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Madresfield Court is a
country house image:Blenheim - Blenheim Palace - 20210417125239.jpg, 300px, Blenheim Palace - Oxfordshire An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a Townhou ...
in Malvern,
Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It is bordered by Shropshire, Staffordshire, and the West Midlands (county), West ...
, England. The home of the
Lygon family Earl Beauchamp () was a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. The peerage was created in 1815 for William Lygon, 1st Baron Beauchamp, along with the subsidiary title Viscount Elmley, in the County of Worcester. He had already been crea ...
for nearly six centuries, it has never been sold and has passed only by inheritance since the 12th century; a line of unbroken family ownership reputedly exceeded in length in England only by homes owned by the
British Royal Family The British royal family comprises Charles III and other members of his family. There is no strict legal or formal definition of who is or is not a member, although the Royal Household has issued different lists outlining who is considere ...
. The present building is largely a Victorian reconstruction, although the origins of the present house are from the 16th century, and the site has been occupied since
Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...
times. The novelist
Evelyn Waugh Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (; 28 October 1903 – 10 April 1966) was an English writer of novels, biographies, and travel books; he was also a prolific journalist and book reviewer. His most famous works include the early satires ''Decli ...
was a frequent visitor to the house and based the family of Marchmain, who are central to his novel ''
Brideshead Revisited ''Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred & Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder'' is a novel by the English writer Evelyn Waugh, first published in 1945. It follows, from the 1920s to the early 1940s, the life and romances of Charles Ryder, esp ...
'', on the Lygons. Surrounded by a moat, the Court is a
Grade I listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...
.


History


Early history: 1086–1746

The origin of the name of the court is
Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...
, 'maederesfeld', mower's field. Madresfield is not recorded in the
Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...
of 1086, but is mentioned in the Westminster Cartulary of 1086 as a possession of
Urse d'Abetot Urse d'Abetot (–1108) was a Norman who followed King William I to England, and became Sheriff of Worcestershire and a royal official under him and Kings William II and Henry I. He was a native of Normandy and moved to England shortly after t ...
(or d'Abitot), Sheriff of Worcestershire. Dorothy Williams, the Lygon family historian, notes that, by 1196, the manor was held by the de Bracy family who retained it for three centuries until the marriage of Joan Bracy to Thomas Lygon in 1419–1420. The marriage between Thomas and the Bracy heiress established the connection between the court and the Lygon family which has continued into the 21st century. Their only son Willam was bequeathed the manor of Madresfield by Joan's mother in 1450 and the house has been the home of the Lygon family since that time. The Lygons were substantial landowners, although minor gentry, until an advantageous marriage between Richard Lygon and Anne Beauchamp, one of three daughters and heirs of
Richard Beauchamp, 2nd Baron Beauchamp Richard Beauchamp, 2nd Baron Beauchamp of Powick ( 1435 – 19 January 1502/3) was an English peer. Family origins He was the son of John Beauchamp, 1st Baron Beauchamp (fifth creation), 1st Lord of Powick (d. 1475) and Margaret de Ferrers, poss ...
in the late 15th century. In 1593 Madresfield Court was rebuilt, replacing a 15th-century
medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...
building.


A less Bleak House: 1747–1865

In 1806, William Lygon was made a baronet and subsequently raised to peerage as
Earl Beauchamp Earl Beauchamp () was a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. The peerage was created in 1815 for William Lygon, 1st Baron Beauchamp, along with the subsidiary title Viscount Elmley, in the County of Worcester. He had already been crea ...
in 1815. The family's position had been transformed by the death of a distant relative,
William Jennens William Jennens (possibly Jennings) (1701–1798), also known as William the Miser, William the Rich, and The Miser of Acton, was a reclusive financier who lived at Acton Place in the village of Acton, Suffolk, England. He was described as the " ...
, in 1798. Known as "William the Miser", and "the richest commoner in England", Jennens had amassed a very large fortune through inheritance, stock dealing, property investments and money lending. His death saw his fortune split between three distant relatives, with William Lygon's share equating to some £40 million at 2012 values. The lack of a will saw the estate become subject to one of England's lengthiest court cases, ''Jennens and Jennens'', which ran for over 100 years. The case formed the basis of the suit of ''
Jarndyce and Jarndyce ''Jarndyce and Jarndyce'' (or ''Jarndyce v Jarndyce'') is a fictional probate case in ''Bleak House'' (1852–53) by Charles Dickens, progressing in the English Court of Chancery. The case is a central plot device in the novel and has become a ...
'', used as the main plot device by
Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English novelist, journalist, short story writer and Social criticism, social critic. He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by ...
in his 1852–53 novel,
Bleak House ''Bleak House'' is a novel by English author Charles Dickens, first published as a 20-episode Serial (literature), serial between 12 March 1852 and 12 September 1853. The novel has many characters and several subplots, and is told partly by th ...
.


