(616) Biddulph of Ledbury and Rodmarton, Barons Biddulph - part 1

Biddulph, Barons Biddulph 

This post has been divided into two parts. This first part provides an introduction to the family and a description of the houses they have occupied at different times. Part 2 provides the detailed genealogical information.

The Biddulphs of Ledbury descend ultimately from the Biddulphs of Biddulph Old Hall and Burton Park, the subject of my previous article, and are in fact a junior branch of the Biddulphs of Elmhurst Hall and Westcombe Park, baronets, who will be the subject of a future post. By achieving a peerage and through the wealth provided by banking they eventually surpassed the achievements of both these more senior lines. The genealogy in part two of this post begins with Anthony Biddulph (1585-1651), who was the fifth son of Simon Biddulph (d. 1632) of Elmhurst Hall (Staffs). Anthony was a London merchant who took the Parliamentarian side in the Civil War and appears to have held moderate Puritan views in religion. His children married well, either into the city élite (two of his daughters married Lord Mayors), or into the county gentry. His elder son, Robert Biddulph (c.1618-78) followed in his father's footsteps as a city merchant, but also acquired land at Essendon (Herts), although he seems to have remained resident in London. Many of his children died young, and he was succeeded by his son Anthony Biddulph (1659-1718), who made the decisive step into the county gentry when he bought his father-in-law's seat of New House (later Ledbury Park) at Ledbury (Herefs) in 1688, which remained the property of his descendants until the 1950s. His eldest son, the long-lived Robert Biddulph (1682-1772), married Anne Jolliffe of Cofton Hall (Worcs), and through her the family inherited that estate in the next generation. Robert and Anne lost several of their older children in infancy, and the heir apparent, Robert Biddulph (1718-49) died unmarried in the prime of his life. The ultimate heir was therefore his fifth son, Michael Biddulph (1725-1800), who had pursued a career as a barrister, while his younger brothers went into the church and banking. 

Cofton Hall, Cofton Hackett, as remodelled c.1800

Michael came into possession of Cofton Hall in 1791 and handed it over to his eldest son, Thomas Biddulph (1759-93), who died soon afterwards. In 1796, Michael commissioned designs for rebuilding Cofton Hall from George Byfield, but these were apparently shelved in favour of a simpler remodelling. He then settled Cofton on his next surviving son, Robert Biddulph (later Myddleton-Biddulph) (1761-1814), who sold it in 1812. 

In 1757, Michael's brother, Francis Biddulph (1733-1800), who was only twenty-four but apparently already in business as a banker in London, asked Sir Charles Cocks of Eastnor (Herefs), to send someone to help him. Sir Charles sent his sons, James and Thomas Somers Cocks, and a new partnership was formed. The name of the new firm - Cocks, Cocks and Biddulph - may imply that Sir Charles also contributed capital. In 1759 the firm relocated to premises at 43 Charing Cross (later 16 Whitehall), which remained its home for over 150 years. Changes in the partnership saw the firm become Biddulph, Cocks, Eliot and Praed in 1776 and Biddulph, Cocks and Ridge in 1792. As Francis was unmarried and without issue, he brought into the firm two of the sons of his brother Michael (1725-1800): Robert Biddulph (later Myddleton-Biddulph) (1761-1814) and John Biddulph (1768-1845). From this time onwards the busi­ness remained in the Cocks and Biddulph families, although the style of the firm was altered from time to time, finally settling on Cocks, Biddulph & Co. in 1865. The bank did well to navigate the treacherous financial waters of the 19th century, when so many private banks failed, and they gradually began to expand, buying the assets of Codd & Co. of Westminster in 1886, who had many army clients, and taking over a good deal of the business of Hallett & Co., navy agents, in 1893. The bank had many wealthy and socially prominent customers, and acted for both the Duchy of Cornwall and the Duchess of Kent (Queen Victoria's mother); King Edward VII kept his private account with them.

