Anatomy of a Duel in Jacobean England: Gentry Honour, Violence and the Law

It is difficult to separate the history and development of the country house from the fabric of social, economic and political history. Through his meticulous research Gareth Williams has managed to capture this amalgam in The Country Houses of Shropshire. This impressive book is a tour de force, an illustrated survey of 347 houses of varying significance from the thirteenthcentury Stokesay Castle to the 2019 Regency-style mansion The Mount in Oswestry. Unlike other country house guides such as Phillimore’s 1988 Cheshire Country House or Geoffrey Tyack’s 1994 Warwickshire Country Houses, Williams’s volume will appeal to a far wider readership. The architecture is certainly there, at times beautifully described. Much of the text, however, concentrates on the inhabitants and their connections. Williams reveals the stories of those who inhabited the houses across time and their successes and failures which ultimately dictated the fate of their houses. Among many examples is a 1776 lottery win for the new owner of Lythwood Hall, which enabled him to commission the landscape architect William Emes and the Scottish architect George Steuart to remodel the grounds and build a new house. The book contains accounts of the most obvious candidates such as Attingham Park, Hawkstone Hall and Dudmaston. What I particularly enjoyed was the inclusion of some lesser-known country houses which would make excellent subjects for further research. These properties are often overlooked and it is refreshing to see them represented in this publication. Ample footnotes provide the potential researcher with plenty of sources to which to refer. The incorporation of architecturally quirky garden buildings is a bonus, from the charming little mid-eighteenth century octagonal Chinoiserie gazebo at Orleton to the classical rotunda in the grounds of Millichope Park. Many of the houses boast an affiliation with national architects such as John Nash, George Steuart and Robert Adam as well as one of the leading Midland architects Francis Smith of Warwick. However, the author rightly showcases the home-grown talent of architects like Thomas Farnolls Pritchard and other gifted craftsmen and artisans who embellished the houses we see today. Time has not been kind to many country houses and therefore the inclusion of demolished properties like Sundorne Castle, Adderley Hall and Park Hall serves as a reminder of not only what has been lost but should also motivate us to protect the houses we still have for future generations. At 760 pages this is quite a tome, it has an easy to navigate alphabetical format with a wide range of illustrations with architectural commentary including some marvellous interior features. As a lover of maps, I would have liked to have seen the inclusion of a location map of the houses, similar to the Phillimore publications, because these types of illustrations tell a story in themselves. A remarkable achievement from Williams, it is by no means the last word on the Shropshire country house but a wonderful collection of threads to be teased out for many years to come, an excellent companion to Pevsner’s Shropshire Architectural Guide.