Apley hall Stockton Bridgnorth Shropshire
Apley Hall is an English stately home of Gothik Regency style in a parkland setting beside the river Severn. It was once home to the Whitmore and Foster families. It is a grade II listed building reputed to be one of the largest in the county of Shropshire.
Thomas Whitmore, whose family had held the estate since 1572, had the house remodelled to the Gothik taste apparently in 1811. Whitmore was an iron-founder and had prospered by producing cannon and arms for the navy during the Napoleonic wars. His foundry was up river at Coalbrookdale and his works down stream at fort Pendleston Bridgnorth so from the towers of Apley he could watch his cargo as it progressed along the Severn towards its final destination in Bristol. At the time of its realisation Apley was the height of Regency taste and folly. A cousin of Strawberry Hill Gothick romanticism; the architectural design is attributed to the Wyatt family and the fine Grinshall-stone ashlar-work, porte-cochere and polygonal turrets the work of the Carline brothers, master masons of Shrewsbury. Apley is set in magnificent parkland landscaped by William Webb of Armitage using an army of navvies who hitherto had been engaged in building Staffordshire’s canal network. They set about manipulating the rolling Shropshire hillsides to emulate a perfect English country landscape painting of the day. Evidence of the pre 1811 house still exists although cleverly disguised by a facade emulating a gothic chapel with ornate tracery no doubt intended to give a false impression of piety to the world (a more modest chapel was located by the library). The interiors of the folly are deceivingly domestic and secular. Georgian in style and proportion there is an ornate staircase with a shallow rise and four spindles per tread; rooms are adorned with earlier mouldings and cornices and it’s clear that the "faux chapel" was the original pre 1811 house.Far more ornate are the saloon-library and drawing- room to the main house with fine ogee-ribbed gothic vaults and plasterwork attributed to itinerant Italian Stucciotori under the direction of Francesco Bernasconi. Heavily carved oak doors in mock Tudor style compliment the gothic masterpiece but the breathtaking aspect of Apley is the central alabaster staircase with cast iron gothic tracery - a mastery of engineering of the time.The house was sold for what is believed to be a record amount in 1867 to William Ormes Foster. The Foster family were also hugely successful iron founders in the black-country.The most famous of the Foster family and one from which the fortune derived was Williams's uncle James Foster, talented entrepreneur and Member of Parliament for Worcester. In the early 19th century Fosters Company was on the leading edge of technology; producing a wide range of products such as blast furnaces and rolling mill equipment, sugar mills for export to the colonies and steam locomotives; the most famous of which The 'Stourbridge Lion' became the first steam locomotive to run on a commercial railway in Pennsylvania. James Foster’s business empire was undoubtedly successful but expansionist plans led to fears of overtrading by the companies bankers, the bank requested him to reduce his overdraft- he is reputed to have settled his account in full by taking the money to the bank in small coins loaded into wheelbarrows and insisting it be counted in his presence.Inevitably as Victorians the Foster family felt the need to improve the house though it had been scarcely 60 years since its regency remodelling. Tastes had changed and the need for a more ornate garden and Orangery were sought and executed under a design by E. Milner noteworthy landscape architect of the day. It incorporated spectacular water features fountains grottoes and cascades gravity fed by a massive underground tank. In addition Foster’s lavish entertaining and socialising led to the need for a legion of servants and so service quarters were built on to the back of the house in prosaic fashion; façaded in roman cement, ruled into faux block-work and castellated to continue the gothic theme but with little daylight for the servants and inferior quality to Carline brother’s original masonry work or Wyatt's original vision.W.O. Foster was succeeded by Major A.W. Foster during this era host to grand balls and social occasions and during the inter-war period enjoyed something of a renaissance. Games and billiard rooms were constructed and the crenulated Orangery converted into a swimming pool designed by the architect A.W .Forsythe. Said to be the first private pool in the country, finished in sparkling green terrazzo.One famously eccentric character born at Apley was the 14th Baron Berners. Gerald Tyrwhitt. He was William Foster’s nephew and became a painter composer and novelist, writing several autobiographical works including his memoirs of Apley as a child and teenager entitled “first childhood”. Prankster and extravert he apparently took enormous pleasure in teasing his cantankerous Uncle William, dyed pigeons in vibrant colors using Indian-ink and at one point had a giraffe as a pet and tea companion. Apparently having heard that if you throw a dog into water it will learn how to swim, he once threw a dog from the window on the grounds that if one applies the same logic it should learn how to fly! Berners did not enjoy a particularly happy adult life but remembers being happy at Apley and the park as 'an earthly paradise for children'.After the Second World War Major Foster continued to live at Apley though in far less grandeur and with the legion of staff gone; unmarried and accompanied towards the end by only his nurse and valet he passed away in 1960 and the house became vacant.In 1962 none of Fosters successors felt any great inclination to live in the “Big Dark house” and so the building was leased to Shropshire Country Council as a boarding school until 1987due to lack of funding the school closed down and fell empty.The house remained empty and boarded up for almost 10 years and fell into decline and suffered damage from architectural thieves and lead-strippers. With its roof coverings gone and guttering blocked Dry-rot and Decay took their hold. The owners Apley Estates found themselves frustrated by the listed building constraints security problems and phenomenal costs of upkeep; eventually they sold the house and grounds to a renovation company Apley hall restoration ltd owned by Neil Avery. a specialist in conservation and architectural repair; he had formerly lived close by at his previous project and home Patshull Hall Staffordshire, with a specialized crew of artisan conservators they began to reel back 10 years of neglect and the house was put back to use again hosting many charity balls and fund raising events.Alternative sustainable long-term uses were sought for the Hall including Hotel Spa and Residential-subdivision which were patiently tabled with the district planning department. The main limitation being due to the labyrinthine 19th century service wings which give the house considerable density; this precluded the use of the house as modern private home both because of its size and lack of daylight so for that reason a scheme was conceived to reduce the house to Wyatt’s original Regency plan so that it could continue to be used as a family home.A successful modern composer agreed to purchase the hall as a family home if planning and listed building consent could be gained based upon one of the detailed designs. This would have involved demolition of the servants’ hall and kitchens and the substitution of a crenulated gothic façade installed in keeping with the original. The scheme designed by architects Arrol and Snell of Shrewsbury would have included the use of the stable block as studios the cellars for sound recording and the house for entertaining and as a family home. The benefit of this project would have been its low intensity and more original use of the building however as it involved considerable demolition and loss of 19th century work it was highly controversial. Hotel use was considered out of the question too so it was considered that the best sustainable use for the hall would be subdivision into apartments. In 2003 the hall was sold to developers Earlstone who specialise in the conversion of listed buildings and has been successfully completed.