Rocksavage

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Rocksavage ruins around 1818. The octagonal towers flanked the house entrance.

Rocksavage or Rock Savage is the ruin of a country house in Clifton in the English administrative division of Cheshire West and Chester . Clifton is now part of Runcorn . Rocksavage was one of the great Elizabethan style country houses built in 1674. It was the second largest country house in Cheshire . King James I visited there in 1617. The house was abandoned when it came into the hands of the Cholmondeley family in the early 18th century , and in 1782 only ruins remained.

Rocksavage consisted of a sandstone square around a courtyard in the middle; a pair of octagonal towers flanked the main entrance. Today only fragments of the garden and orchard walls are preserved. English Heritage has listed them as historical buildings of the 2nd degree.

history

The Savage family had owned large estates in Cheshire since the late 1370s, which they acquired when John Savage († 1386) married Margaret Danyers . Sir John Savage († 1597/1598) was the Seneschal of Halton Castle and also served several times as Member of Parliament for Cheshire, Mayor of Chester and High Sheriff of Cheshire . He had Rocksavage built on a slope above the River Weaver . Construction began around 1565 and the house was finished in 1568. Rocksavage was one of the great Elizabethan country houses in Cheshire. Herd tax surveys of 1674 show that Rocksavage was the second largest house in the county with 50 herds, only Cholmondeley Castle being larger. An early 17th century description of the house praises its “great masonry”. The medieval family home of Clifton Hall was nearby and served as a farm and outbuilding after the new house was built.

On August 21, 1617, King James I dined with his entourage on the way to Vale Royal Abbey and Chester in Rocksavage. John Savage, 2nd Earl Rivers , chose the royalist side in the English Civil War . Rocksavage was robbed by the parliamentary troops and the roof and part of the walls were destroyed. James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth , was staying at Rocksavage on September 13, 1682 as the guest of Thomas Savage, 3rd Earl Rivers , when he rode through Cheshire to forge an alliance against King Charles II .

The property fell to James Berry, 4th Earl of Barrymore, through marriage in the early 18th century . Lord Barrymore had other buildings built further up the hill, presumably based on plans by the architect Henry Sephton . These are now called "Clifton Hall" and were intended either as a replacement for Rocksavage or as an outbuilding for the main building of the country house. A few years after the construction of these buildings, Rocksavage was abandoned after the daughter and heiress of 4th Earl Barrymore, Lady Penelope Barry, married into the Cholmondeley family and Cholmondeley Castle became the main family seat of the now associated lands. The empty house soon fell into disrepair and by 1782 was already in ruins.

When Lady Penelope Barry's great-nephew, the 4th Earl of Cholmondeley , was raised to Marquess of Cholmondeley in 1815 , he was also given the subordinate title Earl of Rocksavage , which the respective Heir Apparent des Marquess has since used as a courtesy title .

description

Rocksavage Ruins 2007

The Elizabethan country house consisted of a square with four yokes each made of the red sandstone broken on site, built around an inner courtyard in the middle; it was symmetrical but not classic. The main entrance was flanked by two octagonal towers with domes, which were connected by a crenellated wall. The towers stand out from an engraving of the ruins that Peter de Wint made around 1818 and that appeared in George Ormerod's book The History of the County Palatine and City of Chester . Brereton Hall , built about 20 years later by Sir John Savage's son-in-law William Brereton, 1st Baron Brereton , was modeled on Rocksavage and also has its two octagonal towers. In contrast to Brereton Hall, the decorative frames around the windows in the towers of Rocksavage continued over the adjacent walls.

The last major remnant of the country house disappeared around 1980. Only the pillars of the entrance gate to the orchard and fragments of the garden and orchard walls near the M56 motorway bridge over the Weaver near Runcorn have survived to this day. English Heritage has listed them as historical buildings of the 2nd degree.

The 18th century Clifton Hall was originally a U-shaped brick building with protruding stone pilasters . One side of the U was demolished and the remains of the building are now surrounded by outbuildings of a farm.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ LEASE (Cp.) For 3 lives by the Hon. James Cholmondeley of Rock-Savage Esq. to Peter Cooper ... The National Archives. Retrieved August 18, 2016.
  2. ^ A b Tim Thornton: Savage family (per. C.1369-1528). In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, Retrieved August 18, 2016.
  3. ↑ a b c d e Some notes on the history of Clifton (Rocksavage) near Runcorn, in Cheshire . Runcorn and District Historical Society. Retrieved August 18, 2016.
  4. ↑ a b c Remains of Rock Savage . Historic England. English Heritage. Retrieved August 18, 2016.
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g Peter de Figueiredo, Julian Treuherz: Cheshire Country Houses . Phillimore, Chichester 1988, ISBN 0-85033-655-4 , p. 268.
  6. ^ A b Nikolaus Pevsner, Edward Hubbard: The Buildings of England . Chapter: Cheshire . Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, ISBN 0-14-071042-6 , p. 180.
  7. ↑ a b c Joan Beck, JJ Bagley (Eds.): A History of Cheshire . Volume 7: Tudor Cheshire . Cheshire Community Council, Chester 1969, pp. 29-30.
  8. ↑ Peter de Figueiredo, Julian Treuherz: Cheshire Country Houses . Phillimore, Chichester 1988, ISBN 0-85033-655-4 , pp. 5-6.
  9. ↑ a b c d Bert Starkey: Rocksavage Hall . Runcorn and District Historical Society. Retrieved August 18, 2016.
  10. ↑ a b J. Howard Hodson, JJ Bagley (Eds.): A History of Cheshire . Volume 9: Cheshire, 1660-1780: Restoration to Industrial Revolution . Cheshire Community Council, Chester 1978, ISBN 0-903119-10-2 , p. 77.
  11. ↑ a b R. N. Dore, JJ Bagley (Ed.): A History of Cheshire . Volume 8: The Civil Wars in Cheshire . Cheshire Community Council, Chester 1966, pp. 1-2.
  12. ^ J. Howard Hodson, JJ Bagley (Eds.): A History of Cheshire . Volume 9: Cheshire, 1660-1780: Restoration to Industrial Revolution . Cheshire Community Council, Chester 1978, ISBN 0-903119-10-2 , p. 11.
  13. ↑ a b J. Howard Hodson, JJ Bagley (Eds.): A History of Cheshire . Volume 9: Cheshire, 1660-1780: Restoration to Industrial Revolution . Cheshire Community Council, Chester 1978, ISBN 0-903119-10-2 , p. 79.
  14. ^ A b John Martin Robinson: A Guide to the Country Houses of the North-West . Constable, London 1991, ISBN 0-09-469920-8 , p. 60.
  15. ↑ Cholmondeley, George (1792-1870) . History of Parliament. Retrieved August 18, 2016.
  16. ↑ Mitchell Owens: At Lunch with: David Rocksavage; Heavy Lies the Coronet on a Lord of Cinema . In: The New York Times. December 14, 1997, Retrieved August 18, 2016.
  17. ↑ a b c d e Peter de Figueiredo, Julian Treuherz: Cheshire Country Houses . Phillimore, Chichester 1988, ISBN 0-85033-655-4 , p. 45.
  18. ↑ Peter de Figueiredo, Julian Treuherz: Cheshire Country Houses . Phillimore, Chichester 1988, ISBN 0-85033-655-4 , p. 6.

Web links

Coordinates: 53 ° 18 '55.1 "  N , 2 ° 42' 48.6"  W.