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years of this century. Note the Vernon coat of arms carved in stone over the door and the Latin inscription VERNON SEMPER VIRET (Vernon always flourishes). The estate maintenance yard (now SUDBURY COURTYARD) was sited directly behind the office. SUDBURY COURTYARD, now restored as craft shops and a café, was known first as the ‘Wood Yard’ and later as the ‘Estate Yard’. Here, over some 350 years, alterations and repairs to Sudbury Hall, the village and surrounding estate farms were planned and materials prepared. The workshop buildings changed over the centuries, as tools and machinery developed. The present buildings date mainly from the 19th and early 20th centuries. One from the 1920s was an ambulance garage. The ambulance was provided to serve the village by the 9th Lord Vernon. THE BOWLING GREEN, created by the 9th Lord Vernon before World War II, was one of several measures to provide social and leisure activities for villagers. These included a double tennis court in Sudbury Hall’s Stable-yard, and a dedicated sports field in the lower park immediately opposite Sudbury Hall, still the village sports ground today. THE VERNON ARMS has been an inn since medieval times. It appears on the earliest known plan of the village dated 1659. The inn was built anew by George Vernon in the 1670s as an important feature of his improved estate village. It was sited directly over a stream or brook - a great advantage in the days before piped water. Water continues to flow under the building today and emerges on the other side of the road, between Brook House (the three-storey house opposite) and the BOWLING GREEN. During the heyday of stage-coach travel, in the late 1700s and early 1800s, the Vernon Arms was an important hostelry on the Lichfield-Buxton turnpike road. Travellers were obliged to leave half-eaten meals, and leap back into their waiting carriage, as stable hands changed the horses at lightning speed at large ‘posting inns’ like the Vernon Arms. THE VILLAGE SHOP was originally a substantial bakers and general store. Bread was delivered for several miles around. The building was extended and remodelled in the Edwardian era. Note the 1900 date on the Dutch-style gable. MAIN ROAD viewed from the village STOCKS, curving down towards Sudbury Hall, provides a dramatic image of a mansion house supported by its estate village. The buildings on the south side all pre-date the 1800s, and many are contemporary with Sudbury Hall. Note the attractive group of cottages set back from the road behind a flagstoned garden. The red brick of the village’s construction is frequently relieved by a blue-black diapered (or fretwork) pattern, like that on the Hall itself. GAMEKEEPER’S TALLY BOARD on a central door in the Stable-yard. A traditional tally-board using animals’ feet (or pads) to record kills. Many of these painted-over bones are believed to belong to otters, hunted because of their attacks on fish stocks in the nearby River Dove. MOUNTING BLOCK. A standard stable-yard feature for mounting horses. Note the carved stone Vernon fret on the base, a crossed diamond motif. THE DEERCOTE, a castle-like, fanciful structure originally of the 1700s, was more purposeful than the temples and follies seen in many parks and gardens at this period. It provided shelter for deer in the park and at one stage was partly thatched. It is best seen from the first-floor Queen’s Room in Sudbury Hall. CUPOLA. This striking feature of Sudbury Hall shows that George Vernon was familiar with the work of professional country house architects of his day. Its crowning golden ball (first gilded in 1687) reflects the sun’s rays and acted as a beacon for travellers. Inside the dome there is a decorative plaster ceiling and fine spiral staircase leading to the roof. Perhaps ladies and gentlemen came up to view the estate and watch hunting parties, or look at the stars? CHURCH GATE. The Vernon family’s own entrance into the churchyard from Sudbury Hall gardens. Note the Latin inscription over the stone doorway ‘OMNE BONUM DEO DONUM’ (all good things are the gift of God) – a reminder! ALL SAINTS’ CHURCH was extensively restored by the 6th Lord Vernon’s architect, George Devey, in 1873-83. The tower was raised, windows replaced and pews installed. There are fine family monuments in the Vernon chapel and throughout the church, dating from the early 1600s. A church has existed on this site since the Early Middle Ages. SOUTH LODGE was designed and built by Thomas Gardner of Uttoxeter in 1787. It is paired by the later North Lodge opposite the National Trust car park. Both were occupied by gatekeepers’ families until the 1920s. THE OLD ESTATE OFFICE was built by George Vernon in the late 1600s. The management of Vernon’s properties and his numerous building projects took place here. The building has been put to different uses over many generations, but was again the Sudbury Estate