Introduction
The earlier decades of the eighteenth century, discussed in the previous chapter, saw a greater preoccupation with the aesthetic value of the park. Garden makers such as London and Wise and Stephen Switzer emphasised the importance of the vista, while the introduction of the ha-ha seamlessly incorporated garden and park within the wider estate. The term, 'landscape park' was borrowed from the realm of landscape painting, in particular the work of Claude Lorrain and Nicolas Poussin; but it was not until the latter half of the eighteenth century that it was used to describe any park that had been 'landscaped', and with it emerged the term 'landscape designer' 485. With the advent of the professional landscape designers, William Kent, Capability
Brown, Humphry Repton, and their less well known contemporaries, the second half of the eighteenth century saw the burgeoning of different aesthetic approaches that were not only contentious, but as will become apparent in the following pages, led to public conflict. These styles ranged from the classicism of Kent with his literary references, to what Turner has called the "purist" approach of Brown and his followers, using natural elements as their "sole medium", 486 and in the latter decades of the century to the Picturesque debate engaged
in by Repton.
A preoccupation with the agricultural improvement of the estate had always been the concern of the responsible landowner. But already in the early half of the eighteenth century, Switzer had pointed to the advantage of mixing "the profitable Part of a Country Seat with the Pleasurable, that one may pay the Expense of the other."487 Although the creation of a landscape park was something that only the richest landowners could
aspire to, Gregory has shown that the "visual transformation" of the estate became in the eighteenth century an aspiration that went beyond economic considerations, important though they remained.488 There is therefore a
parallel to be drawn between the agricultural improvements that were being undertaken to increase the productivity and efficiency of the estate at a time of population increase, and the aesthetic improvements introduced in the park. As Tarlow points out, both aspects were an essential preoccupation of the progressive landowner, 489 while Turner suggests that most landowners had more sense than to hand over their entire estate
to purely aesthetic considerations, and goes on to point out that "insofar as the park was useless it displayed the wealth and taste of the owner; insofar as it was useful, it showed his good sense and lack of ostentation".490
In order to uncover the impact of current aesthetic ideas and parallel economic conditions on the survival of the deer park, it will be important to trace their development at a national level from the second half of
485 Fletcher op cit., p.185
486 Turner, R., Capability Brown: and the eighteenth century English landscape, Phillimore repr.2006, p.68 487 Switzer, op cit., Vol III, p.vi
488 Gregory, J., 'Mapping Improvement: reshaping rural landscapes in the eighteenth century", Landscapes 1, 2005, p.63 489 Tarlow, S., The Archaeology of Improvement in Britain, 1750-1850, Cambridge Studies in Archaeology, 2012, p.35 490 Turner, op cit., p.77
145
Fig 91. Upper Works Coalbrookdale, artist unknown, engraving 1758
146
the eighteenth century, and examine to what extent nationally held ideas were adopted in Shropshire. There was one significant area in which Shropshire was already leading the way, and that was in the development of its resources in coal and iron ore.
Shropshire's Industrial Revolution
On the eastern side of Shropshire, a transformation was taking place, which was to become the focus of the nation and change the nature of its economy, thereby impacting on the development of the deer park. The years 1760-1830 saw the emergence and subsequent development of what historians have generally called the Industrial Revolution. In more recent years, however, scholars such as Wrigley have drawn attention to the inappropriateness of juxtaposing the two words "industrial" and "revolution", pointing out that in so doing, "an assumption is created that the process is unitary and progressive", whereas, in his judgment, the changes that were provoked both in agriculture and commerce had been building up over a period of some two centuries. 491
In his more recent book, Energy & the English Industrial Revolution (2010), Wrigley writes that in the 1790s most people were generally unaware of the changes they were living through, with even the greatest economic observers of the time, Adam Smith and Thomas Malthus, passing over the importance that the availability of energy and its use were to have on land management 492.
