Coopersale House, Theydon Garnon – an enigma

The December 2013 Journal provided the later history of Coopersale House. Its earlier history is equally interesting, though it raises a number of unanswerable questions.

The early origins of the house are obscure. The Archer family owned land in and around the hamlet of Coopersale from the end of the C16 and they rose to particular eminence with Sir John Archer (1598-1681/2), MP for Essex in 1653 and judge in the Court of Common Pleas from 1663. He is almost certainly the Dr Archer who paid tax on an unidentified house with 24 hearths in Theydon Garnon in 1670, making it one of the largest houses in Essex at that time (Edward Smith of Hill Hall, for example, paid for 22 hearths). The oldest part of the present house dates from the 1670s or 1680s, and an overmantel of that date bears the arms of Archer, so it is reasonable to assume that Archer’s substantial 24 hearth house was indeed Coopersale House. The history of the building is complicated - part was replaced early in the C18 and there were further alterations in the 1760s by the architect John Redgrave. In the C20 the top storey was removed and further substantial alterations made.

The history of the garden is equally complicated. A delivery of live carp is recorded in 1694, indicating that a fish pond already existed. By 1738 William Eyre Archer (d.1739) had embarked on a radical now layout designed by Adam Holt whose plan and partial specification have survived. The central feature was a large lake shaped as an irregular polygon, surrounded by steeply sloping banks and tiered walks. There were other ponds too – two ‘stews’ (the ‘great stew’ being close to the NW end of the lake) - and a grand avenue running as far as the present site of St Margaret’s Hospital. Just to the south of the avenue was a ‘botte lake’ (boat lake, perhaps?). There were other odd features which a short article lacks the space to discuss, other than to mention that the vegetable garden was immediately in front of the house, a feature that rapidly became unfashionable.

The next change dates from 1758 when a new walled vegetable garden was built in the NW corner of the gardens, well away from the house, for William Eyre Archer’s son, John (1716-1800). Though his principal seat was in Berkshire, he continued to make improvements at Coopersale, including further alterations to the house in 1763-4. He diverted the road away from the front of the house in 1770, and the dogleg required to achieve this is still obvious on modern maps. Then, in 1774, John Archer was invoiced by the well-known garden designer ‘Capability’ Brown for 35 guineas for ‘visits and plans’.

No plans have survived, and it is far from clear what, if any, changes were made on Brown’s recommendations. The Chapman & Andre map, published in 1777 but surveyed several years earlier, shows the large lake thinned and elongated into a serpentine shape, and extended significantly to the NW. This is exactly what Brown would have normally advised. The Ordnance Survey surveyors’ drawings of 1799 show the same alteration, but all later maps show the lake in its early C18 form as an irregular polygon. Was the lake altered to Brown’s specifications, and then re-dug to its earlier shape with steeply cut banks in the C19?

Within two years of Brown’s visit to Coopersale House, John Archer’s wife died and the distraught widower abandoned the house, without even leaving a caretaker in charge. By the time of his death in 1800, the courtyard was a wilderness of tall weeds, owls had taken possession of the principal drawing room and pigeons ‘had long made their nests in the library’ where ‘several loads of dung cumbered the floor’. The majority of any improvements that might have been made between Brown’s visit in 1774 and Mrs Archer’s death two years later would have been lost to neglect. However the problem of explaining the shape of the lake remains. There are three possibilities.

Firstly, the lake was modified to a shape recommended by Brown, but in the years of neglect the shallower extension silted up and the whole thing returned to its early C18 form within its original steeply cut banks. There are a number of objections this – mainly that the extension would almost certainly have cut through and destroyed the ‘great stew’. This pond, however, still survives in its original position in the present-day garden. In addition there is no trace of the extension in the adjoining field on modern aerial photographs.

Secondly, as above, the lake was modified but after two decades of silting, it proved easier to rescue the steeply cut earlier section and abandon Brown’s extension. If Brown’s extension had been very shallow, the ‘great stew’ might have survived under it, and could have been restored to its original form. However there is still the problem of the lack of any trace of a scar left by the extended lake in the adjoining farm land.

Thirdly, Chapman and Andre’s survey was done between 1772 and 1774, probably before any of Brown’s improvements had been completed. Indeed a sketch plan made in June 1773 shows that the lake was still in its early C18 form. Why then is the altered lake shown by Chapman and Andre? A possible explanation is that when these surveyors arrived at Coopersale, John Archer took them indoors and showed them what he planned to do. He could have suggested that, if they wanted their map to be up-to-date, they should follow Brown’s drawings rather than what was still on the ground. In the event, the improvements were never made due to the death of John Archer’s wife. It is known that Chapman and Andre’s survey had a reputation for great accuracy. Could the Ordnance Survey surveyors have chosen to follow what the earlier map makers had drawn, rather than measuring up what was actually on the ground in 1799, much of which would have been hidden in the undergrowth after 25 years of neglect? It would be very interesting to know if there are other examples of the OS copying the inaccuracies of earlier surveys.