Croome

George William Coventry, later 6th Earl, approached ‘Capability’ Brown to undertake the grand and expensive transformation of Croome when Brown was just establishing an independent design practice. Brown worked here intensively between 1751-6 and 1762-6; it was his first complete landscape and cemented his reputation, while Croome itself became hugely influential as the first landscape in which the existing topography was harnessed and perfected in the new ‘natural’ style. In the Temple Greenhouse designed by Robert Adam, Brown created a grotto encrusted with shells, fossils and crystals, featuring Sabrina, goddess of the Severn, pouring water from her urn to feed it. Over the years, Croome was used as an RAF base, grazed parkland was turned into arable farmland and the river became silted up. When the Trust acquired the park in 1996 it embarked upon a major restoration project.

Croome Park, Worcestershire

This collection has 874 items online

Much of the historic collection assembled by 6th Earl of Coventry was dispersed at auction in 1948 when the Coventry family sold their ancestral home. Many objects were acquired by museums in the UK and the United States, including the entire contents of Lord Coventry’s Tapestry Room which is now on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Approximately one fifth of the original contents were acquired by the Croome Heritage Trust and thanks to a generous loan agreement are again on display at Croome. The objects that have returned include Lord Coventry’s incredibly important collection of Vincennes, Sevres and Meissen porcelain, examples of George III furniture, including Mayhew and Ince commodes, and two portraits by Allan Ramsay. Croome was 'Capability' Brown's' first complete landscape establishing a new style of garden design and there is a collection of outer 'eye catchers' and elegant park buildings.

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