Abbotswood, Gloucestershire, England

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

Formal gardens by Edwin Lutyens adjoining a country house which he remodelled in 1901-2, with other early 20th-century gardens and a mid-19th-century landscape park with medieval origins.

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

Abbotswood stands within its park, which extends between the villages of Upper and Lower Swell. Both villages stand on roads from Stow-on-the-Wold, 1.5 kilometres to the east: Upper Swell on the B4077 to Broadway, and Lower Swell on the B4068 to Cheltenham. The same roads in part bound the park, as does a minor road between the two villages down the west side of the park. Running from north to south through the centre of the park is the River Dikler, and the house stands on the east side of its shallow valley with views, especially from the south garden, west and south. The area here registered is about 55 hectares.

REFERENCES Used by English Heritage

Country Life, 33 (15 February 1913), pp 234-41; (22 February 1913), pp 272-8; 124 (9 October 1958), pp 768-9

Victoria History of the County of Gloucestershire VI, (1965), pp 165-9

J Simmons (editor), English County Historians (1978), pp 56-80

J Brown, Lutyens and the Edwardians (1996), pp 72-7, 138, 143

Maps

OS 6" to 1 mile: 1st edition surveyed 1881, published 1886 

Description written: May 1999

Edited: March 2003