Lord & Lady Ashbrook
Arley has been the much loved family home of my forebears since the fifteenth century. It is now a huge pleasure to be able to share this beautiful place with so many others. The following pages of this website describe in some detail the facilities which we have to offer.
Together with our dedicated staff my wife Zoe and I constantly strive to ensure that a visit to Arley for whatever purpose will be enjoyable and fulfilling.
A very warm welcome to all our visitors.
With best wishes, Viscount Ashbrook
The Arley Estate
Arley Hall & Gardens is a place of enormous character, charm and interest. Visitors are frequently struck by the warm and intimate atmosphere and the feeling that Arley is a much-cherished family home.
The Gardens, which are amongst the finest in Britain, are outstanding for their vitality, variety and historical interest and are particularly celebrated for the magnificent double herbaceous border.
The present house was built between 1832 – 1845 by Rowland Egerton-Warburton to the designs of George Latham, a Nantwich architect. It occupies the site and incorporates some of the materials of earlier houses. The Chapel, designed by Anthony Salvin, was built during the same period. In 1968 the rest of the building, comprising kitchens, servants’ quarters, nursery and the like, some seventy rooms in all, was demolished to reduce the costs of maintenance. This caused gaps which seriously damaged the architectural integrity of the building. In 1987 it was decided to rebuild the lost wings as five new houses and so recreate the original courtyard to the north-west of the main block.
It is reasonable to suppose that there has been a garden of some kind at Arley for several centuries, but the earliest records of it appear on a map of 1744. This shows some large beds beside the moat which may have been planted in ‘knot’ fashion during the seventeenth century. When Sir Peter and Lady Elizabeth Warburton came to live at Arley in 1743 they built the first walled gardens here and also laid out a large romantic pleasure ground of shrubberies and walks on the east side of the house. All of this can be seen on a map of 1786.