When Francis Biddulph died in 1800, many of his assets passed to his elder brother, Michael Biddulph (1725-1800), who was himself in the last few weeks of his life. Michael at once wrote a codicil to his will, in which his excitement at this 'great access of fortune' is palpable. The principal beneficiary was his second surviving son, John Biddulph (1768-1845), for the eldest, Robert, had already made 'a fortune' in India before returning home in 1795 and becoming an MP as well as a partner in the bank. In  1801 he married the heiress to the Chirk Castle estate in Denbighshire, which his descendants inherited; his story will be told more fully in a future post on the Myddleton family. John Biddulph had a large family, of whom his son Robert Biddulph (1801-64) became a partner in Cocks, Biddulph & Co but also founded a separate bank with his brothers John junior (1806-81) and Francis Thomas Biddulph (1812-76) at Pembroke in west Wales. This was evidently not a success and was perhaps eventually taken over by Cocks, Biddulph & Co. in about 1838, after which John junior had a second career as an iron and tinplate manufacturer in Swansea.

Robert Biddulph (1801-64) belonged to the early Victorian generation which took the responsibilities attaching to their position in society very seriously. He was MP for Hereford for five years in the 1830s and after inheriting the Ledbury estate was an enthusiastic promoter of agricultural improvement. He combined his partnership in the bank with other commercial activities, and - perhaps because of his Canadian business interests - became a Fellow (and eventually Vice-President) of the Royal Geographical Society. Like his father, he had a large family, and two of his sons went into the army: General Sir Robert Biddulph (1835-1918) and Col. John Biddulph (1840-1921). Sir Robert held various senior roles in the army and took the step of abolishing the purchase of commissions, a measure which significantly increased the professionalism of the army over time.

The head office building of Cocks, Biddulph & Co.,
designed by Richard Coad, 1874. 

The oldest and youngest sons went into the family bank: Michael Biddulph (1834-1923) and George Tournay Biddulph (1844-1929). Michael, who also inherited the Ledbury estate, served as a Liberal MP for thirty-five years, and was raised to a peerage, as 1st Baron Biddulph, soon after retiring from the House of Commons. He brought his elder son, John Michael Gordon Biddulph (1869-1949), 2nd Baron Biddulph, into the bank, but in 1919 the partners decided to sell the firm to the Bank of Liverpool and Martins Bank. At that date the partners' capital and reserves totalled £200,000 and the current and deposit balances £1,124,911. The 2nd Lord Biddulph joined the board of Martin's Bank, and held this position until his death.

In 1884, Michael Biddulph inherited the Kemble estate on the Gloucestershire-Wiltshire border from a distant kinswoman, Anna Gordon. With the estate came Kemble House, which had been remodelled in neo-Tudor style in the 1850s, but which he appears to have altered again. He may perhaps have used the same architects (James MacLaren and Richard Coad) as he employed to remodel Ledbury Park at much the same time; Coad had earlier been responsible for rebuilding the headquarters of the family bank at Charing Cross. The Kemble estate also included 600 acres in the parish of Rodmarton, which Lord Biddulph made over to his second son, the Hon. Claud Biddulph (1871-1954), a stockbroker. In 1906, Claud married, and soon afterwards he and his wife began building a large new mansion on the Rodmarton estate. The couple set aside £5,000 a year for work on the project, and chose to fully embrace Arts & Crafts principles in the design, for both aesthetic and social reasons: the project was designed to provide meaningful and rewarding work for as many local craftsmen as possible at a time of high unemployment. Work continued for some 20 years and was only finally finished in 1929. The result is one of the most thoroughgoing Arts and Crafts ensembles in Britain, and both an important and a delightful house. It has been passed from father to son through Claud's descendants, and is now the property of John Biddulph (b. 1971).

The 2nd Baron Biddulph inherited Ledbury Park and Kemble House from his father in 1923, but preferred to live at the smaller Underdown House, just south of Ledbury, which his great-grandfather had added to the estate when it came on the market in about 1818. In 1941 he let Ledbury Park to a stationery manufacturing company from Coventry which wished to relocate its workforce away from the wartime blitz, and in 1948 he sold the Kemble estate to a farmer, S.J. Phillips, who restored and modernised the house. At his death in 1949, the estate passed to his son, Michael William John Biddulph (1898-1972), 3rd Baron Biddulph, who sold the freehold of Ledbury Park to the tenant in 1952, but retained the rest of the Ledbury estate. When he died, his home at Underdown passed to his widow for life, while the rest of the estate went to his younger son, Hon. Edward Sidney Biddulph (1934-2001), who made his home at Much Marcle (Herefs). Tragically, in 1983 Lady Biddulph died in a fire at Underdown which left the house in ruins, and it was eventually sold and restored, but converted into apartments.

