Scrivelsby Court

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A post-medieval landscape park on which Humphry Repton advised in the late 18th century, with 18th-century and mid-20th-century gardens, forming the setting for a country house converted from a 16th-century gatehouse.

DESCRIPTION

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

Scrivelsby Court is situated 4km south of Horncastle. The site here registered comprises c 130ha and is roughly oval in shape. The road from Horncastle (B1183) runs south through the grounds and forms part of the north-west and south-west boundaries. The north boundary, the rest of the south-west boundary, and the east boundary abut farmland.

ENTRANCES AND APPROACHES

The main entrance to the site is off the B1183 due west of the house, through the Lion Gateway (c 1530, rebuilt c 1833, listed grade II*). Built of greenstone rubble blocks with a four-centred arch, the Gateway is topped with a large statue of a crowned lion passant possibly designed by C J Carter of Louth. From the Gateway, the drive leads eastwards by Lion Lodge (c 1800, C20, listed grade II) which stands to the north of the drive. Lion Lodge is a pair of colour-washed brick octagonal lodges with plain tile roofs, connected together. The pair of lodges was probably part of the improvements by Repton for Lewis Dymoke (J Dymoke pers comm, 2000; Pevsner et al 1989). The drive curves south-eastwards from Lion Lodge then continues eastwards and north-eastwards to the Court. This drive is marked on the Repton plan (Red Book 1790) as the only drive between the Lodge and the Court.

PRINCIPAL BUILDING

Scrivelsby Court (early C13, c 1380, 1574, late C18, 1958-60, listed grade I) stands in the centre of the site surrounded by gardens and parkland. Converted from the gatehouse when the last Court was demolished in 1956, it is a long, narrow, two-storey building built of red brick with limestone ashlar dressings. The west and east fronts have five bays with a tumbled gable set with a clock face over the carriage archways, these latter having been converted to doorways 1958?60.

An engraving of 1726 by Samuel Buck shows the gatehouse with a single gable attached by a crenellated wall to (the old) Scrivelsby Court. Part of the Scrivelsby Court demolished in 1956 dated from the late C14. A fire in 1761 had destroyed a considerable part of the old house, including a large hall. Rebuilding, in the Gothic style, took place in 1805 on the instructions of Lewis Dymoke. The Court remained in this form up to the C20.

The C19 stable block adjoining the north-west of the Court has been connected to a small cottage, garages, storerooms, and the Estate Office. To the north of these buildings is a brick woodshed/workshops (c 1760 with C20 additions, listed grade II).

GARDENS AND PLEASURE GROUNDS

The gardens lie to the east and south-east of the Court. Immediately east of the present Scrivelsby Court is the site of the old Scrivelsby Court. This has been laid out as a garden from the 1960s onwards. A narrow border planted with climbing plants abuts the east front with a paved path running north/south parallel to the Court. Eastwards beyond the path is a lawn on which stands a sundial. South-west of the lawn are two oblong rose beds, edged with lavender, on either side of a stone statue (1723, listed grade II) by F V Frese of a Roman warrior on an inscribed plinth. North of the rose beds is a large cedar of Lebanon.

North of the lawn, which lies to the east of the Court, is a paved garden connected by a brick path edged by a low brick wall to a C20 conservatory set on the Court's north-east front. The circular paved garden is surrounded on the east side by a semicircular flower bed broken by an arch flanked by golden cypress. A paving path continues eastwards from the paved garden, through an arch, and continues as a gravel path, edged with grass, between a yew hedge to the north and ornamental planting to the south. The gravel path flanked by a double row of flowering cherries leads to a C20 iron gate into the east park. This path appears to be the path which ran from the east front of the old Court to the park (OS 1891).

Openings in the yew hedge off the gravel path lead north to a late C20 folly, an icehouse, and a tennis court. The folly, built to celebrate the Millennium, is built of stone from the old Court. It consists of an arch which opens onto a rectangular pool running north/south, with a small tower on the west side and a short avenue of walnuts planted on grass to the east of the pool. West of the folly is the icehouse (late C18, listed grade II); restored in the late C20, this has a brick exterior and entrance. East of the folly is a small orchard. West of the icehouse is the tennis court with a brick pavilion with stained glass set in the windows. North of the folly and the icehouse is woodland known as the Court Wilderness which was planted with conifers and deciduous trees, mainly oak and beech, in 1955.

