Out & About - Revisiting The Shugborough Estate

After a long hiatus we decided that on Wednesday, with a dry day forecast, it was high time we dusted off our National Trust membership cards and revisited Shugborough but we were starting to doubt the Met Office's wisdom when we noticed those ominous looking skies on pulling into the car park forty minutes after leaving home.

The Shugborough Estate, best known as the ancestral home of Patrick, Earl of Lichfield (1939 - 2005), the celebrated British society photographer. Built on the site of a moated medieval bishop's castle, Shugborough was bought by the wealthy Anson family in 1624 for £4,000 (a fortune at the time) but was torn down in 1693 to create a more modest country house. The building was enlarged in 1745 by architect Thomas Wright to create an elegant Georgian mansion.

At the turn of the 19th century, the house was further altered and extended by architect Samuel Wyatt. The pavilions and passages were incorporated into the main building, and a new porticoed entrance front with ten Ionic pillars was created at the east. These pillars resemble carved stone but are hollow timber structures. The hall, as it is seen today, is built in a neoclassical style and encased in slate, sanded to resemble stone.

Thomas Anson (1695 - 1773), who was the great grandson of the original owner, inherited the Shugborough Estate in 1762 from his brother, George who had died heirless. George Anson joined the navy as a 14 year-old boy and rose through the ranks to become the First Lord of the Admiralty. In 1740 he commenced an epic four year voyage circumnavigating the world. On the journey he captured a Spanish treasure ship laden with £400,000, the largest haul ever seized by an English sea captain. 

After Thomas's death, the family fortune leaked through the hands of his grandson, also called Thomas (1795 - 1854), who gambled his vast inheritance away. In 1842 the contents of the estate was auctioned to raise funds. In 1960, in lieu of his grandfather's death duties, the 5th Earl, Patrick Lichfield, gave the Shugborough estate to the National Trust. For many years it was looked after by Staffordshire County Council until the National Trust took over the administration in 2019.

In our excitement to visit we'd made a classic schoolboy error and forgotten to check the opening times and discovered when we arrived that the Hall had closed for the Winter the previous weekend. Oh well, it had only been thirteen months since we'd last been inside and the extensive grounds are always a joy.

The estate is still occupied by the Earl of Lichfield and has a working farm and several varieties of rare breeds of livestock including these gorgeous teddy bear faced sheep which captivate us every time we see them. 

Thomas Anson had been on the Grand Tour as a young man where he'd developed a passion for classical Greek art and commissioned his friend, the architect James "Athenian" Stuart, to reproduce classical monuments in the grounds of Shugborough.

Since we'd last visited Shugborough,we'd visited Athens so were excited to compare the originals with the Georgian reproductions. 

Based on the Horologium of Andronikos in Athens and designed by James Stuart, the Tower of the Winds was completed in around 1765. We visited the inspiration for the Tower HERE. 

Designed by Thomas Wright in 1750 as a folly, The Ruin was once more extensive, was composed from parts of the original manor house and included a Gothic pigeon house. 

Built around 1760 the Doric Temple was based on the Temple of Hephaistos in Athens, which we also visited earlier this year. 

The main formal gardens consist of a series of four low terraces laid to lawn with a central axial path, laid out in 1855 to a design by William Andrews Nesfield (1793-1881). Clipped golden yews line the path and a further path down the north side of the garden. The boy and swan fountain, a replica of Erdmann Theodor Kalide's bronze version created in 1836 for the gardens at Pfaueninsel in Berlin stands towards the west end of the axial path, which ends with a short flight of stone steps down to the River Sow. In the Eighteenth century the area was a bowling green.

The design for the Chinese House was taken from sketches made in Canton by Sir Percy Brett, who accompanied Admiral Anson during his circumnavigation of the globe. It was completed in 1747, making it one of the earliest examples of oriental design in the country and a precursor to the Chinese Pavilion at Kew.

The Pagoda Bridge was built by Charles Heywood in 1813. 

A family stopped us to admire my "fashion" and suggested I pose on the river bank with the Chinese House behind me as my clothes complimented the paintwork. 

I'm wearing a vintage Hindu Kush Afghan dress, an early '70s Anokhi jacket and my Mum's Biba boots.

I never tire of this view, beautiful throughout the year.

Built in the late 1750s, the Shepherd’s Monument takes its name from its central marble relief by Dutch artist Peter Scheemakers and originally formed part of the kitchen garden wall. 

Hadrian's Arch, based on the building of the same name in Athens but with tributes to Thomas's brother George & his wife, who had recently died after he'd commissioned the construction. HERE's Jon & Tony standing in front of the original arch. 

What a view!

The rich certainly knew how to flash the cash back then, give me a repro Greek monument over a designer handbag & Botox any day.

The wrestling cherubs in the formal gardens always make us laugh.

As if we haven't got enough to do at home!

Enjoying the Autumnal colours along the North Walk.

 

The Essex Bridge, a grade I listed packhorse bridge, leads walkers over the River Trent to the nearby village of Great Haywood. It was built by Elizabeth I's favourite, the Earl of Essex who lived nearby, in the late 16th Century.

Along with the house, the old boathouse once stood on an island in an artificial canal which was reached by two Chinese bridges. After the flood of 1795 one arm of the canal was infilled, leaving the House on a promontory.

The walled kitchen garden was built 1805-6 to a design by Samuel Wyatt. In the early 19th Century the garden establishment was highly regarded; in 1817 the prime minister, William Pitt (the Younger) described how the gardens served as 'a kind of Academy for the study of Horticulture, in which young men enter themselves to assist without pay for the purpose of improving themselves, and gaining knowledge in the art'.

The rather imposing Gardener's House, also designed by Samuel Wyatt. I'd happily live here.

Despite those leaden skies, Wednesday turned out to be one of the those perfect, late Autumnal days, crisp, cold and mercifully dry. Here's to lots more National Trust visits over the Winter.

Thanks for reading, see you soon!