The 3rd Baron left the Ledbury estate as he did because his elder son, Robert Michael Christian Biddulph (1931-88), 4th Baron Biddulph, had married in 1958 Lady Mary Helena Maitland (1938-2023), one of the co-heirs of the Scottish estates of the Earls of Lauderdale, and settled at Makerstoun House in Roxburghshire. Makerstoun also suffered a disastrous fire in 1970, but was reconstructed to a modified version of the original plans by William Adam, of 1725, and this rebuilt house is now the centre of the estate owned by (Anthony) Nicholas Colin Maitland-Biddulph (b. 1959), 5th Baron Biddulph, who has two sons to succeed him in the title and estates.

Ledbury Park, Herefordshire

The historic town of Ledbury is formed of four streets (High St., New St., Worcester St., and The Southend) which meet at a crossroads. Ledbury Park occupies the south-east corner of the crossroads, with its two main wings fronting the east side of The Southend and the south side of Worcester St. It thus appears at first as a relatively modest town house, and only from the rear, where the rambling later additions are apparent and where it can be seen that the grounds and deer park occupy the whole south-east quadrant of the town, does its alternative character as a substantial country house become apparent.

Ledbury Park: the house at the crossroads, with Worcester St. to the left and The Southend to the right. Image: Crown Copyright.

Ledbury Park is indeed the grandest semi-timbered house in Herefordshire. It was built by a clothier, Edward Skynner, in the late 16th century, probably on the site of a palace of the bishops of Hereford. The ground and first floors of the close-studded west front seem to have been built first, with the oversailing top floor with its array of five gables with moulded bargeboards and finials, added in the early 17th century. The gable-end to the north matches the west front. The windows below, on both floors, have projecting sills placed between stop-chamfered posts, but while those on the ground floor are mullioned and transomed windows, those above were replaced with double-hung sashes with side-lights in the 18th century. The fenestration is now more regular than it was at the time of the bird's eye view below in 1733, and was presumably altered in the 19th century. Inside, the north room has panelling dated 1590, while the south room has some 17th century details. The principal staircase seems to have been replaced in the early 18th century, and is a massively engineered dog-leg with vase-shaped balusters and a moulded string.

Ledbury Park: vignette of the house from an estate map of 1733. Note the differences in fenestration from the later view above.

In 1818-20, H.H. Seward designed a new four-bay range fronting onto Worcester Street and attached to the north end of the west range for John Biddulph; this was evidently a replacement for an earlier building on the site shown on a 1733 estate map. The new wing was very obviously designed to keep in keeping with the main block of the house, for it has square-panelled timber-framing on the first floor, with six pedimented oriel windows, although the ground floor is a plain roughcast wall with four simple windows. 

Ledbury Park: view of the additions to the house by MacLaren and Coad in 1886, from The Builder.

A further extension to the house was made by James MacLaren and Richard Coad (who had designed a new head office building for the family bank, Cocks Biddulph & Co. at Charing Cross in 1874) in 1886 and illustrated in The Builder. It continues Seward's range to the east, starting with an octagonal turret with an ogee lead dome, and terminating in a pair of richly decorated gables above oriel windows. The rear of this extension faces onto a courtyard and has a similar turret. Beyond the McLaren range is an entrance to the courtyard, marked by gatepiers with heraldic beasts, and an early 18th century brick lodge with a pyramidal roof, which was first built as a dovecote. The L-shaped brick stable block in the courtyard behind was built in 1818-20 and altered c.1886, when a shaped gable with a Venetian window as added to the north-east corner. 

Ledbury Park: south front of the house in the early 20th century, from an old postcard.

Finally, a larger range joins the south end of the main block to the stables. This is again fully semi-timbered, and it has gables of different sizes and steps forward irregularly as it runs east. It is dated 1897, and was presumably again by James MacLaren, although it may incorporate some earlier work, as a bird's eye view of 1733 shows an earlier range on this site. 

In 1941 the house was leased to a stationery manufacturer who moved his business from war-torn Coventry to the quieter surroundings of Ledbury, and it remained in commercial use until the 1990s, when it was converted into eleven dwellings, with six further new houses being built on the site as 'enabling development'; it remains in multiple occupation.

