Hamstead Marshall Palace

Today we’ve reached H in the A – Z of Ashdown and I’m writing about a house built for love of a queen: No, not Ashdown this time, but the grand mansion of Hamstead Marshall, near Newbury. It was at Hamstead that William Craven planned a “miniature Heidelberg” for Elizabeth of Bohemia, The Winter Queen. The intention was to model this mansion on the Palatine palace lost during the 30 Years War. As with many things to do with Craven and Elizabeth the term “miniature” was relative. This was a very grand house indeed. However, after the death of Elizabeth in 1662 its design did not mirror Heidelberg much at all.

Lady Craven, the widow of Sir William Craven, bought the estate of Hamstead from Francis Jhones in 1620 as part of her policy of turning the vast Craven fortune into land ownership. As at Ashdown, building work started some time in 1661 as soon as Lord Craven had returned from exile in Europe. The grand house at Hamstead Marshall was designed by Sir Balthazar Gerbier with the assistance of William Winde. When Gerbier died in the early 1660s Winde took over the design and build. Papers in the Bodleian Library in Oxford give a detailed description of work on the house, which continued for the rest of the 17^th century. They include 40 drawings that show designs for gateposts, porticoes and stabling and a floor plan with 30 rooms including a “withdrawing room to repair the records” a “room to repose after bathing” and a distillery, spicery, confectioner’s room and “Lardery.”

As with Kyp’s view of Ashdown, his engraving of Hamstead Marshall is stylised but there is no reason to suppose it is inaccurate in detail. Aerial photographs have shown the outlines of the parterre gardens, and the remaining gateposts show very fine details.

In 1718, 21 years after the death of the first Earl of Craven, Hamstead Marshall burned to the ground when a brazier was left untended on the roof. Very little is left of this magnificent mansion that was originally intended as a palace for a queen.

In her book Craven Country Penelope Stokes writes extensively about the fascinating history of Hamstead Marshall. You can find more information here. http://www.hamsteadmarshall.net/history/cc.pdf

In the style of Downton Abbey!

We have reached the letter D in the A - Z of Ashdown House. D is for a number of things relating to the history of Ashdown; there are the deer, for a start, since Ashdown Park or Aysshen Park as it was known then was originally a medieval deer park belonging to Glastonbury Abbey. Then there is the rather intriguing dew pond that used to exist by the coaching stables but has dried up now. And there is William Dobson, whose magnificent portrait of Prince Rupert, Colonel Murray and Colonel Russell hangs on the second landing. Oh, and it features a dog, and I have blogged previously about Boye, Prince Rupert's most famous dog.

Today what caught our eye for the letter D was a link to Downton Abbey. Fans of the programme may have seen this gorgeous house on the right, which is Sir Anthony Strallan's home in the series. It is Hall Barn in Beaconsfield, in the 17th century the home of Edmund Waller, the Poet Laureate and Royalist. The house was built before 1675 and is surrounded by 17th and early 18th century pleasure grounds, park and woodland. Waller was banished abroad for a time and travelled widely in France and Italy.

Like Lord Craven at Ashdown, Waller brought back ideas of the continental style of architecture and this is evident in the style of his "new" house at Beaconsfield, which is contemporaneous with Ashdown. The architectural similarities between the two houses are very striking. Call us biased, but we think that these two are amongst the most gorgeous houses around!

The Kreative Blogger Award

Thank you to Mrs Black’s This ‘n That for awarding the Ashdown House Blog the Kreative Blogger Award! We are all very honoured. Look out for a black cat on your visits to Ashdown as Minerva the shoppe keeping cat can sometimes be seen strolling around the grounds. We love her eclectic blog!

Upon acceptance of such award it is traditional that the recipients carry out the following instruction. We are to share with you 10 things you may not have previously known about us, and to recommend 10 blogs that are worthy of the Kreative Award.

So here are ten things you may or may not already know about Ashdown House:

Elizabeth of Bohemia never saw Ashdown, the house William Craven built for her, because she died before it was completed. However her son, the dashing Prince Rupert of the Rhine did visit the house, as did his equally dashing cousin King Charles II.

The entwined initials of William Craven and Elizabeth were carved onto the original gateposts at Ashdown.

The house has a box parterre garden because this was considered a “masculine” garden design to complement the hunting lodge which was considered to be a “masculine” building.

There is said to be a secret passageway cut through the chalk connecting Ashdown to the manor house at Russley Down several miles away.

At the beginning of the 18^th century Ashdown was used by Jacobites plotting the restoration of the Catholic succession.

