Grotto, tomb and souterrein at Ashridge, Little Gaddesden, Hertfordshire

Summary

Grotto and souterrein executed around 1813-1821 by Sir Jeffry Wyatville based on a design in Humphry Repton’s Red Book of 1813.

Description

Grotto and souterrein executed around 1813-1821 by Sir Jeffry Wyatville based on a design in Humphry Repton’s Red Book of 1813.

MATERIALS: puddingstone amphitheatre and flint-lined tomb and tunnel. The tomb and tunnel have iron armatures, except for approximately 3m of the tunnel which has a steel framework.

PLAN: the grotto is located to the south-east of the fernery garden about 100m south of the chapel and is set into an earth mound planted with mature trees.

EXTERIOR: the grotto garden is in the form of an amphitheatre, the sides of which are lined with local puddingstone. Formerly a pond lay on the north side, fed by a cascade from the mound to the east, but this is now largely filled in. The east side of the grotto is formed by a puddingstone wall into which are set three openings. The two to the north give access to a circular domed chamber, approximately 4m across, containing the grave of Duke, a favourite horse who died in 1857. This date, and the horse’s name, is inscribed on a memorial tablet set into the pebble-lined floor. The opening to the south is the entrance to the souterrein, a flint-lined tunnel about 2m wide and 2.5m high leading through the mound to the Duchess' Private Garden. This opening at the east is also framed by puddingstone and has a wrought iron gate.

History

Ashridge originated as the earliest English College of Bonhommes, founded in 1283 by Edmund, Earl of Cornwall, a nephew of Henry III. Very little of the monastery survives except the undercroft and the well which were both created around the time of its foundation. The Monk’s Barn was also built as part of the monastic site as a tithe barn in the 1480s. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536, Ashridge was retained by Henry VIII, and his daughter Elizabeth lived here during Mary I’s reign. After Elizabeth’s death in 1604, it was sold to her Lord Chancellor, Thomas Egerton, Baron Ellesmere, whose descendants became the Earls and then the Dukes of Bridgewater. In the 1760s Francis, the 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, who amassed a fortune by developing waterways for industrial transport (becoming known as the Canal Duke), commissioned Henry Holland to design a more comfortable Georgian residence, and Capability Brown was commissioned to landscape the park. By the early C19, the house was in disrepair and in a ruinous state. The 3rd Duke decided to erect a new mansion in its place, and the vast majority of the old house which included parts dating back 500 years was demolished by 1803, the year he died. As he had never married, the Dukedom became extinct and the earldom and estate passed to his cousin, John William Egerton who became the 7th Earl of Bridgewater. The eldest son of the Bishop of Durham, Egerton joined the Army in 1771 and rose through the ranks until he was made General in 1812. He also served as the Tory MP for Morpeth from 1777 to 1780, and for Brackley from 1780 to 1803.

The 3rd Duke opened a competition to redesign Ashridge House and the winning architect was James Wyatt (1746-1813). Wyatt was the sixth son of Benjamin Wyatt, the founder of the Wyatt building business in Staffordshire. He was sent to Italy for six years where he became the pupil of Antonio Visentini under whom he made rapid progress as an architectural draughtsman. Between 1769 and 1813 Wyatt designed or altered several royal palaces, five cathedrals, seventeen other churches, eight colleges as well as over a hundred country houses in England, Wales and Ireland. Many of his houses were in the neoclassical style, such as Heveningham Hall, Suffolk (about 1780-1784) and Dodington Park, Gloucestershire (1798-1813), but it was as a Gothic architect that Wyatt enjoyed a special celebrity. His most accomplished works in the Gothic style are Ashridge and Fonthill Abbey, Wiltshire (dem about 1800) for William Beckford. Wyatt was killed in a carriage accident in 1813 and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

The foundation stone of Ashridge was laid on 25 October 1808 and the house was fit for habitation by 1814. Wyatt died before it was completed but a series of pen drawings produced by J Buckler around 1813 capture the extent of his work. The remainder of Wyatt’s designs was completed by his nephew Jeffry Wyatt (1766-1840) who later became Sir Jeffry Wyatville. He was apprenticed to his uncle Samuel Wyatt before transferring to the office of his more celebrated uncle James with whom he remained until 1799 when he went into partnership with John Armstrong, a carpenter and building contractor. Wyatville soon became well known as a country house architect in the Tudor Gothic style with a large clientele among the Whig aristocracy, and by the 1820s he was one of the half dozen leading English architects. His most accomplished work is the transformation of Windsor Castle which he carried out between 1824 and 1840.