Descent: built for Edward Skynner (c.1544-1631); to son, John Skynner; to daughter, Constance, wife of Francis Hall, who sold 1688 to his son-in-law, Anthony Biddulph (1659-1718); to son, Robert Biddulph (1682-1772); to son, Michael Biddulph (1725-1800); to son, John Biddulph (1768-1845); to son, Robert Bidduloh (1801-64); to son, Michael Biddulph (1834-1923), 1st Baron Biddulph; to son, John Michael Gordon Biddulph (1869-1949), 2nd Baron Biddulph, leased 1941 to H.J. Chapman, stationery manufacturer, who bought the freehold in 1952; sold 1972 to Inveresk Paper Co.; sold 1984 to Georgia Pacific; sold 1989 to W.H. Smith plc.

Ledbury Park and Underdown: the relative locations of the two houses from the 1st edn. 6" Ordnance Survey map of 1886.

Underdown, Ledbury, Herefordshire

A property just south of the little deer park attached to Ledbury Park, which - like Ledbury Park - belonged in the 17th century to the Skinner family. Nothing is known about the house they presumably had here, and in 1765 they sold the estate to John Miles of Bristol, whose wife was the granddaughter of a previous Skinner owner. The Miles family became rich in Bristol's notorious 'triangular trade', taking metalwares to Africa, slaves from Africa to the Carribean and America, and bringing sugar from the plantations in those places back to England. In the next generation they built Leigh Court at Abbots Leigh (Somerset) with gardens by Humphry Repton, and bought and altered Kings Weston House (Glos). Underdown was the Miles' first country house, and modest enough by comparison with what came later. It is one of a group of late 18th century houses with paired full-height bow windows, tripartite doorcases, and a common repertoire of decorative details including feathered capitals which I have identified as being by Anthony Keck (1726-97). There is no documentary evidence but the architect's style is so distinctive that my attribution has been generally accepted.

Underdown, Ledbury: the original entrance front in 1979. Image: Peter Reid/Historic England

From the 1760s Anthony Keck built up a large practice across the whole of the south west Midlands and south Wales. He lived at Kings Stanley near Stroud, and seems to have been a joiner by his original trade. He was born at Prestbury near Cheltenham to a family of yeomen farmers with land both there and at Temple Guiting in the north Cotswolds, and he had a number of relatives in the building trades, including John Keck of Moreton-in-Marsh, carpenter. He first appears in the historical record in about 1764, when he was living in Gloucestershire, but he also had strong connections with Worcester and may have been apprenticed there. A study of his career demonstrates the crucial importance of patronage to the 18th century architect, for almost all his clients were friends or relations of people for whom he had already worked. His practice grew, and by the time he died, in 1797, he was 'The celebrated architect, Mr Anthony Keck'. His architecture relied heavily on a small number of design formulae which, once they had proved successful, he repeated time and again with only minor variations. His houses were restrained, well finished and yet quite cheap; at their best his exteriors were handsome, and his interiors models of balanced elegance. It is a great pity that Fate has singled out so many of the houses on which he worked for fires, remodelling or demolition.

Underdown: the side elevation with the new entrance and water tower created in the late 19th century. Image: Peter Reid/Historic England.

Underdown is no exception to this. After John Miles' death the house was acquired by the Biddulph family of Ledbury Park and although they regularly let the house it was altered in the 19th century, when a four-storey water tower was added north-east of the house with triple round-arched windows in the top floor and a pyramidal roof, and a five-bay round-arched arcade was made in front of a new entrance in the side of the house. At the same time the stables were rebuilt and a new lodge constructed. The main rooms of the Keck house were not much affected by these changes, but in 1983 there was a disastrous fire which burned out the older part of the house. For some years the house stood as an empty shell, but in the late 1980s it was restored and subdivided into apartments. Unfortunately I never got to see the house before the fire, and as far as I know the pre-fire interiors are not recorded.

