Cronkhill: Italianate Villa in Shropshire

Regency Places

8 Jun

Cronkhill, an Italianate villa in Shropshire

Cronkhill is a curiosity

It’s not what you expect to see crowning a low hill in the English countryside, in rural Shropshire. As Country Life magazine observed, ‘It could easily be thought to be a film star’s residence in the Mediterranean or southern California.’

In reality it’s a farmhouse. A Georgian farmhouse at that.

Which is another curiosity. Aren’t grand Georgian houses meant to be symmetrical?

Attingham Park, just down the road and built less than 20 years earlier, exhibits the features you’d expect from a mansion built in the reign of George III. Solidly symmetrical, with a massive central block, fronted with tall ionic pillars, with wings stretching either side.

We’re not architectural experts, but to us, Attingham looks imposingly Palladian. So its curious it’s owner in the 1790s, Thomas Hill, 2nd Baron Berwick, commissioned nearby Cronkhill. It’s not what you expect from a Georgian designer.

An early project by John Nash

The architect responsible for Cronkhill was John Nash (1752-1835). He was influenced by ideas about the picturesque, which included irregular buildings designed to look as if they were constructed piecemeal over many years. Italy was a rich source of inspiration.

Cronkhill was Nash’s first ‘Italianate villa’ and the design was influential. Country Life says the house is ‘felt to hold an important place in the history of domestic architecture’, both for its simple asymmetry and its relationship with the Shropshire landscape.

R Lugar included a version of the design in his Architectural Sketches for Cottages, Rural Dwellings and Villas, published 1805 (picture below).

Image based on Cronkhill, by Lugar in *Architectural Sketches for Cottages, Rural Dwellings and Villas* (1805)

We don’t know why Thomas Hill, 2nd Baron Berwick, commissioned the house. We do know it was built for Francis Walford, his agent. The villa stands on the highest point of the Baron’s Attingham estate.

Cronkhill was intended to stand out. You can help pause to admire it as you pass by. Perhaps that was the main intention of the design - to decorate the landscape.

An elegant yet functional construction

But for all that it’s an eye-catching property, in a prominent position overlooking the River Severn, Cronkhill is a farmhouse.

The villa isn’t a standalone structure. It’s built onto an older timber-framed and brick construction that dates from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This was the earlier farmhouse.

What you can’t see, behind the villa, are the neat redbrick farm buildings that were probably built around the same time.

Today many of these buildings have been listed as having historic status. The villa and attached farmhouse are rated at Grade 1 - making them historic buildings of exceptional interest.

Nash - architect of the Regency

Cronkhill was one of John Nash’s early projects. He went on to become one of the leading architects of the Regency. The English Heritage website says he ‘designed a significant portion of Regency London, leaving a legacy to rival that of Sir Christopher Wren.’

His most well-known creations are Regent Street, Regent’s Park and, on the south coast, the Brighton Pavilion.

Cronkhill is owned by the National Trust. The older portion (the red-brick section on the photo below) can be hired as a holiday home. We stayed there with our family in March 2024.

Cronkhill - the older section on the left probably pre-dates the Georgian villa by at least 100 years.

Andrew Knowles researches and writes about the late Georgian and Regency period. He’s also a freelance writer and editor for business. He lives with his wife Rachel, co-author of this blog, in the Dorset seaside town of Weymouth.

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Regency History
by Andrew & Rachel Knowles