The history of the House at Croome

Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown

The Earl engaged architect Sanderson Miller to design his new house and Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown to build it. Croome was Brown’s first large-scale architectural commission, and he is said to have considered it his 'first and favourite child'. It is an important example of the neo-Palladian style, which featured symmetry and proportion and fronts resembling Classical temples.

Brown also designed and built the new church and several temples and follies – such as the Rotunda – in the landscaped park and shrubberies which he worked on from 1759. His designs included an artificial river almost two miles long. The estate matured under the care of people like botanic gardener, William Dean (d. 1831), who worked at Croome for nearly 40 years. In time, it rivalled Kew Gardens for its variety of plants, many of which were cultivated in the flower garden and walled kitchen garden.

When Brown died in 1783, the Earl erected a memorial at Croome’s lakeside in memory of his ‘creative genius’.

Robert Adam

When Brown began work in the park, the house’s interior was unfinished, and he was replaced by Robert Adam, the leading proponent of the newly fashionable Neo-classical style. Adam’s first work at Croome involved the Temple Greenhouse and bridge in the park. His woodwork in the church is Adam’s earliest known attempt at Gothic interior decoration.

Inside the mansion, Adam designed decorative schemes for three principal rooms: the Long Gallery, the Tapestry Room and the Library. He also designed furniture for other rooms, some of which survives in the house. Adam’s designs were executed by the finest craftsmen, including carvers (William Linnell, James Lovell and Sefferin Alken), cabinet-makers (William Vile & John Cobb, John Linnell and Ince & Mayhew) and plasterers (Francesco Vassalli and Joseph Rose).

Adam was still providing drawings for the Earl in 1781, and his later contributions to Croome include the Park Seat (1770–2), the London Arch, Dunstall Castle, the Worcester Gates and possibly the Island Pavillion. The long relationship between Adam and the Earl developed into a close one: the Earl was a pall-bearer at Adam’s funeral in 1792.

After Adam’s death, celebrated Neo-classical architect James Wyatt also designed buildings for the park at Croome, including the sham Gothic ruin of Pirton Castle and the Panorama Tower (based on an existing Robert Adam design).

The 19th and early 20th centuries at Croome

Later members of the Coventry family did little to alter Croome. George William, 9th Earl (1838–1930), who inherited the earldom at the age of only four, looked after the 15,000-acre estate with diligence and enthusiasm. Nevertheless, it was during his tenure that elements of the collection were sold. In 1902, he was forced to sell tapestries and seat furniture from the Tapestry Room to cover gambling debts incurred by his eldest son. Seeing the demise of many country estates, in 1887 the 9th Earl placed the house and contents in the care of the Croome Estate Trust, followed by the whole estate in 1921. He and his wife, Blanche née Craven (d. 1930), had nine children and died three days apart in 1930.

The Second World War at Croome

World War II had a significant impact on Croome. The same year that George William Reginald Victor, 10th Earl (1900–40) died at the Battle of Dunkirk, the armed forces requisitioned land at Croome, constructing various domestic and scientific buildings, as well as runways for aircraft, on the estate. Over 2,000 service personnel and scientists lived and worked on the site, where they secretly developed and tested airborne radar. Their findings played a vital part in the Allied victory and anticipated many modern electronic applications.

The later 20th century

The combination of death duties, a general economic depression, and the youth of George William, 11th Earl (1934–2002), forced the Croome Estate Trust to sell the mansion along with 38 acres of land to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Birmingham in 1948. Much of the contents of Croome were sold at this time, including the floorboards, plaster ceiling, window sashes, shutters, joinery and chimneypiece of the Tapestry Room, now erected in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. St Joseph's School for boys occupied the site from 1950. Between 1979–84, the mansion became the UK headquarters of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (Hare Krishna movement). Its presence at Croome is still felt in the bright colours with which its devotees painted the Dining Room, although subsequent owners toned these down.

Thereafter, various owners ran Croome as, amongst other things, a private house, a hotel and golf course, and a conference centre. In 1996, the National Trust acquired and began restoration of the park, opening it to the public immediately. The National Trust also preserved and refurbished the surviving RAF buildings.

In 1999 the house was purchased privately, and it once more became a family home until October 2007, when the house was purchased by the Croome Heritage Trust, a registered charity who leased it to the National Trust for 999 years. The house opened in September 2009, by which time six of its rooms had been conserved. In 2016, some of the objects from the 6th Earl of Coventry’s collection were returned to the house and in 2025, the bookcases which once furnished the Library returned to Croome. Work to conserve and restore the house and park is ongoing.

Further reading

• Eileen Harris, The genius of Robert Adam: his interiors (New Haven, Yale University Press: 2001), pp. 40-54.

• Grout, Andrew. ‘Master, Sir Streynsham (1640–1724), administrator in India.’ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.  September 23, 2004.  

• Kilburn, Matthew. ‘Coventry [née Master; other married name Pytts], Anne, countess of Coventry (1691–1788), plaintiff in a marriage settlement case.’ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography 

• Croome [d'Abitot] and [Earls] Croome | Domesday Book

• Croome Heritage Trust - home