Wallington Hall and Gardens: the Fenwicks & the Blacketts, who owned it; ‘England’s Greatest Gardener – Capability Brown’.
What You’ll Hear
- 1:23: The Fenwick family
- 1:44: The Blackett family
- 2:18: Walter Calverley Blackett
- 2:31: Capability Brown
- 4:06: Coming next on the podcast
Listen to the Episode
When we were very little, my parents had a National Trust membership. We didn’t tend to go very far, usually having day trips at some of the stately homes local to us. One of my favourites, which my grandparents also enjoyed visiting, was Wallington Hall.
While the grownups liked the extensive gardens, both for the beautiful floral displays and for their ability to wear out my excitable brother, I preferred the Hall itself. I liked wandering through the rooms, and particularly the doll house collection.
Wallington Hall
The estate was first owned by the Fenwick family, who lived there from 1475. The ancient family had their family seat at Matfen, also Northumberland, from the 12th century. A baronetcy was created for Sir John Fenwick in 1628, and he and the next two generations of Fenwicks sat as MPs. Unfortunately, the family ran out money not long afterwards.
Wallington Hall was then bought the wealthy Blackett family, who were mining and shipping magnates. Patriarch Sir William Blackett purchased it in 1688 to turn into a country retreat. The pele tower was demolished, and the new building was constructed with shooting parties in mind.
Although it served as a rough and ready country bolthole, the Blackett family were nevertheless generous hosts – William’s son, also William, employed six men whose sole job it was to carry drunk guests to their rooms. When he died, he left the estate to his nephew Walter Calverley, on the condition that he marry William’s illegitimate daughter and take the family name.
The new Sir Walter Calverley Blackett began a series of renovation works in the house and grounds. He employed Capability Brown, who also designed the original garden at Alnwick Castle, to design pleasure grounds at nearby Rothley Lake.
Capability Brown
Capability Brown, real name Lancelot, has been described as ‘England’s Greatest Gardener.’ He was born in 1716, in a village not far from Wallington Hall, and educated at a local school. His eldest brother was a land surveyor and married the daughter of Sir William – presumably the one who bought the estate from the Fenwicks.
Capability was head gardener’s apprentice in the kitchen garden at Kirkharle Hall, where his parents had both worked, until he was 23.
He then spent some time in the south, where he worked Wotton Underwood House in Buckinghamshire and then at Stowe. He created an abstract composition of landform and woodland there, which was given the name ‘Greek Valley.’
Capability soon became a highly-sought-after landscape gardener, transforming country house estates across the country and his designs were the height of fashion.
He favoured sweeping lawns which ran right to the doors of the house, serpentine lakes which he filled by damming rivers and clumps of trees.
The idea was to make a more naturalistic style, doing away with the formality of earlier times, which unsurprisingly earned him some criticism. Landowner Sir Uvedale Price, who had very particular ideas about landscapes, described his trees as like: “so many puddings turned out of one common mould”.
Still, he had plenty of admirers willing to pay him staggering sums for the time. He also dabbled in architecture, although this work was overshadowed by his landscaping skills.
Even when building houses, the garden was the focal point. And the nickname? He was known as ‘Capability’ because he told his customers that their property had ‘capability’ for improvement.
This episode was inspired by a blog post I wrote for the Time Pieces History Project about doll houses, which mentioned Wallington Hall.
In this episode I also mentioned season two, episode five of the podcast: Alnwick Castle.
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