Moccas Court, Moccas, Herefordshire, England

The large deer park may be mediaeval. It became attached to Moccas in the 16th century.

In 1771 Sir George Cornewall began estate improvements, including the building of a new house by Anthony Keck from 1775, incorporating some elements by Robert Adam, and alterations to the park near the house by Lancelot Brown from 1778.

In the 1790s Humphry Repton recommended further improvements.

New lodges were built to the designs of George Stanley Repton around 1801.

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

HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT

The Cornewalls were seated at Moccas from the 17th century. Catherine Cornewall, the heir of Velters Cornewall, married Sir George Amyand in 1771. Under the terms of his wife's will he, a banker, merchant, and subsequently briefly MP, assumed the name Cornewall. During his lifetime he undertook a wide-ranging programme of improvements on his estate, which by purchase and exchange he enlarged from 2907 acres in 1772 to almost 7000 acres in 1818. He rebuilt the house at Moccas (from 1775), commissioned Lancelot Brown to plan improvements to the landscape (1778), rebuilt the Home Farmhouse, Stable Court and Farmyard between the house and kitchen garden (1783-4), and in the 1790s sought advice from Repton on additional improvements, acquiring land on both sides of the River Wye to enable a planting scheme to be carried out. Moccas was much admired in the late 18th and early 19th centuries; Richard Payne Knight and Uvedale Price were friends of the family; other visitors included William Sawry Gilpin, Thomas Hearne, and J C Loudon.

Sir George continued improving Moccas until his death in 1819. Subsequently there were very few changes to the landscape, although a period of neglect in the earlier 20th century necessitated considerable restoration works in the mid-20th century.