Oakly Park, (also known as Oakley Park), Bromfield, Shropshire, England

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

HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT

Until the Dissolution Bromfield was a Benedictine priory. In 1541 the manors of Great and Little Bromfield and Oakly Park were leased to Charles Foxe (died 1590), who converted the chancel of the priory's church and its conventual buildings into a house. He acquired the Bromfield freehold in 1563-4 and that of the park some time later. Foxe's daughter took both Bromfield and Oakly Park in marriage to Matthew Herbert. His grandson, Richard Herbert, restored the chancel to the church and made the park's lodge, rebuilt by the Crown in 1552-3, his main residence.

Richard's grandson Henry Arthur Herbert was created Lord Herbert of Chirbury in 1743, and after marrying Barbara Herbert, niece of the last Marquess of Powis, inherited Powis Castle and in 1748 was made Earl of Powis. Oakly, for which he now had no need, was sold in the 1760s to Lord Clive on his second return from India. In 1772 Lancelot Brown, who was already working for Clive at Claremont in Surrey, visited him at Oakly.  However, perhaps for reasons of economy, it was William Emes (died 1803) who was in charge at both of Clive's Shropshire estates, Oakly and Walcot. By the time of Clive's suicide in 1774, Emes was 'directing, planning, and laying out' there (Stamper 1996, 54).

Clive's widow lived on at Oakly until her death in 1817, when it passed to her grandson Robert Henry Clive, who brought in C R Cockerell to remodel the house and lay out a formal terrace garden to its east.  After R H Clive's death in 1854, the house was used for almost a century as a dower house and there were few changes during that time. In the later 20th century there was a good deal of internal restoration work and re-ordering. As of 1998, Oakly Park remains in private hands.