page_title: Cound
section_title: Cound Hall
hierarchical_section_title: Cound / History / Cound Hall
caption_attribution_description: English: Gate house and lodge at Cound Hall, near to Cound, Shropshire, Great Britain. There is new prestigious housing on eithr side of the drive. View south of the A458 Bridgnorth road.
context_page_description: Cound is a village and civil parish on the west bank of the River Severn in the English county of Shropshire, 6.7 miles south east of the county town Shrewsbury. Once a busy and industrious river port Cound has now reverted to a quiet rural community and dormitory village, for commuters to the commercial centres of Shrewsbury and Telford.
  Locally the village name is pronounced "COOnd" although those local residents who have Cound as their surname usually pronounce it as "COWnd"
  Whilst occupying a relatively large area, the parish is actually made up of four much smaller communities. Coundarbour, a dispersed group of dwellings located just off the A458 road, Cound and Upper Cound all relatively closely together, but with Cound Moor set some 3 km further south. Cound is a very small collection of dwellings and farms. The northern half of Cound with the church and Cound Hall are within a designated Area of Special Landscape Character and Coundmoor is a linear collection of dwellings and bungalows on the back road to Harnage Grange and Acton Burnell. There are 68 buildings, monuments, bridges, walls and milestones carrying Listed building status within the village.
context_section_description: The current manor house of Cound Hall is a Grade I listed building and a large vernacular Baroque house, with a basement and two storeys of tall slender windows topped by a half-storey, built of red brick with stone dressings. The house was built in 1703-04 for Edward Cressett by a John Prince. Historian Howard Colvin in his book A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects, 1600–1840, 3rd ed. 1995, p 781, suggests that this Prince is the same John Prince of Shrewsbury who acted as agent and surveyor to Edward Harley in the designing of the Harley estate in Marylebone, London.
  The house is most notable for its large stop-fluted Corinthian pilasters with richly carved capitals, which have been described as "ambitious but inept" and suggestions are that the inspiration was the King William block at Greenwich Hospital that was designed by Christopher Wren.
  One outstanding feature of the interior is the staircase, a fascinating alteration which has been dated to the late 18th century. The concept of the staircase was to gain more room where the original staircase had been, thus creating a feeling of greater space in the hallway. The staircase has a delicate metal handrail and runs through both storeys along three sides of an open well. The staircase rests on two beautiful fluted columns. There is light Neo-Elizabethan plaster work on the underside of the staircase.
  There is a Grade II listed dovecote built in the 18th century and still standing in the grounds of the hall. The dovecote was originally sited as the main focus at the end of the grand entrance driveway.
  Ownership of Cound Hall passed from the Cressett family to the Thursby-Pelham family by marriage and inheritance; then to the McCorquodale family - into which the young Barbara Cartland married; she lived at the Hall for some years in the late 1920s/early 1930s whilst married to Alexander McCorquodale.
  In the 1960s, the then owner (Morris) divided the house into rented flats, and it was tenanted in this way until 1981, as gradually the building deteriorated and the tenants left.
  The hall then stood empty and derelict for 15 years, until the current owners (the Waller family) bought the house as a virtual wreck in 1996 with the intention of restoring it.
  In 2004 it featured in the BBC TV programme, "Restoration" but was unsuccessful in the public competition for funds to renovate the building. English Heritage was most concerned about the building's continuing deterioration at that time, and placed the Hall on its At risk register. However, through building a new estate of houses, inside the gatehouse entrance on the east side of the estate, they raised sufficient funds to rescue the house. The Hall was now almost fully restored by 2008 and is inhabited as a family house once again.
caption: The new gated housing estate next to Cound Hall Gatehouse
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