Miserden Park, (also known as Misarden Park), Stroud, England

The Musard family built a motte and bailey castle at Miserden in the late 11th century, which was derelict by 1289. A park was recorded from 1297 and in 1331 there were 60 acres (about 24 hectares) of pasture and 40 acres (about 16 hectares) of great timber and in 1535 Henry VIII hunted here.  In the 18th century the circumference of park was 7 miles and it was bounded by a stone wall. In 1548 the Crown granted the property to the Kingston family in whose hands it remained until 1614.

The sale particulars of 1838 describe a hot house, a flower garden on an imposing terrace and a large productive walled garden. At this time the park covered 600 acres (about 243 hectares) and the deer park 62 acres (about 25 hectares).

The sale particulars of 1874 mention an archery ground surrounded by a gravel walk, an Italian garden and a series of terrace walks descending from the house with grass borders and flower beds. There was also an ornamental lake with a boathouse in the valley below the house. The productive walled garden had an orchard house, a vinery in two compartments, cucumber and melon pits, and a glazed early vegetable border.

The park was well wooded at this time and the pleasure grounds included a gorge clothed with beech woods and containing the mound on which the castle once stood.

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

HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT

Sir William Sandys came into possession of Miserden in 1620 and almost immediately began building. This house, set on a bluff overlooking the River Frome, and its terraced gardens, are shown on Kip's view published in 1712 (Atkyns 1712). In 1833 Sir Edward Baynton Sandys sold Miserden to his son-in-law, who six years later sold it out of the family to James Wittit Lyon, a London banker. In 1874 the house was sold to E A Latham, in whose time much building work was carried out. In 1914 it was purchased by Capt F N H Wills (died 1927). It was under him and his wife (died 1980), who after his death married Wing Comander H M Sinclair, that the house and gardens took on their present (late 20th-century) form, Edwin Lutyens (1869-1944) being employed to help remodel the house and its surrounds after a major fire of 1919. The Miserden estate remains (1999) in private hands.