Lypiatt Park is a medieval and Tudor manor house with notable nineteenth-century additions in the parish of Bisley, near

Stroud Stroud is a market town and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England. It is the main town in Stroud District. The town's population was 13,500 in 2021. Below the western escarpment of the Cotswold Hills, at the meeting point of the Five ...

, in

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

, England. The grounds include a fine group of medieval outbuildings. It is a Grade I

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

History and description

Lypiatt Park was the manor house of Over Lypiatt, first recorded in 1220. In 1324 the manor was a possession of the Maunsell family, who probably built the extant chapel. In 1395

Richard Whittington Richard Whittington (c. 1354–1423) of the parish of St Michael Paternoster Royal, City of London, was an English merchant and a politician of the late medieval period. He is also the real-life inspiration for the English folk tale ''Dick ...

Lord Mayor of London The Lord Mayor of London is the mayor of the City of London and the leader of the City of London Corporation. Within the City, the Lord Mayor is accorded precedence over all individuals except the sovereign and retains various traditional powe ...

, acquired the manor in satisfaction of a debt. An engraving by

Johannes Kip Johannes "Jan" Kip (1652/53, Amsterdam – 1722, Westminster) was a Dutch draftsman, engraver and print dealer. Together with Leonard Knyff, he made a speciality of engraved views of English country houses. Life Kip was a pupil of Bastiaen St ...

for Sir Robert Atkyns' ''History of Glostershire'' of about 1710 illustrates the Tudor manor house, perhaps the house of Robert Wye, who owned the manor from c. 1505–44. The principal range contained a hall with service rooms to the east, and a three-bay parlour/solar block of living quarters to the west, with two irregular and incomplete courtyards. The northern court contained the chapel and the gatehouse (demolished). The chapel was altered in the early 16th century. It was acquired by marriage and inheritance by John Throckmorton who was implicated in the

Gunpowder Plot The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in earlier centuries often called the Gunpowder Treason Plot or the Jesuit Treason, was a failed assassination attempt against King James I by a group of provincial English Catholics led by Robert Catesby who sought ...

of 1605. In 1610 the house was bought by Thomas Stephens, whose descendants lived there for nearly 200 years. On 1 January 1645, the house was captured and burnt by

Royalist A royalist supports a particular monarch as head of state for a particular kingdom, or of a particular dynastic claim. In the abstract, this position is royalism. It is distinct from monarchism, which advocates a monarchical system of governme ...

troops evicting a Parliamentary garrison, but it was later repaired and reoccupied.

Nineteenth century

The house was sold in 1802 by Thomas Baghot-de la Bere, nephew of the last Stephens owner, to the local clothier and banker, Paul Wathen, who was High Sheriff of Gloucestershire in 1810 and knighted in 1812. He employed

Jeffrey Wyattville Sir Jeffry Wyatville (3 August 1766 – 18 February 1840) was an English architect and garden designer. Born Jeffry Wyatt into an established dynasty of architects, in 1824 he was allowed by King George IV to change his surname to Wyatville ...

to add a new range at the west end of the house in a

picturesque Picturesque is an aesthetic ideal introduced into English cultural debate in 1782 by William Gilpin in ''Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales, etc. Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; made in the Summer of the Year ...

neo-Tudor style. Sir Paul Baghott was declared bankrupt in 1819, in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars, when Lypiatt Park was sold in 1824 to William Lewis of Brimscombe, who made some further improvements. In 1841, the house was sold to Samuel Baker, who commissioned the

Gloucester Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east ...

architect,

Samuel Daukes Samuel Whitfield Daukes (1811–1880) was an English architect, based in Gloucester and London. Family background Daukes was born in London in 1811, the son of Samuel Whitfield Daukes, a businessman with coal mining and brewery interests, who b ...

, to make minor alterations. In 1846, it was sold again, this time to J. E. Dorington, whose son Sir

John Dorington Sir John Edward Dorington, 1st Baronet, (24 July 1832 – 5 April 1911) was a British Conservative politician. The son of John E. Dorington of Lypiatt Park, Stroud he was educated at Windlesham House School, Eton College and Trinity College, ...

, 1st Baronet expanded the estate and employed

Thomas Henry Wyatt Thomas Henry Wyatt (9 May 1807 – 5 August 1880) was an Anglo-Irish architect. He had a prolific and distinguished career, being elected President of the Royal Institute of British Architects 1870–73 and being awarded its Royal Gold Medal for A ...

to make further major alterations to the house in the

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

style in 1876–77.

Twentieth century

The Lypiatt Park estate was broken up and sold in 1919. W.J. Gwyn bought the house and most of the estate, and settled there in the late 1920s with his sister and brother-in-law, Judge H.B.D. Woodcock. The latter continued to live there after their death with his daughter, Isla Woodcock, until it was sold in 1951/2, when they moved to Jaynes Court, nearby. In 1959, by then in some disrepair, it was purchased by the

Modernist Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...

British sculptor,

Lynn Chadwick Lynn Russell Chadwick, (24 November 1914 – 25 April 2003) was an English sculptor and artist. Much of his work is semi-abstract sculpture in bronze or steel. His work is in the collections of MoMA in New York, the Tate in London and th ...

(1914–2003), whose expressionistic, figurative works in welded iron and bronze earned him international acclaim. Chadwick restored the house and died there on April 25, 2003, since when his heirs have put forward proposals to open to the public an area of the park in order create a permanent display for his sculpture collection. In 2018,

Justin Hayward David Justin Hayward (born 14 October 1946) is an English musician best known as the lead singer, songwriter and guitarist of the rock band the Moody Blues. Hayward became the group's principal lead guitarist and vocalist over the 1967–1974 ...

recounted that he wrote the

Moody Blues Moody may refer to: Places * Moody, Alabama, U.S. * Moody, Indiana, U.S. * Moody, Missouri, U.S. * Moody, Texas, U.S. * Moody County, South Dakota, U.S. * Port Moody, British Columbia, Canada * Hundred of Moody, a cadastral division in South A ...

hit Tuesday Afternoon on a Tuesday afternoon while visiting the park.

History and description

Nineteenth century

Twentieth century

References

Further reading