To the south of the Court is the L-shaped moat (50m x 150m) which forms the south-west and part of the west boundary of the garden. There are views over the moat to the south and west parkland. A grass path leads past the cedar on the east lawn to a walk between ornamental trees beside the east end of the moat and continues to a gate to the parkland. North of the moat end, 100m south-east of the Court, is a 30m long ornamental pool with a brick wall to the north and willow trees on the east bank which is shown on the 1st edition OS map of 1891.

PARK

Scrivelsby Court and its gardens lie in the centre of the park. In the north-east corner of the site is Rough Plantation. A narrow road runs east across the park from the B1183 to the Round House, now (2000) a private house, 750m north-east of the Court. Midway along is a track running south to Park Cottage/Keeper's Lodge, a white, colour-washed building with tiled roof which stands south of Scrivelsby Beck, 350m north-east of the Court. South of the Cottage is a large pond and to the west of it is a square dried-up moat (scheduled ancient monument). Scrivelsby Beck is canalised between the Cottage and a weir to the east. South-east of the Cottage is the Deer Park with Tasker's Plantation on the eastern boundary. A lime avenue laid out in the 1960s runs east aligned with the present Court. Another lime avenue runs westwards from the west front of the Court to Lion Lodge. South-west of the Court the west park, laid to pasture, is planted with beeches and horse chestnuts. A C20 deer fence running from south-west to north-east forms the southern boundary of the deer park. South of the fence is further parkland, with Apple Plantation on the south-east boundary.

The west park continues to the west of the road (B1183); it is laid down to pasture, with woodland to the north surrounding the walled garden. Within this part of the park, accessed by a track leading westwards from the road, is the church of St Benedict (early C13, C15, restored 1860 and 1876, listed grade II*), outside the area here registered. Church Plantation lies to the west of the church.

Repton's proposals for the park included a triangular lake south of the Court, on the southern boundary of the site. On his 1790 map he indicated perimeter planting between the proposed lake and the road as well as a semicircular belt north-east of the Court. Hedges were to be taken out in the area of the south-west park. Lewis Dymoke added pencilled suggestions to the Repton plan indicating the enlargement of the semicircular belt north-east of the Court. He also suggested further perimeter planting along the boundary with the road on the south-west. Comparison of the Repton plan and the 1st edition OS map of 1891 shows that the proposal for the lake was not implemented but the semicircular planting to the north-east of the Court took place, including Dymoke's suggested extension. The perimeter planting beside the B1183 was also present, including Dymoke's addition (OS 1891), but has since been felled. The hedges within the deer park were removed. The belt of woodland south-west of the old Court and south of the west entrance appears not to have been planted.

KITCHEN GARDEN

The brick-walled kitchen garden is situated 280m from the Court, west of the Lion Gates and to the west of the B1183. The garden is planted (2000) with vegetables and some fruit trees.

One of Lewis Dymoke's suggestions was that the walled kitchen garden be situated south-west of the Court on the west side of the road, contrary to Repton's proposal to site it immediately west of the gatehouse in the west parkland. The garden's present location closely reflects Dymoke's idea and dates from the period of his ownership (Tithe map, 1850).

REFERENCES

W White, Directory of Lincolnshire (1856)

W F Rawnsley, Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire (1926), pp 372-8

H Thorold and J Yates, Lincolnshire, A Shell Guide (1965), pp 117, 119

G Carter et al, Humphry Repton (1982), p 156

N Pevsner et al, The Buildings of England: Lincolnshire (2nd edition 1989), pp 631-2

T R Leach, Lincolnshire Country Houses and their Families I, (1990), pp 11-26

H Thorold, Lincolnshire Houses (1999), pp 82-3

S Daniels, Humphry Repton, Landscape Gardens and the Geography of Georgian England, (1999), p 262

Lincolnshire Gardens Trust, Newsletter, no 17 (May 2000), pp 5-8

Maps

J Speed, The Countie and Citie of Lyncolne described with the Armes of them that have bene Earles thereof since the conquest, 1610

Map of the Lordship of Scrivelsby and Dalderby in the County of Lincoln, the Property of Sir Henry Dymoke Baronet, The Honourable The Queen's Champion, Tithe Award 1850 (Lincolnshire Archives D588)

OS 6" to 1 mile: 1st edition surveyed 1886-7, published 1891; 2nd edition published 1906

OS 25" to 1 mile: 2nd edition published 1904

Illustrations

S Buck, engraving, 1726 (reproduced in Leach 1990)

Archival items

Humphry Repton, Red Book for Scrivelsby Court, 1790 (private collection)

Description written: August 2000

Amended: April 2002

Edited: June 2002