During the eighteenth century, Shropshire played a leading role in the introduction of new technologies that revolutionised the mining of coal and smelting of iron, moving the focus of not only regional but also national interest to the eastern area of the county in and around Coalbrookdale, where the richest seams of coal were found, close to the banks of the River Severn.493 Due to the fortuitous coincidence of inventors, industrialists,
and entrepreneurs local to the region, the natural resources of this area were used to transform a medieval iron- smelting process dependent on charcoal into the beginnings of a ‘modern’ industry, fuelled first by coke and later by coal. Iron smelting forges needed to be close to supplies of iron ore and also to the water that drove the bellows; while charcoal was expensive to transport and, as Pomeranz has pointed out, could not be transported more than ten to twelve miles without being reduced to dust through the shaking. As a result, coal was essential to the further development of the iron industry.494 Even more significant was its by-product, steam, as "a power
source for more effective water pumps" 495 to drive the new machinery The Newcomen steam engine was
introduced in Shropshire as early as 1712, and became the standard form of pit drainage, enabling mining to be carried out at a much deeper level. But as Wrigley points out, the cost in coal of running the machine was prohibitive except at the pithead where coal was locally produced. Other industries had to await the more economic version introduced by Watt in 1769 before the steam engine could be applied more generally.496
491 Wrigley, E.A., Chance & Change: the character of the Industrial Revolution, Cambridge University Press, 1988, pp.8-12. 492 Wrigley, E.A., Energy & the English Industrial Revolution, Cambridge University Press, 2010, pp.3-4
493 www.secretshropshire.org.uk The east Shropshire coalfield ran from Shifnal in the north to the Wyre Forest in the south. 494 Pomeranz, K., The Great Divergence, Princeton University Press 2000, p.60
495 ibid. p.61
147
Coal had been mined in south east Shropshire since at least the fourteenth century. On the Clee Hills, a six foot seam of coal lying beneath the basalt cap had been mined in a belt of more than 1000 shallow bell pits.497 From 1579, John Brooke of Madeley was employing miners on his estate and selling coal on a large
scale, being among the first to ship it to Worcester. 498 His son, Sir Basil Brooke, was responsible for the
operation of four mines in Madeley, and in the early seventeenth century, when he had been appointed overseer of the royal ironworks in the Forest of Dean, was manufacturing steel, using pig iron from the forest. By the beginning of the eighteenth century the family fortune had been exhausted in "digging and winning coal" and the estate was sold by trustees in 1705.499 By this time the former deer park, last recorded by Morden in 1695, would
surely have been disparked. This was not however the end of Madeley's contribution to the coal industry. In 1756 the Madeley Wood Company was formed, with new furnaces built beside the Severn. Meadow Pit was the main supplier of coal to the Coalbrookdale Company.500 The furnaces - also known as Bedlam Furnaces and depicted
in paintings by de Loutherbourg (1801) and others (Figs 91, 92) - were taken over by Abraham Darby III in 1776, the same year in which the Cranage Bros. of the Coalbrookdale Company were experimenting with the possibility of using coke without charcoal. The success of this experiment meant that forge masters were no longer dependent on woodlands to fuel their industry.501 Although pit props became an increasingly important outlet for
coppice wood, the effects of this change in methods of operation had its effect on the landscape. Whereas, until the eighteenth century, it had been “the presence of trees rather than of iron ore that determined the location of ironworks”,502 gradually, furnaces and forges were built more widely, in those areas where carboniferous rocks
were present. Initially, landowners such as Brooke of Madeley controlled the mining on their land, and were able to operate the pits alongside agriculture. But by the middle of the eighteenth century, they were increasingly handing over responsibility to companies. In 1757, a year after the formation of the Madeley Wood Company, the south eastern part of Willey Old Park was leased to the New Willey Co., in order to develop its coal and ironstone resources. The partners were Brooke Forester, married to George Weld’s daughter and heir Elizabeth, and John Wilkinson, an ironmaster. Stamper suggests that at this point the northern part of Willey Park was cleared of timber, and the wood used to build new furnaces and wagon rails to carry coal and ironstone to the River Severn.503
In order to develop these industries, a large investment in transport was required. Due to the inferior state of the roads prior to the 1750s, the River Severn was the cheapest and best means of transport to export outlets through Bristol. Ashton writes of “trows laden with coal, hollow-ware and nails,...floated down to Bristol
