Stoke Park Pavilions
Encyclopedia
Stoke Park Pavilions are all that remain of the stately house and grounds of Stoke Park near the village of Stoke Bruerne
Stoke Bruerne
Stoke Bruerne is a small village and civil parish in South Northamptonshire, England about north of Milton Keynes and south of Northampton.-History:...

, Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire is a landlocked county in the English East Midlands, with a population of 629,676 as at the 2001 census. It has boundaries with the ceremonial counties of Warwickshire to the west, Leicestershire and Rutland to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshire to the south-east,...

, England, approximately 8 miles (13 km) south of Northampton
Northampton
Northampton is a large market town and local government district in the East Midlands region of England. Situated about north-west of London and around south-east of Birmingham, Northampton lies on the River Nene and is the county town of Northamptonshire. The demonym of Northampton is...

 and 11 miles (18 km) north of Milton Keynes
Milton Keynes
Milton Keynes , sometimes abbreviated MK, is a large town in Buckinghamshire, in the south east of England, about north-west of London. It is the administrative centre of the Borough of Milton Keynes...

.

Stoke Park

Stoke Park is listed grade II in English Heritage’s
English Heritage
English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...

 Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England
National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens
In England, the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of special historic interest in England provides a listing and classification system for historic parks and gardens similar to that used for listed buildings. The register is managed by English Heritage under the provisions of the National...

and contains two listed buildings, the Pavilions, of 'outstanding architectural or historic interest' . Surrounding farmland contains areas of late parliamentary enclosure
Enclosure
Enclosure or inclosure is the process which ends traditional rights such as mowing meadows for hay, or grazing livestock on common land. Once enclosed, these uses of the land become restricted to the owner, and it ceases to be common land. In England and Wales the term is also used for the...

, ridge and furrow
Ridge and furrow
Ridge and furrow is an archaeological pattern of ridges and troughs created by a system of ploughing used in Europe during the Middle Ages. The earliest examples date to the immediate post-Roman period and the system was used until the 17th century in some areas. Ridge and furrow topography is...

 earthworks and four model farms built by the 4th Duke of Grafton
Duke of Grafton
Duke of Grafton is a title in the Peerage of England. It was created in 1675 by Charles II of England for his 2nd illegitimate son by the Duchess of Cleveland, Henry FitzRoy...

 ca
Circa
Circa , usually abbreviated c. or ca. , means "approximately" in the English language, usually referring to a date...

.1840. The Pavilions are the two wings of the former stately house, east and west. The house is long since gone but the pavilions remain as fine examples of the Palladian style.
Although formerly a single landholding, the park has now been divided between several properties, which include a large area of farmland, as well as a number of private residences accommodated within several converted farm and estate buildings as well as the remaining pavilions of the great house of Stoke Park. Access to the park is restricted. One footpath, which runs from the village at the bottom of Bridge Road, crosses the farmland to the south west of the village, and runs through the park and then continues to Alderton to the south west. Stoke Park Lane runs southwards from Shutlanger
Shutlanger
Shutlanger is a small village and civil parish in south Northamptonshire, England. The village is 5 miles east of Towcester and 7 miles south of Northampton....

 Road, through the farmland to the park, passing through Stoke Park Woods and approaches the group of buildings surrounding the pavilions at the heart of the Park.

Stoke Park preserves the remains of a formal designed landscape, built on a late medieval hunting park. Much of the character of the parkland has sadly been lost since the Second World War, largely as a result of changing agricultural use and felling of trees. An avenue of trees running along the drive (Stoke Park Lane) from Stoke Park Woods to the house is on the alignment of an avenue recorded on an early 18th century map of the area.

The construction of large, modern agricultural buildings in the parkland to the north east of the house represents an unfortunate intrusion to the historic character of the area, but may be regarded as a necessary development for its continuing agricultural use. There is currently some controversial use of part of Stoke Park Wood, just outside the area, for ‘paintball
Paintball
Paintball is a sport in which players compete, in teams or individually, to eliminate opponents by tagging them with capsules containing water soluble dye and gelatin shell outside propelled from a device called a paintball marker . Paintballs have a non-toxic, biodegradable, water soluble...

