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.

HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT

Compton Verney, often also known until the 19th century as Compton Mardak, belonged to the Mardak family from the 12th to the 14th century. In the 1430s the estate was granted by Henry VI to John Verney, Dean of Lichfield, who in turn conveyed it to his relation, Sir Richard Verney. Sir Richard built a substantial courtyard house in 1442-3 adjacent to the parish church and to the west of a village which was depopulated and cleared in the 16th century (Dugdale 1730; Tyack 1994). A mill powered by a chain of pools formed by damming a stream stood to the south of the house. In the late 16th century another Sir Richard Verney married the sister of Sir Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, of Warwick Castle (see description of this site elsewhere in the Register), from whom Sir Richard inherited substantial estates and a claim to the dormant barony of Willoughby de Broke. Sir Richard Verney made additions to the 15th century house which are shown in a mid-17th-century engraving by Wenceslas Holler (Dugdale 1730); he was succeeded by his son, Sir Greville Verney. Sir Greville's son, Richard, successfully petitioned for the revival of the Willoughby de Broke barony in 1695, when he became the eleventh Baron. Lord Willoughby de Broke died in 1711 and was succeeded by his son, the Dean of Windsor, who around 1714 began an ambitious remodelling of the house (Country Life 1913; Tyack 1994). At the same time an extensive formal landscape was created, recorded on a plan of 1736 by James Fish (Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Record Office). John Loveday considered the gardens 'well contrived for Use and Convenience' and praised the views from the house to the chain of pools (Markham 1984). Work on the house and grounds was continued by the Hon John Verney, Master of the Rolls from 1738, who occupied Compton Verney after the death of the twelfth Lord Willoughby de Broke in 1728.

The fourteenth Lord Willoughby, who succeeded in 1752, was created Lord of the Bedchamber, and in 1761 married the sister of Lord North of Wroxton Abbey, Oxfordshire (see description of this site elsewhere in the Register). At the same period he commissioned plans from Robert Adam (1728-92) for the extension of the early 18th-century house, while in 1768 Lancelot Brown (1716-83) prepared plans for the surrounding landscape (Stroud 1975). Compton Verney was praised by Richard Jago in his poem Edge Hill (1767), while a visitor in 1799 noted that 'the pleasure grounds are varied with great elegance, and the water and plantations are delightful' (Lipscombe 1802). Further improvements were made for the fourteenth Lord Willoughby in 1814-15; these changes are recorded on an estate plan of 1818 by Paul Padley (SBTRO). In the mid-19th century the architect John Gibson was called in by the sixteenth Lord Willoughby to make changes to the interior of the house and build lodges on the estate; Gibson had earlier worked for Lord Willoughby's sister-in-law, Mary Elizabeth Lucy, at Charlecote, Warwickshire (see description of this site elsewhere in the Register).

Compton Verney continued to be owned by successive lords Willoughby de Broke until 1921, when the nineteenth Lord was forced to sell the house and surrounding land to Joseph Watson, a soap manufacturer and racehorse owner. Watson was raised to the peerage as Lord Manton in 1922, but the estate was sold by his son in 1929. From 1939 the house remained unoccupied, being sold in 1958 to an industrialist, Harry Ellard, and again in 1984 to Christopher Buxton, who converted the stables into apartments. In 1993 the house and immediate grounds were purchased by the Peter Moores Foundation for use as an art gallery; the remainder of the site is today (2000) in divided ownership.

Compton Verney is one of a group of sites in Warwickshire at which Lancelot Brown advised in the mid- and late 18th century. These include Newnham Paddox, Packington Hall, Combe Abbey, Charlecote Park, Ragley Hall and Warwick Castle (there are descriptions of these sites elsewhere in the Register).