Recent from talks
The Wodehouse
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
The Wodehouse
The Wodehouse is a Grade II* listed English country house near Wombourne, Staffordshire, notable as the family seat of the Georgian landscape designer and musicologist Sir Samuel Hellier and, a century later, Colonel Thomas Bradney Shaw-Hellier, director of the Royal Military School of Music. For almost 200 years the family owned the Hellier Stradivarius.
It is claimed that the Wodehouse has not been sold for over 900 years, though more than once the family has died out.
The Wodehouse is situated on the Wom Brook, to the east of the village, and the estate has existed since medieval times. The manor house itself was listed by English Heritage in 1953 as Grade II*, as were the stable block and coach house in 1963. The early-eighteenth-century Wodehouse farmhouse and mill, across the road from the main house, were grade II* listed in 1973. In 1987, the barn, the dam over the mill pool, and the causeway over its other end all received grade II status.
In the middle of the 18th century, the Wodehouse was turned into a centre of culture. The 18 acres (73,000 m2) of grounds were laid out in fashionable style:
The Wodehouse [...] became in the later 18th century, an early Alton Towers, the resort both of 'people of consequence' and of 'tag, rag and rabble' for here, in 1763, Sir Samuel Hellier laid out a pleasure garden which, besides having all the usual decorative features of gardens of the time, temples, grottoes, a root house, a druid’s circle, also had a music room with working organ, a hermitage with life-sized model of a hermit and boards set up along the paths with appropriate verses to enlighten visitors. The whole garden was a clearly a caricature of the finest achievements in 18th-century gardening.
Some of this, such as Handel's temple, was the first commission of James Gandon after leaving the studios of Sir William Chambers. A series of drawings of the garden features are all that survive. The Shaw Helliers and some of their properties are mentioned in the 1820 Survey of Staffordshire, but, curiously, not the Wodehouse itself. Samuel Lewis in the 1848 edition of A Topographical Dictionary of England describes the property as "a noble mansion in the Elizabethan style, situated in a beautiful vale".
The house has a fourteenth century core, with seventeenth-century additions and eighteenth-century internal refittings. It was restored by George Frederick Bodley, the Gothic revival architect, in the 1870s. A generation later, in the late 1890s, Charles Robert Ashbee, a leader in the English Arts and Crafts Movement, made additions such as a billiard room and a chapel, as well as many decorative external features. In 1912, just after the estate changed hands, the Wolverhampton architect J.K.H.E. Lavender was engaged. The gardens continued to be opened to the public on certain occasions; for example, in 1936 the Wodehouse joined the National Gardens Scheme, and as recently as in 2011 hosted the AGM of the Staffordshire Gardens and Parks Trust.
In 1984, the Victoria County History volume for south-west Staffordshire called the Wodehouse one of the "three great houses" of the area, along with Enville Hall. At the turn of the 21st century, Michael Raven describes the Wodehouse as "unspoilt", with the house having "a certain serene and mysterious charm" and the property overall "the classic configuration of an early medieval settlement".
Hub AI
The Wodehouse AI simulator
(@The Wodehouse_simulator)
The Wodehouse
The Wodehouse is a Grade II* listed English country house near Wombourne, Staffordshire, notable as the family seat of the Georgian landscape designer and musicologist Sir Samuel Hellier and, a century later, Colonel Thomas Bradney Shaw-Hellier, director of the Royal Military School of Music. For almost 200 years the family owned the Hellier Stradivarius.
It is claimed that the Wodehouse has not been sold for over 900 years, though more than once the family has died out.
The Wodehouse is situated on the Wom Brook, to the east of the village, and the estate has existed since medieval times. The manor house itself was listed by English Heritage in 1953 as Grade II*, as were the stable block and coach house in 1963. The early-eighteenth-century Wodehouse farmhouse and mill, across the road from the main house, were grade II* listed in 1973. In 1987, the barn, the dam over the mill pool, and the causeway over its other end all received grade II status.
In the middle of the 18th century, the Wodehouse was turned into a centre of culture. The 18 acres (73,000 m2) of grounds were laid out in fashionable style:
The Wodehouse [...] became in the later 18th century, an early Alton Towers, the resort both of 'people of consequence' and of 'tag, rag and rabble' for here, in 1763, Sir Samuel Hellier laid out a pleasure garden which, besides having all the usual decorative features of gardens of the time, temples, grottoes, a root house, a druid’s circle, also had a music room with working organ, a hermitage with life-sized model of a hermit and boards set up along the paths with appropriate verses to enlighten visitors. The whole garden was a clearly a caricature of the finest achievements in 18th-century gardening.
Some of this, such as Handel's temple, was the first commission of James Gandon after leaving the studios of Sir William Chambers. A series of drawings of the garden features are all that survive. The Shaw Helliers and some of their properties are mentioned in the 1820 Survey of Staffordshire, but, curiously, not the Wodehouse itself. Samuel Lewis in the 1848 edition of A Topographical Dictionary of England describes the property as "a noble mansion in the Elizabethan style, situated in a beautiful vale".
The house has a fourteenth century core, with seventeenth-century additions and eighteenth-century internal refittings. It was restored by George Frederick Bodley, the Gothic revival architect, in the 1870s. A generation later, in the late 1890s, Charles Robert Ashbee, a leader in the English Arts and Crafts Movement, made additions such as a billiard room and a chapel, as well as many decorative external features. In 1912, just after the estate changed hands, the Wolverhampton architect J.K.H.E. Lavender was engaged. The gardens continued to be opened to the public on certain occasions; for example, in 1936 the Wodehouse joined the National Gardens Scheme, and as recently as in 2011 hosted the AGM of the Staffordshire Gardens and Parks Trust.
In 1984, the Victoria County History volume for south-west Staffordshire called the Wodehouse one of the "three great houses" of the area, along with Enville Hall. At the turn of the 21st century, Michael Raven describes the Wodehouse as "unspoilt", with the house having "a certain serene and mysterious charm" and the property overall "the classic configuration of an early medieval settlement".