Ashdown Village and the Old Stables

Over the years I've done a number of blog posts about Ashdown village, the old farmhouse and the stunning Victorian stables. (You can find the posts if you search on Ashdown village in the search box top left). The village is to the south of the white gates at the bottom of the drive and it's possible to do a circular walk from the house, down the drive, out of the picket gate, turn right past what is left of the village, and right again up the ha ha to Alfred's Castle where there is a footpath taking you back into the woods. It's a fantastic walk and there is so much history to see on it, but it's not publicized because I imagine the National Trust doesn't want hordes of people walking through the village. However with an OS map it's easy to follow the paths and although there isn't a guided walk, you can look out for the following landmarks along the way:

1. The white gates at the bottom of the south avenue are modelled on the original ones which can be seen in early paintings, such as the Kyp drawing of Ashdown House from 1708 and the series of paintings by Henry Seymour.

2. Opposite the gate at the bottom of the drive is a paddock where once there was a pond. This has dried out in the last century but it was once the place where the ice was cut to be stored in the ice house.

3. Immediately opposite and to the right of the paddock is the old stable yard which is now the National

Trust's site office. These are old barns and stables dating to the 18th century in some cases. The barn that borders the road has been restored and is absolutely beautiful (see picture above). Some of the old beams still remain. Behind the southernmost stables is the kennel where the hounds were housed for the Vine and Craven and the Old Berkshire Hunt when these were based at Ashdown. 

4. The biggest and most impressive building to the left of the road is the red brick Victorian stables, which were built in the mid 19th century in a gothic style. Look out for the little clock tower and the Earl's coronet and horse and carriage on the weather vane. The Craven initials and coronet are also on the rainwater heads on the downpipes. Very smart! I've had the pleasure of seeing inside the stables on a couple of occasions and whilst they are in dire need of renovation, you can see what a prestigious building it once was, with huge box stalls for the most valuable horses. The grooms lived on the floors above; the censuses from the 19th century give details of who they were. Look out for the magnificent chimneys as well.

5. The small set of stables to the right of the square is much older. They are the original early 18th century stables with a Flemish Bond pattern to the brick on the north side. Look out for the ghost sign on the wall that dates from when the stable block was used to store ammunition in the Second World War. "No Smoking." Good idea.

6. Beyond the stables there is the village green with the old farmhouse, incorporating an earlier medieval forester's cottage, a grain store standing on staddle stones (those ones that are shaped like mushrooms) and a laundry. It's probable that the green was originally a tenter ground where the washing from the house was dried in the open air.

7. Before you get to the end of the road, where you turn right to go up the ha ha path, there is a  paddock on the left with a huge wall in which you can still see the outline of a hearth. This was the heated kitchen-garden wall, where espaliered fruit trees would grow. There were also mushroom houses and vegetable beds to supply the house in the 19th century. In the field in front of the wall there was once the Ashdown House Chapel but no trace of this remains now.

8. There is a T junction and the road turns left, up towards what was the gamekeeper's cottage and the

choristers' lodge. This is private although you can continue walking straight up the path along the edge of the upper wood. This is the line of the medieval park pale and it takes you to the top of the hill and some spectacular views. In order to do the circular walk, though, you need to take the path that goes straight on at the gate and then bend to the right, keeping the house on your right as you go up the hill towards Alfred's Castle. Here you pass the ha ha at the end of the West Avenue. When the house was originally built, the west avenue stretched across the field as far as the coppice on the left. You will reach a gate that takes you into the hill fort and from there another that takes you back to the Ashdown House woods.

Enjoy the nature, the views and the history along the way!

The Ashdown Kitchen Garden

In Victorian times it was usual for large country houses to have a working walled kitchen garden producing food, herbs and flowers for the family, staff and guests. Great houses were largely self-sustaining in terms of food, especially a hunting lodge that provided its own game and meat.

After the Second World War with reductions in the workforce and increasing availability of cheap, imported food, kitchen gardens largely became neglected and many were destroyed. In Ashdown’s case the decline of the kitchen garden dates from the mid-1920s after Evelyn, Countess of Craven died and the house was let.

