Detail of Piercefield Mansion and Park, G. Eyre Brooks c. 1840. (© Chepstow Museum)

These days Garden visiting is a popular pastime but actually it has been so since at least the 18thc  and one of the earliest estates to become a tourist attraction in its own right  is Piercefield, which stands above the river Wye near Chepstow in Monmouthshire.  Largely dating from the mid-18thc century and often described a “picturesque” or “sublime” landscape it’s  had a very chequered ownership and history  but  featured in all the early guide books as a must-see site.  As a result visitors flocked to visit, and they still do even though the house is now in a state of complete ruin and the grounds a shadow of their former selves…

View on the Wye, Thomas Hearne,undated late 18thc, © The Trustees of the British Museum

Valentine Morris  II(1727-1789), by Alan Ramsey , sold by Christies 2017 fro $17,500

Although there has been a house on the site since the mediaeval period,  the story of Piercefield doesn’t really start until 1740. It was then  that the late 17th house by William Talman was bought for just over £8000 by Valentine Morris,  a wealthy sugar plantation owner with property and connections in North America and the Caribbean.  His son Valentine Morris II (1727–1789) inherited in 1752 and soon embarked on major  “improvements.”

To do that at a time of massive growth in   domestic tourism to the “wilder” parts of Britain, particularly Wales [which I’ve written about before]  was almost begging for visitors.

A mural at the Woodside House hotel in nearby Chepstow reputedly showing the Talman house.  From Country Life 12th Dec 1957

Tintern Abbey, by S Spartrow, 1773. National Library of Wales

In the Wye Valley it saw  boat trips along the river from Chepstow to Ross,  past Piercefield, where Morris was developing his landscape, and Tintern where the Duke of Beaufort was making an attempt to titivate the abbey ruins to make it an early visitor attraction.  Over the next 20 years Morris remodelled the house and added a series of quirky but fashionable features to the grounds which  added to “their variety without lessening their interests”.

View on the Wye,   signed and dated ‘Anne Rushout 1802’

More importantly he took advantage of the house’s position high on the cliffs above the  Wye to lay out a long circuitous set of   ‘sublime’ walks through the woodland and along the clifftops as well  steeply down the cliffs and along the riverside.  These walks were all what recent archaeology called  “lightly engineered” because although they were clearly levelled and edged they were quite narrow, sinuous and often only single file.  Apart from the general circuit there were also   short turnoffs to get to  garden features, or viewing points which sometimes offering expansive panoramic vistas and sometimes little glimpses of the magnificent scenery of the surrounding countryside or the valley below.

The Wye Valley and Lancaut peninsular viewed from th Eagles Nest on the Piercefield cliff walks, c.1900

Although  his intention originally may have been that  these walks were just for his and his family’s  enjoyment, when they were finished  Morris  opened the park to the public everyday and the  walks soon became a tourist destination.  They were widely written about both in private correspondence and published guidebooks. Michael Freeman who runs the amazing Sublime Wales website  which is all about early tourism in Wales, reckons the available surviving descriptions  stretch to about 150,000 words! What is surprising though is there are almost no contemporary images of any of the features which has made illustrating this post quite difficult! [As a result some are not specifically of Piercefield]

A Bend of the River Wye under High Cliffs by Turner  1798 

Many of these early visitors write enthusiastically of their visit and I will do no more than mention a few highlights.  They included Lord Lyttelton of Hagley who came in 1755 to admire the “wild beauties” of Piercefield, and Richard Pococke who, the following year,  described it as ” one of the most beautiful places I ever saw.” He was echoed in 1767 by Joseph Banks who also had  “no doubt of Pronouncing it the finest place I ever saw”. Some commentators were more specific. The Rev Barford  wrote in 1758 that Morris’s works do “not appear to have admitted one beauty of false taste, or trifling Nature”  while Joseph Spence, the Oxford professor who visited in 1759 praised his host who was ” almost as much to be commended for what he has not done, as for what he has.”

The remains of the grotto. This was a ‘cave’ lined with alabastrine and quartz stones, copper and iron cinders. Photo courtsey of Michael Freeman

There were, Spence added, “no fine buildings to insult the roughness of nature in any part that we saw. The gardener said that he [Morris] designed to have a building on Windcliff, but did not know what kind. I should rather expect from Mr Morris’s taste, the remains of a demolished castle covered almost with ivy, or a half-ruined lighthouse.”  Clearly Morris was in a building mood because by 1760 Edward Knight, cousin of Richard Payne Knight,  recorded twenty-six structures in the park, including a Chinese Seat , a Druid’s Temple and “a grotto of fossils and cinders”.

