Coopersale House

www.historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list

C18 villa with landscape work of the early to mid C18 by Adam Holt; Lancelot Brown was consulted c 1774 but the extent of his involvement is not clear.

DESCRIPTION

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

The c 11ha site lies to the west of the public road, Houblon Hill, which links the settlements of Coopersale 250m to the north, to Coopersale Street 100m to the south, the road forming the eastern boundary of the property. The southern boundary is defined by Stonards Hill/Coopersale Road, the public road joining Coopersale Street with Epping 1km to the north-west.

To the west and north the grounds merge with arable farmland, the wider setting to east and south also being agricultural.

ENTRANCES AND APPROACHES

The main drive leads south-west off Houblon Hill, through wooded shrubbery to the turning circle below the east front of the House. From the same entrance point, a back drive leads to the outbuildings and farm (outside the area here registered).

The south entrance, which continued the line of the public road north from Coopersale Street, is no longer in use. The public road now swings eastwards at this point, the House and associated buildings marking its former line. It was moved eastwards to its present position following authorisation of the diversion in 1770, around the time that Brown visited the site.

PRINCIPAL BUILDING

Coopersale House (listed grade II) stands east of centre of its grounds. Dating from the C17, it is mainly of C18 date, the upper of the original three storeys being removed in 1920. To the north stands a small complex of outbuildings. At the northern tip of the site, c 150m from the House, stand the buildings of the home farm, Coopersale Farm.

GARDENS AND PLEASURE GROUNDS

From the turning circle the ground falls eastwards as rough grass to the line of the road. This area has been worked to form a valley (Debois 1995), the raised east bank of which carries the eye over the surface of the public lane (now divided from the bank by a hedge). Long views extend out towards Hill Hall (qv); the views south are across the falling ground to the lake, c 60m from the House, which forms the dominant feature in the grounds.

A walk leads south from the narrow terrace (early C20) which lies below the south front, following the line of the old road southwards to the lake. From here it continues across the substantial dam which retains the water along the east and south sides. Partway along the eastern bank stands a pair of gate piers, beyond which is an area of woodland which forms the backdrop to the walk. To the north-west of the main lake is a smaller pond, planted up in the early C20 as a Japanese garden. A walk leads eastwards from here back up to the House; along its route are the earthwork remains of C20 additions to the grounds including a tennis court and lawn.

The main circuit walk continues from the pond northwards to the kitchen garden. Ditched to either side, it passes through mature shrubbery plantings, the ditches separating the path from, to the west the parkland, and to the east the paddock which occupies a c 2ha area above and to the north-west of the House. Dividing this open grass area from the kitchen garden to the north is a band of shrubbery, notable trees above the evergreen understorey including cedar of Lebanon and holm oak.

PARK

To the west of the pleasure grounds lie arable fields scattered with specimen oaks, visually terminated to the west by the wooded belt marking the line of a railway. The former park appears to have extended westwards beyond this to the line of the current (1997) public footpath, thus taking in two blocks of woodland. Andrews and Drury's map of 1807 however shows no parkland beyond that just west of the lake, this also being the position as shown on the 1st edition OS map surveyed 1873-4. Although the area is outside that here registered, it remains an important part of the setting of the pleasure grounds.

KITCHEN GARDEN

The c 0.75ha kitchen garden, which occupies the north-west corner of the site to the west of the farm, is a brick-walled enclosure. A plan for the 'new kitchen garden' survives (Houblon-Archer archive), dated 1758, the kitchen garden prior to this having been contained within two long thin triangles of land to the north of the lake.

REFERENCES

P Morant, The History and Antiquities of the County of Essex (1763-8), p 160

P Muilman, A New and Complete History of Essex III, (1770), p 404

Gentleman's Magazine LXX, (1801); LXXI, (1801)

J C Loudon, Encyclopaedia of Gardening (1822)

T Wright, History of Essex (1836), p 377

Victoria History of the County of Essex IV, (1956), p 269

D Stroud, Capability Brown (1975), p 221

Coopersale: A Survey of the Landscape, (Debois Landscape Survey Group 1995)

Garden History 26, no 2 (Winter 1998), pp 214-17

Maps

Watercolour plan for improvements to ponds, 1738 (D/EAH 6199/21), (Berkshire Record Office)

Samuel Woolmer, The Plan of the New Kitchen Garden, 1758 (D/EAH), (Berkshire Record Office)

Faden, Map of Essex, 1790

A Boundary Survey Round the Mansion House of John Archer, June 1773 (D/EAH), (Berkshire Record Office)

J Chapman and P Andre, A map of the county of Essex from an actual survey ..., 1777 (Essex Record Office)

J Andrews and A Drury, A Map of the County Sixty-five Miles round London from Actual Surveys, 22 January 1807

C and J Greenwood, Map of the County of Essex from an Actual Survey made in the Year 1824, published 1825

Tithe map for Theydon Garner parish, 1838

OS Surveyor's drawings, 1799 (British Library)

OS 6" to 1 mile: 1st edition surveyed 1873-4

OS 25" to 1 mile: 1st edition surveyed 1872

Archival items

Archer papers (mostly 1725(50), (D/DU 363/4), (Essex Record Office)

Archer archive (Berkshire Record Office)

Description written: September 1998

Amended: February 1999

Register Inspector: HJ

Edited: April 2001