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Court of Hill

Introduction

Court of Hill features garden courts and other features of mainly 18th-century date, and a landscape park associated with a country house. The site includes a walled kitchen garden with an 18th-century pavilion and an octagonal brick dovecote of 1767.

The following is from the Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest. For the most up-to-date Register entry, please visit the The National Heritage List for England (NHLE):

www.historicengland.org.uk/lis...

Court of Hill features garden courts and other features of mainly 18th-century date, and a landscape park associated with a country house.

The gardens, which stand principally to the north of the house, feature an octagonal brick dovecote of 1767, which has an open-arched and lead-domed turret. There is also a walled kitchen garden, which features an 18th-century pavilion with a Doric portico (probably modelled on St. Paul's, Covent Garden). The garden gives on to a descending alley, flanked with clipped hedges, which offers fine views to the west and south.

DESCRIPTION

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

Court of Hill stands c 10km east of Ludlow, on the east side of the B4214 between Cleehill village, 2km to the north, and Tenbury Wells (Worcs), on the south side of Titterstone Clee Hill. The registered area is largely bounded to the west by the B4214 (the walled kitchen garden is west of the road), to the east by a track which forks off it, and to the north and south by field boundaries. The area here registered is c 13ha.

ENTRANCES AND APPROACHES

The present, tree-lined approach is directly off the B4214 to the west side of the house. A line of trees through the park marks a disused approach drive from an ornately decorated mid C19 (post-1844) stone lodge on the B4214 at its south-east corner.

PRINCIPAL BUILDING

Court of Hill (listed grade II*) is of medieval origin. It was rebuilt in 1683, and altered in the early C19 and 1927. It is of brick with trim and quoins of stone, of seven bays and two storeys and with a tiled hipped roof with four dormers. Its original front door, in the centre of the south side, is now the garden door, and the house is entered via a door on the west side.

GARDENS AND PLEASURE GROUNDS

To the south of the house what was earlier the entrance court is now a shrub garden, created in the C20. It has a flagged path from the house's central garden door with lawns to either side. South of the approach from the west is a garden within which stands an octagonal brick dovecote (listed grade II) of 1776.

PARK

A small park slopes away from the house to the south. In 1844 it was called The Leasow, and probably only took on a fully parkland character after the tree-lined drive was laid out across it in the mid C19.

KITCHEN GARDEN

The kitchen garden lies 400m west of the house, west of the B4214. It is rectangular, aligned north-west to south-east, 85m wide and 50m deep. Built against the centre of the top, north-east wall is a late C18 Temple (listed grade II) comprising a portico with stepped approach, based on the portico of St Paul's, Covent Garden. From it there is a view down the broad, hedged, axial grass path across the garden and to the Teme Valley beyond.

REFERENCES

Country Life, 100 (18 October 1946), pp 716-19

Maps

Tithe map for Burford, 1844 (Shropshire Records and Research Centre)

OS 6" to 1 mile: 1st edition surveyed 1883, published 1888

OS 25" to 1 mile: 1st edition surveyed 1884, published 1884; 2nd edition surveyed 1902, published 1903

Archival items

Sale catalogue, 1926 (688/1), (Shropshire Records and Research Centre)

Visitor Access, Directions & Contacts
History

The following is from the Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest. For the most up-to-date Register entry, please visit the The National Heritage List for England (NHLE):

www.historicengland.org.uk/lis...

HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT

The Hill family owned and lived at the manor which became known as Court of Hill from the Middle Ages. In 1683, as a young man, Andrew Hill rebuilt the house there. Another phase of building works, on the house's surrounds, took place towards the end of the 18th century, some at least in the last decade of Thomas Hill's life. On his death in 1776 he was succeeded by his elder daughter who had married Thomas Humphrey Lowe of Bromsgrove. This couple's descendants held it until 1926 when the estate was sold to Edward Brocklehurst Fielden, MP, possessor of a cotton fortune, whose other houses included Condover (see description of this site elsewhere in the Register). Court of Hill remains in private hands (1998).

Period

18th Century (1701 to 1800)

Features & Designations

Designations

  • The National Heritage List for England: Register of Parks and Gardens

  • Reference: GD2122
  • Grade: II

Features

  • Country House (featured building)
  • Description: Court of Hill is a fine brick house of seven bays and two stories. The quoins, window trim, and doorway are stone. The house features a large timber staircase, and some of the interiors still bear occasional Jacobean details.
  • Earliest Date:
  • Latest Date:
Key Information

Type

Park

Purpose

Ornamental

Principal Building

Domestic / Residential

Period

18th Century (1701 to 1800)

Survival

Extant

Hectares

13

Open to the public

Yes

Civil Parish

Nash

References

References