12. THE SHUGBOROUGH FOLLIES
Eight magnificent follies and a 'Da Vinci Code' mystery of international ramifications are the theme of this easy perambulation around the grounds of Shugborough Hall, ancestral home of Lord Lichfield.
Getting There: Follow A51/A513 from Rugeley to Stafford, passing along the northern edge of Cannock Chase. Turn right onto a drive signed 'Shugborough Plant Centre', which bears right, then left over the railway. Just beyond, turn right into the Farm carpark. Alternatively (If you miss the entrance), proceed further along the main road to the main entrance gates. Passing the lodges, follow the one way system through the woods for about half a mile, entering parkland by Hadrians Arch. At the first junction, beyond a cattle grid, bear right, following the exit drive past the farm and the Tower of the Winds. Turn left into the Farm Carpark (free). (NB. if you wish to park at the House, there is a £1.50 charge.)
Distance: 1.5 miles. (easy!)
Map ref: SJ 990 220 Landranger Sheet 127 Stafford & Telford.
Rating: Walk * Follies and General Interest ****
Additional Information:
Shugborough is jointly administered by Staffordshire County Council and the National Trust. There is free parking at the farm but there is a charge (currently £1.50) for parking at the house, along with admission charges to the farm, museum and hall. However, park, gardens and follies may be freely explored by everyone. The reception area and museum is housed in the former stable block, where there is a cafeteria, NT shop and toilets with excellent baby changing facilities.
NOTE: Throughout the summer Shugborough plays host to numerous fetes, festivals and events, and it is wise to check what is on and when before visiting the park.
Shugborough Park was the work of two brothers, one an Admiral whose meteoric rise to wealth and fame made it all possible, but who never lived there, the other his bachelor brother, to whose taste and sense of style we may attribute much of what we see today. Admiral Lord George Anson, was a sailor with an illustrious career. In June 1744, his ship, the Centurion, arrived at Spithead, after a three year voyage around the globe which had seen all manner of adventures and battles. He had visited China, led the capture and sack of Parita on the Coast of Santa Fe, which had netted him of #30,000 worth of Spanish Treasure. In June 1743 he intercepted and captured the Acapulco treasure ship the Nuestra Senora de Covadonga, which yielded over £400,000 of treasure, and it was the Captains share of the prize money that established the Anson family fortune.
The Admirals' elder brother Thomas led a far less hectic life! His main aim in life was the creation of a country seat which he could enjoy in the grand manner to which, (thanks to the sudden rise in his brother's fortunes) he was becoming increasingly accustomed! He inherited Shugborough from his father in 1720, and lived there until his death in 1773. A bachelor, and a man of taste, he devoted his life to building, planting and collecting works of art. The former village of Shugborough he gradually removed and turned into parkland, turning its millpond into a lake with an ornamental pagoda (now demolished). Further development took place at Shugborough after 1789, When Viscount Anson (Thomas Anson II) employed architect Samuel Wyatt to reconstruct the house and the park. Wyatt was also responsible for most of the the lodges and farm buildings. It is the combined efforts of thes men that have resulted in the fine house, gardens and park we see today.
The follies and garden ornaments of Shugborough are numerous and fascinating, and, with the exception of 'The Ruins', and the 'Chinese House', all are derived from pictures in a book! That book was The Antiquities of Athens by James 'Athenian' Stuart, the first volume of which was published in 1762. James Stuart, along with his friend, Nicholas Revett, had spent almost three years in Athens, surveying its major classical ruins. In 1732, The Society of Dilettanti, an organisation dedicated to the rediscovery of classical heritage, had been formed, with Thomas and Admiral Anson as founder members, and it was funding and support from this Society that had assisted Stuart and Revett when they arrived in Greece in 1751. When the first volume of Antiquities of Athens came out in 1762, both Thomas and Admiral Anson subscribed to it, and it was through Thomas Ansons subsequent association with 'Athenian' Stuart that the bulk of Shugborough's follies came to be built.
