Just as these words are being written the old house is undergoing conversion into an hotel. Its builder and first owner, Richard Prince, a "proud Salopian" of Elizabethan days, thought little, as he reared his stately dwelling where the Abbey grange had stood, that it would one day harbour the chance guest. who comes and calls for cheer, and pays his bill and goes his way with little further thought for house or host. And indeed the visitor whose luck may bring him to Whitehall, though he may give but little thought to either Richard Prince or present host, is hardly likely altogether to neglect the house. For he will take his ease amid ideal surroundings; the perfection of Elizabethan architecture, filled internally with furniture and tapestries and pictures, all in keeping with the setting they adorn. In the old garden stands the dovecote, one of the most interesting that Shropshire owns. Within the last century it has indeed been shorn of the full charm of its former surroundings; for a fine group of larches that stood near it, said to have been the earliest planted in the county, has now disappeared. Gone, too, the grand old walnut-tree, with trunk that measured sixteen feet in girth, and boughs that spread their shade for twenty yards around. We will not grudge them; for the dovecote still adorns the junction of two tile-topped garden walls. And where, indeed, could it be better placed? Has not Trigg included dovecotes, and most rightly, among "garden ornaments"? The building is of brick, octagonal; inside are some five hundred nests, with potence and its ladder still in good repair.
The tiled roof, also octagonal, is crowned by a high cupola,
and small rectangular windows are set high in the walls. Between these windows
and the eaves we find a feature which, while a welcome ornament, forms subject
of discussion and dispute; a very beautiful arched corbel-table made in moulded
brick.
The dovecote is generally referred to the same period as the mansion, which
was built by the aforesaid Richard Prince, between the years 1578 and 1580,
on the site of the grange belonging to the Benedictine abbey, dissolved in
1539. The Abbey Church, as has been said, still stands, and the refectory
pulpit maybe seen in an adjacent yard. It has been urged by architectural
experts that a corbel-table such as this was an unusual feature of Elizabethan
times, and one unlikely to have been produced by any architect employed by
Prince.
A possible explanation of this feature, a great addition to the beauty of
the pigeon-house, is to be found by an examination of the lower portion of
the walls and of the foundations upon which they stand. These are of stone
and are octagonal. It seems possible, therefore, that the monks of the Abbey
had an octagonal dovecote of stone on this same spot; that Richard Prince's
builder pulled it down, and rebuilt it in brick, being careful to reproduce
a former corbel-table. The point is one on which we may well hesitate to
dogmatise, preferring to fall back upon the placid prudence of George Eliot's
Old Leisure - "happy in his inability to know the causes of things, preferring
the things themselves." And certainly between enjoyment of this corbel-table
and a learned explanation of its presence few would hesitate to make their
choice.
The lower portion of the wall to which the dovecote joins is old, with many
old bricks built into the upper part. Close by is the monks' barn, much
modernized, but happily still covered by its ancient roof of stone.
Only some few degrees less charming than the Whitehall dovecote is the excellent
example to be found at Henley Hall, near Ludlow, lying south of Shrewsbury
by some twenty miles. It is of about the same period as that at Whitehall,
or perhaps somewhat later. It lacks the corbel-table, and is rather broader
in proportion to its height; but the wide eaved lantern has a very pleasing
effect; and the roof, although its tiles are comparatively modern, is agreeably
broken by four dormer -windows, one in each alternate section of the octagon.
The length of each of the eight walls is ten feet; height to the eaves about
fifteen.
The potence inside is in good working order, while of the nests, nearly six
hundred in number, some are still occupied by pigeons, and the building has
a cheerful, thriving, well-kept air. With regard to the nests it is interesting
to note that the inner arm of the L--turns to the left in every tier; a rather
unusual variation from the more general practice by which, when the direction
does not change with each tier, the turn is to the right. Such are the little
differences for which the dovecote-lover early learns to look.
The doorway is quite noticeably narrow, being two feet two inches wide, though
nearly five feet high; while for a brick dovecote of this period the walls
are unusually thick - thirty-four inches.
Similar, both in shape and material, to those already described is the dovecote
standing in a field at Chetwynd House, near Newport. Its history, prior to
the present ownership, which dates from 1808, remains a blank. It is smaller
than the one at Henley Hall, the total wall length being no more than sixty
feet. The roof, its tiling modern, has a lantern with glass windows, and
a weather-vane above; there is also a trap for catching the birds. The potence
still exists, and the six hundred nest-holes are L-shaped. The building is
not only in good repair, but is still applied to its original purpose.
A dovecote existed until comparatively lately in the park at Tong Castle,
but was pulled down on account of its "dangerous" condition; though whether
the park was a public thoroughfare and the safety of way farers affected,
and what insurmountable difficulties rendered its repair and preservation
impossible, are points on which no information can be given. Involved in
similar darkness are the causes which brought about the destruction of the
old dovecote formerly standing near the rectory at Llanymynech, a village
close to the Montgomeryshire border. This was demolished by the rector; not
- be it noted well - the present rector, who, with the villagers, deplores
the loss.
Most probably of sixteenth-century work is the circular brick dovecote at
the Lynches, an old house which stands not far from Yockleton, a station
on the Shrewsbury to Welshpool line. Comparatively small, it is only fifty-three
feet in circumference, and is re-roofed with modern slates. Its walls are
thick, its doorway small, its potence still in place. The nest-holes, plain
rectangular recesses, are still occupied.
