The Gardens at Stoneleigh Abbey

The Gardens at Stoneleigh Abbey

In the early nineteenth century, reflecting the changing taste for ‘Picturesque’ ideas, Stoneleigh became the focus of improvements which were to provide an exceptional example of landscape design in this style. Humphry Repton considered the estate as one of his more important commissions as shown in his Red Book for the Abbey. The current landscape reflects not only Repton’s work but also that of a series of designers, includng C.S. Smith, W.A. Nesfield and Percy Cane.

The park and gardens at Stoneleigh reveal a long history of landscaping undertaken over four centuries at the behest of the Leigh family. As early as 1154 a group of hermits, recently converted to the Cistercian order, petitioned the king to allow them to transfer their home from Radmore in Staffordshire to the manor of Stoneleigh in Arden. The site chosen for the original abbey complex was situated on one of the meandering loops of the Avon which forms the boundary with the adjacent parish of Ashow, also part of the Stoneleigh estate.

In 1640 Thomas Lord Leigh obtained a license to empark 800 acres at Stoneleigh, the first stage in the formation of the deer park which exists today. The early park measured only 320 acres and focused on the lands between Stareton and Stoneleigh and it was not until the mid-nineteenth century that the park was to reach the size described in the 1640 license.

Improvements to the gardens commenced when Edward, the fifth Lord Leigh, came of age in 1763. Educated at Oriel College, Oxford, Edward took his seat in the House of Lords in 1764. He had great plans for both the house and grounds and accounts for the period show vast expenditure on both the interior and environs of the Abbey. There are details of planting ordered from John Whittingham’s nursery at Charterhouse near Coventry as part of the restoration of the walled garden. The south front with its lawned embankments falling to the meandering river, is shown clearly in a survey of about 1770.

Samuel Ireland in his book, Picturesque Views of the Avon, published in 1795, describes the full charm and unchanged quality of Stoneleigh Abbey:

The situation of this abbey is truly beautiful: the Avon, winding before the house at a proper distance, supplies the corn and fulling mills, whose distant sound aided by the rushing waters falling from the stream, contribute in no small degree to render a complete landscape delicious to a reflecting and contemplative mind.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert visited Stoneleigh on 14-16 June 1858. The Queen had come to Warwickshire to open the People’s Park at Aston and her reception at Stoneleigh was a brilliant occasion. There was great festivity at Stoneleigh; a great banquet was served and the band of the Second Life Guards was in attendance all evening to entertain the great mass of people who were assembled in the home park. On this occasion not only the old Abbey Gateway was illuminated with coloured lamps, but also all the flower beds and borders in the garden. In a ceremony on the following day the Queen planted an oak and the Prince Consort a Wellingtonia gigantia.

Stoneleigh Abbey is a landscape which in the last two hundred years has benefited from the attention of several of the most significant designers of their time and reflects the continuing care and attention of generations of owners. Since the completion of the restoration programme funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, English Heritage and the European Regional Development Fund in 2001 the management team at Stoneleigh have been slowly bringing the gardens back to life. Under the guidance of Derek Robinson the riverside gardens are again filled with colour and every season more of the walks are opened up for visitors to enjoy.