Combe Abbey, (also known as Coombe Country Park), Coventry, England

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

A late 18th-century park landscaped by Lancelot Brown with structures designed by Henry Holland, together with mid- and late 19th-century formal gardens laid out by William Andrews Nesfield and William Miller which incorporate elements of late 16th- and early 17th-century formal gardens.

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

Combe Abbey is situated about 7km north-west of Rugby and about 4km east of Coventry, to the north of the A427 road. The roughly 270-hectare site comprises some six hectares of formal gardens and informal pleasure grounds, about two hectares of walled gardens, and about 262 hectares of parkland, lakes and avenues. The site is bounded to the south by the A427 road which runs west from the village of Brinklow to Coventry, while two avenues extend to the south of this road to the south and south-west of the house. To the west, north and north-east the site adjoins agricultural land, with the Rolls Royce engineering works c 1km north of the house, while to the east the site adjoins High Wood. A minor road leads north through the site from the A427 road towards Peter Hall and the site of the medieval villages of Upper and Lower Smite about 1.25km north-east of the house. The land to the north, west and south of the house is generally level. The Smite Brook flows from north-east to south-west through a shallow valley to the north and west of the house; this was dammed in the late 18th century to form an extensive lake. To the east of the house the ground rises to East Lodge at the south-east corner of the park. There are views across surrounding agricultural land to the north and north-east from within the site, while to the south there are views across the A427 road towards Birchley Wood, The Grove and New Close Wood, areas of predominantly deciduous woodland through which the two avenues extend south towards the village of Brandon.

REFERENCES Used by English Heritage

L Knyff and J Kip, Britannia Illustrata i, (1707), pl 47

J Beeverell, Les delices de la Grande Bretagne V, (1707), p 872

J Horticulture and Cottage Gardener, 33 (1865), pp 441-2; 42 (1869), pp 126-7; 50 (1873), pp 420-2

The Garden 1, (1872), pp 559-60

Gardeners' Chronicle, ii (1898), pp 229-31

C Holme, Gardens of England in the Midland and Eastern Counties (1908), pls 45, 46

Country Life, 26 (4 December 1909), pp 794-805; (11 December 1909), pp 840-9

Victoria History of the County of Warwickshire VI, (1951), pp 72-4

C B Andrews (editor), The Torrington Diaries (1954), pp 210-11

N Pevsner and A Wedgewood, The Buildings of England: Warwickshire (1966), pp 236-8

D Stroud, Capability Brown (1975), pp 143-4, 219

B Elliott, Victorian Gardens (1986), pp 112, 144, 146, 209

J Brown, The Art and Architecture of English Gardens (1989), pp 110-11

M Hall, The English Country House (1994), pp 53-9

Lancelot (Capability) Brown: Warwickshire Commissions, (Warwickshire Gardens Trust 1994), pp 14-18

G Tyack, Warwickshire Country Houses (1994), pp 57-63
'Gateway to Heaven',

The Daily Telegraph, 16 October 1999, p 2
 

Maps

H Beighton, A Mapp of Warwickshire, surveyed 1722-5, published 1729

H Beighton, A Map of Knightlow Hundred, surveyed 1725, published 1730

Survey of Combe Abbey, 1778 (Bodleian Library, Oxford)

W Yates and Sons, Map of Warwickshire, surveyed 1787-9, published 1793

W Miller, The Gardens of the Earl of Craven - Coombe Abbey, Warwickshire, 1897 (RIBA)

OS Old Series 1" to 1 mile, published 1834

OS 6" to 1 mile: 1st edition published 1886; 2nd edition published 1905-6; 3rd edition published 1926; 1938 edition

OS 25" to 1 mile: 1st edition published 1886; 2nd edition published 1905; 3rd edition published 1925

Illustrations

W Winde, The Upright of the new building at Comb Abbey, around 1682 (Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Gough drawings a2, f81)

S and N Buck, The South View of Combe-Abbey in the County of Warwick, 1729 (Warwickshire County Record Office)

Maria Johnson, Watercolour views of Combe Abbey including The Menagerie, West Lodge and Kennels, 1797 (Herbert Art Gallery, Coventry)

Watercolour, Combe Abbey from the south-east, around 1800 (Aylesford Collection, Birmingham
Reference Library Archive)

W E Nesfield, drawings for Combe Abbey, mid-19th century (D1381-1400-1907), (Victoria & Albert Museum)

Photograph, Combe Abbey from the north-west, around 1860 (private collection)

Photographs for Country Life, 1909 (NMR)
 

Description written: June 2000

Amended: July 2000, September 2000

Edited: December 2000