Imagine having a glorious uninterrupted scenic view from your sitting room, only to be wildly disturbed by the building of house beyond. It happens all the time, and for most, there isn’t a darn thing you can do about it.
Now there was a trend way back in the 1990’s for popping a line of Leylandi in the ground, all to blot out the neighbour, and later on the sun. It’s true when they promised a fat growing tree, but after a just few years they ended up shrouding the whole street in darkness. Their lurking unkempt sprawl seeping onto driving ways creeping onto footpaths, doggedly scratching at those who ambled past.
For one well-connected member of parliament in Corsham, a burgeoning market town in Wiltshire - now home to wandering peacocks on its High Street - the sight of a neighbour’s glaring intrusion was too much to bear. So, the then incumbent set about erecting what most newcomers to this street scene would consider a tumbled down-down ruin - a romantic edifice, reminiscent of an era when the inhabitants of England lived in castles or haystacks. Fortunately for this upwardly mobile resident, this was a time before the planning inspector’s red tape. Back then, lords of the manor had considerable freedom to do pretty much what they pleased. Rerouting a road (Charborough House) posed no problem; moving an entire village (Milton Abbas) was simply part of their top-down prerogative.
I must admit to being fooled upon first noticing this ruin, perched on a side street, initially wondering to myself what it once was, and why it was standing in what looked be someone’s back garden? The truth, like a lot of things, was much more intriguing.
Corsham Court, a rambling manor dating back a thousand years, once seat to the infamous Saxon King Ethelred The Unready and home of not one, but two of Henry VIII’s wives (Catherine Parr and Katherine of Aragon).
As stone houses rose to replace more earthly dwellings, so their windows loomed large over Cosham Court’s once private grounds. For Paul Cobb Methuen, a merry member of parliament for Great Bedwyn, the glaring sight of this sneering upstart looming over his estate walls was all too much to bear.
The then sitting lord of the manor commissioned in 1797 one of England’s most desirable architect, John Nash (who’d already dashed off his drawing board Brighton’s Royal Pavilion, Buckingham Palace and Marble Arch) to erect a huge facade to keep prying eyes off his princely house. At luck would have it Nash just happened to be free at the time. Using medieval stone along with some local materials sourced nearby, Nash designed this sham ruin to give the residents of Corsham Court just a little more privacy.
It is worth noting, with a wry smile, that Corsham Court does not sit directly behind the ruin, but a couple of hundred feet away. Privacy even at this distance was still to be preserved.
Corsham Court