Descent: built c.1780 for John Miles (d. 1812) of Bristol, banker; sold after his death to John Biddulph (1768-1845); to son, Robert Biddulph (1801-64); to son, Michael Biddulph (1834-1923), 1st Baron Biddulph; to son, John Michael Gordon Biddulph (1869-1949), 2nd Baron Biddulph; to son, Michael William John Biddulph (1898-1972), 3rd Baron Biddulph; to widow (d. 1983) for life; to son, Hon. Edward Sidney Biddulph (1934-2001), who sold for restoration and conversion to flats. The house was let to tenants in the 19th and early 20th centuries, including Richard Webb (fl. 1818), John Murray Aynsley (fl. 1850-78) and Spencer H. Bickham (fl. 1893-1923).

Kemble House, Gloucestershire

A large stone manor house of two storeys with gables and attics, originally built as a highly conservative double pile with two cross-wings in the late 17th century, probably for Henry Poole, who came of age in 1694. 

Kemble House: unexecuted design by P.F. Robinson for a large new mansion, c.1826, from his Designs for Ornamental Villas (1836).

In the 1820s, Robert Gordon employed P.F. Robinson, who made unexecuted designs for a new Tudor mansion. Although his designs for this house were not realised, he is known to have built a garden house c.1826, and may have done more to alter the existing building. The garden house may be the simple Tudor-style cottage with ornamental chimneys which lies to the east of the house.

Kemble House: aerial view of the house, 1928, showing it as altered by R.W. Billings in the 1850s. Image: Britain from Above.

Kemble House: sketch by R.W. Billings for the hall screen. Image: National Trust, Stourhead

In about 1850-55, R.W. Billings was responsible for loosely Tudor alterations and additions to the house for Miss Anna Gordon. He added the two bay windows on the south, and introduced octagonal glazing into the mullioned and transomed windows. A painting attributed to Billings, which is now among the National Trust's collections at Stourhead, depicts the hall screen which he installed in the house, but which does not survive. 

Further additions and alterations seem to have taken place in the late 19th century, perhaps after Miss Anna Gordon bequeathed the house in 1884 to her father’s great friend Michael Biddulph, later 1st Lord Biddulph (d.1923). He employed James MacLaren and Richard Coad to make substantial alterations and additions to Ledbury Park at this time and they may have worked here too.

Kemble House: the house as reduced and restored in the mid 20th century.

By the time the 2nd Lord Biddulph sold the estate to Mr. S.J. Phillips in 1946, Kemble House had been unoccupied for many years, but instead of suffering the fate of so many empty country houses sold to farmers, Kemble was slightly reduced in size by the truncation of the service wing, and restored in 1954. 

Descent: built for Henry Poole (1673-1726); sold on his death to Sir Robert Westley (c.1670-1745); to son John Westley (1709-48); to sister, Elizabeth, wife of Charles Coxe (fl. 1792); to son, Charles Westley Coxe MP (c.1754-1806); to daughter, Elizabeth Anne Coxe (d. 1865), wife of Robert Gordon (d. 1864); to daughter, Anna Gordon (c.1811-84); to cousin, Michael Biddulph (1834-1923), 1st Baron Biddulph; to son, John Michael Gordon Biddulph (1869-1949), 2nd Baron Biddulph, who sold 1946 to Samuel John Phillips (1887-1965); to son, Gregory James Phillips (1918-97); sold 1996 to Michael Jonathan Fish (b. 1952); sold 2011 to Martin Kingston (b. 1949) and his wife Jill.

Makerstoun House, Roxburghshire

A house in a fine position on the high north bank of the river Tweed, which has a long and complicated history, although the present building is largely the result of rebuilding after a fire in 1970. The medieval house, originally a pele tower, was destroyed in Hertford's invasion of Scotland of 1545, and eventually replaced by a new house in 1590. At the east end of the present house are two vaulted rooms on the ground floor, one of which has a segmental-arched kitchen fireplace, which are thought to date from the 16th century phase of the house.

In the early 18th century, Alexander McGill was consulted on the remodelling of the house and reported that the north-west end of the existing building 'being very Crazy is to be taken down', but it is not clear whether anything was done to his designs. In 1725 William Adam drew up a scheme for a new house, incorporating much of the fabric of its predecessor, which appears to have been carried out, although there seem to be no views of it in this form. The retention of older fabric constrained the design by giving it a low ground floor with taller upper storeys.

Makerstoun House: the house from the south in 1920, showing the building of 1725 as altered in 1828.

