Cronkhill,
Atcham
Atcham is a village, ecclesiastical parish and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in Shropshire, England. It lies on the B4380 (once the A5 road (Great Britain), A5), 5 miles south-east of Shrewsbury. The River Severn flows round the villag ...
,
Shropshire
Shropshire (; abbreviated SalopAlso used officially as the name of the county from 1974–1980. The demonym for inhabitants of the county "Salopian" derives from this name.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West M ...
, designed by
John Nash, is "the earliest
Italianate
The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style combined its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century It ...
villa in England".
Drawing on influences from the
Italian Campagna and the
Picturesque, including the art of
Claude Lorrain, it began an architectural style that was hugely influential in England in the first half of the nineteenth century. Major examples include
Trentham Park and
Osborne House. Nash's "most original building", it is
Grade I listed.
[
]
History
The house was designed by John Nash in 1802 for Francis Walford. Walford was a friend of Thomas Noel Hill, 2nd Baron Berwick, of nearby Attingham Park, and the agent for Berwick's Attingham estates. Mansbridge considers that the design was "almost certainly inspired" by Claude Lorrain's painting "Landscape near Rome with a View of the Ponte Molle." Lord Berwick was the owner of two Claude landscapes. Walford lived at Cronkhill, managing Lord Berwick's Attingham interests, until their relationship ended acrimoniously in 1828, when Walford left the house.National Trust
The National Trust () is a heritage and nature conservation charity and membership organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The Trust was founded in 1895 by Octavia Hill, Sir Robert Hunter and Hardwicke Rawnsley to "promote the ...
in the post-war period.
Architecture
The body of the house is a rectangular two-storey block, with a circular, three-storey, tower to the north and a square, three-storey, tower to the west.[ A ]loggia
In architecture, a loggia ( , usually , ) is a covered exterior Long gallery, gallery or corridor, often on an upper level, sometimes on the ground level of a building. The corridor is open to the elements because its outer wall is only parti ...
links the two towers.[ The walls are now white ]stucco
Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and ...
, although the colour may originally have been designed to imitate ashlar
Ashlar () is a cut and dressed rock (geology), stone, worked using a chisel to achieve a specific form, typically rectangular in shape. The term can also refer to a structure built from such stones.
Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, a ...
. Internally, the main reception rooms are simply decorated, comprising a drawing room in the round tower, a library in the square tower and a dining room in the body of the house. Although influential, the house, as with much of Nash's work, was subject to criticism, Davis describing the round tower as "merely a dramatic architectural trick, (containing neither) a circular staircase, nor even one circular room." In 2016, the National Trust undertook a major restoration of the house to "restore Cronkhill's appearance back to Nash's original design."
See also
* Grade I listed buildings in Shropshire
* Listed buildings in Atcham
Notes
References
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External links
Cronkhill
at the National Trust
{{coord , 52, 40, 13, N, 2, 41, 16, W, type:landmark_region:GB-SHR, display=title
Country houses in Shropshire
Grade I listed houses
Grade I listed buildings in Shropshire
Houses completed in 1802
Italianate architecture in England
John Nash (architect) buildings
National Trust properties in Shropshire