Witley Court - The House in the Present Age

Witley Court, Worcestershire: A pictorial survey by David Pagett.

1st May 2007

Images of the interior and exterior of the ruined house in recent times.
Witley Court and its various owners go back many centuries and it has been the seat of a number of local wealthy aristocratic families since at least the late middle ages.
Successive occupiers have developed the house and their desmense to their own styles and tastes, from the early years of the Foley family, to the addition of John Nash's great portico's in 1805, and finally the Victorian era embellishments by Samuel Whitfield Daukes for the first Earl of Dudley.
Financial ruination, the first world war and the untimely death of the Countess forced the second Earl to sell up in 1920 to Sir Herbert Smith; his time at Witley was however cut short by a disastrous fire in 1937 which eventually left the court as an empty shell, and for many years a desolate though spectacular ruin.
After subsequent owners had stripped out and sold any remaining material of value, the weather and vandalism did the rest and the court was only saved from total collapse by the Department of the Environment (latterly English Heritage), who managed to arrest the decline and consolidate the structure.
Today the court presents itself as somewthing of a Phoenix rising from the ashes of past glories; further restoration work is in progress and the public are invited to see this once great edifice slowly returning to life once more.

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