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The present day stately landscape of this National Trust house and parkland belies an older history of industrial enterprise and innovation. On the banks of the River Tern, the house by John Nash sits in an elegant landscape designed by Humphrey Repton.
Our work here for the National Trust initially focussed around one of two icehouses on the estate, built in the 1780s to serve the new house. The icehouse was built near the site of an earlier forge, and was modified in the nineteenth century to form a water-powered pump house supplying water to the main house. An extensive programme of excavation and building recording revealed the secrets of its construction and subsequent modification. The water wheel and remains of the pumping apparatus were discovered in situ within the icehouse building.
Beyond the icehouse, a programme of geophysical survey and trial trenching revealed deposits of slag and a possible hearth from the forge, which was in operation during the eighteenth century.
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