discoverbritainmag.com 73WITLEY COURTARCAID/WWW.ROBERTHARDING.COM/IAN TUSTIN/ENGLISH HERITAGE TRUST/MARTIN BACHE/ALAMYW
itley Court was one of the great British country
estates. Set in extensive private grounds in rural
Worcestershire, just a few miles north of the
Malvern Hills, the house would have been alive
with music and laughter in its Victorian heyday. But the glamour of
those society soirées, once frequented by the Prince of Wales, the
later King Edward VII, has long since faded.
Today Witley Court is one of Britain’s most spectacular ruins, the
fire-damaged structure an eerie reminder of its former glory. Only
the gardens, restored by English Heritage some 20 years ago, still
display the vital signs of a quintessential English stately home.
“Witley Court was one of England’s preeminent properties,
comparable in its grandeur to Osborne House, the Isle of Wight
home of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, with its formal gardens
complementing the main house,” says Louise Bartlett, Senior
Properties Curator for English Heritage.
“Walking through the rooms of the house at ground level,
I’m still always amazed at the sheer scale of it. You can still get a
sense of the grandeur of the place, although you will have to use
your imagination to conjure up the atmosphere of the house in its
prime from the mid to late 1800s,” she adds.
Thankfully signs of life are returning to Witley Court with the
gardens recently reborn and a host of new events targeting new
generations of visitors. The site will host Get Hands on with History,
a festival of period costumes and Victorian side shows (23-31 May).
Blooming Gardens, a weekend garden festival with tours,
workshops and stalls, follows at the end of June, while there’s jazz
on the lawns in front of the Court every Sunday afternoon in July.
The story of Witley Court as we know it began in 1655 when
Thomas Foley, an ironmaster and soon-to-be MP, acquired the
original Jacobean mansion. His grandson, Thomas, the 1st Baron
Foley, savoured his role as landed gentry and added new wings on
either side of the property — a statement of his new-found power
and wealth. In turn, his grandson, the 3rd Baron Foley, also named
Thomas, later commissioned John Nash, the leading Regencyarchitect famous for London’s Marble Arch, to design a succession
of increasingly ambitious alterations. Among these, Nash added
two massive porticos to the north and south fronts of Witley Court
in the early 19th century.
The property passed into the hands of the industrialist William
Ward in 1833 and he used his fortune from the Black Country coal
industry to add further elaborate modifications. Ward, now the
1st Earl of Dudley, commissioned the English architect Samuel
Daukes for the project, which included recasting the exterior in
Bath stone and adding a new curving wing at the south-west corner,
leading to a vast glass-roofed conservatory. The aesthetic was sheer
folly with Italianate flourishes and ornate decoration in the style
of King Louis XV by the time of completion around 1860.
It was the gardens, however, that became the real trademark
of Witley Court as a visitor attraction. The newly-installed 1st Earl
of Dudley, William Ward, hired William Andrews Nesfield, the
leading landscape architect of his day, to create an ornate formal
garden to complement the remodeled mansion in the 1850s.
Today it remains one of the few remaining examples of gardens
created by Nesfield, who was known for his work at Kew Gardens
in London and his fondness for parterre, a decorative arrangement
of beds and paths laid out according to old geometric patterns.
The crowning glory of the design was the 26-foot Perseus and
Andromeda fountain, now restored to full working order to again ➤discoverbritainmag.com 73WITLEY COURTARCAID/WWW.ROBERTHARDING.COM/IAN TUSTIN/ENGLISH HERITAGE TRUST/MARTIN BACHE/ALAMY
W
itley Court was one of the great British country
estates. Set in extensive private grounds in rural
Worcestershire, just a few miles north of the
Malvern Hills, the house would have been alive
with music and laughter in its Victorian heyday. But the glamour of
those society soirées, once frequented by the Prince of Wales, the
later King Edward VII, has long since faded.
Today Witley Court is one of Britain’s most spectacular ruins, the
fire-damaged structure an eerie reminder of its former glory. Only
the gardens, restored by English Heritage some 20 years ago, still
display the vital signs of a quintessential English stately home.
“Witley Court was one of England’s preeminent properties,
comparable in its grandeur to Osborne House, the Isle of Wight
home of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, with its formal gardens
complementing the main house,” says Louise Bartlett, Senior
Properties Curator for English Heritage.
“Walking through the rooms of the house at ground level,
I’m still always amazed at the sheer scale of it. You can still get a
sense of the grandeur of the place, although you will have to use
your imagination to conjure up the atmosphere of the house in its
prime from the mid to late 1800s,” she adds.
Thankfully signs of life are returning to Witley Court with the
gardens recently reborn and a host of new events targeting new
generations of visitors. The site will host Get Hands on with History,
a festival of period costumes and Victorian side shows (23-31 May).
Blooming Gardens, a weekend garden festival with tours,
workshops and stalls, follows at the end of June, while there’s jazz
on the lawns in front of the Court every Sunday afternoon in July.
The story of Witley Court as we know it began in 1655 when
Thomas Foley, an ironmaster and soon-to-be MP, acquired the
original Jacobean mansion. His grandson, Thomas, the 1st Baron
Foley, savoured his role as landed gentry and added new wings on
either side of the property — a statement of his new-found power
and wealth. In turn, his grandson, the 3rd Baron Foley, also named
Thomas, later commissioned John Nash, the leading Regencyarchitect famous for London’s Marble Arch, to design a succession
of increasingly ambitious alterations. Among these, Nash added
two massive porticos to the north and south fronts of Witley Court
in the early 19th century.
The property passed into the hands of the industrialist William
Ward in 1833 and he used his fortune from the Black Country coal
industry to add further elaborate modifications. Ward, now the
1st Earl of Dudley, commissioned the English architect Samuel
Daukes for the project, which included recasting the exterior in
Bath stone and adding a new curving wing at the south-west corner,
leading to a vast glass-roofed conservatory. The aesthetic was sheer
folly with Italianate flourishes and ornate decoration in the style
of King Louis XV by the time of completion around 1860.
It was the gardens, however, that became the real trademark
of Witley Court as a visitor attraction. The newly-installed 1st Earl
of Dudley, William Ward, hired William Andrews Nesfield, the
leading landscape architect of his day, to create an ornate formal
garden to complement the remodeled mansion in the 1850s.
Today it remains one of the few remaining examples of gardens
created by Nesfield, who was known for his work at Kew Gardens
in London and his fondness for parterre, a decorative arrangement
of beds and paths laid out according to old geometric patterns.
The crowning glory of the design was the 26-foot Perseus and
Andromeda fountain, now restored to full working order to again ➤