Georgian Smalls

Georgian smalls, left out to dry at Shugborough Hall's Servants' Quarters.
Photograph © Memoirs of the Celebrated Mrs Woffington.

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The Walled Garden

Some pictures of Shugborough Hall's Walled Garden (above and below), which started something of a revolution in food production when it was created in 1805/6. It's thought the original kitchen garden was located somewhere behind the Doric Temple in Shugborough's Park, but a combination of unsuitable growing conditions, and the fact that the family didn't want labourers cluttering up the view, led to a commission for architect Samuel Wyatt, who was tasked with designing a new Walled Garden half a mile from the house.


The brick walls were hollow and contained intermittent furnaces that created a sort of micro-climate, while a series of bothies provided accommodation for young, unmarried gardeners. A large heated greenhouse, where they grew pineapples, grapes and peaches, extended towards a central plunge pool (see below), used to capture rainwater for watering crops. Another hothouse was heated with steam and produced melons and cucumbers.



Photographs © Memoirs of the Celebrated Mrs Woffington.

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Shugborough Again

We had unfinished business at Shugborough Hall, so travelled up there again last weekend, and, because it was a bank holiday, found plenty of 'characters' in period costume wandering about (see above - I wasn't too sure about the Regency sunglasses!)

As the sign at the entrance (below) proclaimed, these people 'think they live in the 1800s... ask them about their lives but remember, they do not know anything about the 21st century, so please spare them any questions that assume such knowledge'.


What fun! My boyfriend, who dreads the close proximity of people 'acting', was not so convinced, but we nevertheless had a good chat with the Miller who showed us the impressive working mill which grinds two types of flour: wholemeal for the workers and a fine version, sieved through silk, for the aristocracy. The ducks looked a bit worried as the level of the mill pond outside dipped, but he explained that the water pressure prevented him from draining it completely. I'll post something on Shugborough's Walled Garden shortly.





Photographs © Memoirs of the Celebrated Mrs Woffington.

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Shugborough Hall: Part Three

Well, after a busy week I've finally got time to conclude our Shugborough visit of last weekend. Above and below are shots of the Tower of the Winds, completed in 1765. It's usually open until 4.30pm, but despite leaping on the miniature railway to comically chug just a few metres down a bridle path, we found the doors locked.

It's a replica water clock which was once used as a dairy by Lady Anson (the 1st Earl of Lichfield was supposed to have had a gambling den upstairs) and was originally surrounded by a lake, with bridges reaching to the porches. There's a fantastic drawing of it as it once was here.


It's based on the original Tower of the Winds in Athens, which, given my boasting about The Classical Language of Architecture I should have recognised straight away as Greek Revival (a much less embellished style altogether). As Summerson says in that book: 'The first Greek Doric buildings built in England were built more or less as curiosities, exotic souvenirs, in the form of temples and porches on gentlemen's estates' - this is a perfect example.

Oh, and we couldn't pass by the tea rooms without stopping for some fantastic chocolate courgette cake (below, foreground), which concluded our trip nicely. We'll be back some other time to check out other parts of the park that we missed: the Lanthorn of Demosthenes, The Triumphal Arch and The Doric Temple.



Photographs © Memoirs of the Celebrated Mrs Woffington.
PS for those interested in the Shepherd's Monument
there's been some more news this week about supposed Holy Grail connections. All a bit far-fetched Dan Brown nonsense if you ask me :)

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Shugborough Hall: Part Two

Next on our tour of the grounds of Shugborough Hall was The Cat's Monument (below, c. 1750-1775), designed by Thomas Wright of Derby and thought to commemorate a cat that travelled around the world with Admiral Anson (the cat is perched right on the top with his tail curled upwards). It reminded me a lot of those mock heroic poems of the period about cats, like Gray's On The Death Of A Favourite Cat, Drowned In A Tub Of Gold Fishes or Stockdale's An Elegy on the Death of Dr Johnson's Favourite Cat.


I think this classical folly, The Ruin (below), was probably my favourite though. It was a clever recycling project, built around 1750 from stone from sections of the Hall pulled down during alterations. Originally it was more extensive and included a pigeon house and classical colonnade, though they were destroyed by floods in the late 18th century. I love the fact that there's a Druid sitting on the top!




Next: Tower of the Winds.

Photographs © Memoirs of the Celebrated Mrs Woffington.

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Shugborough Hall: Part One

Bored at the weekend, and with no transport (my car having been vandalised three times - a Georgian city isn't always a genteel place to live) my boyfriend had the marvellous brainwave of a trip to the Shugborough Hall Estate on the bus.

By the time the plan was formed, we realised we wouldn't have time to explore the mansion house (above, built by the Anson family in 1624 and enhanced by the great Admiral Anson in the mid 18th century) or the working Georgian farm, but there was just enough time for a walk around the grounds.

These aren't to be sniffed at; as Michael Raven says in his A Guide to Stafforshire & The Black Country, The Potteries & The Peak: 'It is for the Park Ornaments that Shugborough is famous. These are a collection of mostly Classically inspired buildings scattered around the grounds at strategic points, and whose purpose was simply to delight the eye.'

Delight us they did. Below are some snaps I took of The Shepherd's Monument, a puzzling ornament built around 1748 which takes its name from the marble relief based on a painting by Nicholas Poussin. Check out the strange eight-letter inscription on the base (see bottom, or check out the wiki page for a clearer image).




Nobody seems to have decoded it successfully (Josiah Wedgwood, Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens and codebreakers at Bletchley Park all had a go) and there's been rumours that it has a Holy Grail connection, though I'm not convinced. Answers to woffington [at] gmail [dot] com please :)

Next up was the Chinese House (below). This was completed in 1747, built on an island in an artificial canal and reached by a pair of bridges (though this was altered in 1795 because of the re-routing of the River Sow). The design for the Chinese House was taken from sketches made by Sir Percy Brett, who accompanied Admiral Anson during his circumnavigation of the globe. It's one of the earliest examples of the 18th-century fashion for Oriental design and has a gorgeous interior painted in blue and gold.




That's all for now, but don't go away because I'll be blogging on The Cat's Monument and The Ruin next!

Photographs © Memoirs of the Celebrated Mrs Woffington.

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