Eye Manor - History

History

The house stands on what was once a marsh island ('Eye' being the Saxon word for island), beside a 12th century church noted for its 15th Century alabaster tombs.

The 17th Century square brick shell was completed in 1680, but rests on an earlier Medieval sandstone plinth with extensive cellars. The modest exterior, belies an impressive panelled interior with its plaster ceilings by the craftsmen who went on to decorate Holyrood. The 10 plaster ceilings in the naturalistic style are considered the finest complete set of Restoration ceilings in a private home in England and represent an exuburent plasterwork display of exotic fruits, cherubs and mythical scenes. Ceilings of similar scale and quality are to seen at Holyrood House and it is widely considered that the same craftsmen worked on both projects.

There is a secret passage and priesthole discovered during the Second World War by Jeremy Sandford that is believed to have been used in the 17th Century to bring Catholic priests into the house, but which was mysteriously still in use at the time of the Protestant Gorges family. The original mullioned windows were changed for wooden sash windows when the house was remodelled probably during the early 18th Century.

The present house was built by Ferdinando Gorges, a prominent merchant and owner of sugar plantations in the West Indies and his wife, Meliora Gorges. According to Pevsner, Ferdinando Gorges was known by contemporaries as 'The King of the Black Market' owing to his profitable involvement in the slave trade. Ferdinando Gorges was the godson of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, the colonial entrepreneur and the founder of the US province of Maine and brother of Richard Gorges, Governor-General of New England. In his early commercial activities, Ferdinando Gorges is believed to have chartered the ship, The Mayflower. Ferdinando's son and grandson, Richard and Henry Gorges served as Members of Parliament for Leominster. Ferdinando Gorges's daughter, Barbara was married to the statesman Thomas Coningsby 1st Earl Coningsby. Ferdindo Gorges was involved in a protracted property dispute with Sir Christopher Wren that was described by Samuel Pepys as, "the most dirty litigation in the land".

Tradition suggests that Charles II visited the house in the winter of 1680 on route to Hereford and the Library or Smoking Room is sometimes referred to as the King's Parlour, commemorating the refreshments served in that room to the King and his party.

In the 18th Century the house became part of the adjoining Berrington Hall estate of the Lords Rodney (descended from Admiral Rodney). Berrington Hall is now owned by the National Trust. Admiral Lord Rodney was a frequent visitor to the house and the north-west bedroom is known as the Admiral's Bedroom.

In the 20th Century Eye Manor was the home of the acclaimed private publisher Christopher Sandford of the Golden Cockerel Press and his wife Lettice Sandford, a noted artist and proponent of traditional country crafts and reviver of the corn dolly. During their tenure the house became a literary and artistic centre of the late Arts and Crafts movement and was visited by numerous writers, artists and poets of the 20th Century including Eric Gill, Sir John Betjaman and Evelyn Waugh. The house was open to the public from the 1950s to the early 1980s. It is currently closed to the public.

Jeremy Sandford, the writer, broadcaster and director of the award-winning television documentary, Cathy Come Home grew up at the house and subsequently wrote of his childhood in Herefordshire. Christopher Sandford's mother, the propular Irish writer Mary Carbery wife of Algernon 9th Baron Carbery of Castle Freke, County Cork lived and died in the house. Lady Carbery spent much of her early life crossing Europe in Creeping Jenny a caravan drawn by white oxen which at one stage was parked in on the lawns of Eye Manor. Lady Carbery's son, John, 10th Baron Carbery was an Irish nationalist and member of the Kenyan Happy Valley set. During the Second World War the house was the HQ of the English Resistance who were intended to go underground in case of a German invasion and then emerge to engage in acts of sabotage. The estate was the home of the North Herefordshire Home Guard and the neighbouring Berrington Estate was the encampment for US servicemen prior to the notorious Slapton Sands disaster.

In the late 20th Century Eye Manor was home to the distinguished amateur gardener, Margery Moncrieff, who laid out the present gardens in an intricate series of outdoor'rooms' in the style of Vita Sackville-West's Sissinghurst.