One of the many things I love about living in Oxford is that there are so many beautiful places to visit within an hour away by car. Compton Verney is just such a place. It's a lovely great manor house turned into an art gallery with a Capability Brown designed parkland. In all ways, it is a feast for the eyes.
There has been a home on this sight for over a thousand years and it is referenced in the Domesday Book of 1086 (a survey and census carried out for the Norman king, William the Conqueror, to record land ownership and values).
As with most grand houses like this, it buildings have evolved over the centuries. The first surviving inventory of the house, which dates from the middle of the Civil War in 1642, describes a "house of thirty rooms including a hall, two parlours, seventeen bedrooms, an armoury and study as well as servants’ quarters and outbuildings".
The house and landscape that is there today was shaped most notably by John Peyto-Verney who, around 1760, decided to remodel his mansion and garden. He hired Lancelot "Capability" Brown, England's most influential landscape architect to redesign the parkland.
In 1993 it was bought in a run-down state by the Peter Moores Foundation, a charity supporting music and the visual arts established by former Littllwoods chairman Sir Peter Moores. It was his vision to restore the property into a gallery capable of hosting international art exhibitions. Compton Verney Art Gallery is now run by Compton Verney House Trust.
The Park at Compton Verney that you see today is the result of an 11-year restoration project that is still ongoing to restore the landscape to the one that Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown designed in 1768.
Compton Verney has the largest collection of British folk art in the UK.
The British Portrait collection features portraits of royal and noble sitters from the first great era of British painting: the Tudor period (1485-1603) including Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and Edward VI.
It is estimated that Capability Brown was responsible for over 170 gardens surrounding the finest country houses and estates in Britain, all designed and developed in the mid to late 1700's. Click here for a map of the sites where Capability Brown is known or thought to have worked across the UK.
Happy 301st Birthday today (30 August), Sir Lancelot "Capability" Brown!
I love this willow walk!
I also love this restored Icehouse which dates to around 1771. Ice houses were the forerunners to the refrigerator. They provided temperature regulated spaces, chilled down through the use of ice ‘cropped’ during the winter months. Clean ice would have been collected throughout the winter, and compacted into the insulating brick lined pit.
Across the lake from the house there is a geodesic dome called "The Clearing", a collaborative artwork by Alex Hartley and Tom James. Here visitors can take workshops on how to live in the world affected by the social and climate change that’s coming our way.
Thank you to our dear friend, Kath and Ian, for introducing us to Compton Verney. All in all, it's a delightful place to visit. Whether you like art, beautiful old manor house, sweeping English landscapes, lunch or tea from locally grown farms, or as in my case, all of the above, there is something here for everyone.
For more information about the house, click here and/or here.
For information about Capability Brown at Compton Verney click here.
I love the National Trust. They preserve and make accessible so many extraordinary buildings and landscapes throughout the England. I keep discovering new favorites and this past week discovered a magnificent National Trust property called Stourhead.
Stourhead is best known for it's Capability Brown landscaping and garden on a 2650 acre site together with a delightful Palladian style country house. There are numerous garden paths that meander around the lakes, ponds and collection of trees and bushes making it a delightful place to wander and explore, even in the rain.
The Stourton family lived on the estate for 500 years until they sold it to Sir Thomas Meres in 1714. His son, John Meres, sold it to Henry Hoare I, son of wealthy banker. The original manor was demolished and a new house. Over the next 200 years the Hoare family collected many heirlooms, including a large library and art collection which is on display in the house. In 1902 the house was gutted by fire but many of the heirlooms were saved, and the house was rebuilt in a near identical style.
The last Hoare family member to own the property, Henry Hugh Arthur Hoare, gave the house and gardens to the National Trust in 1946, one year before his and his wife's death. (They died on the same day of natural causes!) Their sole heir and son, Captain "Harry" Hoare, died in 1917 serving in the Queen's on Dorset Yeomanry in World War I. There is a lovely story trail through the gardens that tell the story of "Harry"and what it was like to grow up in this bit of paradise.
The Stable Yard
The Temple of Apollo
The view from the Grotto
The Palladian Bridge
The Pantheon
The Grotto