manager’s office by the early THE STOCKS were commonplace in medieval England after a Statute of 1350 made it law for every township to provide and maintain a set of stocks for the punishment of ‘unruly artisans’. Vagabonds and drunkards were regularly set in the stocks. In the 1700s there were around 11,000 sets of stocks in England, but their use died out in the early 1800s. At Sudbury the stocks were replaced by a Lock Up; two walls of this survive in the cut-away corner at the junction of Gibb Lane and MAIN ROAD near the VILLAGE SHOP. THE BUTCHER’S SHOP was moved from MAIN ROAD, opposite the VILLAGE SHOP, to its present site in the late 1800s. The customised awning, shutters and doorway, unaltered since that time, are probably the work of Theodosius Coxon, the estate clerk- of-works for 40 years from the 1870s. During the late- Victorian era there were two tailors’ shops, one above the butcher’s and another in the black and white house opposite. These businesses were handed down through families for many generations. SUDBURY SCHOOL. Compulsory education was introduced in England from 1870. At Sudbury, the Vernon family had been paying a village schoolmaster since the early 1700s. Cottages in School Lane were converted into a long low schoolroom for boys in 1831 (now Sudbury pre-school). A large purpose- built school for girls, on the opposite side of the lane, (now the main primary school building), was completed the following year. The school grounds included model gardens for the children to tend, as recommended by the French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau: an idealist approach by the 4th Lord Vernon. THE GAS WORKS. This unusual and ornate building of 1874 was designed by George Devey. It exemplifies the extraordinary attention to detail seen in Victorian service buildings. Note the diapered Vernon fret providing a contrasting pattern in the brickwork. Coal was brought from Poynton, another Vernon estate outside Manchester, converted into gas and piped to the Hall and throughout the village. The Gas Works was state-of-the-art technolo for the 1870s. Similarly progressive was the piped water supply which served the village through a cast-iron main from 1875 until the 1980s. THE 18TH Century FOOTBRIDGE at the end of the lake is both ornamental and practical. It conceals a dam, where excess water falls away into a stream leading to the River Dove. THE BOAT HOUSE, a typical late-Victorian construction with a hipped roof, resembles the style of Coxon. A large jetty, where boats could be tied up, once projected into the lake under a weeping willow tree. THE LAKE was originally a series of fish ponds serving the manor house which preceded the late 17th century mansion. When Sudbury Hall was built the ponds were incorporated as a canal in a French- style formal garden. The 18th century fashion for natural landscaped settings saw their conversion into a serpentine lake. In the mid 19th century a wooded island was formed, which widened the lake and gave it more importance. With its richness of unusual buildings and features and four centuries of history as an estate village. Exploring Sudbury Contact details: Sudbury Hall and the National Trust Museum of Childhood, Sudbury, Ashbourne, Derbyshire, DE6 5HT Tel: 01283 585337 Email: [email protected] www.nationaltrust.org.uk/sudburyhall /SudburyHall @Sudbury_HallNT Photography: © National Trust Images, Hon. Mrs. J.E. Fitzalan Howard and Sam Jenkinson. Printed on 100% recycled paper. Please recycle this leaflet after use. All details correct at time of going to print (August 2017). Whilst every care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of this leaflet, National Trust cannot be held responsible for any errors or omissions which may have occurred. ©National Trust 2017. National Trust is an independent registered charity, number 205846. 15 17 16 Today’s landscaped grounds date from the early 180Os when the garden was naturalised to enhance its picturesque qualities. In the previous century, the 1st Lord Vernon had already swept away the ornamental ponds and formal garden laid out by his grandfather, George Vernon, who designed and built Sudbury Hall in the late 1600s. The close-by village was improved and extended by George Vernon, while construction and decoration of the Hall were underway. The village provided homes for servants, workpeople and other tenants. Large numbers were needed for management and upkeep, which included the Hall, its gardens, park, farms and more than 3,000 acres of land. In later centuries, such villages were usually sited further away from the mansion house, and often hidden by trees and parkland. Explore four hundred years of Sudbury as an estate village, its custodianship by George Vernon’s descendants, and its unusual richness of surviving buildings and historic features. 1 2 10 8 9 20 18 19 4 6 5 11 14 12 3 7 13 H 1872 www.sudburyestate.com /SudburyCourtyard @sudburycy
