Landscape record 1230/3/1 - Tabley House Gardens and Landscape Park

<1> English Heritage, 2001, Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest, GD1636 (Report). SCH2822.

(Extract from the full Registered Park and Garden Entry)

GARDENS AND PLEASURE GROUNDS
To the south of the House, and extending there from for c 50m. Is a flat square lawn, separated from the park beyond by a 1 m high brick wall of the mid C19 (listed grade II). A sundial (listed grade II) stands in the central-southern portion of the lawn, which projects as a shallow apse into the park. Smaller lawned compartments also lie to east and west of the I louse: these are still in part separated from the park by iron railings, possibly of the 1760s, of identical character to those attached to the east and west sides of the House and stables complex. On the cast lawn are several clipped yews; these are all that survive of the elaborate mid C19 Italianate parterre gardens around the east, west and south sides of the House shown on Victorian photographs.

Extending for c 300m north of the House, and enveloping and screening the stables and kitchen garden, is a roughly circular shrubbery with specimen trees. Paths wind through the shrubbery, and south of the kitchen garden is the remains of a mature avenue. The Lime Walk. North of the pigeon house, to the north of the stables, is Mirror Pool, an irregular pond. On its island is a dogs' graveyard (stones removed during 1990s), while the stream which feeds into the north side of the Pool is crossed by a small balustraded concrete bridge of c 1900. The western part of the shrubbery has been known since the 1920s as The Bird Sanctuary: a second small pond lies on the west side of this. A third pond. The Carp Pool, lies in the north-west corner of the shrubbery. No trace remains (1997) of two structures shown on late C19 OS maps: a summerhouse south of Carp Pool, and an icehouse c 75m north-cast of the north-east corner of the walled garden. It is believed (by the long-time agent in 1997) that statuary was placed around the shrubbery: again, none survives in 1997.

PARK
Tabley House lies north of the centre of what is now a roughly rectangular park, c 1.8kni from its northern boundary on Tabley Lane (walled c 1790) to the southern shore of Tabley Mere. The Mere (also known as Tabley Pool)? Which is the park's main feature, is curving and irregularly shaped, and lies c 800m south of the Hall across level grass parkland with occasional clumps and parkland trees. Royd Wood runs along the south shore of the lake and provides a backdrop to it from the House. On a small island in the western half of the Mere is the round, brick, battlemented. Three-storey Folly Tower (listed grade II) of c 1780 which dominates Turner's paintings of 1808. At the north end of the Mere is a bridge which carries the carriage drive from While Lodge to the House. It is called Roaring Bridge because of the noise made by water as it fell over blocks of sandstone placed beneath the bridge c 1790 to form a waterfall. On the south side of the bridge is a square brick boathouse (listed grade II) of the late C18. roofless in 1997. Resembling a blockhouse and with false quatrefoil stone arrow loops, each corner forms a slightly projecting tower-like buttress. Beyond the bridge is the moat around Tabley Old Hall. The east end of the Mere continues northwards through Botany Bay Wood and towards Middle Willowbed Wood as a stream, slightly widened in parts, called the Serpentine Water. East of this, and continuing for a further 900m towards Sudlow Farm, is further parkland, with shelter belts. Shelter belts also run around much of the rest of the park perimeter.

The park's creation belongs to the generation after the construction of the new house, begun in 1761. and was facilitated by the closure of the Knutsford road in 1769. Tabley Mere was created by enlarging and deepening existing pools at various dates between 1789 and 1803. In 1803, when the west, lobed half of the present Mere was dug. John Webb (1754-1828) was responsible for the design. The park was mapped in 1797. Much planting was undertaken in the 1820s (Dawson Taylor 1992).

KITCHEN GARDEN
The brick-walled kitchen garden lies c 250m north of the House, and was probably built at about the same time. The garden is roughly square, although the north wall at c 100m in length is somewhat longer than that to the south (c 80m). Along the exterior of the wall, angled ‘cutwater'-style buttresses alternate with conventional ones. Brick sheds stand along the exterior of the north wall (conversion to stables planned 1997). The main entrance is in the centre of the south wall, and has a stone keystone dated 1656 moved from the Old Hall. Internally the garden is divided into two by an east/west cross wall. In the later 1990s Gardener's Cottage, built in to the north-east angle of the garden, was enlarged and refurbished. The north half of the garden is private to that house, while the south half is laid to communal tennis courts and lawns.

Some 50m south of the kitchen garden is a row of three 1960s brick houses. Garden Cottages

<2> Historic England, 2011, The National Heritage List for England, 1000645 (Web Site). SCH6528.