Landscape record TR 24 NW 241 - Wootton Court Parkland

Summary

The surviving pleasure ground area, parkland and kitchen garden of the now demolished Wootton Court. The mansion was built in 1785 to the designs of the architect, John Plaw, and it has been suggested that the surrounding grounds were landscaped at this time. The undulating landscape surrounding the remaining buildings still features specimen trees and far reaching views. The kitchen garden wall survives mostly intact.

Location

Grid reference Centred TR 2271 4684 (1098m by 1255m)
Map sheet TR24NW
County KENT
District DOVER, KENT
Civil Parish DENTON WITH WOOTTON, DOVER, KENT

Map

Type and Period (4)

Full Description

From the 2017 review of the historical evidence by the Kent Gardens Trust:

"STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE
EVIDENTIAL
Wootton Court mansion, built in 1785, was demolished in the 1950s however the
main structure of the landscape including pleasure ground, park and kitchen
garden survives, with the converted stables and coach house at its focus today
(2017). As a result, the site broadly reflects the ideals in fashion for designed
landscape of the late Georgian period.

Modifications to the approach drives accompanied alterations to the house made
in the 1870s, and historic maps chart the continuous evolution of tree planting in
the pleasure grounds and park. The site includes examples of mature specimen
trees, together with sections of chestnut avenues.

HISTORICAL
Woditon (Wootton) was first recorded in 687, and the first Wootton Court building
in 1210. The surrounding estate, much of Wootton Village, subsequently passed
through numerous families including the Digges family of Barham and the
Brydges of Gloucestershire.
The landscape gains interest from having presumably been developed as the
setting to a substantially new residence, built to the designs of the architect John
Plaw, author of a series of pattern books on rural architecture.

AESTHETIC
Wootton Court parkland formed the selected setting for a new late Georgian
country house, a period of high importance in terms of English landscape
design. The mansion was built on an elevated site from which far reaching views
of the surrounding countryside are punctuated with mature trees.

COMMUNAL
The parkland continues to afford the landscaped setting for the remaining
residences at the focus of the site. Although in private ownership, scenic views
into and across the parkland are provided from public roads and footpaths.

SUMMARY OF HISTORIC INTEREST
The surviving pleasure ground area, parkland and kitchen garden of the now
demolished Wootton Court. The mansion was built in 1785 to the designs of the
architect, John Plaw, and it has been suggested that the surrounding grounds
were landscaped at this time. The undulating landscape surrounding the
remaining buildings still features specimen trees and far reaching views. The
kitchen garden wall survives mostly intact.

CHRONOLOGY OF THE HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT
A charter dating from 687AD names Wootton village as UUDETUN. Granted by
Cenulf, King of Mercia to Archbishop Aethelhard and Church of Christ in
Canterbury, the first known tenant was Alan Wootton in 1170.
By 1210, John Guestling was the tenant and he probably built the original
Woditon Court building, parts of which remained within later houses.
During the reign of Henry III, in about 1236, the resident at Woditon Court, now
Ivo de Woditon, changed his name to Wootton. His descendants lived there until
1460. It then passed to the Harfield family until 1547 when it was left to Leonard
Digges of Barham together with the advowson of the church. Leonard was a
highly intelligent mathematician, scientist and inventor. His son Thomas was an
even greater mathematician and civil engineer and designed the Outer Harbour
at Dover for Queen Elizabeth I. After the Digges family ceased ownership,
Wootton Court passed to Thomas Arundel of Cornwall in 1573 who shortly
afterwards sold it to Richard Vincent. On Vincent’s death, his will stipulated that
the estate should be sold and so it came into the family of John Coppen in 1606.
When John Coppen died in 1630 he divided the ownership between Wootton
Court and the advowson of the church. In 1638 though, the inheritance was reunited
after the death of one brother. In 1701, another John died without heirs
and left Wootton Court to his sisters thereby splitting the estate once again. The
last surviving and unmarried sister, Dorothy, left her half to John Brydges, a
descendant of Sir John Brydges of Sudeley, Gloucestershire.

After a complicated sequence of inheritance, the owner, through his wife,
became the Rev. Edward Tymewell, who adopted the name Brydges (1781).
After his marriage he built, in 1785, a new grand residence designed by the
architect John Plaw (1745-1820) on the north-west side of the old building
leaving the old building at the rear. It is suggested that at the same time he
landscaped the surrounding land (c 240ha) (Lovelock/Welch). Plaw is largely
remembered as the author of three successful pattern books which took as their
subjects rural architecture, and included Ferme Ornee or Rural Improvements. A
Series of Domestic and Ornamental Designs, suited to Parks, Plantations, Rides,
Walks, Rivers, Farms, &c., 1795.

