Claydon House, Buckinghamshire.

Garden Front


"Florrie's Waggon"

Lying some 12 miles to the north west of Aylesbury are the group of villages known as “The Claydons”, Steeple Claydon, Middle Claydon and East Claydon. Evidence suggests that the earliest setters began the creation of these villages around 660 AD on sits on the ridges which gave protection from flooding and allowed the erection of windmills which were typical of this part of Buckinghamshire. The name Claydon derives from the Anglo-Saxon for clayey hill with Steeple thought to have been added in recognition of a tower or steeple on the church. Today this area is a charming part of Buckinghamshire off the beaten track with an abundance of thatched cottages and it contains my favourite country house in Middle Claydon, the ancestral home of the Verney family, Claydon House. Set in unspoilt water meadows and pastures the vista from the house has none of the modern world intruding which is why it is frequently used as a backdrop for films and costume dramas.


The extraordinary architecture of Claydon House includes extravagant rococo and chinoiserie decoration. Features of the house include the unique Chinese Room and parquetry Grand Stairs. In continuous occupation by the Verney family for over 380 years, the house has mementoes of their relation Florence Nightingale, who was a regular visitor and it has fascinating associations with the Civil War and the Crimean War. The original house was rebuilt by Ralph 2nd Earl Verney between 1757 and 1771. The house as it stands today is a fraction of its original planned size. The original conception was of a mansion to rival the richer Earl Temple's huge mansion at Stowe, a few miles away near Buckingham.


Florence Nightingale

This is where Florence Nightingale, sister to a nineteenth-century Lady Verney, spent many happy years. The 'Lady of the Lamp' was famed for her nursing in the Crimean War in 1854, but Florence Nightingale was also a pioneer in campaigning for improving standards of rural nursing practice. She regularly stayed at Claydon House and wrote over 200 books, pamphlets and reports about how to improve rural medicine. She had the support of Dr George De'Ath of Buckingham and the pair became known as 'Heath Missioners' and they set up the pioneer Bucks County Hospital. In 1883 Nightingale was awarded the Royal Red Cross by Queen Victoria. In 1907 she became the first woman to be awarded the Order of Merit and in 1908 she was given the Honorary Freedom of the City of London. Florence Nightingale died of chronic fatigue syndrome in 1910 and left as her legacy the origins of the modern nursing profession.


Main Stairway

With room after room embellished with carved wood and plasterwork, all painted white, you are rendered almost senseless by the superabundance of eclectic plasterwork decoration in Rococo, Gothick, Chinoiserie and classical styles are all ragingly represented, often wrought together in a surreally rich mix. In the North Hall, wyverns of wood spread their wings on niches swirled about with Rococo foliage, fruit, faces and ho-ho birds. Cherubs leap from the ceiling, embracing axes and cannons, as well as muskets, swords and spears; every inch is carved in wood. As for the Chinese Room, where a carved couple enjoy tea in a lilting roofed alcove, smothered with wooden fruit, foliage, icicles and bells that swing at a flick of the finger, it is, without doubt, one of the most extraordinary rooms in England.

What remains today is the “west wing”; this at one time had an identical twin, which contained the ballroom, and other state apartments. The twin wings were separated by a huge colonnaded rotunda surmounted by a cupola (similar, but smaller than that at Ickworth in Suffolk). The 2nd Lord Verney ran into financial problems before the latter two wings were entirely completed, and had to spend the final years of his life on the continent to escape his creditors.


Claydon has been the ancestral home of the Verney family since 1620. The church of All Saints, Middle Claydon lies less than 50 yards from the house and contains many memorials to the Verney family: among them Sir Edmund Verney, who was chief standard bearer to King Charles I during the English Civil War. The 13th Century All Saints Church in the grounds of the Claydon Estate. Sir Edmund was slaughtered at the Battle of Edgehill on October 23, 1642 and is buried in the church at Claydon. It is said that at dusk, on the anniversary of his death every year, an apparition of the battle itself appears on the lawns of the great house, and has been reported by many servants from the house through the years since Sir Edmund's death. In 1661, following the Restoration of the Monarchy, Sir Edmund's son (Sir Ralph Verney II) was awarded a baronetcy by King Charles II for his and his father's loyalty and bravery during the preceding period of unrest. He was later, in 1703, made Viscount of Fermanagh and his grandson was, in 1742, created an Earl. Both titles have since, however, become extinct.

All Saints Church

The present Verney family who still live in the later red brick south wing, are in fact the descendants of Sir Harry Calvert (2nd Baronet) who inherited the house in 1827. He was very tenuously related to the Verneys only through marriage. However, he adopted the name Verney on inheriting.



Chinese Bedroom

The house was given to the National Trust in 1956 by Sir Ralph Verney, 5th Baronet and a famous illustrator and artist in his own right. His son, Sir Edmund Verney, 6th Baronet, a former High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire, lives in the house today. His sister is Mary Verney (Lady Verney) who is a well known violinist and fortepiano player. The Verney name is known to railway buffs through Verney junction described with some hyperbole by Sir. John Betjeman as the “Clapham Junction” of the Metropolitan railway.

The footprint of the Gardens and Grounds were first created by John Sanderson between 1763 and 1776 for the 2nd Earl Verney whose descendants have maintained and redeveloped it in their own way ever since. Today the gardens are experiencing a new phase of restoration and development assisted by a team of 3 to 4 gardeners. The gardens are situated to the South East of the house and can be reached by walking through the arch in the Courtyard and turning right through the lych gate. Immediately through the lych gate is Queen Victoria's walk, and a plaque in her memory can be seen in the wall at the northern end of the walk between the White Wisteria and the Magnolia Grandiflora. To the south of lych gate in the corner of the wall is Ellin's Rest, a small summerhouse in memory of Ellin, sister of the 3rd Baronet, surrounded by scented feminine plants. Alongside the wall behind Ellin's Rest is a border known as "The Ruby Border" as it contains plants given to the 5th Baronet, Sir Ralph and Lady Mary on the occasion of their 40th Wedding Anniversary in 1988.


Ellin's Rest

There is a good restaurant in the stable block along with a snack bar and a farm shop selling the produce of the kitchen garden. There is also a second hand bookshop raising funds for the National Trust as well as an exhibition of artefacts relating to Florence Nightingale. The gardens are a particular feature of the house but the setting of this fine and restrained Georgian house across fields and water meadows partnered by its adjacent church and fine old trees is a timeless vision of a time gone by. The house has been conserved rather than restored by the National Trust and the contrast between the plain exterior and the extraordinary Rococo interiors by Luke Lightfoot never fails to surprise and delight.

It has been described by Lucinda Lambton in Country Life:

"Claydon House in Buckinghamshire, built between 1757 and 1771 by Earl Verney, can be likened to a box of architectural fireworks: plain without, fizzling and sizzling in a variety of stupefyingly sensational styles within. If one house alone could be said to huzzah the structural and decorative splendours of the British Isles, then surely it should be Claydon, where Florence Nightingale, sister to a nineteenth-century Lady Verney, spent many happy years."

How to get there:

By road

In Middle Claydon 13ml NW of Aylesbury, 4ml SW of Winslow; signposted from A413 & A
(M40 exit 9 12ml); entrance by North drive only.

travel

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