Alderley House
The present day Alderley House is a mid-19th century Grade II listed country house designed by Lewis Vulliamy and built for Robert Blagden Hale in the small Cotswold village of Alderley, near Wotton-under-Edge in Gloucestershire, England. It was built on the site of The Lower House, Sir Matthew Hale's original 17th-century manor house, and is situated immediately to the southwest of St Kenelm's Church. In 2009 it was sold to an American oil tycoon, who restored the house and reverted it to a private residence after 70 years serving as the private preparatory school Rose Hill School, Alderley.
Brief history
The first 350 years' history of the property is interwoven in a fairly complicated manner with that of the Hale family, with The Lower House having been constructed by Sir Matthew Hale after he acquired the manor of Alderley in 1656. In the latter part of the 18th century, The Upper House was rebuilt by another Matthew Hale on the lower slopes of nearby Winner Hill, and this property subsequently became the family's principal seat. In 1859, the position was reversed yet again when Robert Blagden Hale had The Upper House completely demolished and The Lower House substantially demolished, having the latter rebuilt in a more fashionable style to the designs of Lewis Vulliamy. Materials from both of the earlier houses were used in the construction of the new property, Alderley House as it remains today: a double-pile U-plan block with a north-facing single storey porch to the entrance court forming an E-plan.Both The Lower House and its successor, Alderley House, were principally used by the Hale family as a private residence until the early 20th century. However, c. 1925 it started to be used as a crammer and in 1939 it became the home of Rose Hill School when it relocated from Banstead, Surrey following the outbreak of World War II. It was also in this year that the late-10th century will of Æthelgifu was discovered in one of the outbuildings, but it is unclear whether or not these two events are connected. The property proceeded to serve as the private preparatory school Rose Hill School, Alderley for the next 70 years until the summer of 2009 when the school merged with Querns Westonbirt School, with the resulting Rose Hill Westonbirt School co-locating with Westonbirt School in nearby Tetbury. Relocation of the school rendered the site at Alderley redundant, and it was sold: Alderley House once again returned to functioning as a private residence.
Detailed history
Sir Matthew Hale's original 17th-century house
The Hales of Alderley were the leading gentry family in the Wotton-under-Edge area of Gloucestershire from the beginning of the 17th century up until the early 20th century. The story of the Hale family houses in that small village of Alderley is unusually complex.Alderley is situated 2 miles to the south of Wotton-under-Edge, sandwiched between two brooks, the Ozleworth and Kilcott, underneath Winner Hill, and in the 16th and 17th century it was home to a number of woollen mills. The first of the Hale family's houses in the village was West End House, built in 1608 by Robert Hale, a barrister at Lincoln's Inn. He was the second son of another Robert Hale who had made his money as a successful cloth merchant in Wotton-under-Edge. The younger Robert Hale had acquired land in the village in 1599 through his marriage to Joan Poyntz, the daughter of Matthew Poyntz, a gentleman living in the village at that time. This house was substantially rebuilt in the 18th century, but continued to be called West End House until the mid-19th century; today it is known as The Grange or Alderley Grange and is a Grade II listed building. It was Robert and Joan's only child, the famous 17th century jurist Sir Matthew Hale, who in 1656 - some 50 years after being born in West End House - acquired the manor of Alderley in exchange for Meysey Hampton with Andrew Barker of Fairford Park, and between then and 1662 had The Lower House built, a new house so called in order to distinguish it from the original manor house on the other side of the road.
With both of Sir Matthew Hale's parents dying before he had reached the age of 5 he was brought up by Anthony Kingscot, a close relative and devout puritan. He remained firmly religious throughout his life and it is possible that this influenced his choice of location for the house: immediately to the southwest of St Kenelm's Church, whose origins date back to c. 1450. In 1663, the year after the construction of The Lower House was completed, Sir Matthew Hale was granted the right of way from his new manor house into the churchyard. The Lower House was then to remain the Hale family home for the next 100 years.
The Lower House was a substantial property: a nine-bay house with gables at either end and five small dormer windows in between. It was completed in the same year that Parliament introduced the Hearth Tax, and the surviving Hearth Tax Assessment records a house of 18 hearths.
When ill-health forced him to relinquish his position as Lord Chief Justice in 1676, Sir Matthew Hale retired to his seat at Alderley where he died on Christmas Day the same year; he was buried in St Kenelm's churchyard. His first wife Anne Moore, daughter of Sir Henry Moore and granddaughter of Sir Francis Moore, had borne him 10 children. He outlived all but the eldest daughter and the youngest son and, as a result, had taken into his care some of his grandchildren. It was to these grandchildren that he left his estate, while he bequeathed West End House to his daughter, Mary; the latter property subsequently passed out of the family when it was sold by one of her descendants in the middle of the 18th century, around which time it was substantially rebuilt.
For a period of more than one hundred years following the death of Sir Matthew Hale, The Lower House remained the family seat. However, between 1776 and 1780, another Matthew Hale decided to rebuild The Upper House on the lower slopes of nearby Winner Hill, after which this became the new family home; consequently, The Lower House may have been abandoned for a while.
