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Erddig, Wrexham - Portraits of a Community |
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'Family' Album
The unusually close relationship between family and servants is illustrated by a series of portraits of the staff, begun in the late 18th Century, and continued into the 20th.
© NTPL
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Photographs of the staff line the basement passage - the earliest of which is a daguerreotype (an early type of photograph) of 1852. Other group photographs were taken in 1887 and 1912 and all have accompanying verse by Philip Yorke II (1849 - 1922).
In the Servant`s Hall, hang several portraits of the staff from the 18th Century. There are staff portraits at other houses of the same era, but these are of 'picturesque individuals' rather than a record of the household, as at Erddig. The series begins with the 'Negro Coachboy', who served John Mellor in the early 18th Century - verses were added to the picture by Philip Yorke I, fifty years later.
There were more portraits of the servants produced than of the Yorke's themselves. Between 1791 and 1796, six of Philip Yorke I's staff were painted by John Walters of Denbigh, featuring amongst others the gamekeeper, the housemaid, and the blacksmith. Three portraits were painted in 1830 with verses added by Simon Yorke II featuring the gardener, the carpenter and the woodman.
Two unusual hatchment memorials, commemorating long serving butlers from the 19th Century are also displayed in the Servants' Hall; hatchments normally being reserved for the gentry and their coats of arms.
The employer/servant relationship lasted up until the First World War, and although not unique, was nevertheless unusual in the late Victorian and Edwardian periods. At some country houses the domestic staff were treated quite badly. At many others, the servants were simply taken for granted.
The Gardens
The park was landscaped by William Eames (1729-1803) between 1768 - 1789. Erddig's walled garden is one of the most important surviving 18th Century gardens in Britain and was planned around a canal, and features a Victorian parterre and yew walk, as well as the National Collection of Ivy. The walled garden has many rare historical varieties of apples, pears, plums and apricots training along its walls, carefully labelled with names like Bon Chrétien d'Hiver (a pear of the late 15th Century) and Edelsborsdorfer (a 16th Century apple). Eames designed the unusual 'Cup and Saucer Waterfall' (1774), which can be found in the grounds. The 'cup' being a hole in the middle of a large disc - the 'saucer' - into which a flowing stream disappears creating an internal cylindrical waterfall. The stream emerges a few yards away under a bridge-like arch. |
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