One of our favourite local places to visit is Croome Court (NT).
Ideally situated for a walk in the park land, visit to the house, church and end up with refreshments in the restaurant. During busy periods refreshments are served from a Tea Car and in a cafe in the Court.
“Croome Park was Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown’s first complete landscape design. He was brought to Croome in 1752 by George William Coventry, the 6th Earl of Coventry, who had just inherited Croome Court and its deer parks together with 15,000 acres of Worcestershire.
The new Earl was 28 years old and full of ideas on the new movement towards classicism in architecture and landscape design and probably saw the young Brown as a man whose aspirations matched his own. Together they set about transforming the 17th century house and its Dutch style parterre garden into an undulating rural idyll set about with trees and lakes and rolling away to the distant Malvern Hills. At the focal point of this scene sits the house, Croome Court, which was given a total face-lift that changed it into the Palladian style mansion that we see today
But there is a practical reason behind all this beauty – Croome Court sat on the edge of a bog. Brown, though, had an instinctive talent for understanding drainage and water management, so he created a lake and a mile and a half long serpentine river to draw away all the surplus water. His scheme worked and so the basis for the creation of what seems an entirely natural English landscape was set.”
From Friends of Croome website: http://www.friendsofcroomepark.org.uk
The Church, within the park is, St Mary Magdalene Church, Croome D’Abitot, which is a redundant Anglican church.
The original church at Croome was demolished by the 6th Earl of Coventry when he decided to replace his adjacent Jacobean house in the 1750s. His new house and park were designed and laid out by Capability Brown as was the church, set on a low hill nearby in Croome Park.
The Chinese bridge, originally designed by William Halfpenny in the 1740s for the 6th Earl of Coventry is in the popular Chinese style. The bridge spanned the river close to Croome Court and linked the house to the wider parkland. Sadly, the bridge is thought to have been lost to rot and decay only 100 years after it was built.
A new English Oak bridge was opened in 2017, identically built, using the original plans.
There was originally a deer park at Croome, they can occasionally be seen in the surrounding landscape. Today the wildlife is mainly squirrels and birds. Water fowl enjoy the river and there is a bird hide for visitors, looking out on to a collection of bird feeders.
If you are visiting Worcestershire, please add NT Croome Court to your itinerary.
Visitor information can be found Here
Do you have a favourite walk?
brimfields.com 
I love these lovely National Trust Properties, a wonderful part being the landscapes and gardens. I feel that over the last ten years or so, these have been given the attention and care they deserve. I went to school at Claremont in Surrey, and the landscape gardens were all around us, and we could enter the lake area through a fence just beyond the tennis courts. I walked around the grounds almost every day, they were far rougher and ‘unimproved’ in those days…but Oh the Cedars!!!!!!
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Capability Brown liked his Cedars of Lebanon.
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Oh yes…he certainly scattered them around Claremont!
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Looks like a beautiful place, thanks for sharing!
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So beautiful – and a tribute to all involved in its preservation over the years. It’s inspiring just to see your pictures… 🙂
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Thank you Amy, it has been a lot of work and money with a lot more still to do. The National Trust is a charity that depends on public donations/membership.
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Thanks for sharing. I love these wide landscapes in English parks/gardens. Capability Brown was a genius. 🙂
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Thanks for sharing this, Brian. It’s not a propert we have been to yet
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I love visiting parks and gardens but is so British to have a restaurant or cafe to provide a warm environment to chat about what has been seen after the visit. Sigh. Amelia
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Tea and cake Amelia, tea and cake!
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Thanks for sharing this “write-up” and the photographs. I’ve just spent an enjoyable hour (when I should have been doing something else) reading through the NT web pages on this place and then several others. I suspect an NT membership card will come through my letterbox soon.
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I hope so!
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Croome Park looks like a great place for a walk. The chinese bridge is an interesting shape, a bit pointy in the middle, but I am glad that it was rebuilt.
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It looks lovely. We are trying to work our way round the country using our NT cards. Every year is a race to get our money’s worth.
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We try to visit different areas for short breaks with the intention of visiting NT properties.
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You’re so fortunate to have Croome on your doorstep! I enjoy walking around two NT properties here in Norfolk – Felbrigg Hall and Blickling. I keep my NT card with me at all times… just in case I get a spare hour or two.
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We visited Blickling Hall many years ago while on holiday and I visited the Farm even earlier when it had an outstanding Holstein Dairy herd.
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Thanks for the tour Brian. We’ve visited Croome once and would certainly like to make a return visit but in the meantime its’ great to see it through your eyes 🙂
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