Downton Castle, Ludlow, England

The following is from the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest.

A gorge or valley modified as the archetypal picturesque landscape by Richard Payne Knight in the later 18th century, associated with a country house of same date. There are 19th-century terraces, grounds and park associated with the house.

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

Downton Castle lies 300 metres south of the A4113 road from Bromfield (to the north of Ludlow) to Leintwardine, and about 2 kilometres north-east of the village of Downton on the Rock. From the south front of the Castle there are dramatic views up the wooded Downton Gorge and across it to the woodland of Bringewood Chase. A long section of the north-west boundary of the roughly 350 hectare registered area follows an unclassified road; otherwise the boundary seeks to encompass the Gorge and its wooded surrounds, the essential picturesque landscape developed by R P Knight.

REFERENCES Used by English Heritage

Gardener's Magazine, (May 1838), pp 209-12

Gardener's Chronicle, (1862), pp 551-2

Country Life, 171 (28 January 1982), pp 218-21

M Clarke and N Penny, Arrogant Connoisseur: Richard Payne Knight (1982)

Downton Castle, Herefordshire: notes on the landscaping of the gorge, (Debois Landscape Survey Group 1991)

S Daniels and C Watkin, The Picturesque Landscape (1994), pp 49-65

Maps

OS 6" to 1 mile: Herefordshire sheet 2 SE, 1st edition published 1889; sheet 3 NW, 1st edition published 1887; sheet 3 SW, 1st edition published 1884

OS 25" to 1 mile: Herefordshire sheet 3.5, 2nd edition published 1903

Archival items

Estate records (T74); 20th-century estate records (AW97), (Herefordshire Record Office)
 

Description written: 1998

Edited: August 1999