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Estate Landscapes in the West Midlands
Jeremy Milln
The National Trust
marjxm@smtp.ntrust.org.uk
In this paper I shall attempt to summarise what gave character to the landed estates
of the region in the years around 1750 and subsequently; what this means for the
study of estate landscape in this relatively recent period and the opportunities which
exist for the application of archaeological modes of enquiry to understanding how
such landscapes are shaped.
By Estate Landscapes, I refer to the ensemble of country house, pleasure and
productive gardens, landscape parks and tenanted farmlands which so dominated the
structure of the countryside at least until the 1930s to 50s, when punitive taxation, war
requisition, labour shortage and changing fashion, led to the break-up of vast
numbers. Such Estates may be defined as self-sufficient economic units, ordered and
centrally managed by agents acting on behalf of landowners who may or may not
have been present for much of the time. Typically such an estate consisted of a
number of farms, a village or two, with sporting woodlands, a fishery perhaps, cornmill, public house – the Lord so-and-so Arms – and an estate yard which would have
had its own joiner’s shop, mason’s, decorator’s store, sawmill and smithy, for all the
maintenance of the estate’s building stock would have been carried out by Estate staff
not, as today, by contract labour. Central to the Estate was the landscape park and
central to that the country house in its gardens.
The West Midlands was the ‘parkiest’ – if I may invent such a word – of all the
Regions in England and Wales. Paul Stamper, in his assessment for Shropshire (1996)
traces some 280 parks and gardens; the archive which Lois Hall holds for the Gardens
and Parks Trust in Staffordshire, amounts to just over 300. For its size Herefordshire
is almost as generously endowed, so that for the six counties of the region as a whole,
I would estimate there to have been some 1,500 estates ranging from the mini-empires
of the Dukes of Sutherland at Trentham and Lilleshall, the Earls of Bradford at
Weston and Castle Bromwich, Stamford at Dunham and Enville, Harrowby at Sandon
and so on who each had 10,000 plus acres; to smaller demesnes of perhaps 2-5000
acres, generally the estates of the lesser nobility or later creation such as that of the
Crofts in Herefordshire or the Berwicks at Attingham. At the bottom end of the scale,
and generally belonging to the final period of estate formation, are the mini-estates of
the villa-owning class of industrialists which began to emerge around the growing
towns with the coming of the railways in the 1840s. These may have consisted of less
than 100 acres and at Sunnycroft near Wellington, the National Trust preserves one
which had just 15 acres it is – just – recognisably an estate with its paddocks, kitchen
and pleasure garden, glasshouses, stables, and lodge.
Of course great numbers of estates do survive today, albeit most in reduced form, as
outlying farms and cottages continue to be sold to build endowments to protect what
remains. The more traditionally-run of these estates tend to be recognisable by a sort
of house-vernacular – and I do not simply refer to the buildings. Dudmaston in
Shropshire is recognisable by its trees, for the Wolwyche-Whitmores planted
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economic stands of evergreens long before the Forestry Commission. Charlecote is
recognisable by its cleft fencing, while others may be distinguished by as simple a
characteristic as the construction of a stile or the fastening of a gate. But buildings do
give them away, even where a developing estate has simply taken over an existing
housing stock. At Attingham, Nash was commissioned to prettify vernacular buildings
in the cottage ornee style fashionable at the start of the nineteenth century. Towards
the end of the nineteenth century many of the more progressive estates were
rebuilding substandard cottages – the style at Eaton and Dudmaston, for example,
being Arts and Crafts, with tall gables and pretty porches. Impecunious or ultraconservative estates may have spent little on the buildings, but who could fail to
notice the terra cotta arms stuck into the gable end of almost every cottage on the
estate of the Stanleys of Alderley (to name one) which continues to mark the bounds
of such an estate 60 years after it was broken up and sold. And the National Trust,
often accused of painting all in corporatist green, does in fact go to great lengths to
perpetuate the house colour of the individual estates in its care, be it bilious burgundy
or a brooding brown.
The estate landscape as we thus know it is very much a product of this final period of
our Research Agenda series. The years around 1750 were a watershed in the
development of parkland style from the rigid formality of the Bridgemanic era as seen
at Dunham, Castle Bromwich or Stowe, to more informal ones where – perhaps in
reaction to the taming and enclosing of the countryside generally, open and
‘naturalistic’ effects were being created. Shenstone’s work at the leasowes at
Halesowen between 1743 and 1763, in creating an Arcadia of cascades, wooded
valleys, pseudo ruins, subtle views, waterfalls, grottoes, etc., was hugely influential.
