berkeley Castle. In her gratitude for his hospitality she knighted George Huntley and granted him the Manor of Woodchester, which included Woodchester Park, then known as Spring Park. Sir George was succeeded in 1580 by his grandson, also George, who envoked the wrath of the neighbourhood by enclosing the park with a wall. In 1612 he built The Lodge in the park. In 1622, whilst opening a gate on his estate, he fell from his horse and was killed, the common verdict being that his death was a divine judgement. About 1632 William Huntley sold the estate to Sir Robert Ducie, a banker to King Charles I.
The Ducie family owned the estate for some 200 years. It is not known exactly when the large Georgian house known as Spring Park was built, but certainly by 1750 Frederick Prince of Wales stayed at the house. In 1788 the Ducies entertained King George III and Queen Charlotte during their tour of Gloucestershire.
Over the years the Ducies became ennobled. Matthew Ducie Moreton was created Lord Ducie, Baron Moreton in 1720, and in 1837 Thomas Reynolds Moreton became the 1st Earl of Ducie and 4th Baron Moreton. The name Moreton was derived from Sir Robert's granddaughter Elizabeth Ducie. Elizabeth married Edward Moreton, the estate passing through the female line as there were no male heirs.
Capability Brown visited in 1782 and his assistant John Speyers later made a survey of the park but, probably due to the death of Brown the following year, no landscaping work was carried out. Humphrey Repton was consulted in 1809 and a series of lakes was established some time after this. Francis, 3rd Lord Ducie, preferred his house at Tortworth and in the early 1800s Spring Park is described as a "deserted seat". However, the 1st Earl undertook a major restoration project about 1830 and commissioned the architect John Adey Repton to prepare a classical theme for the alterations, which included several reception rooms, bedrooms and a conservatory. At the same time a delightful boathouse was built on one of the lakes. But when the 2nd Earl inherited ten years later, major repairs costing about £8,000 were still required. He decided that this was too costly, and put the whole estate on the market in 1844.
Not surprisingly the estate agent's prospectus for the sale makes no mention of any dilapidated state, instead describing it as a "princely demesne ... luxuriant beyond description" and "planned to accommodate the first noblemen in the land". The whole of the estate included land, farms and houses in Nympsfield, Frocester and Woodchester amounting in all to about 4,000 acres (about 1,600 hectares) bringing in a yearly income approaching £5,300.
In 1845 the estate was bought by William Leigh and the story of Woodchester Mansion begins....
Woodchester Mansion
The present, incomplete Mansion at Woodchester Park replaced a Georgian country house called Spring Park, which was first built at the beginning of the 17th century and named for the many springs in the valley. The estate, which included Nympsfield, parts of the parishes of Frocester, Kings Stanley, Avening and Horsley, as well as Woodchester village, had much earlier origins and formed part of the land holdings of the second Earl of Ducie. It was put up for sale by him in 1844.
William Leigh, a devout convert to the Roman Catholic church, bought the estate in 1845 for £100,000, moving from his home at Little Aston Hall in Staffordshire. Leigh approached Augustus Welby Pugin, co-architect of the newly built Palace of Westminster, inviting him to design a new house in the fashionable Gothic style. After initial discussions Pugin dropped out of consideration, and Leigh looked elsewhere.
Leigh gave land in nearby South Woodchester to the Congregation of Passionists for the construction of a Roman Catholic church and a monastery for the Passionist brothers. His architect was now Charles Francis Hansom of Bristol, brother of the designer of the hansom cab.
By 1854 Leigh returned to the idea of creating a grand Gothic mansion in Woodchester Park, and a new set of designs was prepared by Hansom’s office. By 1859, however, most of the drawings were being produced by Hansom’s assistant Benjamin Bucknall, who was local to the Stroud area. Bucknall was very young for the responsibility of such a large scheme, being only 21 when he began. However, his passion for the spiritual qualities of the purest forms of Gothic architecture led to Leigh entrusting him with the Mansion project. Bucknall was greatly influenced by the French architect and writer Viollet-le-Duc, whose greatest treatise, the "Dictionnaire Raisonne de L’Architecture Francaise du Xième au XVIème Siecle", provided a treasure chest of ideas for the young Englishman. Bucknall eventually translated the work into English.
Woodchester is undoubtedly Bucknall’s masterpiece and, even incomplete, illustrates his profound grasp of the medieval Gothic tradition. It is rich in architectural form and details and appears today as an astonishing blend of the domestic and the monastic, with brewery, bakery and laundry cheek-by-jowl with one of the most beautiful private chapels in England. The exact date for the start of building is uncertain, but by 1858 the clock tower had been completed, and by 1866 the main building had been roofed. In its heyday there were over 100 people of varying trades working on the site.
William Leigh died in 1873. His son, also William Leigh (known locally as Squire Leigh), did not have his father’s religious vocation and he asked a number of architects, including Bucknall, to give advice about his father’s house. Many schemes were advanced, including recommendations to demolish and rebuild - advice which uncannily echoed A.W. Pugin’s original advice on Spring Park. No scheme was taken up, perhaps because the estate was now considered too small to support the original Mansion and funds for total rebuilding were too scarce. The only work of any significance to be carried out after Leigh’s death was the completion of the Drawing Room for a visit by Cardinal Vaughan in 1894.
The estate remained in the Leigh family until 1938. Vincent Leigh, Squire Leigh’s son, lived in part of the Mansion at the turn of the century whilst his sisters Blanche and Beatrice lived at Scar Hill, the lodge near the main gate. Blanche and Beatrice sold the estate to the Barnwood Trust, who intended to convert the Mansion into a mental home. But the second world war intervened and the house was somehow, once again, left undisturbed.
After 1938 the Park and its Mansion had a chequered history. American and Canadian troops used it as a base during the Second World War, constructing pontoon bridges over the lake in preparation for D-Day. In the 1950s the Mansion became a field study centre, but was not altered. After further changes of ownership Stroud District Council bought the Mansion, now classified as a Grade I listed building, to save it from ruin. (English Heritage provided 75% of the £20,000 cost). Emergency repairs costing £30,000 were carried out, again aided by English Heritage. But heritage and conservation organisations considered the Mansion too expensive a project to undertake.
In 1988 the Woodchester Mansion Conservation Group was set up by local people, becoming a Charitable Trust in 1989. In 1992, as The Woodchester Mansion Trust, the new body signed a 99-year lease on the Mansion and 23 acres of pasture. The Trust is repairing the house, preserving it in its unfinished state with regular public access, and provides training in stonemasonry, conservation and architecture, with courses for students and the general public. It is the only on-site training opportunity nationally for students of stonemasonry.
The Trust has set about the task of raising more than £8 million for repairs to complete its programme of conservation for the Mansion. With the help of an initial Heritage Lottery Fund grant of £815,000, the Trust has been able to complete the first three phases of restoration, including the repair of the Grand Staircase, essential works to the rainwater system and, in 2003, the restoration of the West Range and Clock Tower.
