WEDDINGTON CASTLE - An Online History
INTRODUCTION
Britain is a country blessed with a wealth of history; from ancient Celtic barrows, through to Roman villas and imposing medieval fortresses, and on to the architectural splendour of the Victorian era. From Stonehenge to St Albans Abbey, from Windsor Castle to Westminster, our ancestors have left us all with a precious legacy; a huge array of buildings many of them open to the public which serve as a timeless testimony to our extensive heritage.
When walking around such places, places which have survived and persisted
through generation after generation of Britons, it is easy to feel that these
solid rock-hewn castles and towering cathedrals are impregnable; that they will
simply always be there as a constant national bequest for future generations to
inherit.
But history does not stand still, and our ancient fortresses built to
withstand the enemies of their day are not always proof against the inevitable
march of progress. The occupying Romans desecrated centuries-old Druidic
temples, Cromwell destroyed castles across the land upon gaining power and Henry
VIII obliterated a wealth of ancient abbeys and monasteries. Of course, such
destruction has always been cyclical, part of our historical evolution, and for
every desecrated temple we have, in the fullness of time, gained a Roman villa.
For every devastated castle a magnificent country manor has been constructed.
History, and the buildings which remain as its legacy, is always developing,
always evolving. However, in more modern times from the industrialisation of
the Victorian era through to the consumerism of the late twentieth and early
twenty-first centuries a new type of evolution has developed: one which uses
up our heritage as a resource, without necessarily replacing it.
As the United Kingdom gained in prosperity at the turn of the Nineteenth
century, two key social and political developments occurred. Firstly the country
moved from a hierarchical structure, based upon a wide divide between the ruling
classes and the masses, to become a capitalist system, based upon the forces of
trade and economics. Economy became the key and this can be seen in the legacy
of buildings that this era has produced: minimalist structures, often temporary
and built of cheap, mass-produced materials, unlikely to survive down the
centuries for future generations to marvel at.
The second development, a result of increased economic prosperity and stability,
was the blurring of the divide between the haves and the have-nots, and the rise
of the affluent middle-classes. This, along with the booms in immigration both
after the Second World War and with the opening up of Europe at the end of the
Twentieth century, led to an explosion in the demand for affordable housing and
as a result land became a valuable commodity.
This shift of focus to the needs of the populace, coupled with the need for more
and more land to build on, is perhaps a greater threat to face our legacy of
historical buildings than the gunpowder and cannons of old. Throughout the last
century, despite the work of bodies such as English Heritage and the National
Trust in preserving much of our heritage for the public, many beautiful and
unique buildings and their lands have been sold off. These valuable national
heirlooms have been divided up, demolished and obliterated, to be replaced with
uniform, utilitarian housing estates and commercial industrial estates. Unlike
the Romans, the Elizabethans and the Victorians, our modern architects rarely
seek to continue the cycle of history, their concern is build extensively,
efficiently and cheaply as the vast, faceless, prefabricated silos of our
modern commercial parks testify.
Where we do seek to be innovative in our buildings, often there is an element of
form over content, and a sense of building for the moment rather than for the
future. Sir Norman Fosters impressive glass structures for example, whilst
visually stunning and highly innovative, are unlikely to remain intact for
centuries to come.
Given this fact, and given that the demand for land for new housing is
continuing to grow, it is perhaps a small comfort that we do at least have the
means to capture a sense of what we are losing and have already lost. With the
advent of photography, of film and more recently the Internet, we have the means
to preserve the images of the constructions that have vanished forever, to
document for future generations the legacy of our ancestors which we have sold
off in the name of progress.
This account seeks to preserve what remains of one of those lost heirlooms, a
place variously known as Weddington Hall or Weddington Castle. Evolving from a
Royal Hunting Lodge in the ancient village of Weddington to become an extensive
fortified Hall set amidst beautifully landscaped gardens, this centuries-old
building was demolished in the 1920s to make way for a housing estate. This
website cannot serve, therefore, as a guide to your knowledge as you walk
through the wooden floored library of the Hall, or ascend the imposing staircase
of fine old oak that once greeted visitors, or wander around the picturesque
boating lake that graced the Halls grounds. It does, however, seek to bring
together what remains of this once-splendid building.
Of course, such remains - a handful of black and white photographs, the
occasional record in local journals - can never replace the actual physical
presence of this lost building; cannot evoke the atmosphere and sense of
continuity that one feels when walking on ancient flagstones where kings and
queens have walked centuries before. But they can at least serve as a reminder
that for all our wealth of history that has survived down the years, there is a
sub-strata of history that did not survive. The suburban estates and grey
factories of today are built upon the solid foundations and extravagant gardens
of once-great manors that now only exist ghostlike in faded photographs and
historical archives.
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