Our perambulation starts from the farm car park. Turn right onto the drive which leads towards the house, passing the pond and farm buildings on the left. Just beyond, standing adjacent to Park farm,which may be inspected more closely if you walk through the farm garden, is the Tower of the Winds.
Designed by 'Athenian' Stuart and built by Charles Cope Trubshaw of Haywood, the Tower of the Winds is a copy of the Horlogium of Andronikos Cyrrhestes in Athens and was probably completed around 1765, just after the old village of Shugborough had been gradually removed to make way for it. (It was not the first building of its kind, as another Temple of The Winds had been built by Stuart's partner Revett at West Wycombe in 1759.) The original Horlogium on which the tower was modelled was essentially the ancient Greek equivalent of a public clock tower with blank walls and mounted sundials. It had a frieze with sculptured reliefs depicting the winds and no windows, being engraved in Volume I of Stuart's Antiquities of Athens. Stuarts' copy at Shugborough was accurate but also different, having windows on the sides and no sculptured frieze panels, (although panels are shown in a contemporary watercolour by Moses Griffith, along with a crowning statue, of which there is now no trace.) The tower originally stood in a pool at the end of a lake, facing a Palladian bridge and a wooden pagoda, all of which has long since disappeared, leaving the tower high and dry!
The interior has recently been renovated by the National Trust. The lower room originally contained the centaurs which now stand in the main entrance hall of the house. Around 1805 the two lower rooms were converted into a dairy for Lady Anson by Samuel Wyatt. Round the sides were constructed marble shelves for the milk pans and pots, and the basement room was used as a 'scalding room' for washing dairy utensils, being lined with Penrhyn slate. Accessed by a spiral staircase, Stuart's 'Banqueting Hall' is on the first floor, wonderfully restored to its original splendour. Its original fireplace has been replaced, but its crowning glory is the magnificent coffered ceiling which is based on a design of one reputed to have existed in Nero's 'Golden House'in ancient Rome.
The victorians stripped out much of the original decor of the tower and in World War two a large army camp was constructed over the southern half of the park, the structure suffering some vandalism as a result, but mercifully it has weathered the storm of time, and now fully restored, faces a protected and rosy future.
Just beyond the Temple, the drive forks, do not head towards the house, but instead take the right fork, following the drive over parkland towards the River Trent at Essex Bridge. Before reaching Essex Bridge, turn left onto the drive leading to the hall, then first right into the gardens. Now the follies come in rapid succession. The path bears left along the southern bank of the river Sow. A short distance along, on the left, we encounter our second folly, The Shepherd's Monument.
The Shepherd's Monument though not especially imposing in itself, is by far the most fascinating and tantalising structure at Shugborough, reflecting as it does a mystery of a most baffling and potentially explosive nature. It is not my intention here to pursue this enigma at great length as its ramifactions involve many nations and span centuries of obscure history and deliberately contrived mystification, but I will try to cover the tale as simply as I can.
The story, as it stands today, begins not in the remote past, but in 1885, when a young curÑ by the name of Berenger Sauniere was appointed parish priest of the ramshackle and windswept village of Rennes Le Chateau, located high above the Aude valley in the foothills of the Pyrenees. Not long after Saunieres' arrival, his bellringer found a phial containing a parchment in an old wooden pillar, and this in turn led Sauniere to the discovery of yet further scrolls hidden in an altar stone. These scrolls, it transpired, had been placed there by the AbbÑ Antoine Bigou, one of Saunieres predecessors in the 18th century, and alluded to information that had been entrusted to him by the Lady d'Hautpoul De Blanchefort, the last of her line and the custodian of a great secret that had been passed down in her family from generation to generation. What that secret was is unknown, but not long after discovering the scrolls Sauniere, assisted by his faithful housekeeper embarked upon all manner of nocturnal comings and goings which involved secret digging and the effacing of inscriptions from certain tombstones. Suddenly he became fabulously rich, spending profligately, rebuilding his church in a weirdly esoteric style and building a sumptuous residence, along with mysterious follies and monuments all around the area! He travelled to Paris, was feted by the wealthy and famous and at his death large numbers of mysterious people came to pay their last respects as his body sat in state in an upright chair! His housekeeper, Marie Denarnaud was also party to the secret of Rennes Le Chateau, but she died in 1953, aged 85, without revealing anything.
