alanhitchcock49
Former cascade and present fountain, Stanway House, Gloucestershire
Photos by Jill and Alan Hitchcock
Stanway is an outstandingly beautiful example of a Jacobean manor house, owned by Tewkesbury Abbey for 800 years then for 500 years by the Tracy family and their descendants, the Earls of Wemyss. Stanway House is currently the home of Lord and Lady Neidpath. The Tracys, very unusually, claimed descent from Charlemagne, and were almost unique in England for having owned land (at nearby Toddington) since before the Norman Conquest. Their resulting self-confidence probably contributed to the sureness of their touch at Stanway: the house (in the opinion of Fodor’s Great Britain 1998 Guidebook "As perfect and pretty a Cotswold Manor House as anyone is likely to see"), its fascinating furniture, the jewel-like Gatehouse, the church and 14th-century Tithe Barn, the 18th-century water-garden (one of the finest in England), the specimen trees and avenues, the surrounding villages, farms, parkland and woodland – all subtly and harmoniously combine to create an enclave of very English and almost magical harmony.
Thanks to its location, at the foot of the Cotswold escarpment, Stanway has been protected from many changes of the 20th century, but the last decade has seen the gradual restoration to its former glory of the 18th century watergarden, probably designed by the greatest of British landscape gardeners, Charles Bridgeman. The formal Canal, on a terrace above the house, the Cascade (the longest in England), the striking Pyramid and eight ponds have been reinstated, and a single-jet fountain, at 300 feet the highest fountain in Britain and the highest gravity fountain in the world, has been added.
The glory of the Stanway watergarden is the single-jet fountain in the Canal, opened on 5th June 2004. Originally suggested by Paul Edwards, the landscape architect, and engineered by David Bracey of The Fountain Workshop Limited, the fountain rises
magnificently to over 300 feet, making it the tallest fountain in Britain (seconded by Witley Court at 121 feet), the tallest gravity fountain in the world (seconded by the Fountain of Fame at La Granja de San Ildefonso, Segovia, Spain at 154 feet), and the second tallest fountain in Europe, after the 400-foot-high turbine-driven fountain in Lake Geneva. The fountain has a 2-inch bronze nozzle and is driven from an 100,000-gallon reservoir, 580 feet above the Canal, via a 12-inch diameter medium-density polyethylene pipe 2 kilometres long.
(NB This last piece of information is very specific and can only have been provided by the water engineer who designed the refurbished system. I know, because I was one - AH49)
Information from official Stanway House website, (apart from the parentheses)
Former cascade and present fountain, Stanway House, Gloucestershire
Photos by Jill and Alan Hitchcock
Stanway is an outstandingly beautiful example of a Jacobean manor house, owned by Tewkesbury Abbey for 800 years then for 500 years by the Tracy family and their descendants, the Earls of Wemyss. Stanway House is currently the home of Lord and Lady Neidpath. The Tracys, very unusually, claimed descent from Charlemagne, and were almost unique in England for having owned land (at nearby Toddington) since before the Norman Conquest. Their resulting self-confidence probably contributed to the sureness of their touch at Stanway: the house (in the opinion of Fodor’s Great Britain 1998 Guidebook "As perfect and pretty a Cotswold Manor House as anyone is likely to see"), its fascinating furniture, the jewel-like Gatehouse, the church and 14th-century Tithe Barn, the 18th-century water-garden (one of the finest in England), the specimen trees and avenues, the surrounding villages, farms, parkland and woodland – all subtly and harmoniously combine to create an enclave of very English and almost magical harmony.
Thanks to its location, at the foot of the Cotswold escarpment, Stanway has been protected from many changes of the 20th century, but the last decade has seen the gradual restoration to its former glory of the 18th century watergarden, probably designed by the greatest of British landscape gardeners, Charles Bridgeman. The formal Canal, on a terrace above the house, the Cascade (the longest in England), the striking Pyramid and eight ponds have been reinstated, and a single-jet fountain, at 300 feet the highest fountain in Britain and the highest gravity fountain in the world, has been added.
The glory of the Stanway watergarden is the single-jet fountain in the Canal, opened on 5th June 2004. Originally suggested by Paul Edwards, the landscape architect, and engineered by David Bracey of The Fountain Workshop Limited, the fountain rises
magnificently to over 300 feet, making it the tallest fountain in Britain (seconded by Witley Court at 121 feet), the tallest gravity fountain in the world (seconded by the Fountain of Fame at La Granja de San Ildefonso, Segovia, Spain at 154 feet), and the second tallest fountain in Europe, after the 400-foot-high turbine-driven fountain in Lake Geneva. The fountain has a 2-inch bronze nozzle and is driven from an 100,000-gallon reservoir, 580 feet above the Canal, via a 12-inch diameter medium-density polyethylene pipe 2 kilometres long.
(NB This last piece of information is very specific and can only have been provided by the water engineer who designed the refurbished system. I know, because I was one - AH49)
Information from official Stanway House website, (apart from the parentheses)