Timeline

King Henry IV gifted Hampton Estate to his cousin, Margaret Fitzalan of Arundel Castle and Henry’s Yeoman of the Robes, Rowland Leinthall on the occasion of their marriage.

Rowland Leinthall took eight men on horseback plus 33 archers to assist Henry V at the Battle of Agincourt. For his service, Rowland was knighted. The death, during the campaign, of Lady Margaret’s brother, the Earl of Arundel, without an heir, brought to the Leinthalls a third share of his immense wealth. This passed to their son, Edmund, on the death of Lady Margaret. Sir Rowland married, secondly, Lucy Grey of Codnor and had a further five children. Hampton Castle began to be built.

Sir Rowland Leinthall died. Neither of his surviving sons produced an heir and two of his daughters married and lived elsewhere.

The Hampton Estate is purchased by Sir Humphrey Coningsby of Rock, Worcestershire. Ten generations of Coningsbys lived at Hampton Castle during their 300 year tenure. They made changes to both the Castle and the gardens and had a wider impact in the local community and beyond. 

Now owned by Sir Thomas Coningsby, soldier and MP, Hampton Castle became an academy of the courtly arts, teaching young gentlemen about arms, music, poetry, horsemanship and fencing. 

In the mid-1690s, the King and Queen were redesigning the Privy Garden at Hampton Court Palace. Thomas Lord Coningsby, great grandson of Sir Thomas Coningsby employed the fashionable designers George London and Henry Wise to create remarkably similar new gardens for him here. A channel was dug from The River Lugg to a five sided pool with a large fountain. Trees were planted alongside bridges, raised terraces, parterres and enclosed beds. The Humber brook became a canal and there was even a bowling green. 

George Capel Coningsby (5th Lord Essex) inherited the estate. The leading garden designer of this period was Humphry Repton. George Capel-Coningsby commissioned Repton to remove the manicured designs of London and Wise and make the gardens more landscaped, more like the popular designs of Capability Brown from earlier in the period. The fountains were removed, the intricate gardens cleared, many of the rows of trees were felled. Two new walled gardens were created, the new bridges were more rustic in style and the new paths more winding. By the early nineteenth century the house was said to be surrounded by a ‘spacious lawn of nearly 100 acres’. This is also likely to be when Hampton Garden’s large Cedars of Lebanon were planted.

Hampton Castle, being no longer needed, was offered for sale for the first time for three hundred years. The estate was purchased by Richard Arkwright, the son of Sir Richard Arkwright the industrialist who is credited with being the "father of the factory system".

The Arkwright family owned the estate for 102 years and introduced an industrial approach to farming; they improved the weirs and mills and built saw and stone mills. They were philanthropic towards their tenants and grew the estate to be over 10,000 acres.

The Arkwrights also retained the waterfalls and cascades on the Humber Brook (as seen on the River Walk) and introduced some lovely walks through the woodland, including planting the rhododendron that, when in season in early spring, can still be seen on the opposite side of the river bank along the River Walk.

A new conservatory designed by Sir Joseph Paxton (1803-1865), who was the head gardener at Chatsworth House, was added to the south west side of the building. It was a place of delight to the children and where the exotic plants used in the girls’ wedding bouquets were grown. Since then it has had many uses, including being made into a swimming pool in the 1980s. It is now the Orangery Cafe.

The second of three generations of John Arkwrights took over the estate when in 1858, at the age of 24, the eldest son John Hungerford Arkwright (known as Johnny) inherited the estate on the death of his father.

The glorious Wisteria Arch that we still enjoy today was planted and is certainly one of the oldest in the UK.

Johnny married Lucy Davenport - Johnny was a keen gardener with a particular love of roses. He planted many different varieties in the gardens and on the morning of his wedding he sent some petals from these roses to his bride. 

One of Johnny’s daughters, Evelyn, found an unusual primrose with a very large flower head, when she was out walking in the grounds. It was cultivated on the Hampton Estate and the seed was sold commercially; among the customers were Kew Gardens and the famous gardener Gertrude Jekyll. Sadly it is no longer available. The new game of lawn tennis became popular in the mid-1870s. Johnny caught the bug and a court and pavilion were laid out on the site of today’s Dutch Garden.

Johnny was also a very important breeder and exporter of Hereford Cattle, a native British breed. In the 1890s The Royal Agricultural Society of England regularly judged that the finest bulls in the country were to be found in Johnny's herd. He was also considered remarkable for the methodical way in which he kept accurate records of his animals, which was unusual for the time. In 1878 he co-founded the Hereford Herd Book Society, (today the Hereford Cattle Society). Johnny loved his cattle and commissioned drawings of some of his favourites. He referred to them as his ‘Ruby Moos’.

Johnny died on 25th May 1905 and his only son, John Stanhope Arkwright (known as Jack) inherited the estate. Jack had been elected as the MP for Hereford in the 1900 election.

After his father’s death, Jack, understanding that times had changed, paid off the death duties, cleared the mortgages, and put the estate on the market. Hampton Castle was purchased by Nancy Burrell and husband Major William Burrell. Early on in the First World War, Major Burrell died of pneumonia whilst on active service, leaving Nancy with three small daughters.

Soon after losing her husband Nancy turned the castle into a Red Cross convalescent hospital for the wounded and by April 1917 there were 55 beds. The gardens were a solace for the recovering soldiers. Some of the doctors, nurses and patients' families have been back to visit as for some it was the place where their predecessors had met and fallen in love. Nancy was only able to remain at the Castle for 12 years before being unable to afford to stay and having to sell.

Robert Charles Devereux, the 17th Viscount Hereford and his wife the Viscountess bought the Hampton Estate. For nearly 50 years the Devereaux family retained what was left of the estate and continued to raise Hereford Cattle. However, like many great houses in the twentieth century the house was falling into disrepair and the gardens becoming overgrown. Even the roof of Paxton’s conservatory, today’s Orangery Café, collapsed. In 1972 the eighteenth Viscount Hereford decided to sell the house, and a two-day sale of the contents.

From 1972 - 1994 the estate passed through several hands, each subsequent owner trying to stop more disrepair and make improvements, until in 1994 it was purchased by Robert Van Kampen, an American financier. Van Kampen set about undertaking enormous repairs to the building. He also commissioned local garden designers Simon Dorrell and David Wheeler to transform the gardens.

When designing the new gardens Simon Dorrell and David Wheeler tried to give the same sense and feel to the gardens that had existed over the centuries. Today water canals, island pavilions, avenues and borders complement some established planting of earlier eras with a maze, central gothic tower and a secret tunnel.

The wooden pavilions in the gardens were built using chestnut and oak from the estate. The water features use water taken from the River Lugg which is pumped around to all the different water features, starting at the Dutch Garden and returning to the Lugg via an exit from the Sunken Garden.

The Dutch Garden is designed as a tribute to Lord Coningsby’s elaborate gardens of the 17th century and as a reminder of his admiration for the Dutch born King William III.

In tribute to the Van Kampen family, who commissioned the exciting new gardens, a VK monogram was included as part of the planting scheme on each side of the maze.

Sadly Robert Van Kampen had a heart attack and died in late 1999, so didn’t get to see the grand opening of the gardens and in 2004 the Van Kampen family put the estate up for sale.

A British company purchased the estate and continue to be its custodians today.