What did Sauniere uncover? There are many theories. Some say it was the the lost Treasure of Jerusalem which is depicted on the Arch of Titus in Rome, being plundered from the Jewish Holy of Holies. This was in turn plundered from Rome by the Visigoths, who are known to have taken it to the vicinity of Carcassonne. Another theory, (tantalisingly suggested by the centrepiece of the Altar in Sauniere's church ) is that Sauniere uncovered nothing less than the Holy Grail itself. Of course the involvement of the Grail in the picture opens up a whole can of allegorical worms! It is well known that the Grail was a symbolic receptacle for the wine (ie blood) of Jesus, and it has been suggested by some scholars that 'San Graal' is corrupted from 'Sang Real' ie- 'Blood Royal'. This has led to the proposition that what Sauniere uncovered at Rennes Le Chateau, was rather more than a mere treasure, but rather a well kept religious secret of explosive implications! It is not for me to support or deny the truth of this proposition, but Sauniere is alleged to have discovered nothing less than proof that the crucifixion was a fraud, that Jesus was married to the Magdalene with Lazarus as a brother in law, and that the 'Wedding At Cana' was his own! Even more shattering is the suggestion that Jesus was in fact no mere 'carpenters son' but quite literally 'King of the Jews' by virtue of bloodline and ancestral right, and that this bloodline has extended via the Merovingian Kings of France and the descendents of the House of Lorraine right down to the present day!!
It seems that some of what Sauniere uncovered at Rennes Le Chateau had never been totally lost in the first place and has been common knowledge to an initiated elite for centuries, ever since the crusades when Godfroi De Bouillon, (who is depicted in one portrait wearing the crown of thorns!) captured Jerusalem for Christendom and established a religious order known as The PrieurÑ of Sion. It is this order, originally associated with the Templars, but latterly a secret society working behind the facade of Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry, that has alternately illuminated and mystified as has suited its purpose, but always acting in the interests of this 'very special bloodline'.
Where, You will now be asking, does Shugborough fit into all this? Well it seems virtually certain that Thomas Anson was in some way party to the secret of Rennes Le Chateau. He travelled widely, and it is known he spent time in both Jerusalem and the Aude district of the Pyrenees. As a founder of the Society of Dilettanti, ostensibly established in 1732 for the encouragement of classical art, he was almost certainly involved in masonic activities and other secret societies which were very much the rage among the landed gentry of the eighteenth century.
But surely the Lichfields needed rather more than a masons apron to be let in to such an elite club as the PrieurÑ of Sion? The answer to this question appears to lie with a Jacobite rebel by the name of Charles Radclyffe, who when he escaped from Newgate Prison in 1714, was aided by his cousin, George Lee, the Earl of Lichfield. Both Radclyffe and Lee were illegitimate descendents of Charles II and relatives to Bonnie Prince Charlie, who in turn were descended from Mary of Guise, who belonged to a branch of the House of Lorraine. Was it a co-incidence that in 1715, when in exile, James III, the 'Old Pretender' dwelt in France under the protection of the Duke of Lorraine? It would seem that the Lichfields, albeit distantly, were connected in some way with 'the bloodline', and it has been suggested that Radclyffe was in fact a Grand Master of the PrieurÑ of Sion.
Of course all this could be dismissed as mere speculation. What cannot be dismissed however is Thomas Ansons indisputable connection with Rennes Le Chateau, for here in front of your very eyes stands proof of that connection. The Shepherd's Monument was probably built around 1750, being designed by Thomas Wright. Wright published his Six Original Designs For Arbours in 1755, and the Arch of the Shepherd's Monument appears to be based on one of these designs, the surrounding columns and crestings probably being added by Stuart around 1763.