Hetton recreated: 1866–1919

In 1866, the title and Madresfield passed to Frederick Lygon, his
elder brother ''The Elder Brother'' is an early seventeenth-century English stage play, a comedy written by John Fletcher and Philip Massinger. Apparently dating from 1625, it may have been the last play Fletcher worked on before his August 1625 death. Da ...
, and his
father A father is the male parent of a child. Besides the paternal bonds of a father to his children, the father may have a parental, legal, and social relationship with the child that carries with it certain rights and obligations. A biological fat ...
, both Henry, having died within three years of each other. Within the year Frederick Lygon pushed forward the major reconstruction of the court begun by his brother, a building programme that continued almost until the 6th earl's death in 1891.


Brideshead Revisited: 1920s–1938

Madresfield was the home of the 7th Earl Beauchamp. Despite a prominent political and social career, the earl's homosexuality was a relatively open secret;
Harold Nicolson Sir Harold George Nicolson (21 November 1886 – 1 May 1968) was a British politician, writer, broadcaster and gardener. His wife was Vita Sackville-West. Early life and education Nicolson was born in Tehran, Persia, the youngest son of dipl ...
recorded a dinner at Madresfield where a fellow guest asked incredulously if the earl had just whispered "Je t’adore" to the butler. "Nonsense," Nicolson replied, "he said ‘Shut the door.’" In 1931 the earl was forced abroad following a sexual scandal instigated by his brother-in-law, the Duke of Westminster,
Bendor Grosvenor Bendor Gerard Robert Grosvenor (born 27 November 1977) is a British art historian, writer and former art dealer. He is known for discovering a number of important lost artworks by Old Master artists, including Sir Peter Paul Rubens, Claude Lorr ...
. Jealous of the earl's "public reputation, his splendid offices and his male heir", Westminster intrigued to bring about Beauchamp's destruction. Following the earl's exile,
Evelyn Waugh Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (; 28 October 1903 – 10 April 1966) was an English writer of novels, biographies, and travel books; he was also a prolific journalist and book reviewer. His most famous works include the early satires ''Decli ...
became a close friend of three of the Beauchamp daughters and a frequent visitor to the house. Waugh had previously been close to Hugh Lygon, Beauchamp's second son, at
Oxford Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...
. The central family of his novel Brideshead Revisited, the Flytes, are modelled on the Beauchamps. After their father's disgrace, most of Beauchamp's children took his, rather than their mother's side, and a marble bust of the countess was consigned to the moat. Charles Ryder, the narrator in Brideshead Revisited noted "More even than the work of great architects, I loved buildings that grew silently with the centuries, catching and keeping the best of each generation". The historian David Dutton considered that Beauchamp's most lasting legacy was "the assumed portrayal of his family tragedy in Evelyn Waugh's novel Brideshead Revisited." Documents released by the
National Archives National archives are the archives of a country. The concept evolved in various nations at the dawn of modernity based on the impact of nationalism upon bureaucratic processes of paperwork retention. Conceptual development From the Middle Ages i ...
in January 2006 showed that emergency plans were made to evacuate Princesses Elizabeth and
Margaret Margaret is a feminine given name, which means "pearl". It is of Latin origin, via Ancient Greek and ultimately from Iranian languages, Old Iranian. It has been an English language, English name since the 11th century, and remained popular thro ...
to Madresfield in the event of a successful German invasion following the
Dunkirk evacuation The Dunkirk evacuation, codenamed Operation Dynamo and also known as the Miracle of Dunkirk, or just Dunkirk, was the evacuation of more than 338,000 Allied soldiers during the Second World War from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk, in the ...
in 1940. Five years later,
Worcestershire County Council Worcestershire County Council is the county council for the non-metropolitan county of Worcestershire in England. Its headquarters are at County Hall in Worcester, the county town. The council consists of 57 councillors and there is no over ...
's Historic, Environment and Archaeology archive confirmed that the 1940 plan was part of pre-existing 1938 invasion contingency plans. In the event of an invasion breaking out of a likely
lodgement A lodgement or lodgment is an enclave, taken and defended by force of arms against determined opposition, made by increasing the size of a bridgehead, beachhead, or airhead into a substantial defended area, at least the rear parts of which ...
in Kent and threatening London, the whole UK government would move to Worcestershire with the royal family residing at Madresfield.


