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Olantigh, Wye

Introduction

Olantigh has 107 hectares of park and pleasure grounds of a mid-19th century design over earlier features. The house, water gardens, formal gardens, exotic conifers, trees and herbaceous plants are sited in the valley near the river. The park and farm are on high ground.

Terrain

The park extends over the rising ground to the east on the far side of Olantigh Road.
The farm and park lie on high ground. To the south is a pleasant landscape of beeches, Sussex cattle and pastures, while lying near the river in the valley is the house, its water gardens, more formal gardens and exotic conifers, trees and herbaceous plants. The river races down a weir here, where a magnificent crack willow (Salix fragills) once stood. A suspension footbridge across the river, said to date from the late-18th century, was destroyed in the 1987 hurricane and replaced with an iron bridge.

Olantigh has probably been the most severely devastated by the October 1987 storm of all the east Kent gardens. The severity of the destruction was only equalled by that at Emmetts and Chartwell in west Kent. All areas had zones of total destruction or damage, notably in the water gardens and river area, and the many specimen beeches and limes in the parkland areas. The scale of the damage is so great that a year after the disaster, 70-80% or so of the destruction still remained to be cleared up. This event has seriously delayed the gradual restoration programme that was being planned at Olantigh.

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 The National Heritage List for England (NHLE):

www.historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list

A country house with an early 20th-century water garden, set within a mid-19th-century park and pleasure ground established over earlier features.

DESCRIPTION

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

Olantigh Towers lies on the east side of the A28, Ashford to Canterbury road, c 9km north-east of Ashford. It occupies a rural location bounded to the north-west by the Great Stour river, to the south-west by farmland, woodland, and the Olantigh road, to the south by woodland, and to the east and north-east by a mix of farmland, woodland, and a minor country road. The house stands surrounded by pleasure grounds towards the western edge of the site, on the east bank of an arm of the Great Stour river. The park covers c 107ha and extends over the rising ground to the east on the far side of Olantigh Road which runs north to south through the park.

ENTRANCES AND APPROACHES

A drive leads off Olantigh Road through mid C19 rendered brick gate piers surmounted by urns (all listed grade II) at a lodge located c 200m to the south-east of the house. It runs north-west across the pleasure grounds to arrive at the forecourt below the north-east front. A second drive branches off Olantigh Road at a point c 380m further to the south; this runs north to the stable block which stands immediately to the south-west of the house.

PRINCIPAL BUILDING

Olantigh Towers (listed grade II) is a country house built of red brick with ashlar dressings under a plain tiled and hipped roof. It has a two-storey main block, with a seven-bay front and two rear wings off the south-west front. The entrance on the north-east front is marked by a projecting central Ionic pediment, the doors being flanked by niches containing paired sculptures of children. Following a fire in 1903, Olantigh Towers was substantially rebuilt between 1910 and 1912 by A Burnett Brown and E R Barrow for W E Sawbridge-Erle-Drax, incorporating the surviving portico from the 1768 remodelling of the 1508 house.

The C18 stable block (listed grade II) lies immediately to the west of the main house. Its tower, which was added in the 1850s, is dominant in many of the views across the site.

GARDENS AND PLEASURE GROUNDS

Much of the garden surrounding Olantigh Towers is enclosed by a mid C19 wall (listed grade II). Below the south-east front of the house is a formal terrace leading onto a large lawn with a circular fountain basin at its centre. The terrace was laid out as part of the mid C19 developments. At the western end of the terrace is an elaborate underground room, with an ornamental front of possibly C18 date, which may have been an undercroft or the cellar of a garden building. Above it stands a rockery laid out by Mrs Loudon in the early C20.

On the north-east side of the house parterres, again focused on a fountain, lead into woodland groves planted in the 1850s on the rising ground from where there are views down to the house.

Beyond the north-east lawn, c 100m to the north of the house, in the space between the two arms of the Great Stour river lies a water garden and bog garden. It is laid out with streams, pools, and bridges, a group of yews which stood on the island in the mid C19 lake having been retained as a feature. This layout was started by the Loudons in the 1920s when the lake, created in the 1850s by the widening of a canalised branch taken off the river, was partly filled in. John Samuel Wanley Sawbridge made the lake to replace an earlier scheme of formal gardens to the north of the house. Some 250m to the west of the house and at the south-west end of the water garden lies an American garden, now (2001) overgrown.

A set of paths leads up through pleasure grounds on the slope to the south of the house, to Olantigh Mount, formerly known as Barrow Hill. The C19 arrangement seems to overlie earlier earthworks and the bowling green, a circle of rough turf at the top of the Mount, is said to have been laid out by Major Richard Thornhill at the end of the C17 (CL 1969).

PARK

The park lies largely to the east of Olantigh Road and is planted with a few surviving beech and lime put in in the mid C19. Up until the late C18 the park extended only as far south as the Six Gate Clump, a beech plantation of this date (Inspector's Report 1988). It was then almost doubled in size by the imparking of land to the south. A shelter belt was planted alongside the road and Long Plantation was put in at the southern end marking the new boundary. This extension is now treeless and under the plough.

The park to the north of the track which leads east off Olantigh Road to the kitchen garden was in existence by the late C18 (Andrews, Dury and Herbert, 1769). It no longer retains any parkland plantings and the boundary between the parkland and farmland to the north-east has been removed.

KITCHEN GARDEN

The c 3ha kitchen garden (listed grade II) stands c 550m east of the house on a rise in the land at a point midway along the eastern boundary. It was built in the mid C18 and is enclosed by a circular wall with a main entrance through a two-storey outbuilding on the north side. A second outbuilding is attached to the north-west and a single-storey glasshouse to the south-east. The area is currently (2001) used as a commercial plant nursery and is half filled with C20 glasshouses.

