Moat House History
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MOAT HOUSE LICHFIELD ROAD SUTTON COLDFIELD WEST MIDLANDS CONSERVATION MANAGEMENT PLAN 1 1. Introduction This conservation management plan has been prepared in order to better inform and support the building owner, Sutton Coldfield College of Further Education, in decision-making concerning the continued use, potential alteration and repair of Moat House and to offer suggestions for further building and archaeological evaluation and investigation of the building and its surroundings. 2.1 Description of the project The plan is being undertaken in order to identify areas for the future improved understanding and use of Moat House, a building which already has an active commercial use. At this early stage, it is felt that potential areas where the plan will be of benefit might be: • Improvement of maintenance planning. • Establishment of dedicated management of Moat House as a heritage asset. • Further building recording. • Archaeological investigation of the building and grounds. • Improved interpretation of the building. • Avoidance of abuse of the building by over intensive or inappropriate use. 2.2 Moat House- history and context Moat House, Sutton Coldfield is a former gentleman’s house, built originally to Palladian ideals by Sir William Wilson for his own occupation in or about 1680-90. 2 The building occupies a site fronting Lichfield Road, Sutton Coldfield, now the A5127, leaving the north of the town towards Lichfield. Much of the remaining development to the frontages of Lichfield Road and its continuation High Street is 18th and 19th century in origin although it is possible that some of these elevations conceal older building forms. The adjacent Bishop Vesey School is contemporary with Moat House in terms of its establishment although many of the original buildings have been replaced. The building now lies within Sutton Coldfield College of Further Education. The front elevation faces west. Figure 1 - Current Ordnance Survey information showing Moat House and outbuildings in red with the College campus outlined in blue. 3 The appointment of Wilson by Jane Pudsey appears originally to have been as a sculptor to design a memorial to her recently deceased (1677) husband Henry Pudsey. The Pudsey family had been the holder of the manor of Sutton Coldfield since before 1558 (A History of the County of Warwick: Volume 4: Hemlingford Hundred (1947). Henry Pudsey was the last sole holder of the title, which gave the holder wide-ranging rights. As therefore one of the wealthiest families in Sutton Coldfield, the Pudsey family apparently did not approve of the resultant romance and marriage between Wilson and Jane Pudsey. However, following their marriage, construction of Moat House commenced, allowing Jane to leave one moated hall (Langley Hall, the Pudsey seat, also in Sutton Coldfield) for another. During this time, Jane also managed through her connections to get her new husband both a knighthood and appointed as a mason. The resulting building is of brick construction with elevations primarily of red brick with sandstone dressings forming stone pilasters, and a balustraded stone parapet with a central raised order and niche. The original windows would also have been of similar red sandstone to the decorative dressings. The interior features painted pine wall panelling, a limestone flagged floor to the hall and several interesting fireplaces. The house is arranged with a semi basement, a ground floor raised slightly above prevailing topography (the piano nobile), first floor and second floor attic accommodation. The roof is a double pile arrangement, with a tiled covering. Whilst the original stone windows are still present to the rear, timber sliding sash windows have been installed as replacements to the front elevation at some point, probably in the early 18th century. 4 Figure 2 – Front oblique view of main house Given the name of the property, the presence of a moat requires further evaluation. The drawings by J Snape dated 1763and 1765 suggest that, if the moat was still present at this time, it can only have been a relatively minor feature, given the inset entrance and shallow frontage depth. The name Moat House may not even have been used until much later, possibly within the 19th century, which would appear to coincide with the moat having been in- filled during the latter part of the 19th century, a date of 1860 being referred to in earlier research by Norman G Evans. Moat House is named as such on the earliest ordnance survey plans of the late 19th century. 5 Figure 3 – Survey by J Snape 1765 showing entrance and garden, but little evidence of a “moat” The plan form of the house has been the subject of conjectural appraisal at various times. The process undertaken by Nick Joyce, the conservation architect involved with the repair scheme in 2001/2. The major obvious changes from the original plan are the two-storey extension to the north elevation and construction of a semi-circular bay extension to the east. Both of these alterations appear to have been undertaken in the late 18th century, the most obvious outcome being the loss of the symmetry that was the original ideal and, one assumes, Wilson’s goal in expressing the classical ideas recovered and translated by Inigo Jones only 60 years earlier. 