There was an icehouse at Ashdown. There's a blog piece about it here. There may not be much of it left now but it was a jolly interesting building in its time!

The weathervane on the roof of the Victorian stables is original and features a coach and horses and also sports an earl’s coronet!

The Craven state coach was painted gold with a blue velvet interior and was even more elaborate than that belonging to Queen Victoria. It is now housed in the Carriage Museum at Arlington Court which is well worth a visit.

Ashdown is haunted by the ghost of stable lad and by the sound of a baby crying in the woods. Some of us have heard the crying and also seen shadowy figures and candlelight behind the shuttered windows of the house. Over the years there have been several other ghostly sightings as well.

There is only one staircase at Ashdown and no servants’ stair. The staircase turns in an anti-clockwise direction to allow a right-handed swordsman the advantage when fighting down the stair.

10 blogs we recommend:

There are so many wonderful blogs out there and we already feature some we follow on our sidebar. Here we’ve chosen a few that represent the different aspects of our interests at Ashdown, including history and natural history.

Number 1 London - The best address in London! A blog with an interest in England past and present.

The Purple Empire - All about butterflies from the National Trust expert, Matthew Oates.

Fair Isle Bird Observatory The blog of the world famous bird observatory on the wild and beautiful island of Fair Isle. 

Hoydens and Firebrands - Various fascinating aspects of 17th century history.

Status, Scandal and Subterfuge - Frances Bevan writes about the history of the St John family and their mansion Lydiard Park. Not only did the St John and Craven family intermarry, the St Johns were also involved in the Jacobite plotting of the 18th century (see above!) 

Two Nerdy History Girls - Two great historical authors who consistently reveal extraordinary and fascinating facts about many different aspects of history.

Untold Lives - The British Library sharing stories from the past.

Puppy with a Purpose - We have to confess to a vested interest here. Puppy with a Purpose is the blog of our very own guide dog puppy in training, Rochester, and is all about his experiences as he learns to be a fully qualified Guide Dog. Rochester is sponsored by Swindon Guide Dogs and pays lots of visits to Ashdown, enjoying running in the woods in his time off duty!

 Jane Austen's World - Bringing Jane Austen, her books and the Regency period alive. We are very proud of the Craven/Austen connection here at Ashdown House!

Georgian London - Fascinating and fabulous!

Ancient Trees of Ashdown

There are many old trees in the woodland at Ashdown Park and two that The Woodland Trust has identified  as being officially "ancient.". There is no precise definition of an ancient tree but there are some guiding factors: They are trees of interest biologically, aesthetically or culturally because of their age, they are trees that are in the ancient stage of their life, and they are trees that are old relative to others of the same species. Trees grow at different rates and so a 100 year old willow or birch tree would be ancient whilst a 200 year old beech would be only just starting to age, a 200 year old oak would be beginning to mature and a 200 year old yew would be very young!


At Ashdown our two ancient trees are both beeches. One has a girth of 4.96 metres, the other a girth of 5.15 metres. It's difficult to assess the age of a beech on the basis of girth alone but both of these trees are several centuries old and may well have been standing when the house was built 350 years ago. Accordingly, as a tribute to Ashdown's anniversary this year, we have unofficially named them the Elizabeth Beech and the William Beech. Elizabeth stands on the back boundary of Hailey Wood. William stands at the back of Upper Wood. Both stand beside the medieval Park Pale. According to the Woodland Trust this is no co-incidence; many of the surviving ancient trees in the UK stand in what were once Royal hunting forests and medieval deer parks. It's wonderful that at Ashdown we have this link with the early history of the estate.


The Ashdown Park Pale was built in 1204 when the Ashbury estate belonged to Glastonbury Abbey and Ashdown was a hunting forest. Park pales consisted of a bank and ditch with a wooden palisade, or fence, 
on the top. They were designed to let the deer in through gaps in the pale called deer leaps, but once inside the emparkment the deer could not get out again. At Ashdown the entire existing wood was emparked.  Changes to the estate and the parkland during the 18th and 19th centuries have altered the appearance of the landscape, and the park pale that surrounded Middle and Hailey Woods has mostly been either ploughed out of the fields, demolished or worn away, although the later ha-ha is still visible. 

However to the south of the sarsen field and most particularly around Upper Wood, the park pale is still a magnificent earthwork rising up to 9 metres high on the escarpment of the hill. The photograph above shows the remains of the park pale where it intersects with the Lambourn road to the south of the estate. There is a footpath that runs up the back of Upper Wood (where the William Beech stands) and around the top of the park pale and from this vantage point you get a superb view of the surrounding landscape. You can also see what a huge embankment the park pale originally was.

