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Hestercombe House is a historic
country house An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a town house. This allowed them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these peopl ...
in the parish of West Monkton in the Quantock Hills, near Taunton in Somerset, England. The house is a Grade II* listed building and the estate is Grade I listed on the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England. Originally built in the 16th century, the house was used as the headquarters of the British 8th Corps in the Second World War.
Somerset County Council Somerset County Council is the county council of Somerset in the South West of England, an elected local government authority responsible for the most significant local government services in most of the county. On 1 April 2023 the county counc ...
assumed ownership in 1951 and use the property as an administrative centre. Hestercombe House served as the Emergency Call Centre for the Somerset Area of
Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service (DSFRS) is the statutory fire and rescue service covering the county of Devon (including the unitary authorities of Plymouth and Torbay) and the non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West Engla ...
until March 2012. Hestercombe House is surrounded by gardens which have been restored to
Gertrude Jekyll Gertrude Jekyll ( ; 29 November 1843 – 8 December 1932) was a British horticulturist, garden designer, craftswoman, photographer, writer and artist. She created over 400 gardens in the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States, and wrote ...
's original plans (1904–07) and have made it "one of the best Jekyll-Lutyens gardens open to the public on a regular basis", visited by approximately 70,000 people per year. The site also includes a 0.08 hectare (8,600 sq ft) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest in Somerset, notified in 2000. The site is used as a roost site by lesser horseshoe bats.


Location

Hestercombe House is between West Monkton and Cheddon Fitzpaine in the
Taunton Deane Taunton Deane was a local government district with borough status in Somerset, England. Its council was based in Taunton. The district was formed on 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, by a merger of the Municipal Borough of Ta ...
area in the south of the English county of Somerset. It is on the Quantock Hills which were England's first Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty being designated in 1956. The south facing gardens offer views of the
Blackdown Hills The Blackdown Hills are a range of hills along the Somerset-Devon border in south-western England, which were designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) in 1991. The plateau is dominated by hard chert bands of Upper Greensand wit ...
.


History

In the 11th century Hestercombe was owned by Glastonbury Abbey. Sir John Meriet founded a chantry in the 14th century and in 1392 it passed to John La Ware by marriage and stayed in his family for almost four hundred years. The current house is a Grade II* listed country house which was originally built in the 16th century for the Warre family. Sir Richard Warre (d. 1601) bequeathed it to his son Roger who married Elinor, daughter of Sir John Popham. When their descendant Sir Francis Warre, Bt. died in 1718 he left the estate to his daughter, Margaret, who transferred it to her husband
John Bampfylde (1691–1750) John Bampfylde (8 April 1691 – 17 September 1750) of Hestercombe in Somerset, was an English landowner and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1715 and 1741. Early life and family Bampfylde was the second son of Colonel Hugh Ba ...
. Following his death in 1750 it was inherited by the couple's son,
Coplestone Warre Bampfylde Coplestone Warre Bampfylde (1720–1791) was a British landowner, garden designer and artist. Life Bampfylde was the only son of John Bampfylde by Margaret, daughter and heiress of Sir Francis Warre, 1st Baronet, and was educated at Blundell ...
, a landscape painter who developed pleasure grounds to the north of the house incorporating cascades, lakes and a series of ornamental structures. The house was enlarged and altered in the 18th century, but this work is no longer visible beneath the refronting and enlargement works carried out around 1875 for
Edward Portman, 1st Viscount Portman Edward Berkeley Portman, 1st Viscount Portman (9 July 1799 – 19 November 1888) was a British Whig politician. He was an active supporter of the Royal Agricultural Society of England from its commencement in 1838, and served as president in 1846 ...
, who had acquired it in 1873.


Second World War

During the early years of the Second World War, the house and gardens were used by the British Army as part of the headquarters for
VIII Corps 8th Corps, Eighth Corps, or VIII Corps may refer to: * VIII Corps (Grande Armée), a unit of the Imperial French army during the Napoleonic Wars *VIII Army Corps (German Confederation) * VIII Corps (German Empire), a unit of the Imperial German Army ...
, which was formed to command the defence of Somerset, Devon, Cornwall and Bristol. The VIII Corps main headquarters was at nearby
Pyrland Hall Pyrland Hall is a country house near Cheddon Fitzpaine in the English county of Somerset. It is a Grade II* listed building. History Pyrland Hall was built around 1760 for Sir William Yea of the Yea baronets. It is a brick building with Bath st ...
, and the rear headquarters established at Hestercombe House, with Personnel and Logistics staff. Hestercombe was the headquarters of the
American army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
398th General Service Engineer Regiment from July 1943 to April 1944. Eisenhower visited Hestercombe on 18 March 1944 to meet General Gerow and inspect the troops. The Engineers were joined by the 19th District Headquarters of the US Supply Services in July 1943, which stayed until July 1944. Early on 28 March 1944, a few minutes after midnight, a
Junkers Junkers Flugzeug- und Motorenwerke AG (JFM, earlier JCO or JKO in World War I, English: Junkers Aircraft and Motor Works) more commonly Junkers , was a major German aircraft and aircraft engine manufacturer. It was founded there in Dessau, Germ ...
Ju 88 crashed on the drive to the house after being shot down by cannon fire from a
de Havilland Mosquito The de Havilland DH.98 Mosquito is a British twin-engined, shoulder-winged, multirole combat aircraft, introduced during the Second World War. Unusual in that its frame was constructed mostly of wood, it was nicknamed the "Wooden Wonder", or ...
of No. 219 Squadron Royal Air Force. Hestercombe was the American 801 Hospital Centre after the Normandy landings until the end of the war. A total of 33 barrack huts (various Nissen huts, Romney huts and MOWB ( Ministry of Works brick huts) were constructed at Hestercombe during the war. Many were demolished in the 1960s by the Crown Estate, and only one is left standing, in Rook Wood.