Lewis Vulliamy's 19th-century redesign for Robert Blagden Hale
In 1805, during the period of time when The Upper House was the main Hale family residence, Robert Hale Blagden Hale inherited the properties in Alderley. In the 1830s, his eldest son, Robert Blagden Hale chose The Lower House when he set up his own independent establishment. At that time, prevailing Victorian attitudes expanded the number of servants that households were expected to contain, whilst simultaneously endeavouring to ensure that male and female servants were kept separate wherever possible. And so it was that in 1844 he had a new service wing added to the west side of the house: the wing had a distinctive crow-stepped gable to the garden front and is thought to have been designed by Lewis Vulliamy.Following the death of his father on 20 December 1855, Robert Blagden Hale, the then Tory MP for West Gloucestershire, found himself in possession of various properties including Cottles House - another manor house in West Wiltshire, built in 1775-78 for Robert Hale and inherited by his father in 1814 - as well as the two large houses in Alderley, both of which were unfashionable and dilapidated. He progressively withdrew from his official appointments in order to devote himself to "the life of a country gentleman" and in 1857 he stood down as an MP and sold Cottles House. Two years later in 1859 he then had both The Upper House and most of The Lower House demolished in order to build a new manor house in a more fashionable style: of The Lower House, the south end of the service wing built in 1844 and the original Jacobean cellars were retained, but the only surviving remnants of The Upper House are a pair of 18th century Gatepiers in the village and a restored Gothick Folly of 1779 on the summit of Winner Hill. Alderley House was built on the site of The Lower House to the designs of Lewis Vulliamy, utilising the original cellars and incorporating the retained part of the 1844 service wing as the property's west wing. Materials from the demolition of both The Upper House and The Lower House, including one of the staircases, were used in the construction, and it is to this design that the property remains today.
The house is built of ashlar with a Cotswold stone slate roof. It forms 3 sides of an entrance court, with a shallow, single storey porch in the middle of the central range making a token gesture at an E-plan. The parapet above the entrance porch features a heron's head motif above the initials of Robert Blagden Hale.
The main body of the house is a double-pile, a style that became standard for country houses from the Restoration onwards. Alderley House was one of the earliest examples of a double-pile plan in Gloucestershire, and its entrance court range consists of 3 full storeys whereas the garden side range has 2 storeys and attics.
Including the new decoration and furnishings and the architect's commission, the total cost of building the house was £16,746 15s 8d. This represents the lower end of the range of country house building costs in the Victorian period; it is an extremely modest sum in comparison with the vast cost of Westonbirt House whose construction for Robert Stayner Holford began after the completion of the redesigned Alderley House.
After Robert Blagden Hale
Robert Blagden Hale had married Anne Jane Holford in 1832 and they had five children, two males and three females. The two males were Robert Hale who later became a Major-General in the British military and Mathew Holford Hale who became a Colonel. The three females were Anne Hale, Georgina Hale and Theodosia Hale. Of the five children only one married and the other four lived at Alderley House for most of their lives. Anne, the eldest daughter, married Thomas Henry Sherwood in 1859 and they had five children, three boys and two girls.When Robert Blagden Hale died in 1883 the eldest son Major-General Robert Hale inherited Alderley House and the two unmarried sisters Georgina and Theodosia, lived with him. These living arrangements are mentioned by the artist A.S. Hartrick in his memoirs. When Major –General Robert Hale died in 1907 his younger brother Mathew inherited Alderley House. Mathew died in January 1912 and Anne Sherwood, his sister, then inherited. According to the terms of the will of their father Robert Blagden Hale she legally added the name Hale to her surname so that she became Anne Sherwood-Hale in August 1912. Unfortunately she died the following month in September 1912. Her eldest son Thomas Edward Sherwood-Hale then inherited Alderley House.
Thomas Edward Sherwood-Hale JP MBE lived much of his life in New Zealand. After World War I, he moved into the house for a few years, but after that he resided at the nearby Mount House. which was also owned by the Hale family. In about 1925 Alderley House was let to a Major Lionel Wynne-Wilson who ran it as a crammer. At the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the house was again empty and Rose Hill School was evacuated to it from Banstead in Surrey. It was in the same year that the late 10th century will of Æthelgifu was discovered by James Fairhurst among material in one of the outbuildings. This document formed part of the literary effects of Lord John Selden, of whose estate Sir Matthew Hale was both one of the executors and one of the beneficiaries, but it is unclear whether or not its discovery is a serendipitous consequence of the school moving into the property. The school remained for the duration of the war and when Thomas Sherwood-Hale died in 1945, his son Robert Goodenough Sherwood-Hale inherited the house. Alderley House was subsequently made the permanent home for Rose Hill School, Alderley, with the school trustees purchasing the property freehold in 1950.
In 2009, Rose Hill School, Alderley merged with Querns Westonbirt School to form Rose Hill Westonbirt School. The new school co-located with Westonbirt School in the grounds of Westonbirt House in nearby Tetbury, rendering the property at Alderley surplus to requirements. A change of use for the property was approved by Stroud District Council and it was subsequently marketed as a private residence for c.£3m at the end of 2009. After purchasing the house, the new owners restored the house back to its original state in 1860. On 25 October 2010, the Alderley House Bottling Company LLP was established
following the discovery of a natural spring beneath one of the former classrooms; bottled at source, this water is the only Cotswold-drawn bottled natural mineral water on the market and is sold under the name Alderley Cotswold Natural Spring Water.
Historical timeline
Miscellany
Vulliamy's original plans for the redesign were the addition of a range of rooms on the north side of the house, but for some reason this scheme was abandoned and the more radical reconstruction plan adopted.The portrait of Sir Matthew Hale which hangs in Alderley House is a copy or replica: the original hangs in the Guildhall and was placed there by the thankful citizens of London after Hale offered his services in the aftermath of the Great Fire of London.
In September 2009 the property was used as one of the filming locations for a Season 24 episode of BBC1's hospital drama Casualty that aired in early 2010.