Modern times: 1939–the present

After the 7th Earl's death in New York in 1938, his son Lord Elmley inherited the court. The atmosphere created by the 8th earl and his Danish wife, Mona, was uncongenial to most of the rest of the family and Mary, Dorothy, and Sibell left the house, none returning for fifty years. Before her death in 1989, Mona, Countess Beauchamp, endowed the Elmley Foundation to support the arts in the counties of
Herefordshire Herefordshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England, bordered by Shropshire to the north, Worcestershire to the east, Gloucestershire to the south-east, and the Welsh ...
and Worcestershire. The house was never opened to the public during her lifetime. From 1970, Madresfield Court was the home of Rosalind, Lady Morrison, William and Mona's niece and, as of 2012, it is run and lived in by her daughter, Lucy Chenevix-Trench. In 2014, an extensive remodelling of the interior of the house was undertaken by the interior designers Todhunter Earle. Madresfield Court has never been sold or bought in its history, passing by inheritance through the Lygon family, although on three occasions this has been through the female line.


Architecture and description


Exterior

"A moated house of considerable size," the existing building has its origins in the 16th century, the site having been occupied earlier. The Tudor house followed the plan of a standard moated manor. The original bridge and entrance tower are 16th century in origin, although they have been restored. A panel above the gatehouse, which has been moved from its original position, bears the names of Sir William Lygon and his wife, Elizabeth, and the date 1593. The house was extensively restored and rebuilt between 1866 and 1888 by
Philip Charles Hardwick Philip Charles Hardwick (London 1822–1892) was an English architect. Life Philip Charles Hardwick was born in Westminster in London, the son of the architect Philip Hardwick (1792–1870) and grandson of architect Thomas Hardwick (junior) ...
for the 5th and 6th earls, creating the current "Victorian fantasy." Hardwick followed his father in developing a large commercial practice, specialising in banking houses, but also undertook a considerable number of country houses, often for his
City A city is a human settlement of a substantial size. The term "city" has different meanings around the world and in some places the settlement can be very small. Even where the term is limited to larger settlements, there is no universally agree ...
clients. Notable examples were
Aldermaston Court Aldermaston Court is a English country houses, country house and landscape garden, private park built in the Victorian era for Daniel Higford Davall Burr with incorporations from a Stuart period, Stuart house. It is south-east of the nucleated ...
, for D. H. D. Burr, and the now-demolished Addington Park for the then deputy governor of the
Bank of England The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694 to act as the Kingdom of England, English Government's banker and debt manager, and still one ...
, Lord Addington. Hardwick's connection to Madresfield began with the commission for the Newlands Almshouses in Malvern. As was common for Victorian aristocrats contemplating a rebuilding of their houses, the Beauchamps began with an act of piety. The Lygons being satisfied with the result, Hardwick began a fifteen-year association with the family and the court, which the architectural writer Herminone Hobhouse describes as "characteristic of Hardwick at his best". Although "the principal lines of the old building" were followed, the work became more of a reconstruction than a restoration; only two rooms in the total of over 150 were unaltered. Work was completed c.1890. The original
Great Hall A great hall is the main room of a royal palace, castle or a large manor house or hall house in the Middle Ages. It continued to be built in the country houses of the 16th and early 17th centuries, although by then the family used the great cha ...
, built in the 12th century, stands at the core of this building. The architectural historian
Mark Girouard Mark Girouard (7 October 1931 – 16 August 2022) was a British architectural historian. He was an authority on the country house, and Elizabethan and Victorian architecture. Life and career Girouard was born on 7 October 1931. He was educ ...
considers Madresfield's internal courtyard to be its most impressive feature.


Interior


The chapel

The chapel was decorated in the
Arts and Crafts style The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the Decorative arts, decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and ...
by Birmingham Group artists including Henry Payne,
William Bidlake William Henry Bidlake MA, FRIBA (12 May 1861 – 6 April 1938) was a British architect, a leading figure of the Arts and Crafts movement in Birmingham and Director of the School of Architecture at Birmingham School of Art from 1919 until 1924. ...
and Charles March Gere. The decoration was a 1902 wedding present from Lady Lettice Grosvenor to her bridegroom the 7th Earl, although work on it continued until 1923. Murals on the chapel's walls incorporate images of the couple, as well as their seven children, in scenes rife with Christian symbolism. The critic
Jonathan Meades Jonathan Turner Meades (born 21 January 1947) is an English writer and film-maker. His work spans journalism, fiction, essays, memoir and over fifty television films, many for the BBC. He has described himself as a "cardinal of atheism" and i ...
, in the BBC TV series ''Travels with Pevsner'', contrasted the "inviting prose" used by Waugh to describe the chapel at Brideshead with the "prosaic list" written by
Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (195 ...
to describe Madresfield's chapel.