’ and clay pigeon shooting
Clay pigeon shooting
Clay pigeon shooting, also known as clay target shooting, and formally known as Inanimate Bird Shooting, is the art of shooting at special flying targets, known as clay pigeons or clay targets, with a shotgun or any type of firearm....

 games, with subsequent impact from increased traffic on Stoke Park Road and noise from participants.

The area of Stoke Bruene and the grounds of the park became property of the Crown when the Longueville
Longueville
Longueville may refer to:Places:*Longueville, New South Wales, suburb of Sydney, AustraliaCommunes in France:*Longueville, Calvados, in the Calvados département*Longueville, Lot-et-Garonne, in the Lot-et-Garonne département...

 family were forced to surrendered it to Henry VIII.

Stoke Park - the original house

Stoke park was the first English country house to display a Palladian plan: a central house with balancing pavilions linked by colonnades
Colonnades
A colonnade is an architectural feature.Colonnade may also refer to:* Centro Colonnades, shopping centre* Colonnade Hotel, London* Colonnade * Colonnade Row* Colonnades Leisure Park, retail park and entertainment complex...

 or screen walls. Palladio was the 16th century Italian architect on whose work the design was based. The Paladian style became a standard type of country house construction in 18th century England under Lord Burlington. However, 80 years earlier Stoke Park in Northamptonshire was the first example, believe to have been constructed by Inigo Jones
Inigo Jones
Inigo Jones is the first significant British architect of the modern period, and the first to bring Italianate Renaissance architecture to England...

. The house ca.1700 is pictured in Colen Campbell
Colen Campbell
Colen Campbell was a pioneering Scottish architect who spent most of his career in England, and is credited as a founder of the Georgian style...

's (sic) Vitruvius Britannicus (meaning British Architect).

Charles I
Charles I of England
Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...

 ganted the park and Manor House
Manor house
A manor house is a country house that historically formed the administrative centre of a manor, the lowest unit of territorial organisation in the feudal system in Europe. The term is applied to country houses that belonged to the gentry and other grand stately homes...

 to Sir Francis Crane, director and founder of the Mortlake Tapestry Works
Mortlake Tapestry Works
Mortlake Tapestry Works were established alongside the River Thames at Mortlake, then outside, but near west London in 1619 by Sir Francis Crane.-Royal Patronage:...

 established on the estate of John Dee
John Dee (mathematician)
John Dee was an English mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, occultist, navigator, imperialist and consultant to Queen Elizabeth I. He devoted much of his life to the study of alchemy, divination and Hermetic philosophy....

, the mathematician, at Mortlake, in 1619, later the site of the Queen's Head pub. Crane was made Secretary to Charles I when he was Prince of Wales
Prince of Wales
Prince of Wales is a title traditionally granted to the heir apparent to the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the 15 other independent Commonwealth realms...

 and was knight
Knight
A knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior....

ed in 1617. With grants of land, money and high prices charged for tapestries, Crane became very wealthy. He was granted ca.400 acre
Acre
The acre is a unit of area in a number of different systems, including the imperial and U.S. customary systems. The most commonly used acres today are the international acre and, in the United States, the survey acre. The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land.The acre is related...

s of Stoke Bruerne in 1629.

Crane brought the design of the house from Italy and had assistance from Inigo Jones
Inigo Jones
Inigo Jones is the first significant British architect of the modern period, and the first to bring Italianate Renaissance architecture to England...

 to build it.

The Pavilions

The surviving portions of the house built by Robert Crane in the late 1620s, consist of two pavilions and remains of a curving colonnade
Colonnade
In classical architecture, a colonnade denotes a long sequence of columns joined by their entablature, often free-standing, or part of a building....

, form the centrepiece of the park, with an attractive terraced 17th century garden with views across the parkland to the south. The pavilions represent some of the earliest Palladian structures built in England and, despite some remodelling in the 18th century and modern conversion for residential use of the eastern pavilion, they are of great historic and architectural significance. The associated house was destroyed by fire in the late 19th century, although details of its design have survived in drawings from the 18th century. It was almost immediately replaced with a large Neo-Jacobean building, which, in turn was largely demolished in the late 1940s following its use by the army during the Second World War.