A press report of 1920, when the house was for sale, refers to Adam-style decoration of about 1790 in the house, but there seems to be no other record of this, and it may perhaps have been rather later, for in 1828 further additions, attributed to Archibald Elliot the younger (d. 1843), were made to give the house a castellated appearance. The main south front, overlooking the river, was of three storeys and five wide bays, with small square turrets giving the elevation a 1-3-1 rhythm. The entrance front had similar turrets, but had two windows either side of the centre and a Gothic porte-cochère. 

Makerstoun House: partial demolition after the fire, in preparation for reconstruction, 1973. Image: RCAHMS

The fire in 1970 left the external walls intact but took out the roof and did considerable damage to the internal structure, and the decision was taken to remodel it rather than simply to repair it. The reconstruction was undertaken by John H. Reid and Crichton Lang of Ian Lindsay & Partners, and was based on William Adam's original classical design of 1725. The overall proportions of the main block were not altered, but the crenellations and turrets were removed, the big pediment over the central three bays was re-created (triangular on the entrance front and curved on the south front), and the walls were given quoins at the angles and white harling.

Makerstoun House: the entrance front of the house as rebuilt in 1973-74.

Descent: Thomas Macdougall (d. c.1575); to son, James Macodwel (d. c.1585); to son, Thomas Macdowell (d. by 1604); to son, James Macdougal (d. 1613?); to brother, Sir William Macdougall (d. c.1655); to son, Henry Makdougall (d. 1671); to son, Thomas Makdougall; to son, Henry Makdougall; to daughter Barbara, wife of Sir George Hay (later Hay-Makdougall) (d. 1777), 3rd bt.; to son, Sir Henry Hay-Makdougall (1750-1825), 4th bt.; to daughter, Anna Maria (d. 1862), wife of General Sir Thomas Brisbane (later Makdougall-Brisbane) (1773-1860); to Miss Scott-Makdougall (d. 1890); to kinsman, Hugh J.E. Scott (later Scott-Makdougall); sold 1921 to James Jardine Bell-Irving; to daughter, wife of Ian Colin Maitland, 15th Earl of Lauderdale; to granddaughter, Lady Mary Helena (1938-2023), later wife of Robert Michael Christian Biddulph (1931-88), 4th Baron Biddulph; to son, Anthony Nicholas Colin Biddulph (later Maitland-Biddulph) (b. 1959), 5th Baron Biddulph.

Rodmarton Manor, Gloucestershire

A substantial manor house was built at Rodmarton in the early 15th century, perhaps by Robert Burdon, and was known by the 18th century as Rodmarton Place. It lay south-east of the church, and was extended in the 16th and 17th centuries to occupy three sides of a quadrangle.

Rodmarton Place: the old manor house, demolished in the 19th century, from Samuel Lysons, A collection of Gloucestershire Antiquities (1804), pl. 33.

Unusually for Gloucestershire, the hall lay on the first floor, and was approached by an external staircase. The cellar underneath was apparently used as a prison. Owners of the manor were apparently non-resident from the late 16th century onwards, and by 1785 the house was clearly ruinous. In 1796 the tenant was ordered to demolish the Great Hall, chapel, and most of the rest of the house, and to repair the remaining part, but this was not done and the house was still standing in the 1820s and perhaps as late as 1872, when it was partly used as cottages which were rebuilt in the early 20th century.

Rodmarton Manor: the entrance front in 2017. Image: Trip Advisor

In the early 20th century, a new manor house was built on a different site at the west end of the village, which is a treasure house of the Cotswold Arts and Crafts with one of the finest contemporary formal gardens in England. It was built for the Hon. Claud Biddulph, in preparation for his retirement from business in London, as the new centre of the Rodmarton estate which he had been given by his father, Lord Biddulph, in 1894. Biddulph commissioned a scheme from Ernest Barnsley (1861-1926), the ‘proper’ architect member of the Sapperton Arts and Crafts group, and intended the building to be an essay in traditional Cotswold manor house design. With the Great War looming, and high rural unemployment, he also had a social aim: by constructing the house using as many labour-intensive hand-crafted methods as possible, the work would involve many estate craftsmen over a long period, thus providing them with employment. Indeed, the project succeeded as work took 20 years, from 1909 to 1929, costing £5,000 a year.

Rodmarton Manor: garden front in 2017. Image: Trip Advisor.