All that remains of the Druid’s Temple today. Image courtesy of Michael Freeman

Other well-known visitors during Morris’s ownership included John & Charles Wesley, the Russian ambassador, publisher Robert Dodsley, agricultural writer Arthur Young, William Shenstone, of The Leasowes,  George Mason, author of An essay on design in gardening, Thomas Whateley author of Observations on Modern Gardening, the Prime Minister Lord North, Uvedale Price, and the artist Paul Sandby.

A View on the Wye, Thomas Jones, c1772
Image credit: Rhian Israel / Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales

Famously it was William Gilpin who is supposed to have bought fame to the Wye Valley after his account of his 1770 journey through the area was circulated first in manuscript and then finally published in 1782. But as that list shows he was anything but a pioneer, although there’s no doubt that his book boosted visitor numbers substantially.

That Gilpin was following in the footsteps of others is clear from his description of his  arriving by boat and landing on an “ouzy beach”  from where he was guided  by  “one of our bargemen, who knew the place” up the steep by an easy, regular zig-zag; and gained the top.”

The view from Piercefield from Gilpin’s Observations

Gilpin’s description starsts very positively: “Mr Morris’s improvements at Persfield are generally thought as much worth a traveller’s notice, as any thing on the banks of the Wye … Little indeed was left for improvement.” He  praises “all this the ingenious proprietor hath done with great judgment; and hath shewn his rocks, his woods, and his precipices, under various forms; and to great advantage.” but then to my surprise became the one commentator who argued that Piercefield was not “Picturesque”  because “they are either presented from too high a point; or they have little to mark them as characteristic; or they do not fall into such composition, as would appear to advantage on canvas”  However [thank goodness!]  “they are extremely romantic; and give a loose to the most pleasing riot of imagination.”

Sketch of a building on the estate by John Pearson, c1805-1807, V&A

He goes on:  “It is a pity, the ingenious embellisher of these scenes could not have been satisfied with the grand beauties of nature, which he commanded. The Shrubberies he has introduced in this part of his improvements, I fear, will rather be esteemed paltry … a few flowering shrubs artfully composed may have their elegance and beauty : but in scenes, like this, they are only splendid patches, which injure the grandeur, and simplicity of the whole…. It is not the shrub, which offends: it is the formal introduction of it.”

The Wye at Piercefield from John Pearson’s sketchbook, c.1805-1807, V&A

One of the more amusing  activities for visitors , which was also practiced in Snowdonia and the Lake District, was for one of them  ‘to carry some gunpowder and leave it with Mr. Morris’s gardner in order to fire some small cannon on the Rock as you pass by on your return by Water – The reverberating echo of wch you will find has a wonderful effect…  it is most remarkable for the surprising echo… The explosion is repeated five times very distinctly from rock to rock, often seven; and if the calmness of the weather happens to be remarkably favourable, nine times ”  One later visitor even reported 13 echoes like “a long, loud peal of distant thunder “.

On the Wye,  studio of Richard Wilson

Unfortunately  despite the income from his plantations Morris was a spendthrift – albeit a very popular and sociable one – living well beyond his means in a ‘style of princely rather than private magnificence’ . The upshot was that he had to leave  Piercefield, returning to the Caribbean to become Governor of St Vincent in 1772.  The island had been taken from the French during the Seven Years War,  although half remained firmly in the hands of the indigenous Carib people with whom there was often open conflict.  It was reported that Morris “laboured with so much zeal and activity in promoting the cultivation of the island, that he almost made of it another Piercefield.”  He repaired the defences at his own expense, which he could ill afford,  but the French managed to recapture the island in 1779 and when he returned to Britain he was not reimbursed for his efforts and ended up being  imprisoned for debt for seven years.

In the end  Piercefield had to be sold to gain his release and it  was sold to a local banker, George Smith in 1784 for £26,000.

Plan of Piercefield, surveyed by Maull. Published in 1800

While Morris  was in the Caribbean  the estate was let in sub-divisions with the 2 hectare walled garden and hothouses let to a gardener who had the right to sell the produce and show people around.   The walks and wider parkland seem to have been  more than a little neglected. Certainly  there was  a danger of the reality not living up to expectation.  In 1776 for example Sir William Jones  confessed “I was rather disappointed: its beauties are exquisite; but …you will always find, that, when your expectations are raised to a great degree, you form in your mind an idea of perfection, which reality can never approach.” Two years later Sir Richard Sullivan argued that although” Nature has indisputably thrown together all those points, which, taken either separate or together, form pleasing views:  yet the whole has such a sameness that the imagination wearied, as well as the sight, pants for a scene more variegated and enlivened.”

