Thomas Harley
Berrington was essentially created by one man, Thomas Harley, who bought the estate in 1775. He made his fortune as a banker and government contractor in London, but had ancestral links with Herefordshire, to which, in his mid-40s, he was keen to retire to and away from the hurly-burly of City politics.
Harley commissioned Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown to lay out the park, which has spectacular views west towards Wales and the Black Mountains. Around 1778 he also called in Brown’s son-in-law, Henry Holland, to design him a new house in the latest French influenced Neo-classical style, using the finest London craftsman.
'Capability' Brown
The most fashionable and iconic landscape designer of the Georgian era; Lancelot 'Capability' Brown was commissioned to create, what was his final landscape design. Brown had worked his magic at around 254 sites prior to Berrington and the skill in his craft can be seen in the mature park today. It seems the park work commenced before Harley's new house was erected and Brown created a typical open sweep of grassy parkland from where the house was to be positioned, over a ha-ha and down to an eye- catching 14 acre lake; built by Brown with a 4 acre island in the centre.
He suggested the position of the house whose severity of the red sandstone exterior, with its gigantic Ionic portico belies the feminine delicacy of the interior, which contains elegant chimney pieces and plasterwork created by the up and coming Henry Holland.