Rodmarton is particularly significant in the history of the Arts and Crafts movement, and especially for the Sapperton group. Never before (with the notable exception of Ernest Gimson’s work at Bedales School in Sussex, the building of which started in 1910) had a house on this scale been attempted, most previous work having been in designing and building cottages or small-scale extensions. Rodmarton gave Barnsley the opportunity to operate on a much larger scale, while retaining the principle of utilizing traditional hand craftsmanship, an approach that also allowed the design to evolve, somewhat, as building work took place. In his obituary for Barnsley in 1926, F.W. Troup likened Rodmarton to a medieval palace, in that it was “a school of art and a university of the crafts”.

The house was designed to suggest that it was the result of progressive accretion and remodelling over time. A variety of subtle stylistic devices were used to create this impression of gradual change. In particular, the character of the service wing to the left of the entrance front suggests an earlier construction date than the main range. ‘Could it be’, we are meant to ask, ‘that an earlier main house (of a medieval date) was replaced by a later construction, perhaps in the 1680s?’ The notion of implied growth, previously pioneered by George Devey in his picturesque cottages at Penshurst, Kent (c.1850), and at St Alban’s Court, Nonnington, Kent (c.1875-9), fails at one level because the house is so clamantly of its time to modern eyes.

Rodmarton Manor: ground plan.

The house consists of a series of distinct architectural units, each externally complete in themselves. To the east there is a rectangular kitchen court, the first part to be constructed. This almost belongs to the architectural scale and character of Barnsley and Gimson’s cottage designs. The linking angled family wing has the appearance of a small manor house in its own right, with a central doorway and symmetrical, three-gabled elevation. Next comes the taller main block, with the otherwise awkward junction with the family wing disguised by a polygonal bay window, this being matched at the other end at the junction with the chapel wing. The main block is again symmetrical and centred on a gabled two-storey porch. The Builder was not enthusiastic about the design of the main range, comparing its five gables to 'an upturned and magnified saw'. The internal planning is complex and occasionally ingenious, although retaining the one-room-and-a-corridor width of a cottage. While the main block is symmetrical on its entrance and garden elevations, the central axes do not match. Most curious is the slight of hand in the planning of the chapel, where the external axis of the chapel wing is at 45 degrees to the alignment of the internal space.

Rodmarton Manor: the hall (now library).

Ever-changing hand-crafted masonry detailing, particularly on the chimneys and gable vents, the use of traditionally-decorated lead guttering, and large numbers of iron casements with leaded quarries, illustrate the range of crafts employed. Internally, there is an extensive use of hand-sawn oak beams and joists, panelling and oak floor boards. In all, it is cottage architecture writ large. Ashbee was impressed by the hand-made methods of construction used at Rodmarton. He wrote, after visiting the works in 1914, ‘I’ve seen no modern work to equal it, nothing I know of Lutyens or Baker comes up to it. And when I ask why, I find the answer in the system, the method rather than the man. It is a house built on the basis not of contract but of confidence, and Barnsley has been allowed a free hand to put all his personal knowledge and technique into the work. The Eng[lish] Arts and Crafts Movement at its best is here – so are the vanishing traditions of the Cotswolds’. Work was not complete when Ernest Barnsley died in 1926. Initially, the project was taken over by his brother Sidney until his death later the same year, after which Norman Jewson saw work through to a conclusion in 1929.

Rodmarton Manor: the drawing room. Image: Andrew Tierney/Daily Telegraph.

Perhaps it is at Rodmarton that the handicraft philosophy was taken to its limits, with the idea of a house being built from estate-produced materials. Stone was quarried nearby, the timber had been grown at Rodmarton, and everything was hand-fashioned, all of the floor joists and roof rafters being sawn in a saw-pit, a method which had long since been superseded by mechanised equipment. The logic of hand-crafted work, developed for furniture and the decorative arts, (and well exhibited in the extensive collection of contemporary furniture in the house, mostly made in the Daneway workshops) was extended here to building, but this, inevitably, could not provide a way forward for architecture in general. In some ways, architecturally, the Arts and Crafts movement died in the back-breaking labour of the saw-pits at Rodmarton.

Rodmarton Manor: 'The Troughery' in the garden. Image: Nicholas Kingsley. Some rights reserved.