About the same time, Sir Rowland Hill began to create Hawkestone, in its day one of
the most celebrated of the sublime landscapes, with its shell-encrusted grottoes and its
Awful Precipices, its Chinese temple and its Moorish tent. Others occur in the region
at Shugborough where, for the Ansons, James Aethenian Stuart was, in the 1760s,
constructing temples and cascades, the enigmatic cats monument and the Lanthorn of
Demosthenes, while at Enville the landscape in the 1770s was being adorned more in
the Gothick taste.
Both William Emes and Lancelot Brown are hugely important to the region from the
1760s. Recent research by Oxford Archaeology has shown that the impact of the
latter’s work for Lord Coventry at Croome, had been under-estimated. Enormous
amounts of material were moved to create the water features and vistas and to create
contexts for the elegant temples etc. by James Wyatt and Robert Adam. Emes
favoured sylvan pastures, with planted clumps and serpentine lakes; his essay at
Dudmaston near Bridgnorth is a good example, but his most successful work was at
Badger where he created a dingle contrived with cascades, coves, seats and
boathouses. To many landed families, demesnes were treated as cabinets of curiosities
which required to be filled and perhaps nowhere more so than the Durant’s at Tong,
whose whimsies even ran to the construction of a hen house in the form of a pyramid
in a landscape now sadly decimated by the M54.
The nineteenth century saw a partial return to formality, the Gardenesque style, the
creation of municipal parks, the consolidation of land-holdings and, apart from the
period of the Napoleonic Wars, stability in management and conservatism of
expression. However, technology brought great changes to the way in which estates
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were run, particularly after about 1850 when the railways brought new mobility and
more distant markets within reach. Agriculture was revolutionised with the
construction of ‘model farms,’ essentially industrial units in the countryside where all
the processes of cultivation and animal husbandry could be carried out to a system
and in one place. New water- and later oil-powered machinery, took the place of
muscle, for such tasks as grain threshing and root chopping.
So what are the implications of all this for our Research Agenda? Is not all this recent
history already well-covered and comprehended? What can archaeology provide?
I would suggest that estate landscape survey is likely to be one of the real growth
areas for archaeology over the next ten years. As the current interest in historic
landscapes continues to develop and funds are available for farm extensification and
countryside restoration, the opportunities for research in this area are greater than they
have ever been. Defra’s Countryside Stewardship Schemes are a big driver for
research into historic estates where public benefit through access, interest and learning
can be offered. A multi-disciplinary approach to this research, where conventional
historic landscape study is combined with topographical mapping, studies of veteran
trees, of soils, of the hydrology, buildings and wildlife stands to provide the most
applicable results. Defra’s CSS provide funding for extensive surveys which enhance
SMRs, often multiplying recorded sites by 5 or 10 times. They may also provide –
through their Special Projects – for detailed study of individual features of those
landscapes where an informed approach to conservation needs to be taken: a ruinous
icehouse or a silted lake for example. Or the earthworks of a deserted medieval
village, for fossil elements of pre-estate landscapes are no less important than
elements contemporary with the formation of the estate itself.
Another area of the life of the landed estate, which richly merits research, is that
which we loosely refer to as Country House technology. The survival of evidence for
innovative and important systems for the generation of light, heat and power, through
oil, gas and hydro-electricity, has long been largely unrecognised. Dudmaston, for
example, where Charles Babbage was a regular visitor, adopted an ear;y form of
central heating and had one of the earliest hydraulic ram systems for the supply of
water, while at Shugborough, under the influence of Lord Coke and Charles Meikle,
the Shugborough Ansons brought in the first water-powered threshing machine in
Staffordshire. In the gardens, too, innovation was all-important in the race for early
cultivation of exotic varieties. The West Midlands is well placed to expect a large
number of walled garden restoration schemes in the coming years as planning controls
limit the number of housing infill developments in registered sites, and the interest in
historic horticulture continues to grow. Archaeologists may therefore be expected to
research the technology of heated walls or the construction of early forms of ironframed glasshouse.
Finally, a word about the National Trust, as its employee, for the National Trust is the
largest owner of estate landscapes. We are currently engaged in re-drafting all our
management plans, which is involving a fundamental reassessment of the
significances, strengths, opportunities, threats and weaknesses of all our 220-odd
country house estates. I have no doubt that from that exercise will come a renewed
impetus to improve our base knowledge, essential to responsible stewardship.
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Research Issues
Mansion Studies
Generally poorly recorded and understood fabric. Country house technology surveys
in the NT, i.e. early domestic gas plant, electric and heating systems, water supply and
storage systems, etc.
Gardens
Garden archaeology has been a recognised specialism for only the past 15 years or so
– much to research in terms of design and operation – restoration schemes an
important driver here.
Landscape Parks
CS schemes an important driver for restoration, informed by HL research.
Tenanted Farmlands
Often retain generic characteristics. What are these for each estate? Especially
expressed in vernacular buildings.