Cronkhill,

Atcham Atcham is a village, ecclesiastical parish and civil parish in Shropshire, England. It lies on the B4380 (once the A5), 5 miles south-east of Shrewsbury. The River Severn flows round the village. To the south is the village of Cross Houses and ...

Shropshire Shropshire (; alternatively Salop; abbreviated in print only as Shrops; demonym Salopian ) is a landlocked historic county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Wales to the west and the English counties of Cheshire to ...

, designed by John Nash, is "the earliest

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian ...

villa in England". Drawing on influences from the Italian Campagna and the

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 ...

, including the art of Claude Lorrain, it began an architectural style that was hugely influential in England in the first half of the nineteenth century. Major examples include Trentham Park and

Osborne House Osborne House is a former royal residence in East Cowes, Isle of Wight, United Kingdom. The house was built between 1845 and 1851 for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert as a summer home and rural retreat. Albert designed the house himself, in ...

. Nash's "most original building", it is Grade I listed.

History

The house was designed by John Nash in 1802 for Francis Walford. Walford was a friend of

Thomas Noel Hill, 2nd Baron Berwick Thomas Noel Hill, 2nd Baron Berwick of Attingham, FSA (21 October 1770 – 3 November 1832), was a British peer and art patron. The first son of Noel Hill, who was created Baron Berwick in 1784, and his wife Anna Vernon, he was educated a ...

, of nearby

Attingham Park Attingham Park is an English country house and estate in Shropshire. Located near the village of Atcham, on the B4380 Shrewsbury to Wellington road. It is owned by the National Trust. It is a Grade I listed building. Attingham Park was b ...

, and the agent for Berwick's Attingham estates. Mansbridge considers that the design was "almost certainly inspired" by Claude Lorrain's painting "Landscape near Rome with a View of the Ponte Molle." Lord Berwick was the owner of two Claude landscapes. Walford lived at Cronkhill, managing Lord Berwick's Attingham interests, until their relationship ended acrimoniously in 1828, when Walford left the house. It was then occupied by members of the Berwick family, often when Attingham Park was let, until their final return to Attingham in the 1920s. Cronkhill, along with Attingham Park, was gifted to the

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

in the post-war period.

Architecture

The body of the house is a rectangular two-storey block, with a circular, three-storey, tower to the north and a square, three-storey, tower to the west. A

loggia In architecture, a loggia ( , usually , ) is a covered exterior gallery or corridor, usually on an upper level, but sometimes on the ground level of a building. The outer wall is open to the elements, usually supported by a series of columns ...

links the two towers. The walls are now white stucco, although the colour may originally have been designed to imitate ashlar. Internally, the main reception rooms are simply decorated, comprising a drawing room in the round tower, a library in the square tower and a dining room in the body of the house. Although influential, the house, as with much of Nash's work, was subject to criticism, Davis describing the round tower as "merely a dramatic architectural trick, (containing neither) a circular staircase, nor even one circular room." As of 2016, the National Trust is undertaking a major restoration of the house to "restore Cronkhill's appearance back to Nash's original design."

Notes

References

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External links

Cronkhill
at the National Trust {{coord , 52, 40, 13, N, 2, 41, 16, W, type:landmark_region:GB-SHR, display=title Country houses in Shropshire Grade I listed houses Grade I listed buildings in Shropshire Houses completed in 1802 Italianate architecture in England John Nash buildings

History

Architecture

See also

Notes

References

External links