Identification and description | |||||||
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Name | SNOWSHILL MANOR | ||||||
Location |
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Localisation | Latitude: 52.002818 Longitude: -1.8612759 National Grid Reference: SP 09620 33829 Map: Download a full scale map (PDF) |
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Overview | Heritage Category: Park and Garden Grade: II List Entry Number: 1000781 Date first listed: 28-Feb-1986 |
Early C20 terraced gardens on steeply sloping ground, laid out by Charles Paget Wade
and associated with a Cotswold manor house of c 1500 and later.
HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT
Snowshill Manor, until 1539 a possession of Winchcombe Abbey, was sold in 1572 to
John and Thomas Warne (or Warren). It remained in that family until c 1645 when it
was sold to Will Wall. Between 1712 and 1743, the Manor was owned by the Sanbach family
and, during that time, there were some additions to the house. William Sanbach the
younger died without issue in 1759 and Samuel Blackwell purchased the estate. He sold
to John Small of Clapham in Surrey (d 1779). From 1759 to 1919 the Manor was owned
by absentee landlords.
In 1919, the Manor and 14 acres (c 5.5ha) were purchased by Charles Paget Wade (1883-1956),
an architect and antique collector from Yoxford, Suffolk, with a private income from
family estates in St Kitts in the West Indies. With the help of twenty-eight local
craftsmen he restored the Manor. Wade did not live in the Manor, preferring a small
cottage in the grounds, but used it to house his eclectic collections and to entertain
his many guests (up to 500 a year), including writers and artists such as F L Griggs,
Edwin Lutyens, John Masefield, J B Priestly, Virginia Woolf and, in 1937, Queen Mary.
Wade terraced the hillside around the Manor and, using (and adapting) a plan by M
H Baillie Scott, a former colleague, created gardens on what had previously been a
poorly drained farmyard. In 1951, Wade presented the Manor and its contents to the
National Trust, in whose hands it remains (1999).
DESCRIPTION
LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING The village of Snowshill lies 11km south-east
of Evesham. The Manor stands to the north of the village, on a minor road connecting
Broadway, to the north, to the B4077. The registered area, of 0.8ha, is bounded by
stone walls, hedges, wooden fences and, to the east, by the minor road. The western
half of the north boundary of the Manor garden is formed by a holly hedge, the eastern
section being defined by a 2.5-3m high stone wall. The public house, the Snowshill
Arms, marks its southernmost extent. The Manor lies on sloping ground which drops
away to the west, before rising again, towards the village of Stanton, c 2.5km away.
There are extensive views of the hillside to the west from much of the garden. To
the east of the Manor, the land rises more gently, up to Spring Hill.
ENTRANCES AND APPROACHES Before 1995, the Manor was approached from the village, through
a wooden gate in a stone wall between a pair of stone gatehouses (previously stables)
c 60m south of the Manor. A visitors' car park was built at Piper's Grove, c 250m
north-west of the Manor, in c 1995, from where a winding gravel footpath leads to
the south front of the Manor.
PRINCIPAL BUILDING Snowshill Manor (listed grade II*) is a Z-plan house of two-and-a-half
storeys, built of coursed, squared Cotswold stone with stone slate roofs. Its earliest
part is the north hall of c 1500, converted to two storeys in c 1600. In 1712, William
Sanbach altered the south end and added a projecting room to the west to give a classical
front. The original front door, in the middle of the west side, is now partially obscured
by an early C18 gazebo room and the present front door is off-centre, on the south
face of the Manor. Repairs and alterations were made for and by Wade from 1919 to
1923.
GARDENS AND PLEASURE GROUNDS Snowshill Manor stands in the north-east corner of its
gardens, which form an irregular square. The gardens are laid out in a series of walled
compartments, linked by flights of stone steps, on three main terraces to the west
of the Manor and three terraces to the south and south-west. Most of the many wooden
gates and seats in the gardens have been painted 'Wade Blue', a deep-turquoise colour.
Within the registered area is a small, tapering strip of grass (20m long and 1-3m
wide) between the east side of the Manor and the minor road. The south front of the
Manor is approached by a gravel path which starts at a wooden gate, c 50m from the
south end of the house. The gateway pierces a c 2m high ashlar wall between two C17
single-bay, coursed stone lodges with stone slate roofs (wall and lodges listed grade
II). These were formerly stables, altered in the C18 and early C19. The church of
St Barnabas can be seen through the gate. The gravel path, c 1m wide, runs north,
through two forecourts, each c 25m long and 12m wide, which are divided by a yew hedge
c 1.5m high, pierced by a wooden gate between c 3m high ashlar stone piers surmounted
by ball finials (c 1720, listed grade II). These piers represent the original road
boundary of the property. The southern compartment contains mature beech, holly, yew,
hornbeam, and sycamore trees whilst the northern compartment, next to the Manor, has
lawn to each side of the path, with a mature bird cherry in the south-east corner.