The fine gardens represent another strand of Arts and Crafts design. Ernest Barnsley convinced Mrs. Biddulph to lay out the gardens at the same time as work was carried out on the house. William Scrubey was responsible for the design and planting. He is credited, together with the foreman, in a Latin inscription over a doorway through a wall into the garden. It follows the compartment form, made fashionable at this time by the influential books by J.D. Sedding, Reginald Blomfield and H. Inigo Triggs; Barnsley himself trained in J.D. Sedding’s office. The garden compartments are to the south of the main range of the manor, arranged axially on the elevation, with an east-west cross axis. To the west of this is the ‘Long Garden’, flanked by yew hedges and leading to a hipped roofed garden pavilion. The garden has developed somewhat in the 20th century, with some replanting and new paving to reduce the workload, and the creation of a tennis court, swimming pool and croquet lawn. One of the most successful areas is now ‘The Troughery’ where three generations of the family have accumulated ancient stone farm troughs set on staddle stones, and the adjacent topiary garden. Generally, due to the confining nature of the garden rooms, it is almost impossible to appreciate the extent of the house, unlike the full unfolding available from the entrance court. From the south west there is, however, a well-contrived picturesque view of the loggias at the chapel end of the house.

Today, the masonry has mellowed, and Rodmarton almost appears, at a casual glance, to be the 17th-century manor house Biddulph and Barnsley intended. Both house and garden are well maintained by their present owners, and the gardens are regularly open to the public. By arrangement, the house interior, with its fine collection of furniture, can also be seen.

Descent: Michael Biddulph (1834-1923), 1st Baron Biddulph; to son, Hon. Claud Biddulph (1871-1954); to son, Anthony Biddulph (1910-84); to son, Simon Biddulph (b. 1942); handed over 2013 to son, John Biddulph (b. 1971).

Continue to Part 2 of the post.

Principal sources

Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, 2003, pp. 372-73; S. Lysons, A collection of Gloucestershire Antiquities, 1804, pl. 33; P.F. Robinson, Designs for ornamental villas, 1827, plates for 'design 11'; VCH Gloucestershire, vol. 11, 1976, pp. 236-37; C. Aslet, 'Rodmarton Manor', Country Life, 19-26 October 1978; N.W. Kingsley, 'The work of Anthony Keck', Country Life, 20-27 October 1988; J. Allibone, George Devey, 1991, pp. 100-03; P. Davey, Arts and Crafts Architecture, 1995, p.22; D. Ottewill, The Edwardian garden, 1989, pp. 132-34; N.W. Kingsley & M. Hill, The country houses of Gloucestershire 1830-2000, 2001, pp. 214-17; T. Mowl, Historic gardens of Gloucestershire, 2002, pp. 149-51; K. Cruft, J. Dunbar & R. Fawcett, The buildings of Scotland: Borders, 2006, pp. 512-13; S. Pinches, Ledbury: a market town and its Tudor heritage, 2009; A. Brooks & Sir N. Pevsner, The buildings of England: Herefordshire, 2012, pp. 429-30, 434; B. Byrom, The country houses, castles and mansions of Roxburghshire, 2015, pp. 63-64.

Location of archives

Biddulph family, Barons Biddulph:  deeds and estate papers, 15th-20th cents; diaries and journals of John Biddulph, banker, 1787-1841 [Herefordshire Archive and Records Centre, D51, G2, D2/3]; Gloucestershire estate deeds, manorial records, estate and family papers, 16th-20th cents [Gloucestershire Archives, D1332, D1348, D5112]

Coat of arms

Biddulph (later Maitland-Biddulph), Barons Biddulph: Vert an eagle displayed argent armed and langued gules, a canton of the second. [The present baron quarters his arms with those of Maitland: or a lion rampant gules couped at all his joints of the field within a double tressure flory counterflory azure]

Can you help?

• Can anyone provide photographs of the interiors of Ledbury Park, Underdown or Makerstoun House, in the latter cases before the fires that gutted them in the late 20th century?
• If anyone can offer further information or corrections to any part of this article I should be most grateful. I am always particularly pleased to hear from current owners or the descendants of families associated with a property who can supply information from their own research or personal knowledge for inclusion.

Revision and acknowledgements

This post was first published 4 November 2025.