Combermere Abbey (house)

Heritage listing

Details SJ 54 SE 6/22 DODCOTT CUM WILKESLEY C.P. COMBERMERE PARK Combermere Abbey 10.6.52 GV I Country house, formerly abbey buildings. Founded in 1133 as a Cisterian monastery by Hugh de Malbank. Nothing survives within the present structure which can be securely dated to the C12 although several fragments of Romanesque carving have been discovered in the gardens. At the Dissolution the estate was granted to Sir George Cotton. It seems likely that he demolished the church and other abbey buildings but retained the abbot's lodging placed above the western cloister range as his house. It is also likely, judging from the ecclesiastical arms to the roof of the great hall, that the abbot's lodging had been remodelled shortly before the Dissolution. In particular the placing of the great hall (now library) at first floor is similar to the planning at Vale Royal,also a Cistercian house. A datestone discovered in 1795 records: "Master Richard Cotton and his sons three Both for their pleasure and commodity This building did edifies In fifteen hundred and sixty three". An engraving by Buck of 1727 shows the present entrance front to have a ground floor of stone set with blocked pointed arches presumably of the cloister arcade, and with a decoratively timber framed first floor. An early C18 oil painting of the house shows the rear (now Lake front) to have a similar ashlar ground floor with projecting timber framed wings to either side and a timber framed first floor with decorative infill and gables. In 1774 Dr Johnson recorded the house as still being largely timber framed but alterations occurred in 1795 and after 1814 including the addition of new service wings and the covering of the house with cement render applied to wooden battens. Rendered timber framing, rendered stone a

From the Historic England List Entry under OGL v3.