Kitchen Garden Walls With Attached Sheds At Mere Hall

204/0/10001 13-AUG-04

MERE

MERE CORNER Mere Kitchen garden walls with attached sheds at Mere Hall

GV II

Kitchen garden walls with attached sheds. c.1800. Red brick in Flemish stretcher-bond with stone flag copings. Walls are approx 4m high and run in a continuous trapezoid, the south wall (125 m) being longer than the north (95m). The north wall is hollow, and rises slightly higher in its central portion. Recessed panels locate access points for flue cleaning. Standing against the outer side of the wall are brick sheds; to the centre is a one-and-a-half storey range probably contemporary with the main walls, with other sheds (including boiler rooms and privy), some of later date, to either side. Those sheds to the west are intact, while those to the east are roofless. The roofs are of replacement asbestos sheeting with the exception of slate roofs at the west end. Two original single doorways give access to the garden interior along the north wall, together with a later, broken through, broader entrance. Single doors also give access through the east, west, and south walls. A short C19 wall runs west for approx 10m from the north-west corner of the garden, probably to define a slip garden down the west side of the main garden compartment. HISTORY: The kitchen garden is approx. 120m south-west of Mere Hall; a quadrangular stable courtyard stands approx. 10m from the north-east corner of the garden and linked to it by a wall. All three structures probably date from approx. 1798-1805 when the Brooke family was improving the house and park using Samuel and/or Lewis Wyatt as architect. That house was soon after burnt down, its remains being repaired and modified in the mid 1830s by the Lichfield architect Thomas Johnson. 300m to the north-east of the garden is the C19 Home Farm, while 50 m north of the north-east corner of the garden is a C19 hay barn, converted c.2000 into a house. The garden has lost all its glasshouses, including those which stood against the north wall. SOURCES: Chris Blandford Associates. Mere Estate, Warrington Road, Mere. 1999 Correspondence from The Georgian Group citing J.M. Robinson on DCMS Listing file SL 680/04

An intact range of brick enclosure walls dating from c.1800 from a former kitchen garden with attached range of sheds that has excellent group value with the Grade II Mere Old Hall and its estate buildings and park.