497 Lecture given by Alf Jenkins to Ludlow Historical Society, 6 Nov 2012 498 VCH 2, p.46.
499 Philpotts, C., 'Madeley Court, the Documentary Evidence', Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological & Historical
Society 81, 2006, p.55-6
500 www.wikipedia.org.uk t
501 Ashton, T.S. The Industrial Revolution 1760-1830, OUP repr. 1973,. p.54 502 Ibid. p.31
503 Stamper, P., 'Willey’s Parks: Attitudes, Aspiration, and Exploitation', Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological
148
and dragged back upstream with their cargoes of bar iron, clay, and West Indian produce”.504 The building of
canals, on the other hand, was an expensive venture, largely undertaken by extremely rich landowners such as the Duke of Bridgewater, or by joint venture companies formed by landowners seeking an investment. From 1763, after the end of the Seven Years War, canal building experienced a boom, with the Wolverhampton Canal linking the Midlands to the Severn opening in 1768. Industrialists such as Josiah Wedgwood invested in their construction, the latter sponsoring the Grand Junction Canal of 1777.
Wedgwood was also involved in road improvement 505, a venture that attracted the interest of local
landowners. Although the first Turnpike Act had been introduced in 1663, to enable the turnpiking of the Great North Road, there was no real improvement in Shropshire’s roads until the 1760s, when the majority of turnpike roads in that region were built - Thomas Telford being employed as surveyor on the London-Holyhead road that passed through Shrewsbury. Many industrialists and landowners invested in the Turnpike Trusts, participating actively on the boards that were run by independent individuals, in order to supervise the upgrading of roads and to collect the tolls that were required to maintain them.506 Thus they were able to influence the new routes to their
own advantage, particularly after the Highways Act of 1773 when it became easier for those with influence to divert or even stop up a public highway inconveniently routed through their property. 507 Wrigley has calculated
that between 1690-1840 road usage over long distances by both commercial and private enterprises increased at least two to threefold. 508 The building of roads inevitably impacted on deer parks, sometimes cutting through
them and contributing to their closure. To what extent the deer park survived the changes brought about by industrialisation and improvements in infrastructure will be one of the principal topics explored during the following pages.
Agricultural improvements
While the growth of the iron industry was being enhanced by the requirements of the Seven Years War 1757-1763 (Willey Furnace was principally involved in the production of armaments), the increase in population dating from the middle of the eighteenth century demanded an expansion in arable production. Wrigley has estimated that between 1600-1800 the population of England rose from 4.2 million to 8.7 million while those working on the land fell from c.70% of the population to less than 40%. 509 In the expanding industrial centres in
the vicinity of Shropshire, the population increases were concentrated in towns such as Birmingham and Manchester. 510 Efforts made in the county to raise agricultural production by draining marshland, particularly in
the Weald Moors, and cultivating former wastelands, have already been noted in the previous chapter. In the
504
Stamper, P., 'Willey’s Parks'., op cit. p.35 505 ibid., pp.65-6 506 www.geog.port.ac.uk 507 Gregory, op cit., p.77
508 Wrigley,Energy & the English Industrial Revolution, op cit. p.31 509 ibid. p.33
510 ibid. p.62 In 1700 the population figures were: Birmingham: 8-9,000; Manchester: 8-9,000; whereas in 1750 Birmingham: 24,000 and Manchester: 18,000
149
later eighteenth century, however, the zeal to improve farming methods was driven by what Tarlow has identified as a "moral value and social desirability" that went beyond the concern for economic returns.511
Agricultural improvements, such as marling and the introduction of crops such as turnips, were a feature of the so-called ' agricultural revolution' that led to the prosperity of arable farmers in the eastern counties such as Norfolk, but had much less impact in Shropshire where pasture and stock raising still
predominated. As already noted, the northern plains had provided grazing for cattle since the Middle Ages, while sheep had flourished on the southern hills, and timber and coppice had provided building material, firewood, and eventually pit props. Shropshire had never grown arable crops on the scale that was seen in Eastern England. Nevertheless, knowledge of the new methods gradually spread throughout the country, through farmers’ clubs and journals such as The Farmer’s Magazine (1776) and The Farmer’s Journal (1806), with the result that different regions became more specialised, with the Midlands concentrating on cattle and horses. Between 1790- 1812 wheat prices outstripped the price of oak, leading to the felling of many mature trees that were needed to build ships to serve in the French Wars, during which a field of wheat was, according to Daniels, considered a “patriotic spectacle”; 512 while Tarlow writes, "to maximise the potential of the earth, i.e. its capacity to provide for
the needs of Man, was not only economic optimalisation, but also a religious and moral duty".513
However, landowners both new and old had to accept the “idea of progress” before changes in the management of the countryside could be expected.514 Most probably still believed in the value of tradition.