The east side of these compartments is bounded by a c 3m high coursed stone wall whilst
a 0.5-1m high wall (of coursed stone to the north and drystone to the south) supports
the western edge of the terrace. From the northern compartment, there are extensive
views of the valley and opposite hillside to the west.
Stone steps leading north from the south-west corner of the Manor give access to a
stone-flagged area which forms the north end of a second terrace, c 4m wide, adjacent
to, and west of, the first. This terrace is of mown grass, with a mulberry and two
hornbeams planted along its eastern edge. A grass ramp along its western edge connects
it to a third, parallel, grass terrace, c 6m wide, c 1.5m below. A short flight of
stone steps at the northern end of the middle terrace also links the two terraces.
A wooden post and rail fence forms the western boundary of the lowest terrace and
divides it from an orchard, which is entered via a wooden gate in its north-east corner.
A hornbeam hedge separates the bottom terrace from the gravel path which runs along
the southern ends of the terracing and orchard.
From the northern end of the middle terrace, stone steps lead from the paved area
to a gravel path which runs west for c 40m, between the orchard (here contained by
a wooden fence fronted by a hawthorn hedge) and the c 2.5m high coursed stone wall
of the main garden. The path is edged by narrow herbaceous borders with stone edges.
About halfway along the wall, an arched gateway leads to the Armillary Court. At its
western end, the wall joins a further 12m length of walling, running north. A stone
shed, built into the corner where the walls meet, is accessed via a door at the west
end of the south wall. The shed is connected to a stone dovecote to its north, the
entrance to which is a small wooden door in the western garden wall. The gravel path
turns north to follow the wall, here also edged with herbaceous borders, and with
a herb garden. A yew hedge divides this area from the kitchen gardens to the west.
To the north of the dovecote, three semicircular stone steps lead up to a wooden gate
between two 3m high ashlar gate piers with ball finials (Wade c 1920, listed grade
II). East of this is the Well Court.
At the south-west corner of the Manor, the garden wall is pierced by a gateway with
a wooden gate, leading to the Cottage Court. A quote painted on a board (probably
early C20) above the gateway reads: 'A gardyn walled all with stoon, so fair a gardyn
wot I nowhere noon'. This is one of several such quotes sited in the gardens. Some
3m north of the gate and 10m from the west front of the Manor, is the Brewhouse (also
known as the Priest's House or Cottage, listed grade II). This C16 and C17 coursed
stone building was once a dairy, then a still room, then Wade's house. It was altered
and extended in the C19 and from 1919 to 1923, by Wade. A painted wooden sculpture
of St George and the Dragon (1922) is mounted on its south end and is visible through
the gateway, from the middle of the southern terraces. Between the Brewhouse and the
Manor is an area of lawn (c 10 x 5m), divided by a flagged stone path which leads
from the paved area at the south end of the Cottage Court to the northern extension
of the Brewhouse. A low stone wall divides a raised lawn (4 x 2m), against the north-west
corner of the Manor, from the rest of the Court. A coursed stone wall c 2.5m high
forms the boundary between the terrace and the Administrator's Garden (private), a
square lawn edged by trees, to the north.
Three short flights of stone steps lead from the south end of the Brewhouse, west,
down to the Armillary Court, past two Irish yews planted against the wall opposite
the Brewhouse. The path divides, one arm continuing west, as an axial path, down steps
spanning a c 2m drop, to the south end of the Armillary Court, whilst the other arm
turns north to run along a raised stone- flagged walk west of the Brewhouse, with
a low stone wall on its west side and a viewing area halfway along, overlooking the
Armillary Court.
The east/west axial path passes through an avenue of nine (originally ten) Irish yews
at the south end of the Armillary Court. The Court (c 9 x 10m) is mostly taken up
by a rectangular lawn, surrounded by a stone-flagged path, with a central Armillary
Sphere on a tall stone column. There are narrow herbaceous borders between the path
and the stone walls which enclose the Court on its north, east, and west sides. A
bronze head of Bacchus, mounted halfway along the eastern, drystone wall directly
below the viewing area, drips water into a lead tank beneath.