But these are mere embellishments, being but a surround for the magnificent marble relief that forms the centrepiece of the whole monument. Carved by Peter Scheemakers, it is based on an engraving of the painting by Nicolas Poussin - "Les Bergers d'Arcadie", reversed mirror fashion. 'Les Bergers d'Arcadie was painted by Poussin in around 1642, and was in turn derived from an earlier painting on the same theme 'Et in Arcadia Ego' which he painted in 1630. The painter Guercino also used this theme in a painting of c. 1618. To say that 'Les Bergers d'Arcadie' is a curious painting is putting it mildly! The hidden geometry of the painting forms a Star of David, which just happens to be the coat of arms of Rennes Le Chateau! But there is more to it than this. The actual Sarcophagus which is depicted in the picture was, until it was vandalised a few years ago, located near Arques, six miles from Rennes Le Chateau, and three from the Chateau De Blanchefort. Rennes Le Chateaus' hilltop is visible in the background of Poussin's picture. Furthermore, a slab from this sarcophagus, engraved with 'Et in Arcadia Ego' in Greek letters was laid on the grave of the Lady d'Hautpoul De Blanchefort' by Berenger Sauniere's 18th century predecessor.
Beneath the Scheemakers relief is carved an inscription that has long baffled scholars:-
O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V.
D. M.
But what does it all add up to? At a superficial level it would seem to be merely an elegaic image, announcing the sombre prescence of death even in the sylvan paradise of Arcadia. Guercino's picture on this theme depicts a grinning skull on the sarcophagus, and this idea of a skull in an arcadian landscape is also present in Saunieres' 19th century altar frieze at Rennes Le Chateau depicting Mary Magdalene. Curiously, in the 17th century a skull and crossbones on a grave usually denoted the last resting place of a master mason! Translated the inscription on the tomb makes little sense:- "And in Arcadia I....." There is no verb- the sentence is unfinished. The implication is that it was deliberately done like this to to ensure the right number and combination of letters. One possible explanation is that it is an anagram. Recently a clever individual scrambled the letters and got:-
I TEGO ARCANA DEI - 'Begone! I conceal secrets of God!'
Suitably illuminated, mystified and intimidated we continue along the path, which bears to the right. Just before reaching the Chinese House, turn right over the iron footbridge and bear left then right through the undergrowth to The Cat's Monument.
The Cat's Monument stands on the eastern end of what is effectively an island between two the old and new channels of the River Sow. The reasons for its construction remain obscure. One theory is that the monument commemorates a cat which accompanied Admiral Anson on his famous voyage around the world in HMS Centurion. The other theory is that Thomas Anson was a cat lover who kept a breed of persian moggies! When the famous botanist, Sir Joseph Banks visited in 1768 he noted that of his friend's cats 'but one is now left, all the rest having died of distemper'. Thomas also kept a herd of Corsican goats, presumed representations of which may also be seen around the base of vase. The coade stone tablet on the front of the monument would appear also to tie in with the 'persian cats' theory, as Mrs Coade began to produce her famous artificial stone in 1769, a year after Bank's visit. The NT guidebook however, completely disagrees with all this, stating that the monument dates from around 1749, and was designed by Thomas Wright, the coadstone tablet being added later. (Which would give credence to the Centurion's cat hypothesis.) Whatever the case we are informed that the pair of griffins flanking the vase originate from an engraving in Antoine Desgodetz's Les Edifices Antiques De Rome, published in Paris in 1682. It would seem that follies have the power to bamboozle laymen and experts alike!
From the Cat's Monument, retrace your steps over the footbridge back to The Chinese House. This is probably Thomas Anson's oldest garden ornament, being completed around 1747. The design for this pavilion was derived from sketches made by Sir Piercy Brett, who served under Admiral Anson on the Centurion when he visited Canton in 1743. It is believed to be the earliest 'Chinese' building in Britain. It was originally painted blue and white, but now only the colour scheme of the interior remains faithful to the original. And the interior is delightful! Red laquered fretwork, gilt monkeys and a pale green canopy. In its heyday it must have been even more magnificent, being built specifically to house furnishings brought all the way from China, but in 1895 its plaster ceiling, mirrors, chairs, tables and porcelain were moved into the house for safekeeping.