The standing Neo-Jacobean building is the service wing of this house, now forming a discrete private dwelling. The structures of a home farm form a group of interesting historic buildings surrounding the pavilions, but are largely screened from it by mature trees, garden hedges and the bulk of the service wing of the late 19th century house. They include a stable
Stable
A stable is a building in which livestock, especially horses, are kept. It most commonly means a building that is divided into separate stalls for individual animals...

block, a 17th century dovecot
Dovecot
Dovecot may refer to:* Dovecot, Merseyside, an area of the City of Liverpool* Dovecot , an IMAP and POP software package-See also:* Dovecote, a building for pigeons or doves* Dovecote...

, barns, farmhouse and several former tied cottages (ie owned by the farm for use by farmworkers). All are now used for residential purposes, which has involved some loss of historic character from the agricultural structures. As a group of buildings, they have a particularly interesting mixture of historic architectural detailing in their construction from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.

The west Pavilion contained the library, the east the chapel. the gardens is a statue of Sir George Cooke of Harefield
Harefield
Harefield is a village in the London Borough of Hillingdon in northwest London, England. It is situated on top of a hill, northwest of Charing Cross, near the Greater London boundary with Buckinghamshire to the west and Hertfordshire to the north...

, d.1740, probably by Henry Cheere, with a pose derived from James Cragg by Guelfi at Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey
The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, popularly known as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English,...

.

Public Access

The pavilions and park are currently private property and only occasionally accessible to the public from the narrow road between the villages of Stoke Bruerne
Stoke Bruerne
Stoke Bruerne is a small village and civil parish in South Northamptonshire, England about north of Milton Keynes and south of Northampton.-History:...

 and Shutlanger opposite the turn north to Blisworth
Blisworth
Blisworth is a village and civil parish in the South Northamptonshire district of Northamptonshire, England. The West Coast Main Line, from London Euston to Manchester and Scotland, runs alongside the village partly hidden and partly on an embankment...

. There is some limited permitted public access to the buildings during afternoons in August for a small fee. There are usually signs indicating this at the entrance along Shutlanger Road around this time. Access to the public is required as a condition of funding by English Heritage to continue preservation activity.

The buildings can also be seen from the A508
A508 road
The A508 is a short A-class road for north/south journeys in south central England, forming the route from Market Harborough in Leicestershire, via Northampton, to Old Stratford, north-west of Milton Keynes....

 Northampton
Northampton
Northampton is a large market town and local government district in the East Midlands region of England. Situated about north-west of London and around south-east of Birmingham, Northampton lies on the River Nene and is the county town of Northamptonshire. The demonym of Northampton is...

 to Milton Keynes
Milton Keynes
Milton Keynes , sometimes abbreviated MK, is a large town in Buckinghamshire, in the south east of England, about north-west of London. It is the administrative centre of the Borough of Milton Keynes...

 road about two miles south of the village of Roade
Roade
Roade is a village in Northamptonshire, England and in the area of the South Northamptonshire District Council where it is in the two-member Blisworth and Roade ward.-Location:...

 and one mile before the hills at Grafton Regis
Grafton Regis
Grafton Regis is a village and civil parish in the south of the English county of Northamptonshire. The village is east of the A508 road, on which it has a short frontage and two bus stops. It is ca. south of Northampton and north of Milton Keynes....

. If you wish to stop at this spot, there is a lay-by on the east side of the road accessible only from the southbound direction; if travelling north you can turn in the lay by on the right just past the canal bridge at the turn for Stoke Bruerne. Note: the lay-by is one-way only southbound but exit north or south is permitted. Take care crossing the road which is always busy with fast traffic.

The Pavilions are also visible from an elevated position on the ridge of the River Tove
River Tove
The River Tove is a river in England, a tributary of the River Great Ouse. Rising in Northamptonshire, it flows for around 15 miles past the town of Towcester before meeting the Ouse near Milton Keynes. Its final 5 miles form part of the border between Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire, running...

 valley which is just south of the site. Take to right turn to the village of Alderton
Alderton, Northamptonshire
Alderton is an English village and civil parish about south of Northampton, and north of Milton Keynes, along a road between the A5 and A508 main roads in the southwest and northeast respectively. The nearest large town is Towcester, about north...

on the A508 just before Grafton Regis and just after the lay-by referred to above.

Conservation Area

The area of Stoke Bruerne village and surroundings, including Stoke Park, are the subject of an extensive Conservation exercise by South Northants Council where most of this text originates. Extensive additional documentation, including maps, pictures and historical documentation, is available on the South Northants Council's Planning website.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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