Compton Verney, (also known as Compton Mardak), Stratford-on-Avon, England

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

A mid-18th-century landscape park laid out by Lancelot Brown with associated structures designed by Robert Adam and Brown.

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

Compton Verney is situated about 2.5km south-east of Wellesbourne and about 2km north-west of Kineton, to the north-east and south-west of the B4086 road which runs from north-west to south-east through the site. The roughly 210 hectare site comprises some 15 hectares of informal pleasure grounds and kitchen garden, and about 195 hectares of parkland, associated woodland and lakes. The site is bounded to the west by the B4455 road, the Roman Fosse Way, while to the south-west the boundary is formed by a minor road leading to the village of Combrook. To the south the site is bounded by domestic properties in Combrook, and to the east and north it adjoins agricultural land. The boundary of the park to the north is formed by a deep ditch or sunk fence which may relate to the pale of a 17th- or early 18th-century park north-east of the house which is indicated on Beighton's Map of Kington Hundred (1730). A stream, a tributary of the River Dene, which flows through the site in a shallow valley from north-east to south-west is dammed to form two lakes. The ground rises westwards from the lakes to the Fosse Way which follows a ridge of high ground, while to the east the land rises to ridges of higher ground to the north-east and south-east. There are complex internal vistas within the site which alternately reveal and conceal the house and lakes from points of high ground around the park. There are views to the north beyond the site, and south across the village of Combrook and its environs.

REFERENCES Used by English Heritage

W Dugdale, The Antiquities of Warwickshire (2nd edition 1730), p 565

G Lipscombe, Journey into South Wales (1802)

J P Neale, Views of the Seats ...IV, (1821)

Jones's Views (1829)

F O Morris, A Series of Picturesque Views III, (1866-80), p 3

Country Life, 34 (18 October 1913), pp 528-35; 126 (3 September 1959), pp 172-3

G Jekyll, Garden Ornament (1918), p 88

R G Verney, The Passing Years (1924)

Victoria History of the County of Warwickshire V, (1959), pp 58-60

N Pevsner and A Wedgewood, The Buildings of England: Warwickshire (1966), pp 239-41

Warwickshire History I, no 1 (1970), pp 18-24; III, no 1 (1975), pp 2-14

D Stroud, Capability Brown (1975), pp 141-2, 221

S Markham (editor), John Loveday of Caversham, the travel journals of John Loveday, (1984), pp 190, 332, 496-7

G Tyack, Warwickshire Country Houses (1994), pp 64-70

R Bearman (editor), Compton Verney A History of the House and its Owners (2000)

Maps

H Beighton, A Mapp of Warwickshire, 1" to 1 mile, surveyed 1722-5, published 1729

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

J Fish, The survey of part of the Manour of Compton in the County of warwick viz the House Courts Gardens and Pooles and those adjoyning Grounds proposed to be made into a new Park ..., 1736 (DR98/1820), (Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Record Office ( SBTRO)

J Fish, The Survey of the Manor of Compton in ye County of Warwick ..., 1738 (DR98/1819), (SBTRO)

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

P Padley, Plan of Estates in Compton Verney and Combrook in the County of Warwickshire ..., 1818 (DR98/1832), (SBTRO)

OS Old Series 1" to 1 mile, published 1834

OS 6" to 1 mile: 1st edition published 1886; 2nd edition published 1904-6

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

Illustrations

W Hollar, The Prospect of Compton House from the grounds, on the South-East side thereof, around 1656 [published in Dugdale 1730]

Elevation of south facade of house and stables, on J Fish's survey of 1738

Robert Adam drawings for Compton Verney, (Victoria and Albert Museum; Sir John Soane Museum)

Watercolour, west facade of Compton Verney, c 1800 (Aylesford Collection, Birmingham Reference Library Archive)

Archival items

Willoughby de Broke family papers (DR98), (SBTRO)

Plans for bridge at Compton Verney attributed to L Brown, 1769 (DR98/1747/1, 2, 3), (SBTRO)

W Whitmore, plans for damhead at Combrook, 1818 (DR98/1747/4(7), (SBTRO)

Garden accounts, 1725-8 (DR98/1798), (SBTRO)

Aerial photographs, 1954 (OU89-91), (Cambridge University Collection)