- Hestercombe House
caption=Gatehouse of Hestercombe House
name=Hestercombe House
location_town=Taunton
location_country=England
architect=
client=Richard Warre
engineer=
construction_start_date=
completion_date=16th century
date_demolished=
cost=
structural_system=
style=
map_type=Somerset
latitude= 51.053142
longitude= -3.084075Hestercombe House (gbmapping|ST242287) is an historic
country house inCheddon Fitzpaine in theQuantocks , nearTaunton inSomerset ,England . Its restoration toGertrude Jekyll 's original plans (1904-07) have made it "one of the best Jekyll-Lutyens gardens open to the public on a regular basis", [ [http://www.gardenvisit.com/garden_tour/somerset GardenVist.com: Somerset] .] visited by approximately 70,000 people per year. The estate is Grade I listed on theEnglish Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England. [http://project.eghn.org/downloads/EGHN_Access%20Review%20Hestercombe%20Gardens.pdf]The site also includes a 0.08
hectare biological Site of Special Scientific Interest in Somerset, notified in 2000. The site is used as a roost site byLesser Horseshoe Bat s.The house was used as the headquarters of the British 8th Corps in the Second World War, and has been owned by
Somerset County Council since 1951. It is used as an administrative centre and a base for theSomerset Fire and Rescue Service .House
The house is a
Grade II * [cite web | title=Hestercombe House | work=Images of England | url=http://www.imagesofengland.org.uk/search/details.aspx?id=270556 | accessdate=2007-03-03] Listed Country House which was originally built in the 16th century for the Warre family.Richard Warre (-1601) bequeathed it to his son Roger who married Elinor, daughter of SirJohn Popham . [Douglas Walthew Rice, "The Life And Achievements Of Sir John Popham, 1531-1607" 2005]The house was enlarged and altered in the 18th century, but this work is no longer visible beneath the refronting and enlargement works carried out around 1875 for
Edward Portman, 1st Viscount Portman , who had acquired it in 1873. The house remained in the Portman family until 1944.The house today appears an assemblage of several architectural styles popular during the
Victorian era . While the overall design and air could be described as Italianate, also present in the same entrancefacade are examples of high Victorian Gothic, such as an Italianateseigneurial tower confused in design with acampanile tower. This tower complete with a glazedloggia is crowned by a French-stylemansard roof with oversized chimneys masquerading as Renaissance ornament. The centre piece of the same facade is aporte-cochere designed in a heavy neoclassical style.A visitor centre opened in the Victorian stables in 2005. Most of the cost of the conversion was funded by a grant from
Heritage Lottery Fund .World War II
During the early years of
World War II , the house and gardens were used by theBritish Army as part of the headquarters for the 8th Corps, which was formed to command the defence of Somerset,Devon ,Cornwall andBristol . The 8th Corps HQ was at nearbyPyrland Hall , and the Rear HQ established at Hestercombe House, with Personnel and Logistics staff.Hestercombe was the headquarters of the American army 398th General Service Engineer Regiment from July 1943 to April 1944. Eisenhower visited Hestercombe on
18 March 1944 to meet General Gerow and inspect the troops. The Engineers were joined by the 19th District Headquarters of the US Supply Services in July 1943, which stayed until July 1944.Early on
28 March 1944 , a few minutes after midnight, a Junkers Ju88 crashed on the drive to the house after being shot down by cannon fire from ade Havilland Mosquito of No. 219 SquadronRoyal Air Force . [cite web | title=The Army's Part in Hestercombe's History | work=Hestercombe Gardens | url=http://www.hestercombegardens.com/army.htm?section=army | accessdate=2007-03-03]Hestercombe was the American
801 Hospital Centre afterD-Day until the end of the war. [cite web | title=The Army's Part in Hestercombe's History | work=Hestercombe Gardens | url=http://www.hestercombegardens.com/army.htm?section=army | accessdate=2007-03-03]A total of 33 barrack huts (various
