Heritage and Conservation
The Hermitage at Braxted Park, formerly known, inaccurately, as the Ice House, is one of the most mysterious and enigmatic lakeside buildings in any English parkland setting. Architectural and garden historians are perplexed by its origins and rarely can agree on its original function. The best guess is that it was some sort of “folly” probably originally commissioned by the first Peter DuCane when he built Braxted Park with Sir Robert Taylor in the late 18th century. The influence of Rome is unmistakeable and as most English country gentlemen indulged in the Grand Tour in those days, particularly during their formative years, this is perhaps unsurprising. However when Peter DuCane’s son, Peter II constructed the great lake at Braxted, by flooding the meadows and stew ponds below the original structure, probably a rotunda with a flat front, there emerged the opportunity to extend the structure to become a lakeside feature, most popular in those days, which was integrated into the dam wall that was constructed to retain the lake on its western border. At that point it probably became a stopping point in the perambulatory activities of the guests and inhabitants of the big house as they walked around the surrounding policies. The reference to the Temple of Vesta in the Forum and Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli was not lost in this transition. Indeed it found echoes in various plaster reliefs in the main house installed by the younger DuCane who if anything was more influenced by Italian design than was his father having spent a great deal more of his life in Rome and on the tour. References to Fingel’s cave, grottos and homages to Neptune were all thrown in for good measure so the whole structure became a melange of various legends and architectural fashions of the day culminating in the structure’s more recent reputation as a “Hermitage” which actually did house a Hermit (a man who took a bet that he couldn’t live a year and a day in the cave without shaving or cutting his hair) at the turn of the last century. Inhabitants of the nearby village of Kelvedon can recall older relations who as children dropped food off at the cave for the “hermit” after church at All Saints Great Braxted which is situated within the confines of the Park.
The present owner Duncan Clark, remembers well playing in the “Ice House” during his childhood in the 1960’s and early 1970’s. At this time the structure was dilapidated but safe. During the 1980’s deterioration caused by tree roots pulling the foundations this way and that really set in. Movement was unsustainable and the building half collapsed. It has been a Building at Risk on English Heritage’s register (it is listed Grade II*) for several decades. It was unsafe and closed. Restoration costs were prohibitive and there it lay discarded and neglected by all except a decent bat population who liked to roost in its nooks and crannies.
As Duncan Clark worked to restore the resources of the Estate by commercializing many aspects of life there (weddings, offices, golf etc) so the prospect of actually tackling the enormous project of the building’s restoration became less daunting. Then serendipitously, he recounted to a case officer at English Heritage the eerie feelings of déjà-vu when he sat, whilst on a half term holiday to Rome with his children, in the bath house of Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli. Much inspired by this connection English Heritage commissioned some further research on the building’s history to uncover the Italian connection which when established justified shortly thereafter some further funds being extended to help towards its complete restoration. Happily, the Country House Foundation supplied the balance of the Funds necessary to complete the project, with the Estate making its contribution as well.
The pictures above provide a slide show of progress of this project which was completed in Sept 2011. The Hermitage, as it is now to be called, is restored and accessible by appointment with the Estate but mostly through the “Invitation to View” program run through the Mermaid Theatre in Colchester. A visit is well worth the time and effort as the building is utterly unique and the views across the lake from within quite breathtaking.
In recognition of the excellence of this work, the restoration has just been awarded the Maldon District Council Building Conservation award. The judging panel wrote: “The judges were immensely impressed by the magnitude of this extraordinary project. The timely structural intervention has saved an enigmatic and exceptional historic structure from collapse. The judges admired the way in which the repair project was complimented by research and archeological investigation of the building.” The project provides a wonderful of example of how owners of estates such as Braxted Park, given the wherewithal to generate resources by sympathetic exploitation of the natural advantages that reside in such a beautiful landscape, and given the right encouragement by the local authorities, will always safeguard the heritage of the sites of which they are the guardians. Duncan Clark says: “Much more good comes from owners and local authorities working constructively and flexibly together than when they are at each other’s throats. At the end of the day everyone wants the same thing which is to see this estate as a vibrant, living enterprise and home making the sort of contribution to the local community that it was always meant to”.