The axial path from the south end of the Brewhouse continues down stone steps to the
Well Court (c 5 x 11m), which runs parallel to the Armillary Court. This enclosure
has a narrow rectangular lawn with a Venetian stone well-head in the centre. At its
southern end, steps lead up to a small paved raised terrace from which the Court can
be viewed. The points of the compass can be seen in the paving here. On the north
wall of the terrace is mounted a Zodiac Clock (in Wade Blue) and, beneath this, a
wooden bench is set into an alcove. A raised bed, held up by a low stone wall, runs
along the eastern edge of the terrace. At two points along the wall behind this bed,
water drips into decorative lead troughs. In the south-west corner of the Well Court
is the Dovecote (late C16 or C17, listed grade II), of roughly squared, coursed stone
with a stone slate gabled roof. The stone wall, pierced by the gateway with the semicircular
steps, connects this to a garden house (listed grade II) c 8m to the north. Between
these two buildings is a herbaceous border, divided by a path leading to the kitchen
garden. Another garden house (listed grade II), known as the Sancta Maria Byre, forms
the northern boundary of the Well Court. Both were formerly cowhouses of the late
C18 and early to mid C19, probably altered by Wade c 1919-23. The east side of the
garden house, nearest to the Dovecote, is open, giving views of the Well Court. The
Elder Grove and open countryside beyond the garden can be seen through a doorway in
its north wall. To the south of the Sancta Maria Byre a square pool is sunk into a
small paved sitting area and reflects the small Madonna shrine set on the roof of
the garden house.
A route through the Sancta Maria Byre leads to the Elder Grove beyond (now of Guelder
roses - the elders were lost in the winter of 1963): a rectangular compartment, quartered
by stone-flagged paths. It is enclosed by drystone walls to the north, east, and west.
At the northern end of the Brewhouse, this path leads up a flight of stone steps with
a c 3m high stone pillar, with ball finial, to the west. The steps lead to a grass
terrace (c 4 x 12m) running north/south, backed to the east by the stone wall of the
Administrator's Garden. Four ash trees, one of which is mature, grow along the wall.
There is a curved wooden seat on a raised grass platform in the north-east corner
of the terrace.
Access to a second, lower grass terrace is at the northern end of the upper terrace.
The second terrace then slopes gently downhill, from north to south. A grass bank
divides the two terraces. Below this is a series of informal terraces (some edged
by drystone walls) across which grass walks, between trees and shrubs, lead back to
the Armillary Court. Adjacent to the north end of the Armillary Court is a deep, stone-edged,
square trout pond which once formed the quay for Wade's model Cornish village (one
model building remains) which John Betjeman, a frequent visitor, wrote about in 1932
(Architectural Review). There is a gate in the pool's south wall, connecting it to
the Armillary Court. A grass path from the north-east corner of the pool passes between
two large, clipped box hedges, one of which conceals a wooden bench, and leads to
the informal terracing.
The line of the west wall is continued north as a ha-ha along the edge of the Elder
Grove. Steps lead down to a wooden gate through the ha-ha, from the north-west corner
of the Grove. Steps at the northern end of the Grove lead up to a grassy glade. There
are extensive views to the west, from a bank above the ha-ha. From the ha-ha, a grass
path goes east, along the northern edge of the Manor garden, passing between trees
and shrubs, and leads up a flight of rough stone steps, back to the top grass terrace,
adjacent to the Administrator's Garden.
The gardens were created by Wade from 1919 to 1923, using and altering a plan by M
H Baillie Scott (1865-1945), which especially influenced the design of the Armillary
and Well Courts. Wade continued to work on the gardens for the next thirty years.
The late C20 features are the footpath from the visitors' car park and the recent
planting of Scots pines along part of the southern boundary of the gardens.
KITCHEN GARDEN The Kitchen Garden lies west of the Well Court and is a rough rectangle
(c 50 x 12m) with its long axis running down a gentle slope, from east to west. It
is contained by a 1m high drystone wall and is divided into two parts by a low wooden
fence. The eastern half is used for vegetable cultivation, whilst the western half
is an apple and pear orchard. A central gravel path is edged by low box hedges in
the eastern part and divides it into two. The path continues through the orchard (where
it is edged by hazel trees, planted late 1990s) to a wooden gate in the west wall.
Another orchard, set within a fence, runs parallel and to the south of the Kitchen
Garden.
REFERENCES
Country Life, 62 (1 October 1927), pp 470-7; 163 (18 May 1978), pp 1358-60; 167 (17
April 1980), pp 1178-80 D Verey, The Buildings of England: Gloucestershire The Cotswolds
(1970), p 405 C Mason, Snowshill: A Gloucestershire Village (1987) D Ottewill, The
Edwardian Garden (1989) N Kingsley, The Country Houses of Gloucestershire, Volume
One, 1500-1660 (1989), pp 219-20 G and S Jellicoe et al, The Oxford Companion to Gardens
(1991) Snowshill Manor, guidebook, (National Trust 1992)
Maps OS 6" to 1 mile: 1st edition published 1884
Description written: July 1999 Amended: February 2001 Register Inspector: TVAC Edited:
April 2003
This garden or other land is registered under the Historic Buildings and Ancient Monuments Act 1953 within the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens by Historic England for its special historic interest.