Mells Park, Frome, England

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

HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT

It is likely that Mells Park was the creation of the Horner family, who bought the manor of Mells from the Crown in 1543 and held it until the death of Sir John Horner, the last of the name, in 1927. The evidence suggests that it was originally enclosed as a deer park in the early 17th century by Sir John Horner (died 1659) and was improved by succeeding generations of the family. The park was enclosed between 1604 and 1642 when the 'Parke at Mells, exceptinge the woods called Mellcome woods or anie part of them', was included in the marriage settlement of George Horner, son of Sir John. In accordance with his father’s will, George granted his mother 'all that Lodge and Parke within the Parish of Melles' in 1659. The Park and Lodge, on or near the site of the present Park House, are shown on the 1682 manorial map of Mells. In 1724 Thomas Strangways Horner, who married the wealthy heiress of Melbury, Dorset, abandoned Mells Manor House, Somerset and commissioned Nathaniel Ireson, architect of Crowcombe Court, Somerset (there are descriptions of these 3 sites elsewhere in the Register) and Berkley House, to build Park House, a new mansion in the park. T S Horner’s daughter, Elizabeth, inspired Thomas Hardy's story 'The First Countess of Wessex' in A Group of Noble Dames, in which the Horners appear as the Dornell family and Mells Park as Falls Park. T S Horner died in 1741 and was succeeded by his brother John (died 1746), and by John’s son, Thomas, in 1758, after a period of minority. Thomas Horner embarked on a major programme of enlargement and improvement, creating the structure of the existing park (Rice, 1764). His accounts (Mells Estate Office) include a section headed 'Park improvements' to 1799, including extensive planting, especially beech and firs, and building walls. His scrapbooks were filled with ideas for hot-houses, follies, grottos and temples, rustic cottages, hermitages and Turkish tents, lakes, plantations, and eyecatchers although most of these schemes were not carried out. Humphry Repton (1752-1818) was consulted and Thomas Horner subscribed to Sketches and Hints of Landscape Gardening (Repton 1794), but there is no record of any commission. Thomas died in 1804 and was succeeded by his son, Colonel Thomas Strangways Horner (died 1840), who employed Sir John Soane (1752-1837) to make further improvements to Park House and consulted William Sawrey Gilpin (1762-1843) on the landscape (Piebenga 1994). The 19th century saw the introduction of a large collection of conifers to the park. In 1900 Mells Park was described by Raymond Asquith as 'a typically comfortable English country house in an Elizabethan park full of magnificent trees' (quoted in McGarvie 1992). The Horners moved back to Mells Manor House in 1900 and Park House was let. The mansion was gutted by fire in 1917 and rebuilt between 1922 and 1925 on a more modest scale for Reginald McKenna, Chairman of the Midland Bank, to the designs of Sir Edwin Lutyens (1869-1944), who also designed the garden with Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932). Mells Park was sold to the Trotter family in 1939 and became the property of Amey Roadstone Corporation in 1977. It has recently (around 2001) returned to private ownership.