Byrkley Lodge

Byrkley Park – Early History

The name Byrkley, which has changed a few times over the centuries, is derived from the family De Berkeley of Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire. In the 13th century there was a hunting lodge on the site which was in the heart of the ancient Forest of Needwood. Thomas de Berkeley was keeper of the Tutbury ward and occasionally stayed there.

Needwood Chase, as it was then known, had become the hunting preserve of the powerful Norman family de Ferrers, Earls of Derby, whose collective estates were known as the Honour of Tutbury. In 1267 the daughter of William de Ferrers married Thomas de Berkeley.

Because the Ferrers allied themselves with Simon de Montford in his rebellion against Henry 111 they were forced to forfeit their extensive estates to the crown. These subsequently became part of the Duchy of Lancaster which passed to the crown again in 1399.

Those were bloody times but Byrkley Lodge saw the coming and going of generations of monarchs, of charters and changing laws, was controlled by numerous keepers and saw the births, marriages and deaths of numerous tenants.

The hunting lodge was usually the residence of the keeper who was appointed by the King. It was also used on occasions by the monarch on hunting expeditions. Edward IV, who was a particularly keen huntsman, spent lavishly on extensions and repairs. Byrkley Lodge alternated with Tutbury Castle at one time as a venue for the wood mote or forest court. At such times miscreants would be brought before officials who would levy fines for trespass, poaching and other forest offences.

King James I often visited his much loved lodge at Byrkley. The ‘Woodmote Court’ was the only local judicial body. On 19 May 1337 the Chief Forester (Judge) dealt with the following cases:

– A person of Tatenhill fined 2 shillings for stealing three tops of fallen oak trees near Byrkley fishpond.
– Robert Clerk fined 12 pennies for taking one oak tree top from Dunstall Hill.
– Robert Dicon fined 6 pennies for cutting down lime trees.
– Richard Merriot fined 6 pennies for trespassing two colts in the lord’s fenced Byrkley Park.
– The Rector of Tatenhill Church fined 12 pennies for trespassing 140 sheep in Byrkley Park.
– Henry Brown fined 3 pennies for breaking down park palings in Highlands Park half a mile from Byrkley.

All offenders were held in the mercy of the court under surety of the Chief Forester.These courts were no longer necessary once the disafforestation of Needwood was affected after the enclosure in 1801. By this time the forest had changed. Once the home of the wolf, wild boar and wild fallow deer, it was now exploited for timber and pasture. On the lush meadows and grassland grazed the stock and dairy herds and the horses of the Earls and manorial lords. Plentiful oaks supplied acorns for pigs, and where oaks and timber trees were felled underwood and thorn were planted to provide cover for game. Venison, fish from the ponds, and honey from Needwood supplied the Lancastrian households and provided rewards for their supporters and officials.

In 1754 Lord Townshend, whose wife Lady Charlotte Compton had inherited Tamworth Castle and succeeded to the Ferrers barony, acquired the leasehold of Byrkley Lodge as his hunting seat. Here he built a house more extensive and somewhat more elegant than the earlier lodge, where they could retire in peace for a few months of the year.

It had become fashionable in the early 18th century to seek quiet, for some even solitude, in a country retreat, and Byrkley Lodge was ideally situated. Needwood Forest became the haunt of poets, philosophers and painters in search of the picturesque, as well as those in pursuit of the regular sporting pleasures of the forest.

The residents of Byrkley Lodge, like those at Yoxall Lodge lying little more than a mile south on Linbrook, found the natural brook, the valleys and plains, the fertile soils and the picturesque gnarled oaks all lent themselves well to the designs of landscape gardeners. Before he sold Yoxall Lodge to John Gisborne in the mid 18th century Sir Nathaniel Curzon had Ernes, a landscape gardener following the tradition of ‘Capability’ Brown, design improvements for the grounds there. Brown himself was planning the complete rebuilding and landscaping of Fisherwick for the Marquis of Donegal. The Marquis purchased Byrkley Lodge from Lord Townshend and the watercolours of the house and grounds in 1786 show clearly the influence of these gardeners who blended their cultivated art with nature.

On a 1775 map to the nobility Byrkley Lodge is the only building in the wooded area of the Needwood Forest Plateau except for Yoxall Lodge. Its only neighbour at this time was Hanbury Park Farm some 3 miles north.

The inhabitants of many of the great houses in the vicinity were closely associated by ties of friendship and marriage. They shared enthusiasm for hunting and fishing, archery and battledore, books and poetry, music and painting, and exchanged ideas on gardening developments. Many interesting figures of this period found pleasure in this company: William Wilberforce, Erasmus Darwin, Joseph Wright, Richard Lovell Edgeworth (2 of whose 4 wives were sisters of Edward Sneyd) and the novalist Maria Edgeworth.

Richard Edgeworth had 22 children. Edward Sneyd had only one and Mary Emma Sneyd did not marry. But one of her close friends, one of the 6 sons of Thomas Gisborne of Yoxall Lodge, married the daughter of Michael Bass of Burton-on-Trent. Mary (Bass) Gisborne’s brother, another Michael Bass, eventually rented Byrkley Lodge from Emma Sneyd in 1850.

The deeds of this lease are interesting in the detail of care for the property stipulated by Miss Sneyd. Of particular interest are the gardens and greenhouses mentioned, hothouses, shrubberies and pleasure grounds. Michael Bass had to spend £350 for improvements and reparations and ‘keep the gardens and garden grounds belonging to the Mansion House cropped and manured and managed the same according to the most approved methods of gardening’.

Sir Oswald Mosley wrote in his 1863 ‘Natural History of Tutbury’ that: “At Byrkley Lodge, for some years, families of pure white rabbits have been produced in the park where they make a very striking appearance”.

Before the Bass family rebuilt the Lodge, previous occupants had tried to make Byrkley different. Albino rabbits were bred and released in large numbers into the grounds. Byrkley Park was the only country estate in existence to have true white rabbits running wild. When the Bass family lived at the Lodge, workers were not allowed to shoot any of these white rabbits.

Brykley Lodge was completely re-built between 1887 and 1891 for Hamar Bass. The above photo shows the impressive stairway.

The stables at Byrkley Lodge, which survived for some time after the main house eventually demolished, enjoyed some fame and success. The Byrkley Stud produced ‘Love Wisely’ which won the Ascot Gold Cup in 1896. Hamar Bass was also the master of the Meynell (Fox) Hunt for 12 years so the hunt started at the front of the lodge.

Hamar’s son, William, succeeded in his uncle’s baronetcy according to special remainder and inherited Byrkley Lodge. The great mansion left by Sir William Bass and sold in 1952 was demolished.