Longleat

The following is from the Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest. For the most up-to-date Register entry, please visit The National Heritage List for England (NHLE):

A grand C16 mansion surrounded by formal gardens and pleasure grounds with elements of the early C19 layout, added to in the mid C19 by William Taylor, in the mid C20 by Russell Page, and in the late C20 by the seventh Marquess of Bath. These sit in extensive parkland, largely of mid C18 origin by Lancelot Brown, with additions by Humphry Repton who produced a Red Book in 1804, by Jeffry Wyatville, and by Russell Page in the 1930s.

Note

This entry is a summary. Because of the complexity of this site, the standard Register entry format would convey neither an adequate description nor a satisfactory account of the development of the landscape. The user is advised to consult the references given below for more detailed accounts. Many Listed Buildings exist within the site, not all of which have been here referred to. Descriptions of these are to be found in the List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest produced by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.SUMMARY DESCRIPTION Longleat lies in a rural location on the western border of Wiltshire, c 8km south-west of Warminster. The park covers an area of c 505ha bounded to the north by country lanes and farmland, to the south by Horningsham estate village, and to the east and west by extensive woodlands. Shear Water is included as a detached area within the registered site. The ground slopes generally from south to north, with the house at the level of the lakes and the park laid out on slopes rising to the surrounding woodland on higher ground. The setting is largely agricultural land with substantial areas of estate forestry.

There are two main approaches to Longleat. One enters from Horningsham estate village in the south, through Wyatville's arched lodge (listed grade I) and along the straight south drive to the south front. Although the lodges are early C19, the drive itself is early C18 and was lined with a double avenue of elms; these were replaced with groups of Tulip trees by Russell Page in the mid C20. A second row of horse chestnuts has recently (2000) been planted. The second approach enters the estate woodlands c 3.5km to the east-north-east of the house and runs along the Longcombe Drive, planted with mixed exotics in the mid C19, to emerge on the top of Park Hill where extensive views look west across the park towards the house. The drive drops gently through the park, crosses the string of lakes, and arrives at the south front. Two further minor drives enter the park, one through High Woods to the west, past Wyatville's County Cottage lodge (listed grade II), and the second from the northern boundary beside Stalls Farm.

The gardens lie to the north and east of the house which sits to the west of centre of the park, c 100m to the west of the largest of the string of lakes, known as Half Mile Pond. The east front lawn is planted with two low mazes of box (late C20), the terrace below the east front running north parallel to the lake bank, through an avenue of pleached limes planted by Russell Page in the early C20, to a covered Palladian bridge (Wyatville, listed grade I) over an inlet from Half Mile Pond. Early C19 walled enclosures below the north front contain a rose garden (seventh Marquess of Bath, late C20) and the early C19 Orangery by Wyatville (listed grade I). A small garden, enclosed by a hedge, has been laid out by the seventh Marquess on the west front during the late C20. To the south-west of the house, c 250m from the south front, an ornamental iron gateway leads to a path through a wooded pleasure ground (Brown, mid C18) to the mid C18 walled kitchen garden which lies c 900m south of the house, on the southern boundary of the park.

The extensive parkland is almost entirely retained under grass and is scattered with parkland trees of various ages, the mature specimens being predominantly oak. A string of six ponds or lakes runs from Upper Pond in the south to Half Mile Pond in the north through the centre of the park. These were created by Brown in the mid C18 and altered by Repton in 1804. The ground rises sharply to the east as far as Park Hill and Prospect Hill, on the top of which a viewpoint known as Heaven's Gate (mentioned in Repton's Red Book) looks out over the park. The slopes are planted with hanging beech woods, proposed by Brown but planted towards the end of the C18. Beyond Park Hill dense woodlands of mixed conifer, hardwood, and ornamental species are cut through with rides and drives, the most formal of which is known as The Red Way, extending eastwards from the Longcombe Drive and into the estate woodlands (beyond the boundary of the registered site). The planting of the Longcombe Woods was started in the late C18/early C19 although much of its ornamental character dates from the mid C19 and parts of it were replanted after the Second World War. During the C19 carriage drives led from Longcombe Woods south-east into Aucombe Woods, in the south-east corner of which lies Shear Water, a boating lake created in the 1790s by the first Marquess. Repton's boathouse on its shore no longer survives.

The Longleat Safari Park, created by the sixth Marquess in collaboration with the Chipperfield family in 1964, is located in the north-east quarter of the open park and contains a heavily wooded area, developed since the late C18, which includes The Grove. Further late C18 hanging beech woods lie beyond the Safari Park along the northern boundary.

REFERENCES

Note. There is a wealth of published material about this site. The key references are listed below.

J Kip and L Knyff, Britannia Illustrata, (1724-9)

C Campbell, Vitruvius Britannicus 3, (1725)

Country Life, 2 (14 August 1897), pp 154-6; 12 (18 October 1902), pp 496-503; 105 (22 April 1949), p 926; (29 April 1949), pp 990-3

J Sales, West Country Gardens (1908), pp 227-32

C Grosvenor and C Beilby, The First Lady Wharncliffe and her Family I, (1927), p 214

P J Toynbee (ed), Horace Walpole's Journals of Visits to Country Seats etc (Walpole Society XVI, 1927-8), p 45

D Stroud, Humphry Repton (1962), pp 131-2

D Lindstrum, Sir Jeffry Wyatville (1972)

D Stroud, Capability Brown (1975), pp 85-6

B Cherry and N Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Wiltshire (2nd edn 1975), pp 308-13

D Burnett, Longleat: the Story of an English Country House (1978)

J Harris, The Artist and the Country House (1979), p 69

G Carter et al, Humphry Repton (1982), p 163

Garden History XI, i (1983), pp 6-36

The Longleat Estate: a brief history, (Historic Landscape Management 1998) [contains a comprehensive list of references]

Maps [All reproduced in HLM 1998]

C Campbell, Plan of the gardens, plantations etc of Longleate..., c 1725 (in Vitruvius Britannicus 3, 1725)

J Ladd, Map of the manore of Horningsham in Wiltshire..., 1747 (private collection)

Enclosure maps for Horningsham and Corsley parishes, 1783 (Wiltshire and Swindon Record Office)

T Davis, Estate map, 1804 (private collection)

C Greenwood, Map of the County of Wiltshire, 1820 (Wiltshire and Swindon Record Office)

Tithe maps for Horningsham and Longbridge Deverill, 1844 (Wiltshire and Swindon Record Office)

OS 6" to 1 mile: 1st edition published 1884

OS 25" to 1 mile: 1st edition published 1884

Illustrations

Jan Sieberechts, paintings, 1675-8 (private collection) [reproduced in Burnett 1978]

J Kip and L Knyff, engravings of gardens, 1702-07, (in Britannia Illustrata 1724-9)

Archival items

The extensive Longleat archive is held in a private collection.

Description written: November 2000

Register Inspector: FDM

Edited: May 2005