Some, possibly only a small minority in Shropshire, would have read the writings of Horace Walpole and Thomas Whately, and became engaged in the aesthetic debate that characterised the second half of the eighteenth century. Even if the controversy surrounding the landscapes of Capability Brown and his followers escaped the notice of many of the local landowners, there was nevertheless an interest in the aesthetic improvement of gardens and wider estates. While Brown commanded fees that were beyond the reach of all but the richest landowners, the landscape designer William Emes was considered an acceptable substitute. But the hilly, wooded, rock strewn landscape of much of southern Shropshire did not in any case offer the ideal terrain for a Brownian landscape, and it is not surprising that the aesthetics of Humphry Repton and the Picturesque Movement found particular favour in that region. The debate on the nature of the Picturesque and the Sublime, promoted as it was by two local squires and neighbours, Uvedale Price and Richard Payne Knight; was significant in determining the future development of the ‘park’ in Shropshire. In the following pages, the survival of the park will be examined within the context of both aesthetic and agricultural ‘improvements’, in order to discover what became of the deer park and the deer.
511 Tarlow, op cit. p.35
512 Daniels, S., ‘The Political Iconography of Woodland in later Georgian Engand’ in The Iconography of Landscape, Cambridge 1988, p.48
513
Tarlow, op cit., p.36 514 Daniels, op cit., p.46
150
Cartographic evidence
As in the preceding chapter, county and estate maps continue to be an important research tool. Until the establishment of the Ordnance Survey at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the county map was still the product of private enterprise. 515 This accounts for a marked difference in the quality and reliability of the various
maps. All were dependent on a series of processes guided by relative skills, local knowledge, and financial security. In the first place, not all surveyors were professionals and as instruments became more accurate, not all could afford the £125 that was the estimated cost of equipment for a surveyor by the end of the eighteenth century.516 Whereas Saxton had employed a method known as “survey by traverse”, literally pacing out roads
and tracks, those surveys undertaken after 1750 were largely based on trigonometrical methods, which, when accompanied by new tools, constituted something of a cartographic revolution. The new technique involved establishing a level baseline and using a theodolite to measure distances between intervisible high points.517 In
Shropshire, the main points of reference were the Wrekin and the Clee Hills. Once the surveyor had gathered his information, which in the case of a county map might take several years, the material was passed on to a draftsman whose job it was to edit the information and transfer it to a copper plate. During this part of the process, certain features of the landscape may well have been lost. However, the decision as to what was eventually published, the numbers and quality of the map, rested with the publishers who in most cases were based in London. Copper plates were very expensive, and were consequently used as many times as possible - at a rough estimate, between several hundred and several thousand prints might be taken. Demand for maps varied from one region to another, but sales initially depended on a subscription list, composed of local gentry, clergy, industrialists, and sometimes booksellers, who were required to pay something in the region of two guineas in advance to ensure publication.518
County maps were produced as single sheets or bound into folios or atlases; more expensive versions were folded and mounted on linen or occasionally on canvas with rollers. In order to encourage the wealthier subscribers, coats of arms were sometimes displayed and the names of property owners inserted on the map. These subscribers demanded a high level of accuracy, not only in the depiction of their properties but also in that of such features as roads of various sorts. Unfortunately, this sometimes led to the depiction of parks that had