Wyatville’s main contribution to Ashridge was in extending Wyatt’s design through the addition of new service quarters to the west, including stables with an attached cottage, coach house, workshops and other ancillary structures. He added the family wing at the east end of the building (away from the service quarters and state rooms) which terminated in an orangery. Humphry Repton (1752-1818) was commissioned to design the gardens but Wyatville also played a significant role in their development, including the design for the Gothic fountain (Grade II) in Repton’s Monk’s Garden. By 1821 the bulk of the work to the house was largely complete and it was much admired by contemporaries. The Earl commissioned his chaplain, H J Todd to write a history of Ashridge, entitled A History of the College of Bonhommes (1823), which includes a description of the new house, along with a detailed floor plan and illustrations by H Le Keux.

In the wake of the First World War, the 3rd Earl Brownlow, who had inherited vast estates, instructed in his will that his trustees sell the Ashridge Estate. Most of the parkland was purchased by the National Trust in 1925, and the house was purchased by Urban Hanlon Broughton who donated it to the Conservative Party in commemoration of the late Prime Minister, Andrew Bonar Law. In 1929 it was formally opened by Stanley Baldwin as a Conservative college. During the Second World War Ashridge was offered to the Ministry of Health as a site for an emergency hospital. The hospital moved out in 1947 and the college reopened. In 1954 a bill was passed stating that the aim of the college was to provide an education without any bias towards a political party, and it became known as Ashridge Business School. As a result of the support of Sir Hugh Beaver, the college undertook a programme of modernisation and improvement in 1957, and the college continued to expand its teaching and accommodation facilities throughout the later C20.

The grotto was proposed by Repton in his Red Book of 1813. He provided a drawing of the entrance to the souterrein, stating that it ‘forms part of an assemblage of flints etc for the culture of rock plants’, and added that ‘if not too fanciful, a grotto-like appearance may be given.’ In Kay Sanecki’s History of Ashridge, reference is made to the diary of William Buckingham who states that Repton and his son supervised some of the marking out, planting of the garden and formation of the grotto. Due to a carriage accident in 1811 that left Repton in a wheelchair, Wyatville played a significant role in the development of the garden, and it is likely that he executed parts of Repton’s designs, including the subterranean grotto. It was certainly built by 1823 as it appears on Todd’s plan. In 1857 a favourite horse called Duke was either buried or commemorated in the domed chamber. It is thought that Matthew Digby Wyatt (1820-1877), who was commissioned to redecorate the interiors of Ashridge during the 1850s and 1860s, may have designed the memorial stone and possibly the pattern on the pebble and flint floor.

The purpose of the grotto garden was to provide a secluded area for the planting of rock garden plants surrounding a pool. The souterrein then formed part of the route around the garden leading from a relatively dark secluded area into a vibrant and colourful flower garden. The large artificial mound in which the grotto is set was presumably made using spoil from the construction of the mansion. The original structure consisted of iron armatures into which flints were fitted and then secured above with layers of clay and soil. This structure had deteriorated as a result of the cast iron rusting, and in the second decade of the C21 approximately 3m of the iron structure was replaced with a steel framework.

Reasons for Listing

The grotto and souterrein, executed around 1813-1821 by Sir Jeffry Wyatville based on a design in Humphry Repton’s Red Book of 1813, is listed at Grade II* for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* it is associated with Repton, one of the most important and influential landscape designers of the late C18 and early C19, and Wyattville, an acclaimed architect who was also one of the most considerable figures of the earlier Gothic Revival;
* it has a distinctive curvilinear plan which deliberately manipulates space and effect, giving the overall experience of a highly dramatic and contrasting garden feature;
* its form and construction is rare and incorporates a unique side chamber to one of the entrances, creating a flint-vaulted mausoleum or tomb for a favourite horse.

Historic interest:

* it forms an integral and well-preserved element in how the garden is experienced and is an original feature in one of Repton’s most complete surviving gardens.

Group value:

* it has strong group value with the listed house and estate buildings and the Grade II* Registered Park which altogether form a highly significant ensemble created by the most renowned practitioners of the Picturesque movement.

External Links

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