The Ashdown kitchen gardens were laid out some time after 1850. An old map reveals that the kitchen garden was situated on the west side of Ashdown village. We do not have a record of the layout and design of the beds but we do know that these lay behind the high sarsen wall that is still visible today (pictured). The area of the kitchen garden is now a paddock. In front of the sarsen wall, between the wall and the road, were potting sheds, a mushroom house and greenhouses that could be heated. These were built up against the sarsen wall and the outline of the fireplace and flue is still visible today. What we do not know is where the water would have come from for the gardens, a fascinating mystery.

The hothouses would have contained grapevines and other fruit that would be trained to grow up against the

walls. There may also have been pineapples, which were very fashionable, figs, melons, peaches, apples and pears, gooseberries, rhubarb, raspberries and redcurrants grown inside soft fruit cages. Vegetables in the Victorian kitchen garden included asparagus, broad and runner beans, onions, turnips, spinach, cabbages, potatoes, cauliflower, kale, beetroot, carrots, lettuce and Jerusalem artichokes. Salad vegetables, tomatoes and cucumbers, were also grown, alongside herb beds. It is likely that the greenhouses would also contain flowers that could be cut and used for decoration in the house.

According to the census returns there were six gardeners at Ashdown during the later Victorian era but there may have been others who came in to work from the local villages. In addition to the kitchen gardens they also had to keep the formal gardens and parterre looking good.

At Knightshayes House in Devon and a number of other National Trust properties there are existing or restored kitchen gardens and I’m grateful to the information provided by Knightshayes that gives us an insight into the sort of fruit and vegetables that would have been grown at Ashdown. You can read more about National Trust kitchen gardens here.

Ashdown Park Farmhouse

We are at the letter "F" in the A - Z of Ashdown and today I am blogging about Ashdown Park farmhouse, which is situated in Ashdown village, on the green. There are records that state that the farmhouse originally had a date stone over the door with the date inscription of 1617. I'm not sure whether the blank stone that is there now is new or whether the inscription was destroyed. Either way it is a pity that the original carving no longer remains.

I used to assume that date stones such as these marked the year of building but apparently that is not always the case. At Ashbury Upper Mill, for example, there is a date stone in the wall from 1792, which was not the year of build but marked the year when the building underwent major restoration. If the same is true of Ashdown Park farmhouse this makes sense of the suggestion that the building has an earlier, medieval core. The Ashbury estate came into the Craven family in 1625 so the renovation of the farm earlier in the century took place when the estate still belonged to the Essex family.

A lot of additional work was done to the farmhouse in the 18^th century when it was extended. Many of the features, including the windows, are late 18^th century. I think it's a beautiful building in a lovely position on the village green.

A Bit of a Chill!

In Ashdown village there are the remains of an icehouse. Trust me, they really are under this pile of weeds! Ice­houses predate the refrigerator as a means of storing ice for preserving food. They consist of chambers wholly or partly subterranean and suitably insulated from above. The practice of building ice houses came to England in the 17th century via France following the Restoration, one of the first ones being located in Upper St. James' Park, now known as Green Park, in 1662. By the eighteenth century it became increasingly common for major houses to have their own icehouse. A spell of several hard winters towards the end of the 18th century also encouraged their use.

The ice would have been collected from the nearest convenient lake or pond and dropped into the pit of the icehouse, possibly layered with straw to make removal easier. The ice was used in cooling drinks and for making cold confections in the kitchens. In the kitchen of the Royal Pavilion in Brighton there is a menu on display for a dinner dated 1817 and of the 22 sweets no less than 7 were made using ice.

Most icehouses comprised a rectangular chamber that is situated at the same level as or very slightly below the level of the entrance, which has a single door. This is probably the type of icehouse that existed at Ashdown since there is little evidence to suggest that much of it was subterranean.

In the cold surroundings, the ice should be capable of being stored for more than a year, and an experiment was carried out at Levens Hall in Cumbria in 1980 when ice was kept in the icehouse for 13 months under conditions similar to those prevailing in earlier times.

The location of icehouses in relation to the main house was often quite arbitrary. This picture is of an extant icehouse at West Wycombe. In most cases they seem to be neither close to the source of the ice nor to the kitchens. A distance of several hundred metres is not uncommon. This is one of the reasons why there is no point in shouting for help if you accidentally got locked in there! At Ashdown the icehouse was by the stables, a quarter mile from the main house and the kitchens, and the main mystery is where the ice was sourced. There are no lakes or ponds in the vicinity of the estate now although there would be some occasional pools in a wet year. Was the ice perhaps brought from Shrivenham or Lambourn? It would be fascinating to know.