REFERENCES

W Watts, Seats of noblemen and gentlemen (1779), plate 78

Gardeners' Chronicle, ii (1884), p 601

Country Life, 146 (24 July 1969), pp 222-6; (31 July 1969), pp 282-5; (7 August 1969), pp 334-7

Inspector's Report: Olantigh Towers, (English Heritage 1988)

Maps

J Andrews, A Dury and W Herbert, A Topographical Map of the County of Kent, 2" to 1 mile, 1769

OS Surveyor's draft drawings, 1789-1801 (British Library Maps)

OS 6" to 1 mile: 1st edition published 1878; 2nd edition 1898

Description written: April 2001

Amended: November 2001; February 2004

Edited: November 2003

Visitor Access, Directions & Contacts

Website

http://www.lostheritage.org.uk/houses/lh_kent_olantightowers.html

Directions

The site is 1 mile north-east of Wye, 4 miles from Ashford.

Other Websites

History

This is a very ancient site and setting. The name Olantigh may derive from an early Kentish word ‘HOLITEGE' or holly enclosure. In the 15th and 16th centuries the Kempe family had their seat at Olantigh, the most well-known member being Cardinal Kempe, founder of nearby Wye College (1447) and Archbishop of Canterbury.

The Elizabethan building was given a major transformation in 1767 by the then-owner Jason Sawbridge. It became an imposing Georgian brick and stone edifice with a massive stone portico. Agglomerations of all kinds were added by the eccentric Victorian John S W Sawbridge (the ‘Mad Major'), including Venetian towers (Olantigh Towers is still the name used on some maps and references) and vast picture galleries. A bronze equestrian statue of the Major and his horse was restored in 1991 by the Kent Gardens Trust and is a prominent feature in the grounds. An impressive fountain was erected in front of the house with elaborate terraced gardens to match and an estate of 1,600 hectares plus the 80 hectare park (see Hubert Fountain note, Ashford Borough Council).

In 1903 a disastrous fire gutted most of the house and the present smaller, more elegant house was re-built, but retaining the stone portico. The great fountain was moved to Victoria Park in Ashford where it was fully restored in 1918. The Loudon family acquired the property in 1915 and proceeded to make attractive, informal water gardens and shrub gardens by diverting a section of the River Stour that flows south to the north-west of the house. A rock garden was constructed in the 1930s, and many unusual and interesting trees and shrubs were planted in this period. A full survey is needed. Olantigh is therefore a place of contrasts.

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 The National Heritage List for England (NHLE):

www.historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list

HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT

In 1508 Sir Thomas Kempe built a new house, called Olantigh, on the site of an earlier building. This was sold to Sir Timothy Thornhill in 1607, who was succeeded by his son Colonel Richard Thornhill. Richard passed the property to his stepson Henry Thornhill who could not afford to live at Olantigh and let it to Sir John Bankes. Henry was succeeded in 1689 by his son, Richard Thornhill who was responsible for levelling the top of the Mount in the park to create a circular lawn encircled by trees. Richard's extravagant lifestyle forced him to sell the estate in 1717 when it was purchased by Jacob Sawbridge, the original Director of the South Seas Company. Sawbridge had ambitious plans to rebuild the house but his financial affairs prevented them from becoming reality. His son, John Sawbridge inherited in 1748 and began the refacing the house, but the substantial rebuilding was completed under the direction of his son, the second John Sawbridge, who succeeded in 1762. He greatly enlarged the house in the Georgian style and laid out new grounds. John Samuel Wanley Sawbridge Erle-Drax-Grosvenor made further substantial additions and alterations both to the house and its grounds in the 1850s at which point it became known as Olantigh Towers. The house burnt down in 1903 and was rebuilt between 1910 and 1912 on a smaller scale by John Sawbridge-Erle-Drax, a nephew of John Samuel Wanley Sawbridge. In 1913 the estate was leased by Mr J H Loudon who began the redevelopment of the gardens; in 1935 the estate was purchased by Mr F W H Loudon. During the mid-20th century the west wing of the house was demolished and is now (2001) a swimming pool and sitting area. The site remains (2001) in single private ownership.

Period

  • Post Medieval (1540 to 1901)
  • Victorian (1837-1901)
Features & Designations

Designations

  • The National Heritage List for England: Register of Parks and Gardens

  • Reference: GD1228
  • Grade: II

Features

  • House (featured building)
  • Description: In 1903 a disastrous fire gutted most of the house and the present smaller, more elegant house was re-built, but retaining the stone portico.
  • Earliest Date:
  • Latest Date:
  • Planting
  • Description: The Loudon family acquired the property in 1915 and proceeded to make attractive, informal water gardens and shrub gardens by diverting a section of the River Stour that flows south to the north-west of the house.
  • Earliest Date:
  • Planting
  • Description: A rock garden was constructed in the 1930s, and many unusual and interesting trees and shrubs were planted in this period.
  • Earliest Date:
  • Latest Date:
  • River
  • Ornamental Bridge
  • Description: A suspension footbridge across the river, said to date from the late-18th century, was destroyed in the 1987 hurricane and replaced with an iron bridge.
  • Earliest Date:
  • Parkland
  • Water Garden
  • House
  • Formal garden
  • Trees
  • Farm
Key Information

Type

Park

Purpose

Ornamental

Principal Building

Domestic / Residential

Period

Post Medieval (1540 to 1901)

Survival

Part: standing remains

Hectares

107

Open to the public

Yes

Civil Parish

Wye with Hinxhill

References

References

Contributors

  • Kent Gardens Trust