Cashiobury in Hertfordshire
Engraving by Johannes Kip after Leonard Koyff
From James Beeverell's Les délices
de la Grande Bretagne, c1707
Detail of above
CASSIOBURY, stands in a park on the N.W. side of the town. It incorporates part of the building begun by Sir Charles Morrison c. 1545, and completed by his son Charles, who succeeded him, in 1556. The first Earl of Essex employed Hugh May to rebuild the house, with the exception of the W. wing, in the 17th century. May's building was pulled down c. 1800, and the present house was built by James Wyatt, who re-used much of the old material and possibly some of the old walls. The house is built round a courtyard, and is entered from the N.W. This front and the inner walls of the courtyard appear to be the oldest parts, though none of the walls can be definitely dated. Some of the outbuildings on the W. of the house, and the wall connecting them, may be of the same date as the front. Interior: the Cloister, on the S.W. side of the courtyard, has five traceried windows containing glass with heraldic shields, and some 17th-century fragments of strapwork designs, panels o£ Biblical subjects, etc.: in a window at the N.W. end is some 16th-century glass representing the Virgin and Child and St. Anne. The main staircase at the S.E. end o£ this cloister is said to be the work of Grinling Gibbons. It has elaborate square newels, with carved heads, a massive carved and moulded handrail, and a richly carved balustrade. In the Small Dining Room is a small piece of Jacobean panelling. Most of the principal rooms contain woodwork, which may be of late 17th-century date, including panelling, with large carved festoons of fruit and foliage, cornices carved with acanthus leaves, etc. In the floor of the porch are two brasses of c. 1510, one of a man and the other o£ a woman. [From the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments An Inventory of the Historical Monuments of Hertfordshire, 1910]
Cashiobury Park in Hertfordshire, the
Seat of the Earl of Essex.
From A new display of the beauties of England
or a description of the most elegant or magnificent
public edifices, royal palaces, noblemen's and gentlemen's seats, and other
curiosities, ... in different parts of the kingdom. Adorned with a variety of
copper-plate cuts ... 1773-4
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| A few of the marvellous engravings from Britton's Cassiobury | |||
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Cashiobury, the Seat of the Earl of Essex
From J Hassell's Picturesque rides
and walks, with excursions by water, thirty miles round the British
metropolis; illustrated in a series of engravings, coloured after nature, with
an historical and topographical description of the country with the compass of
that circle. 1817-18.
Cashiobury
Jones' views of the seats, mansions, castles, &c 1829
Russell's Cottage, Cashiobury
From Britton's Cashiobury - printed in
Gentlemen's Magazine, March 1838
Watford Horticultural & Floricultural Show, Cassiobury Park
Illustrated London
News, 1855