When Tymewell died in 1807, the inheritance reverted once again to another
branch of the Brydges family who continued ownership until 1867. Lady Isabella,
the widow of Sir John William Head Brydges, is shown as in residence on the
1841 census and in 1851, after Lady Isabella’s death, a John William Brydges is
recorded on the census. By this time, ownership of the estate had been
fragmented because of another series of complicated inheritances some of which
involved ancient gavelkind rights, so that when Isabella died in 1850, George
Joseph Murray, a JP, paid a total of £35,000 to several owners or mortgagers.
The ownership had been subject to at least one court case in 1848, in Maidstone
Court.

On the 1871 census, a William Johnstone, a vicar, was the tenant. In November
that year, an auction of contents was advertised in The Times, which included
furniture, china, a library of books, art objects and greenhouse plants. On the
1881 census, Murray, who had been born in Edinburgh, had taken up residence
together with his wife, five children, mother-in-law and ten servants. In separate
houses nearby lived the coachman, gardener and gamekeeper. In 1876, Murray
had embarked on some house improvements replacing the stucco exterior with a
more durable flint and brick finish and changing the position of the entrance. He
also built a gardeners cottage (now known as Court Lodge and grade II listed) at
the entrance to the walled garden on the opposite side of Wootton Lane to the
main house and a laundry on Shelvin Lane (now known as Laundry Cottage).
In 1881, a sales notice was published in The Times describing it as a property for
‘a gentleman of influence and taste’. This was followed in 1882 by an auction
dividing the estate into sixteen lots. The ‘noble family mansion’ was described as
standing in the midst of ‘a handsomely timbered park of 667 acres’, 275 acres of
which were attached to the mansion itself. The particulars went on further to
describe the ‘exceedingly pretty’ pleasure grounds as being four and a half acres
in size, and then set out the details of the walled kitchen garden which contained
a peach house, vineries and forcing pits.

The auction was not successful as only two estate properties; Ivy Cottage and
Yew Tree Cottage on Denton Lane were sold. The family were obviously intent
on moving such that by the time of the 1891 census they were living in London
and Wootton Court was occupied by the family of a J A Oliver. From 1894, it was
leased to a Herbert George Underhill who set up a preparatory school in the
house. By the time of the 1911 census his widow Edith was the head of school
with twenty boarders and nine members of staff living in. After a few years acting
headteacher, Henry Robert Yates, with his son-in-law and co-headmaster, took
over the running of the school. From military records we know that in 1916
Thomas Ramsey Stoney was the headteacher but was killed in the WWI conflict
in 1917. Thomas Underhill volunteered to serve in the war in 1915 (died 1916)
and gave his address as Wootton Court although his mother Edith (d 1952) was
living in Romney Marsh.

In July 1920, another auction was held, again in sixteen lots, totalling 600 acres
of land and estate properties. The descriptions are much the same but with no
indication of who the owner was. It also is not apparent who, if anybody, bought
the estate. The 1934 Kelly’s Directory shows Yates living at Wootton Court
although he had actually bought and occupied the gardener’s cottage as his
private residence in 1923. At the outbreak of war in 1939, Yates evacuated the
school and the house was commandeered as an Army Headquarters, a prisoner
of war camp and displaced persons camp in succession.

In 1952, the new owners were builders Raymond and Ronald Butler. They
decided to demolish the main house at Wootton Court rather than repair it.
However, the stables were converted into two separate dwellings. Other
buildings, which belonged to the estate, are also now (2016) in private hands, as
is the surrounding land, which is now (early C21) predominantly farmland." (1)


<1> Kent Gardens Trust, 2015, The Kent Compendium of Historic Parks and Gardens for Dover: Wootton Court Parkland (Unpublished document). SKE51716.

Sources/Archives (1)

  • <1> Unpublished document: Kent Gardens Trust. 2015. The Kent Compendium of Historic Parks and Gardens for Dover: Wootton Court Parkland.

Finds (0)

Protected Status/Designation

Related Monuments/Buildings (0)

Related Events/Activities (1)

  • Non-Intrusive Event: Desk based assessment: Wootton Court Parkland, 2017 (EKE21768)

Record last edited

Sep 22 2022 11:13AM