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SP2092 : Head gardener's cottage, Hams Hall

Hams Hall

The 18th-century mansion was demolished in 1920 to clear the site for the first of a complex of three power stations (now in their turn replaced by a distribution park which perpetuates the name).

"Built for the Adderleys around 1760, probably by Joseph Pickford, it replaced an older house, evidence of which was marked by an avenue of trees planted in the reign of Charles I. The 18th-century house was of stone, seven bays and 2½ storeys. A centrepiece composed of attached columns on the first and second floors was crowned by a pediment. Plain parapet with dentilled cornice. Small screen walls were attached to the entrance front and [each of] these boasted a pedimented door and niches. The interior was largely rebuilt in the later 18th century and there were friezes by Thorwaldsen, but this interior was gutted by fire on 22 April 1890, to be rebuilt soon after. After demolition, the upper facade of the entrance front was re-erected at Coates Manor (now Bledisloe Lodge) in Gloucestershire SO9800." The architect for the removal was Ernest Barnsley.

There is a photograph of the entrance front in Burke's and Savills Guide to Country Houses, volume II, by Peter Reid (Burke's Peerage, 1980), p.150, from which most of the above information is drawn. Bledisloe is now a residence for the Royal Agricultural College and is not open to the public, but views of it in its parkland setting can be obtained from the Monarch's Way.