There is one other verified ancient tree at Ashdown that is currently not on the map. A couple of years ago English Nature paid Ashdown a visit to assess the elm avenues. In the course of their work they also discovered an oak tree on the edge of Upper Wood. Measurements taken showed that this oak was old enough to be part of the original 13th century hunting forest. In honour of its ancient status and the connection to Glastonbury Abbey this has therefore been named the Glastonbury Oak. We are very proud to have ancient trees at Ashdown. They are living relics that inspire awe and mystery and have helped to shape our history.

Ashdown House - The Ultimate Romantic Gesture!

It is the ultimate in romantic gestures. Ashdown House is a Valentine’s Day gift in bricks and mortar (or chalk, actually), a house built by the Earl of Craven for the love of a woman who never lived to see it – Elizabeth of Bohemia, The Winter Queen. On Elizabeth’s return to England from exile in 1661 the Earl of Craven, knowing of her desire to live quietly in the country, commissioned not one but two houses for her pleasure. The first, Hamstead Marshall, was designed to mirror Elizabeth’s palace in Heidelberg. The second, Ashdown, was a hunting lodge so that Elizabeth could continue to pursue her lifelong passion for hunting.

In honour of the approach of St Valentine’s Day, the fascinating blog lostpastremembered, which marries food and history, has posted a piece about William, Elizabeth and Ashdown. As well as detailing the Earl of Craven’s devotion to his lady over the course of forty years, the blog piece gives a wonderful insight into all things culinary from the period, from the way the table would be laid for a banquet at Elizabeth and Frederick of Bohemia’s castle in Heidelberg, to a stunning recipe for Raspberry Sauce with Port to complement the romance of the story. You can read the whole post here - and make the dessert as well if you wish!

The Jane Austen, William Craven, Harriette Wilson Connection!

It seems a pity in some ways that the main claim to fame of William Craven, 1st Earl of Craven of the 2nd Creation, is that he was the first lover of the famous courtesan Harriette Wilson. (That is she in the picture on the left, taken from the frontispiece to her Memoirs). He was 31 and unmarried at the time. Harriette was much younger and does not give William a good press. Her memoirs start with the line "I shall not say why and how I became, at the age of fifteen, the mistress of the Earl of Craven..." but she leaves the reader in no doubt that she finds the Earl boring and old-fashioned, with his night caps and his endless talk of his cocoa trees on his estates in the Indies. What Harriette must have made of Ashdown House when William took her to the country in 1801, is anyone's guess. It is hard to imagine that Ashdown's rural isolation could appeal to this precocious and materialistic urbanite in any way.

A bad enough start for William, in all truth. And as if it wasn't a disaster to be denounced as boring by mischievous Harriette, Craven then incurred the disapproval of Jane Austen. In a letter to Cassandra in January 1801, Austen reports that Eliza Fowle "found [Lord Craven's] manners very pleasing indeed.—The little flaw of having a Mistress now living with him at Ashdown Park, seems to be the only unpleasing circumstance about him." More on the Austen/Craven connection anon.

So what do we actually know of William Craven other than these two literary references? William Craven was, in my opinion, far more interesting a man than Harriette implies. The son of the 6th Baron Craven and his scandalous wife Lady Elizabeth Berkeley, he was a man whose family background was what would be referred to today as dysfunctional; both parents took lovers and in 1783 they finally separated after 13 stormy years of marriage, with his mother taking her seventh and youngest child and travelling abroad. After the 6th Baron died in 1791 and Lady Elizabeth, now the Margravine of Brandenburg-Ansbach-Bayreuth, returned to England, her daughters refused to receive her. William, the new Lord Craven, was also for a time not on speaking terms with her. As an interesting footnote, his elder sister Maria married William Philip Molyneaux 2nd Earl of Sefton in 1792 and became one of the patronesses of Almacks, one of thr bastions of respectability in high society.

William and his brother Henry Augustus Berkeley Craven were educated at Eton and William followed this with a distinguished army career. A brief summary of this follows: In 1793 he became an ensign in the 43rd Foot and was promoted to a lieutenancy the same year. In 1794 he became a Major of the 84th and from there to Lieutenant Colonel. He served in the 1794 campaign in Flanders and was present at the siege of Nimeguen. He subsequently served in the West Indies and was present at the capture of Trinidad. On 1st January 1798 he was appointed ADC to the King and made a Colonel. In 1799 he served at the Helder and subsequently in the Mediterranean. In 1803 he was appointed Colonel of the Reserves and was made a Major General in 1805 and served on the Staff from the commencement of war until 1809. He was appointed Lieutenant General in 1811. The Earldom of Craven was recreated for him in 1801 as recognition from the King for his services to his monarch and to his country.