Nissen hut s,Romney hut s and MOWB (Ministry of Works Brick) huts) were constructed at Hestercombe during the war. Many were demolished in the 1960s by the Crown Estate, and only one is left standing, in Rook Wood.Gardens
When the house and gardens were inherited by Coplestone Warre Bampfylde (1720-1791) in the 18th century, a Georgian landscape garden was laid out, containing ponds, a grand cascade, a gothick alcove, a Tuscan temple arbour (1786), [Colvin's date.] a mausoleum, and a rustic "witch house". Bampfylde, an amateur architect of talent, designed a Doric temple for the grounds, 1786. [
Howard Colvin , "A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects, 1600-1840" 3rd ed. (Yale University Press), 1995: sub "Coplestone Warre Bampfylde"] A Victorian formal parterre was added near the house byHenry Hall in the 1870s. A new 1.5 hectare [cite web|url=http://www.parksandgardens.ac.uk/index.php?option=com_parksandgardens&task=site&id=1705|title=Hestercombe, Taunton, England|work=Parks & Gardens UK|publisher=Parks and Gardens Data Services Limited (PGDS)|accessdate=2008-09-17] An Edwardian garden was laid out byGertrude Jekyll andEdwin Lutyens between 1904 and 1906 for the Hon E.W.B. Portman. [cite web | title=Garden walls, paving and steps on the South front of Hestercombe House | work=Images of England | url=http://www.imagesofengland.org.uk/search/details.aspx?id=270558 | accessdate=2007-03-03; Jane Brown, "Gardens of a Golden Afternoon" (1982), pp 15, 78, 83-5, 179, 184, 186.] Lutyens also designed the orangery about 50 m east of the main housecite book |title=Portrait of the Quantocks |last=Waite |first=Vincent |authorlink= |coauthors= |year=1964 |publisher=Robert Hale |location=London |isbn=0709111584 |pages= ] between 1904–1909, which is now Grade I listed, [cite web | title=Orangery, about 50 metres East of Hestercombe House | work=Images of England | url=http://www.imagesofengland.org.uk/search/details.aspx?id=270557 | accessdate=2007-03-03] as are the garden walls, paving and steps on the south front of the house. [cite web | title=Garden walls, paving and steps on the South front of Hestercombe House | work=Images of England | url=http://www.imagesofengland.org.uk/search/details.aspx?id=270558 | accessdate=2007-03-03]Since October 2003, the landscape and gardens, extending to over 100 acres, have been managed by the Hestercombe Gardens Trust, a charity set up to restore and preserve this site with a
Heritage Lottery Fund grant of £3.7M.The gardens featured on
BBC TV's "Gardens Through Time " series, and cover more than 40 acres and with three different styles of garden ranging from woodland walks to lakes and ponds to formal gardens. The Georgian landscape, Victorian shrubbery and terrace and the formal Edwardian gardens combine to createbiodiversity and interest for visitors.Biological Site of Special Scientific Interest
Infobox SSSI
name=Hestercombe House
aos=Somerset
interest=Biological
gridref=gbmappingsmall|ST242287
area=0.08hectare
notifydate=2000http://www.natureonthemap.org.uk/map.aspx?
] The site is used by
Lesser Horseshoe Bat s "(Rhinolophus hipposideros)" as both a breeding and wintering roost site. Numbers of Lesser Horseshoes at this site are only exceeded by one other site in Southwest England. The bats use roofspaces in a former stable block as a maternity site. [cite web | title=citation sheet for Hestercombe House | work=English Nature | url=http://www.english-nature.org.uk/citation/citation_photo/2000424.pdf | accessdate=2007-03-03] It has been designated as aSpecial Area of Conservation (SAC). [cite web | title=Hestercombe House | work=Joint NatureConservation Committee| url=http://www.jncc.gov.uk/protectedsites/SACselection/sac.asp?EUCode=UK0030168 | accessdate=2007-03-03]References
External links
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DMrbOJP75o YouTube video] — commemoration of WW2 activity, views of gardens.
* [http://www.hestercombegardens.com/ Hestercombe Gardens]
* [http://www.hestercombehouse.co.uk/ Hestercombe House]
* [http://www.parksandgardens.ac.uk/component/option,com_parksandgardens/task,site/id,1705/tab,description/Itemid,292/ Parks & Gardens UK: Hestercombe, Taunton, England] Bibliography.
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