Brief Description
The house was possibly designed by Trubshaw. The area around the house has been modernised with hard landscaping, fountain and shrub planting. The kitchen garden walls are extant but there is a tarmac drive through the centre.
History
The house was built around 1720 for the Vernon family within the moated site.
Detailed Description
The 18th-century house is surrounded by a moat. The area around the house has been modernised with hard landscaping, fountain and shrub planting. The walls of the kitchen garden are extant, but a road cuts through the centre. Extensive water features and good woodland belts survive, but there has been substantial opencast mining, severance by motorways and services, gravel pits, and the siting of an electricity sub-station on the site. Portabello tower stands as an eyecatcher in the park. There is also an iron-framed curvelinear glasshouse, dating to about 1820, in the grounds near the house, but now in a ruinous state.- Features
- Tower
- Description: There is a tower in memory of Admiral Vernon.
- House (featured building)
- Earliest Date:
- Latest Date:
- Glasshouse
- Description: There is also an iron-framed curvelinear glasshouse, dating to about 1820.
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- Authorities
Civil Parish
- Hilton
- History
Detailed History
The house was built in about 1720, possibly by Trubshaw, for the Vernon family. In the mid-18th century, Portabello Tower was built as an eyecatcher, in celebration of Admiral Vernon's victory in the West Indies (1739). This tower replaced an earlier obelisk.
- Associated People
- Contact
- References
References
- Carter, G et al 1982. {Humphry Repton landscape gardener 1752-1818}, p.161.Humphry Repton landscape gardener 1752-1818
- Pevsner, N. {The Buildings of England: Staffordshire} (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974), p32.The Buildings of England: Staffordshire
- White, W. {A History, Gazetteer and Directory of Staffordshire} (Sheffield, 1851), ref: HCW Vernon Esq.A History, Gazetteer and Directory of Staffordshire
- Pitt, W. 1796.{A General View of the Agriculture of the County of Stafford ith observations on the means of its improvement}, p. 96.General View of the Agriculture of the County of Stafford with observations on the means of its improvement
- Shaw, S. {History and Antiquities of Staffordshire, Vol II} (London, 1801), p311-312.History and Antiquities of Staffordshire
- Larkcom, P. J., 'Moated Sites in South Staffordshire'. {Transactions of the South Staffordshire Archaeological & Historical Society}, 24 (1984 for 1982-3), 8-65Moated Sites in South Staffordshire