Alderley, Gloucestershire

History

Architecture

• The church, dedicated to Saint Kenelm, was rebuilt in Gothic style in 1802, but the tower dates back to c.1450. Marianne North, biologist and botanical artist, is buried in the churchyard.
• Immediately to the southwest of St Kenelm's church is Alderley House, a 19th-century neo-Elizabethan manor house designed by Lewis Vulliamy for Robert Blagden Hale and built in 1859-1863. The house is located on the site of an earlier Jacobean country house built by the famous jurist Sir Matthew Hale in 1656-1662. For the 70 years following the outbreak of World War II, the property served as the site for Rose Hill School, an independent day and boarding preparatory school, until its merger in 2009 with Querns Westonbirt school. The merger formed the Rose Hill Westonbirt School, which relocated to nearby Tetbury, and the vacant property was sold for use once again as a private residence.
• Alderley Grange was rebuilt, probably by a Bristol architect, about 1760; it occupies the site of an earlier house where Sir Matthew Hale was born. It was the home of James Lees-Milne, the architectural writer and memoirist, and his wife Alvilde Chaplin, who created a much-admired garden.