Phoenix from the flames

Two glorious houses that burnt to the ground– one in Herefordshire in 1999 and another in Wiltshire in 1882–have been rebuilt, as another, in Devon, has been beautifully updated

- Penny Churchill

IT was every country-house owner’s worst nightmare when, early one morning in January 1999, handsome Eardisley Park in the picturesque Wye Valley, 15 miles northwest of Hereford, burnt to the ground, leaving only the stone plinth enclosing the basement and the north wall of the classic Grade II*listed Queen Anne house still standing.

Fortunately, its owners, Nigel and Jane Morris-Jones and their four children, were away at the time, but the disaster was compounded by the fact that they had spent the previous three years restoring the house they had bought in 1996.

The original Queen Anne house was built by William Barnesley, a London merchant who bought the estate in about 1700. It stands on historic parkland established as a deer park in medieval times by the Baskerville family, where once stood the 11th-century Eardisley Castle that was razed to the ground after the English Civil War. The attic of the new house was converted into an additional storey later in the 18th century.

Undeterred by the enormity of the task, the couple set about ‘not only rebuilding the house, but rebuilding better than before’. Conservation architects Donald Insall Associates were commissioned to oversee the reconstruction shortly after completing work to repair the damage caused by the fire at Windsor Castle in 1992. The building work at Eardisley was undertaken by Hereford-based restoration specialists I. J. Preece and Son.