The library

The 7th Earl Beauchamp incorporated what had once been the billiard room into the library in order to make it larger and better accommodate its 8,000-volume collection. The Earl chose
Charles Robert Ashbee Charles Robert Ashbee (17 May 1863 – 23 May 1942) was an English architect and designer who was a prime mover of the Arts and Crafts movement, which took its craft ethic from the works of John Ruskin and its co-operative structure from the soci ...
and his Guild of Handicraft to decorate the new room. Ashbee created low-relief carvings of the
Tree of Life The tree of life is a fundamental archetype in many of the world's mythology, mythological, religion, religious, and philosophy, philosophical traditions. It is closely related to the concept of the sacred tree.Giovino, Mariana (2007). ''The ...
and the Tree of Knowledge on the ends of two bookcases, and the Earl himself hand-embroidered the Florentine flame-stitch covers that adorn several of the library's chairs, during his years of exile abroad.


The staircase hall

Another change by the 7th Earl was the creation of a dramatic staircase hall out of three smaller rooms in the centre of the house, designed by the architect
Randall Wells Albert Randall Wells (1877–1942) was an English Arts and Crafts movement, Arts and Crafts architect, designer, craftsman and inventor. He was the son of an architect, Arthur Wells of Hastings. After a practical training in joinery and foundin ...
who had built
St Edward's Church, Kempley The Church of St Edward the Confessor in Kempley is a Church of England parish church in the Forest of Dean district of Gloucestershire, England, close to the border with Herefordshire. History The church was built to the design of Randall Wells ...
for him in 1903. The hall rises two stories to a ceiling punctuated by three large, domed skylights. A gallery flanks two sides of the upper level, lined by a railing with balusters of rock crystal
quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The Atom, atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen Tetrahedral molecular geometry, tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tet ...
. The large alabaster, porphyry and green serpentine chimneypiece was a wedding gift to Lettice, Countess Beauchamp in 1902 from her brother the 2nd Duke of Westminster. It had been first installed in the Ante-Drawing Room at the duke's house Eaton Hall from where in 1910 it was carefully dismantled by Wells, transported to Madresfield and re-erected in the Staircase Hall. Dozens of portraits, many of them of members of the Lygon family through the centuries, cover the walls. Around the panelling at the top of the four walls is stencilled a quote from
Percy Bysshe Shelley Percy Bysshe Shelley ( ; 4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822) was an English writer who is considered one of the major English Romantic poets. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame durin ...
's ''
Adonais ''Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats, Author of Endymion, Hyperion, etc.'' () is a pastoral elegy written by Percy Bysshe Shelley for John Keats in 1821, and widely regarded as one of Shelley's best and best-known works.

Garden and park

The Madresfield estate has its own Grade II* listing.


Ancillary buildings and structures

A number of ancillary buildings and structures have separate
Historic England Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked with prot ...
listings. Within the precincts of the court, a late-19th century
wellhead A wellhead is the component at the surface of an oil or gas well that provides the structural and pressure-containing interface for the drilling and production equipment. The primary purpose of a wellhead is to provide the suspension point and ...
is listed Grade II. The North lodge, the South lodge, the lodge cottages near the Home Farm, and the stable block all have their own Grade II listings. At the home farm, the farmhouse itself, the farm gates and gateway, and a
dovecote A dovecote or dovecot , doocot (Scots Language, Scots) or columbarium is a structure intended to house Domestic pigeon, pigeons or doves. Dovecotes may be free-standing structures in a variety of shapes, or built into the end of a house or b ...
are similarly listed Grade II.


Footnotes


References


Sources

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


External links

{{Commons category, Madresfield Court
Madresfield Court Official Website

National Archive of records ARCHON entry

Victoria County History
1593 establishments in England Gardens in Worcestershire Country houses in Worcestershire Grade I listed buildings in Worcestershire Grade I listed houses Buildings and structures in Malvern, Worcestershire Historic house museums in Worcestershire Houses with moats