Now continue along the gravel path following the river bank until a path appears on the left, leading into gardens. It bears right, then, meeting another path turn left up the side of the house. On your left, surrounded by lawns and hedges is the Doric Temple.
This charming (and tiny) Doric Temple was almost certainly designed by James 'Athenian' Stuart. It, along with a similar temple designed by him at Hagley Hall in 1758, is based on the yet another Greek original, the Temple of Hephaistos, better known as the Theseion, which dates from 449-444 B.C. and crowns the hill overlooking the Agora in Athens. The Shugborough Temple however, is open to the portico, which makes it little more than a garden alcove. Its portico is described as being hexastyle (which is a posh way of saying it has six columns!) The Doric Temple is architecturally important as it is believed one of the earliest buildings of the Greek Revival style.
Retrace your steps to the riverside path. By the river, immediately behind the hall and gardens stand 'The Ruins'. These were originally far more extensive, and included a gothic pigeon cote. Essentially the folly is made from bits of the old house and fragments from the demolished Bishops Palace of Lichfield. This re-use of older materials was a common enough practice in the construction of garden ornaments. The Bear Pit at Wentworth (South Yorks) for example is constructed from similar cannibalised masonry. On the opposite bank of the river once stood a classical colonnade modelled on the Temple of Saturn in the Roman Forum, but this probably disappeared in 1795, when there was a great flood.
Continue along the Ladies Walk a short distance, then turn left towards the main carpark, passing the stable block on your left. (The path which continues along the riverbank seems inviting enough, but it quickly terminates at an iron bridge adorned with 'private' signs).
The Stable Block contains Shugborough's reception area. There are excellent toilets, a cafe, an information centre, a National Trust Shop and a museum..
One item of interest is a stone with a ring in it, to which bulls were once tied to be baited by Staffordshire bull terriers!
On reaching the far side of the car park, turn right over parkland, following the car park's perimeter fence. Soon, another fence ahead forces you to veer diagonally left towards the entrance drive, where you pass through a gate & stile. Liberated into open parkland once more, bear right, asscending a gently sloping ridge under trees, to arrive at the Lanthorn of Demosthenes perched upon its grassy knoll. Another of Stuart's Athenian copies, it was built between 1764 and 1771 and apes the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates in Athens, (the original Lanthorn was erected in the fourth century B.C. to support a trophy won in a Dionysian festival). The bowl of the monument was originally made of Wedgewood Black Basalt ware, but this and the supporting tripod were replaced in fibreglass in 1965. A similar monument may also be found not too far distant at Alton Towers (see Appendix). From the Lanthorn, cross the entrance drive, then make an indistinct but obvious beeline over parkland to The Triumphal Arch.
The Triumphal Arch is the most prominent of Shugborough's follies, and the view over the park is extensive. This was probably the first of 'Athenian' Stuarts ornaments to be built here. It is a reproduction of the Arch of Hadrian in Athens and was constructed around 1761. Not long afterwards Admiral Anson died, and the Arch was dedicated to the Memory of the great man and his wife.
The upper stage of the Arch contains two cenotaphs supporting busts of Lord Anson and his wife, while the centre contains an Aplustre, or martial trophy carved by Peter Scheemakers in 1769. This comprises of the stern of a ship with ornaments intended to represent the 'spoils of war'. In the spandrels are medallions of Neptune and Minerva establishing naval discipline. The arch had been completed sometime before this, as the mason carved the capping on the top of the monument with his name 'Richard Gillert 1766'.
From the Arch, follow the edge of the fence on the right for a short distance, to where a stile offers access to the adjacent field. Cross the field to a gate in the woodland perimeter opposite, beyond which a grassy track (the start of the woodland walk) leads left to join the exit drive. (where you came in!) Bear left, and follow the drive past White Barn Farm and over the railway back to the farm car park.
