Cobham Hall, Rochester, England

The October 1987 storm damage was severe and widespread. The pleasure grounds lost 60% of all major trees, including large cedars, sweet chestnuts, and the pine groups in the centre. The wellingtonias of the 19th century planting have survived. Some clearance work, especially along the entrance drive, has been undertaken, using contractors. Up to 1,000 long term trees have been planted in cleared sites in the pleasure grounds and entrance drive area by Heritage Trust Groups, school parties or Wye College Students in 1986 and 1988.

The lawns and gardens around the school are effectively maintained by 3 grounds staff. The Repton pleasure grounds and the 60 hectare estate are still in poor condition, despite efforts by the Cobham Hall Heritage Trust. Further building work is in progress in the old walled garden area.

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

Late 18th- and early 19th-century ornamental gardens and pleasure grounds laid out by Humphry Repton and, later, his sons, partly on the site of 17th-century terraces, with additional mid-19th-century exotic tree planting and early 20th-century formal features by the designer William Goldring, set within a park of probably 16th-century origin which contains a late 17th-century avenue and an 18th-century mausoleum by James Wyatt.

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

Cobham Hall lies on the south side of the A2, some 4 kilometres west of Rochester and at the east end of the village of Cobham. The registered site of roughly 338 hectares comprises about 22 hectares of formal gardens and pleasure grounds surrounded by a park of 316 hectares of which around 120 hectares are wooded. The site extends over both level and gently undulating ground which rises to a low ridge in the south-east and to an isolated hill, Windmill Hill (scheduled ancient monument), north of the house. The wooded slopes of the North Downs lie beyond the site to the south. Agricultural fencing encloses the site to the east and south from a surrounding landscape of woodland and arable farmland, with the minor Lodge Lane and the housing of Cobham village abutting the western end of the southern boundary. On the west side, Halfpence Lane bounds the southern end of the park then continues north through the registered site, with further woodland lying to the west of Ashenbank Wood. To the north the site abuts a wooded lane (a former Roman road) and the dual carriageway of the A2. The M2/A2 Wainscott Bypass interchange, under construction in 1997, occupies 4 hectares of former parkland in the north-east corner. The approved route of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, due for completion in 2003, is intended to run within the park, along the south side of the present A2.

REFERENCES Used by English Heritage

H Repton, Fragments on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening (1816) [in Loudon 1840]

R Ackerman, The Repository of arts, literature, commerce 3rd series 8, no 48 (1826), p 184

J C Loudon (editor), The Landscape Gardening of the late Humphry Repton Esq (1840), pp 418-21

The Garden, (14 January 1882), pp 19-22

Country Life, 15 (18 June 1904), pp 906-13; 173 (24 February 1983), pp 448-51; (3 March 1983), pp 508-11; (10 March 1983), pp 568-71

D Stroud, Humphry Repton (1962), pp 52-3

Archaeologia Cantiana 84, (1969), pp 211-29

J Newman, The Buildings of England: West Kent and the Weald (1969), pp 223-9

T Wright, Gardens of Britain 4, (1978), pp 30-3, plate 2

G Carter et al, Humphry Repton (1982), p 55

K Laurie, Cobham Hall, Historical Survey of the Park, (1984)

Cobham Hall, guidebook to the Gardens and Park, (Cobham Hall Heritage Trust, no date)

Maps

J Speed, Map of Kent, 1611

T Norton, Survey of Cobham Hall, 1641 (Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone)

G Russell, A Survey of Cobham Deer Parke and the Paddock ..., 1718 (Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone)

C Price, Survey of Cobham Estate, 1749 (Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone)

C Sloane, Map of Cobham Hall Park, 1758 (Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone)

T Peckham, Survey of the garden, pleasure ground and part of the park, 1798 (Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone)

C F Adams, Map of Cobham Hall Estate, 1851 (Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone)

OS 6" to 1 mile: 1st edition surveyed 1864-7, published 1869; 2nd edition published 1897; 3rd edition published 1909; 1931 edition

OS 25" to 1 mile: 3rd edition published 1909; 1939 edition

Archival items

Humphry Repton, The Red Book for Cobham, Kent, 1790 (Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone)

Darnley Family Papers (U565), (Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone)
 

Description written: October 1997

Edited: November 2003