The fifteenth and sixteenth Earls of Shrewsbury’s wonderland at Alton Towers is a sideshow to the Merlin Entertainments’ theme park and resort. To the present operators’ credit, they’ve pumped some of their profits into restoring and maintaining the historic fabric, but visiting isn’t easy if you seek to be edified rather than exhilarated.
The fifteenth Earl (1753-1827) developed the romantic garden in an unwatered valley on his Alton estate from around 1814, repeatedly extending the original estate manager’s lodge to entertain his family and guests. The house grew until his nephew and heir, the sixteenth Earl (1791-1852), occupied one of the largest country houses in England.
The engineering involved in creating the garden, including terracing and the digging of lakes supplied from a spring two miles away, was largely the work of Thomas Allason (1790-1852).
Most of the buildings which are scattered about the gardens seem to be the work of Robert Abraham (1774-1850). He is credited with the range of conservatories, their domes surmounted by earl’s coronets, and the cast-iron Gothic Temple, or Prospect Tower, which provides one of the most panoramic views of the whole composition.
Abraham also produced the initial design for the Pagoda Fountain in 1827, with a stone base containing a gasometer, six storeys and no less than forty gas-lit Chinese lanterns. The completed structure, started after 1831 and fabricated by the Coalbrookdale Iron Company, is smaller (44ft), unlit, and entirely of cast-iron; its seventy-foot plume of water remains the major spectacle of the garden.
Guide-books regularly attribute Robert Abraham’s design to a “To-Ho Pagoda in Canton”. I ransacked Google and Wikipedia for an illustration without success, but I did find this: Ta-Ho Pagoda Canton Temples Antique Chinese Architecture Engraving Pri – Ephemera Finds.
Among the other garden features to notice at Alton Towers are the Corkscrew Fountain and what is now known as the Swiss Cottage (1835), apparently originally designed by the Uttoxeter architect Thomas Fradgley (1802-1883) for the Earl’s blind Welsh harpist, Edward Jervis, who when not employed in the entrance hall of the house, provided musical accompaniment for promenades round the gardens.
The fifteenth Earl’s contribution to the beauty of Alton Towers is commemorated by his nephew’s iron monument, in the form of the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates in Athens, which stands at the entrance to the garden, containing a portrait bust and surmounted by the motto, “He made the desert smile.”
If all you want to do at Alton Towers is admire the historic house and gardens without being frightened silly, you can ignore the rides: the house is straight ahead and unmissable; the gardens are to the left.
The entire complex is open from mid-March to November and there are quieter times outside school holidays: Theme Park Tickets, Passes & Discounts | Alton Towers Resort.
There is extensive amateur footage of both the house and the grounds at Alton Towers Ruins 2006 & 2014 (youtube.com).