Plaster of paradise

Recent restoration and revival offers the perfect opportunity for a reappraisal of this house and its magnificent plasterwork interiors.

- Roger White

INVISIBLE as it is from public roads, Downton Hall to the north of Ludlow —not to be confused with nearby Downton Castle—has long been one of England’s mystery houses. Its position seems to have been chosen with an unerring eye to the view and the red-brick building (Fig 1) enjoys a splendid vista east across a broad valley to the distinctive profile of Titterstone Clee Hill. When it was last written up for COUNTRY LIFE in 1917, H. Avray Tipping gave appropriate prominence to the splendid Music Room (Fig 4), one of the most remarkable interiors of its period in the West Midlands, but, in the second part of the 20th century, the house disappeared completely from the public eye. Recent restoration and the progress of architectural scholarship into what is quite a complex history make a revisitation timely.

The way in which the owners of Downton changed their names repeatedly through successive generations is more than usually confusing, but helps to explain how the estate was progressively consolidated. In the late 17th century, it was divided between no fewer than four families: Hall, Shepherd, Pearce and Wredenhall. In 1726, the wealthy, but childless lawyer Serjeant William Hall left his estate to his nephew William Shepherd, who took the name Hall, but died unmarried in 1731. His fortune passed to his sister Elizabeth, who had married Wredenhall Pearce; as the latter’s mother, Anne Wredenhall, was the heiress to the Downton element, so, on her death in 1731, the component parts of the core of the current estate were united and the scene was set for the building of a commensurate house to supersede the assorted minor homes of the various components.