Post war

The house remained in the Portman family until 1944 when it was accepted in lieu of death duties by the Crown Estate, however Mrs Portman remained at the house until her death in 1951. It was leased to the fire service in 1953. A visitor centre opened in the Victorian stables in 2005. Most of the cost of the conversion was funded by a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund. The house was used as the Emergency Call Centre for the Somerset Area of
Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service (DSFRS) is the statutory fire and rescue service covering the county of Devon (including the unitary authorities of Plymouth and Torbay) and the non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West Engla ...
with a running cost in 2011 of £675,000 per year. The fire service moved out in 2012 and restoration work was then undertaken. The house today appears an assemblage of several architectural styles popular during the Victorian era. While the overall design and air could be described as Italianate, also present in the same entrance facade are examples of high Victorian Gothic, such as an Italianate seigneurial tower confused in design with a
campanile A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell tower ...
tower. This tower complete with a glazed loggia is crowned by a French-style
mansard roof A mansard or mansard roof (also called a French roof or curb roof) is a four-sided gambrel-style hip roof characterised by two slopes on each of its sides, with the lower slope, punctured by dormer windows, at a steeper angle than the upper. The ...
with oversized chimneys masquerading as Renaissance ornament. The centrepiece of the same facade is a porte-cochère designed in a heavy neoclassical style.


Watermill and dynamo house

In the 18th century a watermill was installed and used to power a sawmill, grind corn and crush apples. There is some evidence that there has been a mill on the site since the late 14th century. The
overshot waterwheel A water wheel is a machine for converting the energy of flowing or falling water into useful forms of power, often in a watermill. A water wheel consists of a wheel (usually constructed from wood or metal), with a number of blades or bucke ...
, which was in diameter and wide overall, was replaced in 1895, when the attached barn and workshops were expanded. and generated electricity for the estate, which was stored in glass batteries. The waterwheel had deteriorated by the 1980s. From the 1950s until 2009 the buildings were used as a barn for animals and agricultural machinery. It has since been restored and had a biomass boiler installed. During the restoration an unexplained series of unusual pipework was discovered in the floor of the building. The building now acts as a visitor centre, which includes access to the dynamo room where
acetylene Acetylene (systematic name: ethyne) is the chemical compound with the formula and structure . It is a hydrocarbon and the simplest alkyne. This colorless gas is widely used as a fuel and a chemical building block. It is unstable in its pure ...
gas was produced along with a thermalume generator which produced gas from petrol and air.


