Aston Hall, Birmingham

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The remains of formal gardens and a deer park associated with an early 17th-century country house, reworked in the mid-19th and early 20th century as a public park and pleasure grounds.

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

Aston Hall and its associated park lie on high ground c 4km north-east of the centre of Birmingham, close to Aston church and the Aston Villa Football Ground which stand immediately north-east and north of the park. The park is bounded by the A38(M) Aston Expressway to the east, and by largely C19 urban development to the west (Bevington Road), north (Trinity Road), and south (Frederick Road). The area here registered is c 18ha.

ENTRANCES AND APPROACHES

There is vehicular access off Frederick Road to the south of the park, with a main pedestrian approach from the north-east off Trinity Road as well as secondary entrances to the north-west and from the south.

PRINCIPAL BUILDING

Aston Hall (listed grade I) was begun on one of the highest points on the Aston estate in 1618 and completed in 1635, four years after Sir Thomas Holte had moved there. The architect was possibly John Thorpe (c 1565-1655?) (CL 1953, 553-4). Some alterations were made later, probably after damage in the Civil War, as well as in the 1730s or early 1740s. It is a red-brick building with diaper patterning in darker bricks, with stone facings and quoins only at the corners. The Hall comprises an east-facing hall block with projecting wings enclosing a courtyard. The second storey of the west front is a long gallery. A chapel projects from the south front with an arcaded loggia to one side. The north range housed the kitchens.

Brick walls with decorative semicircular crests (copied at Strawberry Hill, qv, in 1761) connect the east ends of the north and south wings with lodges (listed grade I), either of c 1635 or a little later. These are of dark brick with stone dressings, two-storeyed, and have attics with shaped gables. On the east face of each lodge is a two-storeyed bay window. A wall with screen and central gateway originally linked them.

North of the Hall are red-brick stables (listed grade I) of c 1630.

GARDENS AND PLEASURE GROUNDS

As designed c 1630 the main garden compartment lay west of the Hall, overlooked from the long gallery and balancing the forecourt to the east.

A 180m long terrace walk, in the C17 known as the Great Walk, runs across the west front of the Hall. In 1637 it was intended that a banqueting house be built at either end of the Walk. These were to be built according to a design supplied by Sir Thomas Holte (rather than, as originally intended, being copies of those at Campden House, Gloucestershire). Whether the southern banqueting house was ever built is unknown, but the basement of the northern one, demolished before the 1750s, survives as the lower section of one of the C19 balustraded bastions which terminate either end of the Walk.

West of the terrace, an area occupied in the C17 and in 1758 by a bowling green, are three gently terraced lawns with formal beds, in all occupying c 80m north/south by 250m east/west. These are probably of the early C19, when James Watt, the Hall's tenant, made many improvements to its surrounds. On the most easterly lawn are two urns, while in the centre of the most westerly lawn is a statue. Steps lead down from the centre of the west side of the west lawn to a north/south walk, and then continue down to a further (fourth) lawn which now forms part of the park rather than the garden. Further formal lawns lie north and south of the middle lawn west of the Hall, below the terrace walk.

A grass oval with central bed occupies the centre of the east forecourt. This arrangement was established c 1740, when it replaced a parterre with trimmed yews and sculptures. That was laid out here c 1700, about the time the original brick screen wall along the east side of the forecourt was replaced by wrought-iron work.

South of the Hall is a level lawn, with the Hall's car park to its east. A parterre was laid out south of the Hall c 1699, which was replaced in the C18 by a walled garden. The colonnade beneath the Hall was glazed and converted to a greenhouse. The garden south of the Hall became a flower garden and shrubbery in the late C18. A Victorian bandstand was removed in 1924.

North of the Hall is a flat lawn. This occupies the site of a bowling green present in 1758 and probably laid out in the 1630s as a part of the original design. Service buildings and a bleaching green, also C17, survived until the later C19.

PARK

Aston Park surrounds Aston Hall, running downhill from it for c 250m.

Approaching uphill towards the east forecourt from the Trinity Road boundary of the park is a double avenue, mostly of C20 horse chestnut. At its east end is a statue pedestal. The avenue replaced the C17 Chestnut Avenue which extended 1km from the Hall. In the C18 and C19 a second avenue, of sycamores, approached from the south.

Various other lines of trees and avenues, all C20, radiate from the Hall and line approaches to it, especially on its south and west sides. There is a small area with children's play equipment to the west of the entrance off Frederick Street, and a much larger one north of the Hall where there are also various flat-roofed park buildings of the later C20. South-west and north-west of the Hall are large open spaces (the former partly occupied by a football pitch), while east and south-east of it is a sports field and hard tennis courts.

Aston Park was created in the second decade of the C17 over what had been the open fields of Aston, and was enlarged in 1621 when Sir Thomas Holte was granted licence to inclose highways. Then, as in 1758 soon after the park was walled, it comprised 327 acres (c 136ha). Features included several irregular lakes and ponds, and avenues. In 1758 the main avenue (the Chestnut Avenue) ran east from the forecourt to a point well beyond the boundary of the park; running south from this were three subsidiary avenues. By 1838 only the main avenue survived.

In 1818 Aston Park was bought together with the Hall by Whitehead and Greenway. Its outlying parts were split into paddocks and let, while 156 acres (c 65ha) were let with the Hall. During the 1840s that area shrank as Lozells and Aston New Town were built. Further urban development around the present boundary of the park followed James Watt junior's death in 1848, at which time the deer herd was dispersed.

REFERENCES

Country Life, 114 (20 August 1953), pp 552-5; (27 August 1953), pp 620-3; (3 September 1953), pp 694-7

The Victoria History of the County of Warwickshire 7, (1964), pp 7, 60-2, 352

N Pevsner and A Wedgwood, The Buildings of England: Warwickshire (1966), pp 149-53

O Fairclough, The Grand Old Mansion: The Holtes and their Successors at Aston Hall 1618-1864 (1984)

Aston Hall: A General Guide, guidebook, (O Fairclough 1987)

G Tyack, Warwickshire Country Houses (1994), pp 18-22

Maps

Map of Aston Manor, 1758 (Birmingham Reference Library)

Map of Aston Manor, 1833 (Birmingham Reference Library)

OS 25" to 1 mile:

1st edition published 1890

2nd edition published 1917

1938 edition

Description written: January 1998

Register Inspector: PAS

Edited: October 1999