Significantly for a man with the reputation of having kept a notorious mistress - and indeed having married an actress, Louisa Brunton - he was a great favourite of George III's very proper wife Queen Charlotte so must have come across as a gentleman of some moral probity as well as charm!

As Noel Chanan comments in his excellent book about the Earl's son William, Earl of Craven and the Art of Photography: "The marriage raised some eyebrows within the aristocracy but Louisa was accepted in society. The Earl was in many respects a typical Regency gentleman, profligate with his money and also somewhat careless of his personal safety." In 1809, despite the presence of French privateers, he resumed pleasure sailing in the waters of the English Channel in his own lightly armed sloop, the Grafton. Sailing was one of his great passions. He was a founder member of the Royal Yacht Squadron and celebrated the fact by purchasing a three-masted, full-rigged ship of 325 tons, which he called the Louisa for his wife. In the year of his death he bought a third ship, the Mayfly, which cannot but have added to the massive debt that encumbered the estate on his death. It seems appropriate, even inevitable, that he died at Cowes in 1825.

The Earl of Craven's family connections to Jane Austen are well recorded. Jane knew of William Craven through Tom Fowle, her sister Cassandra's fiancé, who was cousin to William Craven and served as his chaplain on the military expedition to the West Indies in 1796. Other connections are explained in the fascinating article by Lanfersieck and Looser, Austen's Sense and Sensibility and Lord Craven. This article also posits that William Craven may have been the model for John Willoughby in Sense and Sensibility, suggesting that Sense and Sensibility contains several parallels to Craven's life, including place names, a difficult mother figure and the resonances with a "ruined" young woman, in Craven's case Harriette Wilson.

It is entirely plausible that Jane Austen may have been inspired to draw on Craven for some elements of Willoughby's character. I confess that I don't like the idea because I have always considered Willoughby to be a morally bankrupt character and I don't for a moment believe William Craven to have been so and feel that this comparison, like the comments made by both Harriette Wilson and Jane Austen, do him no favours. Here is a man of considerable depth, with a distinguished service record. There is more to him than the Regency wastrel even if he did possess some of the characteristics of the stereotypical Regency nobleman. In addition, I have always seen Harriette Wilson as being in control of her own destiny unlike the victim Eliza is in Sense and Sensibility. As another aside, I'm also sceptical that William's brother Berkeley Craven was ever Harriette's lover. Poor Berkeley has already been maligned in Venetia Murray's book An Elegant Madness when she suggested that he was besotted with Harriette's sister Amy, confusing him with another Berkeley entirely.

William Craven managed to come to terms with his difficult mother Elizabeth, Margravine of Anspach, at some point after her return to England. He even sold her second husband his estate at Benham Valence, where the Margravine built a villa, close to the Earl's own estate at Hamstead Marshall. William Craven and Louisa Brunton remained happily - and faithfully -married until his death. Perhaps this was a case of real life being happier than fiction?

William, Earl of Craven - The Last Cavalier

It was William Craven, Baron of Hamstead Marshall, Viscount Uffington and Earl of Craven, who had the present day hunting lodge built at Ashdown in 1661 - 1662.

Craven was a fascinating character largely overlooked by history. Born in 1608, William Craven was the son of a self-made man from Yorkshire who had been apprenticed in the cloth trade, made a fortune and became a money lender to the crown, married well and was Lord Mayor of London. When William Craven inherited his father's fortune and estates he was one of the nine richest men in Stuart England. He was also one of the most ardent royalists devoted to the Stuart cause.

Still in his teens, William Craven left England to serve in the army of Maurice of Orange and over many years he gained great distinction as a soldier. He fought alongside Frederick of Bohemia and his sons in their attempts to regain the ancestral palatine lands they had lost in the Thirty Years War and he supported Elizabeth, the Winter Queen, in her exile in the United Provinces.

All William Craven's estates, with the exception of Combe Abbey, were sequestrated during the Commonwealth and he was able to return to England only on the restoration of King Charles II. He started building on both his estates at Hamstead Marshall and Ashdown on his return.

Lord Craven lived until the age of 87. He was a friend and comrade in arms of Prince Rupert of the Rhine, and was the executor of Rupert's will and guardian of his daughter Ruperta. He remained a loyal servant of the Stuarts throughout his life.