"Cannot this vaunted Shropshire show us dovecotes dating from a period prior
to Elizabethan times?" exclaims some reader, eager for the hoary stones of
Norman work. The Whitehall dovecote, beautiful in form and decoration, easily
accessible to visitors to Shrewsbury who are pressed for time, was chosen
for our early notice upon that account, and it has led the way to others
of its age and style. But there are far older dovecotes to be found in
Shropshire; and in quest of one of these we may betake ourselves to the most
pleasant garden of the White House, Aston Munslow, a place lying north-east
of that important local junction, Craven Arms.
The White House dovecote is a round stone building, very obviously of Norman
date; fairly large, with a circumference of seventy-five feet and a height
to the eaves of fifteen feet. One of its points of greatest interest is the
thickness of the walls - four feet, while those at Garway, it will be recalled,
are but three feet ten inches. The entrance is a very narrow one.
There is no potence now remaining, but we can still see the socket-hole in
which the lower end was placed; also a remnant of the beam itself. The
nest-holes, numbering about five hundred, are L-shaped. There is a string-course
placed unusually low down - some two feet only from the ground.
Unhappily, during the owner's temporary absence from the property, the roof
fell in; but some of the stone tiles which covered it have been preserved,
together with the wooden pegs that held them in their place. These tiles
were of a small size on the upper portion of the roof, becoming larger towards
the eaves.
The fall of the roof was, unfortunately, followed by disaster to a section
of the walls themselves; an accident not very frequent in a dovecote of this
shape and massive build, which usually proves capable of standing not a little
buffeting from time and weather without giving way. It would be a very serious
loss to Shropshire if this dovecote were allowed to disappear, since, judging
from the thickness of its walls and other signs, it can be little later in
its date than that at Garway. But happily the owner of White House is now
the occupier also, keen to check all chance of further harm.
Not differing greatly in regard to style, nor probably in age, is the fine
dovecote standing in the grounds of one of the most charming of old Shropshire
mansions, Shipton Hall, in the Much Wenlock district. Shipton itself, once
a seat of the Myttons, is a fine Elizabethan house, restored - and well restored
- in George the Second's reign.
Disaster has been busy with the dovecote here. The roof, which bore a cupola,
has fallen in. The walls still stand - four feet in thickness, with a doorway
which, though wide, is little more than four feet high.
Inside is a potence, and, still more interesting, about four hundred nest-holes,
thirteen inches deep, and rounded at the back, a form but seldom seen. Surely
such shape, though doubtless giving extra trouble to the builder, meant
additional comfort to the birds. These rounded nests alone would be enough
to date this dovecote from a long-past day, when time and trouble were nothing
as compared with the result desired.
Also in this district, in the garden of the rectory at Harley, is a square
brick dovecote, from the loft of which the nests have been removed. A trap-door
in the roof of the lower story gives access to this loft, the ascent having
formerly been made by pegs driven into the wall as a foothold. The little
building is of no great antiquity or importance, but a dovecote in a garden
is not willingly passed by.
At Bourton Hall, another house of interest near Wenlock, is a solidly built
square dovecote of stone. The length of each wall is eighteen feet, and the
height to the eaves twenty. The building has been turned into a storehouse
and all trace of nests has disappeared.
In the garden of Thonglands, a farmhouse partly of Elizabethan timber-work
and partly of still older date, lying in one of the most charming of all
Shropshire's charming districts -
the secluded valley of Corvedalc there is a circular stone dovecote. The
roof has fallen in, and the walls, burdened with a weight of ivy, are upon
the way to follow suit. Inside is the comparatively small number of two hundred
and fifty nests, arranged in ten tiers, and all plain oblong recesses. There
is no sign of any potence having been in use. The walls are only thirty inches
thick, a fact which seems to negative the bold opinion offered by a villager
that it might date from "in the Roman times. " Some speak of it, however,
as of fourteenth-century date; in any case it merits to be better cared for
than is now the case.
At Rowton Hall, Broseley, a sixteenth-century house best reached from Coalport
station, there is a massive dovecote built of brick, eighteen feet square
and over thirty feet in height. It was at one time even higher, having a
tiled roof and loft. The present roofing material is - horribile dictu -
corrugated iron, surely the last indignity that such a building can be called
upon to bear. The walls are three feet thick, the doorway noticeably small.
About one thousand nest-holes still remain, rising from the ground level
to the roof. At Coalport and Broseley we are getting into the brick-and-tile
making district of Shropshire, and it is therefore more interesting than
surprising to see that the bricks used for the nests were specially moulded
for the purpose.
As Herefordshire at Mansel Lacy, so Shropshire in more than one instance
exhibits accommodation for pigeons fashioned in the fabric of the dwelling-house
itself. This is so at Ticklerton Hall, a house built near Much Wenlock in
the reign of Charles I.; where, in addition to a square dovecote, there are
pigeon-holes in one of the house-walls. At the Woodhouse, a small dwelling
of Jacobean period in Wyke, a dovecote exists in the attic gable. Finally,
at Hungerford, lying between Ludlow and Munslow, there is a third instance
of this kind. In a stone house of Georgian date two wings projecting at the
rear are linked together by an overhanging roof which forms a covered balcony,
and is believed intended as a shelter for these birds. It is impossible to
look upon provision of this kind without an understanding of the great importance
formerly attached to pigeons as a source of food-supply.
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