Charlecote Park - Laundry - 1851 Mary Eboral Laundress

A visit to Charlecote Park for an afternoon visit to this National Trust property in Warwickshire. Near Stratford-upon-Avon. A deer park with a country house in the middle of it.

 

 

Charlecote Park (grid reference SP263564) is a grand 16th-century country house, surrounded by its own deer park, on the banks of the River Avon near Wellesbourne, about 4 miles (6 km) east of Stratford-upon-Avon and 5.5 miles (9 km) south of Warwick, Warwickshire, England. It has been administered by the National Trust since 1946 and is open to the public. It is a Grade I listed building.

 

The Lucy family owned the land since 1247. Charlecote Park was built in 1558 by Sir Thomas Lucy, and Queen Elizabeth I stayed in the room that is now the drawing room. Although the general outline of the Elizabethan house remains, nowadays it is in fact mostly Victorian. Successive generations of the Lucy family had modified Charlecote Park over the centuries, but in 1823, George Hammond Lucy (High Sheriff of Warwickshire in 1831) inherited the house and set about recreating the house in its original style.

 

Charlecote Park covers 185 acres (75 ha), backing on to the River Avon. William Shakespeare has been alleged to have poached rabbits and deer in the park as a young man and been brought before magistrates as a result.

 

From 1605 to 1640 the house was organised by Sir Thomas Lucy. He had twelve children with Lady Alice Lucy who ran the house after he died. She was known for her piety and distributing alms to the poor each Christmas. Her eldest three sons inherited the house in turn and it then fell to her grandchild Sir Davenport Lucy.

 

In the Tudor great hall, the 1680 painting Charlecote Park by Sir Godfrey Kneller, is said to be one of the earliest depictions of a black presence in the West Midlands (excluding Roman legionnaires). The painting, of Captain Thomas Lucy, shows a black boy in the background dressed in a blue livery coat and red stockings and wearing a gleaming, metal collar around his neck. The National Trust's Charlecote brochure describes the boy as a "black page boy". In 1735 a black child called Philip Lucy was baptised at Charlecote.

 

The lands immediately adjoining the house were further landscaped by Capability Brown in about 1760. This resulted in Charlecote becoming a hostelry destination for notable tourists to Stratford from the late 17th to mid-18th century, including Washington Irving (1818), Sir Walter Scott (1828) and Nathaniel Hawthorn (c 1850).

 

Charlecote was inherited in 1823 by George Hammond Lucy (d 1845), who married Mary Elizabeth Williams of Bodelwyddan Castle, from who's extensive diaries the current "behind the scenes of Victorian Charlecote" are based upon. GH Lucy's second son Henry inherited the estate from his elder brother in 1847. After the deaths of both Mary Elizabeth and Henry in 1890, the house was rented out by Henry's eldest daughter and heiress, Ada Christina (d 1943). She had married Sir Henry Ramsay-Fairfax, (d 1944), a line of the Fairfax Baronets, who on marriage assumed the name Fairfax-Lucy.

 

From this point onwards, the family began selling off parts of the outlying estate to fund their extensive lifestyle, and post-World War II in 1946, Sir Montgomerie Fairfax-Lucy, who had inherited the residual estate from his mother Ada, presented Charlecote to the National Trust in-lieu of death duties. Sir Montgomerie was succeeded in 1965 by his brother, Sir Brian, whose wife, Lady Alice, researched the history of Charlecote, and assisted the National Trust with the restoration of the house.

 

 

Laundry and Brewhouse and Stables and Coach House.

 

Also Tack Room & Second-Hand Book Shop.

 

Grade I Listed Building

 

Laundry and Brewhouse and Stables and Coach House Immediately South of Charlecote Park

 

 

Listing Text

 

 

CHARLECOTE

 

SP2556 CHARLECOTE PARK

1901-1/10/25 Laundry, brewhouse, stables and

05/04/67 coach house immediately S of

Charlecote Park

(Formerly Listed as:

Outbuildings at Charlecote Park)

 

GV I

 

Laundry, brewhouse, coach house, stables and deer

slaughterhouse. Laundry and brewhouse: C16 with later

restoration. Brick laid to English bond with limestone

dressings and high plinth; steeply pitched old tile roof with

octagonal brick ridge and internal stacks. L-plan.

Stables: C16 with early C19 cladding and interior alterations.

Brick laid to Flemish bond with diaper pattern in vitrified

headers; old tile roof.

EXTERIOR: laundry/brewhouse wing: south side of 2 storeys plus

attic; 5-window range; 2 cross-gables. To right, 2 entrances

have 4-centred heads and plank doors and flank 2 C19

round-headed coach entrances with keystones and paired doors.

Double-chamfered mullioned windows of 2, 3 or 8 lights with

leaded glazing. Left end has entrance to brewhouse and blocked

windows. Lead rainwater goods.

Slaughterhouse for deer attached to east end; gabled

single-storey structure with modillioned brick cornice; north

entrance has grille to overlight and to south an entrance and

2-light window.

Stables: 2 storeys; 8-window range with cross-wing and cupola

to left of centre. Moulded stone plinth and first-floor drip

course; stone-coped brick parapet. Wing breaks forward with

coped gable; elliptical-arched carriageway with moulded

responds and arch and groin vault; oriel has 1:2:1-light

transomed windows over panels (central panel has Lucy Arms)

and pierced parapet copied from gatehouse (qv).

Ground floor to left of wing: 2 coach house entrances as above

and entrance with single-chamfered Tudor arch with label mould

and fanlight to paired panelled doors and a 3-light

ovolo-mullioned window with 4/4 sashes to right. To right of

wing: 2 similar stable entrances but with plank doors each

with similar window to left.

First floor has 2-light double-chamfered mullioned windows

with decorative leaded glazing and returns to drip, 3 to left

and 4 to right. South end similar, with 3-light windows.

Rear has plain arch to carriageway with 2-light window above

and small stack; to left of wing C16 brick to ground floor

with C19 brick corbelled out above; to right some C16 diapered

brick with ashlar opening to 8/8 sash and attached loose-box

block with stone-coped parapet over 3 Tudor-headed entrances

with overlights to plank doors; coped gable with finial;

attached brick gate pier with plank gate; 2 loose boxes in

gabled rear range.

INTERIOR: brewhouse has mostly C18 brewing equipment, water

pumps, coppers and stalls. Laundry has hearth and coppers; 3

segmental-headed recesses to one wall; slaughterhouse has

channels to brick/flag floor and a hoist.

Stables: full-height tack room has fittings including gallery

to 3 sides and bolection-moulded fireplace; stables to south

have stop-chamfered beams and posts; stable and loose-box

partitions; loft above has wall posts supporting 5 trusses

with braced tie beams, collars and struts, that to north with

lath and plaster infill, one with plank partition; double

purlins, wind braces and riven rafters.

The brewhouse is a particularly interesting survival complete

with equipment; the deer slaughterhouse is a rare example of

its kind.

(The Buildings of England: Pevsner, N & Wedgwood, A:

Warwickshire: Harmondsworth: 1966-: 228-9; Charlecote Park:

guidebook: 1991-: 38-44).

 

Listing NGR: SP2594556378

 

This text is from the original listing, and may not necessarily reflect the current setting of the building.

 

 

The Laundry Room.

 

 

1851 Mary Eboral Laundress

Done