Lovers Leap in the distance, from a sketch book by John Swete, 1791. National Library of Wales

View of the Wyndcliff from Lovers Leap, Public Domain , The National Library of Wales

John Byng, later Viscount Torrington, ever a caustic commentator, thought “the Lovers Leap is well rail’d; so that none but the very desponding would take it; I have never heard that it was attempted: the first leap would cure the most heart-felt pangs.” . He also thought “The walks are ill kept, some of them are almost impassable,” and suggested that the gardener should ” keep a garden chair with a small horse; as it is so profitably and agreeably practiced at Mr Hamiltons at Pains-Hill…. to prevent the fatigue of the company on foot.”  His suggestions seem to have been taken up later as several visitors mention taking  a chaise around some of the walks.

Coldwell Rocks on the Wye, by Edward Kennion undated late 18thc, © The Trustees of the British Museum

However, perhaps even Byng would have been pleased by this  anonymous  visitor’s report:  “Since Mr Smith has occupied the place, the pleasure grounds have been kept up with the same elegant taste, and the public indulged with the gratification of seeing them, as when they belonged to Mr Morris. … Many pleasing additions have been made, which not only shews the views to greater advantage, but some of the serpentines, which rendered the walk too long, have been thrown into straight lines, for the accommodation of visitors.”

One of John SOane’s designs for Piercefield 1785-93 Photo: © Sir John Soane’s Museum, London”.

Soane’s office drew up a large number of variants to the design, c1785© Sir John Soane’s Museum, London”

However as I’m sure we can all imagine, sometimes having large numbers of visitors can be annoying so Smith closed the walks to the public except on Thursdays.  But improvements continued in particular he  commissioned a young up and coming architect John Soane to design a replacement for William Talman’s now old-fashioned mansion, although there is some disagreement about how involved Soane was in the actual building. Parts of Talman’s house were incorporated into the new design as service quarters.

unexecuted design for entrance gate, 8 May 1785 © Sir John Soane’s Museum, London”.

Before the house was finished  it was the turn of Smith to be ruined. His Monmouthshire Bank  collapsed and he was forced to sell up. Piercefield  was bought from his creditors for £39,000 by Mark Wood who had amassed a fortune in India and returned a nabob.  He arranged for architect Joseph Bonomi, to complete the unfinished central block of the house and add two small pavilions as wings.  An anonymous visitor noted ” the  house is to cost more than £20,000 and the walks £1,000 to put them in repair; then remains the Garden Green House and Hot House to do – so much for East India Money.”

Piercefield, the Seat of Mark Wood, Esq. seen from the opposite Heights. from William Coxe’s An Historical Tour in Monmouthshire, (1801)

Wood reopened the walks to the public but  only on Tuesdays and Fridays, which irritated many would be visitors including this anonymous complainant: “its very popularity is the cause why so much attention is every summer paid to the place, tourists in Wales or the west of our island carry with them descriptions of it, parties coming to the Wells at Bristol or Bath seldom fail to make excursions hither, the variety included in the route by sailing to Chepstow, its local situation too on the borders of Cambria and England beckon visitors to the scene who must retire ungratified .”

From Piercefield Walks, 1780
Image courtesy of the British Library | Public Domain

Piercefield House, from the gardens’ 1817
John Skinner ms., Vol. XIV. Journal of sixteen excursions to various places in Somerset, etc,
© British Library Board, Add MS 33646, 

There were also critics, who claimed  the walks had lost their charm. Samuel Ireland writing in 1797 said ” A professed improver has been let in, and the consequence, not the natural consequence, has been that with his roller and shears, insipid uniformity has identified the ever changeful scene, and the slime of this snail has scarce less deformed its dells, its craggy hills and its groves than has the mud of the Severn which has polluted its waters.”

However  Mark Wood did not stay long either. He had political ambitions  and the house changed hands again in 1802, after  he bought Gatton Park, a rotten borough in Surrey with just 7 electors and took a seat in Parliament.    Piercefield was now bought by another Caribbean plantation owner – but he was  perhaps something of a surprise as we’ll discover when I conclude the story of Piercefield next week

The View of Chepstow from Piercefield, by Pickett, 1810. Public Domain. Image courtesy of National Library of Wales