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Joy for the joyful mind

By 25 March 2024May 3rd, 2024No Comments

Hawkstone Park: A Palimpsest of History, Religion, and Literature in the Shropshire Countryside

Today we were pleased to be invited to visit Hawkstone Park follies, situated on a dramatic sandstone ridge in the gentle folds of our bit of Shropshire, England, which is a profound testament to the layered history of the region.

Its evolution from a medieval stronghold to a picturesque landscape garden reflects not only changing aesthetic sensibilities but also the profound influence of a single family: the Hills of Soulton and Hawkstone.

Sir Rowland Hill (d. 1561), the estate’s most prominent historical figure, was a man of intense accomplishment. He is best known for his role in coordinating the Geneva Bible, a landmark translation project that resonated with prominent figures like William Shakespeare and demonstrably influenced the language of the King James Bible. His association with religious reform is further solidified by the imposing obelisk that graces Hawkstone Park, commemorating him not just as a religious leader but also as the “First Protestant Mayor of London”, which says of him:

THE RIGHTEOUS SHALL BE HAD IN EVERLASTING REMEMBRANCE.-Psalm cxi. 6.

[lists his extraodinary accomplishments]

Go and do thou likewise, as far as thy ability will permit, without injury to thy own relations.

To suffer such a character to sink into oblivion, would be in the highest degree ungrateful, as well as injurious to posterity, for whose imitation it is held up.

The park’s historical tapestry extends far beyond Sir Rowland Hill. The ruins of Red Castle, a 13th-century Norman enclosure castle built by Henry de Audley, stand as a silent sentinel to the area’s medieval past. That castle’s eventual decline into ruins (apparently no longer occupied by 1400 it was noted by Leland as in ruins in 154o) and the subsequent refuge sought by members if the Hill family during the English Civil War offer a poignant illustration of the cyclical nature of history and the enduring power of ancestral connection to this place of secret caves at a time of emergency.

The transformation of  from a fortified structure to a landscaped haven reflects the evolving tastes of the landed gentry, which begins with it being part of a pleasure park on the Soulton/Hawkstone estates of ‘Old’ Sir Rowland. The park is believed to have served as inspiration for Shakespeare’s pastoral comedy, As You Like It with a number of links between Sir Rowland Hill and the play’s character “Old Sir Rowland,” suggesting that play is a monument to a certain consipricasy in Shropshire.

The Hill family played a pivotal role in this transformation into the 17th and 18th centuries. Richard Hill, known as “The Great Hill,” undertook significant landscaping projects in the early 18th century. His efforts included the creation of follies – whimsical, decorative structures like the “Swiss Bridge” and the “Hermitage” – which not only enhanced the visual appeal of the landscape but also hinted at a growing fascination with the picturesque and the romantic.

Hawkstone Park’s captivating scenery has transcended the boundaries of the physical realm, captivating the imagination of literary minds in otherways: this park’s rugged beauty provided a fitting backdrop for scenes in the BBC’s adaptation of C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, demonstrating the enduring power of Hawkstone’s landscape to inspire artistic expression across generations.

Today, Hawkstone Park is a living museum, inviting visitors to explore the rich history of landscape theology and literature woven into its very fabric.

From the echoes of the Reformation to the whispers of literary giants, Hawkstone Park offers a unique experience that transcends time, standing as a palimpsest where layers of the past inform and enrich the present.

A sonnet was written about the view from Hawkstone in the early 1800s in the following terms:

O, gentle Spirit of these fairy lands!

Where fragrant Bowers and peaceful Caves abound,

Where craggy Rocks with green eternal crown’d

Frown on the Vale, in which quiescent stands

The silver Lake expansive; where the Tower,

Relict of ages, casts a mournful shade

Along the turf, ‘neath which the bones are laid

Of warriors once exalted high in power,

Who wielded here, in martial line, the sword:-

Where Order dwells with rude Disorder wild,

In scenes-tremendous these, those sweetly mild: –

Spirit! a place in these thy haunts afford:”

Here gay and sad a calm retreat may find,-

Peace for the peaceless breast – Joy for the joyful mind.

Inspired by this teritory for Rosalinde (1590), Thomas Lodge Jr would say:

“I wander in this forest to light on some cottage where I and my page may dwell: for I mean to buy… a flock of sheep, and so become a shepherdess, meaning to live low, and content me with a country life; for I have heard the swains say, that they drunk without suspicion, and slept without care.”

and

“about midday they came to a fountain, compassed with a grove of cypress trees, so cunningly and curiously planted, as if some goddess had entreated nature in that place to make her an arbor. By this fountain sat Aliena and her Ganymede, and forth they pulled such victuals as they had, and fed as merrily as if they had been in Paris with all the king’s delicates”

and

“they rose up, and marched forward till towards the even, and then coming into a fair valley, compassed with mountains, whereon grew many pleasant shrubs… The ground… was diapered with Flora’s riches, as if she meant to wrap Tellus in the glory of her vestments: round about in the form of an amphitheatre were most curiously planted pine trees”