Woodhall Park, Hertford, England

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

A late 18th-century landscape park with a lake and pleasure grounds, surrounding a country house, with mid-19th-century formal gardens.

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

Woodhall Park lies 6 kilometres north of the centre of Hertford, at the south-east edge of the village of Watton at-Stone. The roughly 150 hectare site is bounded to the north and north-east by the A602 Ware Road linking Ware to the south-east and Stevenage to the north-west, and to the west by the A119 Hertford to Stevenage road. The other sides are bounded by agricultural land and woodland. A brick park wall, built around 1839, encircles the roadside boundaries. The park occupies undulating ground with two valleys enclosing the high ground in the north-east corner on which the house and pleasure grounds lie. The west valley, running from north to south through the west section of the park, contains the River Beane, which widens out into the Broad Water. The south valley runs from east to west through the south section of the park and contains a tributary of the River Beane, the two joining just south of Home Farm.

The setting is largely agricultural, with the village of Watton-at-Stone adjacent to the north-west. The north-west tip has been separated from the main body of the park by a late 20th-century diversion of the A119, forming the south end of the Watton-at-Stone bypass.

Views extend westwards from the hillside on which the house stands, towards agricultural land beyond the A119 and Bramfield Woods, these views being framed by Brickclamps and Hanginghill Woods (these three woodlands lying outside the area here registered). Views also extend from the west drive (west of the Broad Water), south along the River Beane valley towards Stapleford, and north from this valley, framed to the east by Clusterbolt Wood (outside the area here registered), towards the house.

The landscape park of Goldings (see the description of this site elsewhere in the Register) lies 4 kilometres south of Woodhall Park, both estates having been in the ownership of the Smith family during part of the 19th century.

REFERENCES Used by English Heritage

Journal of Horticulture and Cottage Gardener, 26 (30 April 1861), pp 78-9; (14 May 1861), pp 114-15

Country Life, 57 (31 January 1925), pp 164-71; (7 February 1925), pp 198-205

B Cherry and N Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Hertfordshire (1977), pp 407-8

R Bisgrove, The Gardens of Britain 3, (1978), pp 194-5

Woodhall Park, Hertfordshire: A Survey of the Landscape, (Debois Landscape Survey Group 1985)

Woodhall Park: Inspector's Report, (English Heritage 1988)

Maps

Dury and Andrews, A topographical Map of Hartford-shire, 1766

A Bryant, The County of Hertford, 1822

Tithe map for Watton-at-Stone parish, 1839 (Hertfordshire Record Office)

Tithe map for Sacombe parish, 1839 (Hertfordshire Record Office)

OS 1" to 1 mile: 1st edition 1834

OS 6" to 1 mile: 1st edition 1884; 2nd edition 1899; 3rd edition 1925

OS 25" to 1 mile: 1st edition 1886; 2nd edition 1898 

Description written: October 1999

Edited: October 2000