Gardens

When the house and gardens were inherited by
Coplestone Warre Bampfylde Coplestone Warre Bampfylde (1720–1791) was a British landowner, garden designer and artist. Life Bampfylde was the only son of John Bampfylde by Margaret, daughter and heiress of Sir Francis Warre, 1st Baronet, and was educated at Blundell ...
(1720–91) in the 18th century, a Georgian landscape garden was laid out, containing ponds, a grand cascade, a gothic alcove, a Tuscan temple arbour (1786), and a folly mausoleum. Bampfylde was an amateur architect of talent and a friend and adviser to
Henry Hoare Henry may refer to: People *Henry (given name) *Henry (surname) * Henry Lau, Canadian singer and musician who performs under the mononym Henry Royalty * Portuguese royalty ** King-Cardinal Henry, King of Portugal ** Henry, Count of Portugal, ...
who laid out the gardens at
Stourhead Stourhead () is a 1,072-hectare (2,650-acre) estate at the source of the River Stour in the southwest of the English county of Wiltshire, extending into Somerset. The estate is about northwest of the town of Mere and includes a Grade I listed ...
. Bampfylde also designed a Doric temple for the grounds, which was built around 1786, with an ashlar tetrastyle
prostyle Prostyle is an architectural term designating temples (especially Greek and Roman) featuring a row of columns on the front. The term is often used as an adjective when referring to the portico of a classical building, which projects from the m ...
fronted by Tuscan columns and a large modillioned pediment. A Victorian formal parterre was added near the house by Henry Hall in the 1870s. The Edwardian garden was laid out by
Gertrude Jekyll Gertrude Jekyll ( ; 29 November 1843 – 8 December 1932) was a British horticulturist, garden designer, craftswoman, photographer, writer and artist. She created over 400 gardens in the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States, and wrote ...
and
Edwin Lutyens Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens ( ; 29 March 1869 – 1 January 1944) was an English architect known for imaginatively adapting traditional architectural styles to the requirements of his era. He designed many English country houses, war memori ...
between 1904 and 1906 for the Hon E.W.B. Portman, resulting in a garden "remarkable for the bold, concise pattern of its layout, and for the minute attention to detail everywhere to be seen in the variety and imaginative handling of contrasting materials, whether cobble, tile, flint, or thinly coursed local stone". Jekyll and Lutyens were leading participants of the Arts and Crafts movement. Jekyll is remembered for her outstanding designs and subtle, painterly approach to the arrangement of the gardens she created, particularly her "hardy flower borders". Jekyll was one of the first of her profession to take into account the colour, texture, and experience of gardens as the prominent authorities in her designs, and she was a lifelong fan of plants of all genres. Her theory of how to design with colour was influenced by painter
J. M. W. Turner Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 177519 December 1851), known in his time as William Turner, was an English Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist. He is known for his expressive colouring, imaginative landscapes and turbulen ...
and by impressionism, and by the theoretical
colour wheel A color wheel or color circle is an abstract illustrative organization of color hues around a circle, which shows the relationships between primary colors, secondary colors, tertiary colors etc. Some sources use the terms ''color wheel'' & ' ...
. Their collaborative style was first developed at Herstercombe and described by the garden writer and designer Penelope Hobhouse as: The "Great Plat" combined the patterned features of a parterre with the hardy herbaceous planting espoused by Miss Jekyll. Lutyens also designed the orangery about 50 m east of the main house between 1904 and 1909, which is now Grade I listed, as are the garden walls, paving and steps on the south front of the house. On either side of the Great Plat are raised terraces with brick water channels. In his 2018 BBC series ''Paradise Gardens'', Monty Don suggested that the garden had many features of the traditional Islamic Paradise Garden. The eastern area is laid out as a Dutch garden laid out with perennial plants such as Large white flowering Yucca gloriosa as groups used vertical elements alternate with purple colored flowering dwarf Lavender ('' Lavandula''), catmint ('' Nepeta'') or silvery colored Zieste ('' Stachys''), Cotton lavender ('' Santolina''), China Rose (''
Rosa chinensis ''Rosa chinensis'' (), known commonly as the China rose, Chinese rose, or Bengal rose, is a member of the genus ''Rosa'' native to Southwest China in Guizhou, Hubei, and Sichuan Provinces. The first publication of ''Rosa chinensis'' was in 1768 b ...
'') or Fuchsia (''
Fuchsia magellanica ''Fuchsia magellanica'', commonly known as the hummingbird fuchsia or hardy fuchsia, is a species of flowering plant in the evening primrose family Onagraceae, native to the lower Southern Cone of southern South America. Description This sub-s ...
''). Since October 2003, the landscape and gardens, extending to over , have been managed by the Hestercombe Gardens Trust, a registered charity set up to restore and preserve the site with a Heritage Lottery Fund grant of £3.7M. The gardens featured on BBC TV's ''Gardens Through Time'' series, and cover more than , with three different styles of garden ranging from woodland walks to lakes and ponds to formal gardens. The
Georgian Georgian may refer to: Common meanings * Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country) ** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group ** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians **Georgian scripts, three scrip ...
landscape,
Victorian Victorian or Victorians may refer to: 19th century * Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign ** Victorian architecture ** Victorian house ** Victorian decorative arts ** Victorian fashion ** Victorian literature ...
shrubbery and terrace and the formal Edwardian gardens combine to create biodiversity and interest for visitors. The site is used by lesser horseshoe bats ''(Rhinolophus hipposideros)'' as both a breeding and wintering roost site. Numbers of lesser horseshoes at this site are only exceeded by one other site in southwest England. The bats use roofspaces in a former stable block as a maternity site. It has been designated as a Special Area of Conservation (SAC).


References


Bibliography

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External links


Hestercombe GardensParks & Gardens UK: Hestercombe, Taunton, England
Bibliography.
YouTube video
nbsp;— commemoration of WW2 activity, views of gardens. {{SSSIs Somerset biological Houses completed in the 16th century Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Somerset Sites of Special Scientific Interest notified in 2000 Special Areas of Conservation in England Grade I listed buildings in Taunton Deane Grade II* listed buildings in Taunton Deane Gardens in Somerset Country houses in Somerset Watermills in Somerset Gardens by Gertrude Jekyll Works of Edwin Lutyens in England Grade II* listed houses in Somerset Grade I listed parks and gardens in Somerset Grade II* listed watermills