Rode Hall, Crewe, England

The park at Rode Hall was designed by Humphry Repton in 1790 when he created the Rode Hall 'Red Book'.  Repton was unable to put his plans into place. Instead it was John Webb, a local landscaper, who carried out Repton's specifications between 1800 to 1810.

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

CHRONOLOGY OF HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT

In 1669 the manor of Rode was sold by the Rode family to Roger Wilbraham of Townsend House, Nantwich. The family may not have lived here however until Roger's son Randle rebuilt the Hall in about 1700. On Randle's death in 1732 Rode passed to his third son, Randle Wilbraham II, a London lawyer who became Treasurer of Lincoln's Inn as well as Deputy Steward of Oxford University and an MP. In 1752 he doubled the size of the Hall, and in about 1754 built a folly castle eyecatcher on Mow Cop, 4 kilometres to the east. On the death of Randle II in 1770 the estate was inherited by his son Richard Wilbraham Bootle, who had taken the additional name in accordance with the will of his wife's uncle Sir Thomas Bootle (d 1796). He did relatively little to the Hall, and although he commissioned a Red Book from Repton (1752-1818) in 1790 its proposals remained unexecuted until about 1803 when Wilbraham Bootle's son Randle III (who dropped the name Bootle) brought in John Webb (1754-1818) to impark the surrounds of the Hall. That work went hand-in-hand with major changes to the Hall.

Randle III lived on until 1861, when Rode passed to his son Randle IV, who immediately commissioned W A Nesfield (1793-1881) to improve the surroundings of the Hall.

Rode remains (1997) in private hands.