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Charlecote Park has been the home of the Lucy family
since the time of Richard Coeur de Lion (d.1199), and the present
house was built in 1558, the Lucy family playing host soon afterwards
to Queen Elizabeth. There is a good deal of Lucy family property
in the house, given to the National Trust.
The Elizabethan house was not considered Elizabethan
enough in the 1820s and 1830s, so it was vigorously 'improved' and
items from the Beckford sale at Fonthill incorporated in the main
house. But the gatehouse was structurally untouched, and now contains
a museum. There is a Victorian kitchen with kitchen utensils and
everything else Victorian except the cooks. Outside the main buildings,
the Park had already been improved by Capability Brown in the 1700s.
The Dene, a tributary of the Statford Avon, flows
through the Park, which now carries Red and Fallow deer, and carried
sheep and deer since the Middle Ages.
Shakespeare connection - Shakespeare was said to
have been arraigned for poaching by Sir Thomas Lucy, JP, in about
1584 and Lucy, prosecutor, judge and jury as well as victim, was
burlesqued as Justice Shallow in The Merry Wives of Windsor. Shakespeare's
grandfather was a tenant at Baddesley Clinton, about ten miles away;
and all the flowers mentioned in Shakespeare's plays are planted
at Charlecote Park.
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The lodge at Charlecote Park
where the Masters lived in 1841.
(photograph 1997)
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| Charlecote Park - General Information - Telephone: 01789 470277
Open 1st April to 31st October
(Friday-Tuesday) from 11.00am to 1.00pm and then from 2.00pm to
6.00pm. (last admission 5.00pm) - Open Bank Holiday Mondays,
but closed on Good Friday.
Accessible by wheelchairs.
Admission Charges not available for 1997
Evening guided tours (for pre-booked groups) every Tuesday from
7.30pm to 9.30pm from May to September.
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