6 The out-buildings appear, as one would anticipate, to have developed on a piecemeal basis as needs and tastes changed. These range from the 2 storey “game house” referred to in the Nick Joyce report (which now appears to have been a stable) which appears contemporary with the main house, to the Victorian “mess rooms” adjacent. The stable is the only outbuilding of note shown in J Snape’s survey of Lichfield Road in 1763. It has long been considered, and appears entirely reasonable, that some of the buildings on the present northern boundary of the site, but now beyond the demised property, may also originally have been associated with Moat House. Certainly, the gated coach entrance is still demised with the house. Jane Pudsey died in 1697, the marriage having produced no children. Her death meant the loss to Wilson of her considerable income (three hundred pounds per annum) and it appears that Wilson returned to his previous trade as a mason. Wilson himself died in 1710, leaving Moat House to his nephew John Barnes. The ownership of the house changed during later centuries, being at various times both bequeathed and sold, the last private owner of Moat House appearing to be a Mr Heaton, a seemingly popular and benevolent owner (see press cutting from Birmingham Mail). This sequence of change is well illustrated in the deed research by Norman G Evans. In 1947, Arthur Heaton died and the house was purchased by Warwickshire County Council as headquarters for the Education Committee. This usage as a local authority office building continued until 1974, when local government reorganisation moved Sutton Coldfield out of Warwickshire and into Birmingham within the new West Midlands County. Ownership of Moat House therefore passed to Birmingham City Council, the building continuing to be used as offices with an education bias until finally falling out of use in the early 1990’s, from which time it’s condition deteriorated rapidly. The house occupied a small corner of 7 the college site but had become neglected and clearly unwanted by its owners. The logical conclusion was for the College to acquire the building, which it did for a one pound consideration in 1998. Figure 4 – Current frontage view (Authors photograph) A course of repair and rehabilitation followed, enabling the college to use the building as its Business Development Centre, opening in January 2002, after the expenditure of approximately £500,000 on the work. This still left the collection of remaining out-buildings to the northern boundary, which were in an even worse condition than the house had been. These buildings were subsequently repaired in 2003. 8 Figure 5 - J Snape - 1763 Frontage view The completed rehabilitation of Moat House and the remains of the estate still leave it confined within the College campus, but at least within a single ownership and within a management regime clearly committed to its retention and maintenance, judging by the comments of the principal, among others, within questionnaire responses. Since the mid nineteenth century, the major parallel change to that of ownership of the house has been the reduction of the area of its grounds, apparently commencing in the late 19th century with the construction of the London Midland and Scottish railway crossing the site to the east and forming the eastern boundary to the present college campus, although the land appears to have extended to the opposite side of the railway at earlier dates. This process of erosion culminated in the construction of Sutton Coldfield College of Further Education in the remains of the grounds, the first college buildings opening in 1963. This major development to form the College campus left Moat House surrounded by modern buildings of much larger scale. 9 Figure 6 – Rear view of repaired building. (Authors photograph) Figure 7 – Outbuildings following repair. (Authors photograph) 10 Sir William Wilson (1641-1710). William Wilson was born in Leicester, sometime most probably in early 1641, based upon christening records. His career appears to have commenced as a statutory mason and he is reputed to have carved the statue of King Charles II set on the west front of Lichfield Cathedral in Staffordshire, shortly before 1669. In 1670, he was employed as a carver at Sudbury Hall in Derbyshire. The key event in his elevation from carver to architect was clearly his marriage to Jane Pudsey, at some point probably in the late 1670s. The construction of Moat House cannot accurately be dated but would appear to have been undertaken at some point in the 1680s although the opinion given in Colvin (1995) suggests that the house was built most probably for his own occupation following his wife’s death in 1697.