Explore our grounds

If you’re looking for a good value day out come and enjoy our grounds.

• Enjoy a picnic in our lakeside or woodland picnic areas.
• Explore our 'Capability' Brown footpaths.
• Discover a whole host of bird, plant and wildlife.
• Look inside our newly restored ice house, which continues to provide a roost for several species of bat. Read about the restoration project.
• Pick up a grounds leaflet to find out more about the history of the grounds.
• Find out about the hidden stories of the grounds from retired Groundsman John Schumann and landscape historian John Phibbs by borrowing a grounds audio tour from the Ticket Desk. Listen to our grounds audio tour

Fun for the family

Have fun and explore the great outdoors in our 120 acres of parkland, there's loads of fun to be had for the whole family.

• Walk the meadow footpaths and see an amazing variety of butterflies
• Watch the squirrels jump from branch to branch in the ice house coppice
• Hide in the willow tunnels.
• Climb and swing explore in our children's playground, hidden away in the Christmas tree plantation - new clatter brige and swings added for 2012.

Download our Walk on the wild side family trail

  All activities included with the collections and grounds ticket or annual pass.

Click here for more information about family visits to Compton Verney.

Artist in residence - Laura Ellen Bacon

Residency 18 June - 16 October 2011

"My woven work today is often concerned with the making of 'spaces'; of capturing the delight of crafting a small area to dwell, even just for a moment."

Compton Verney's 'Capability' Brown landscape is the setting and inspiration for Laura Ellen Bacon's work. These hand-made, den like sculptural forms can be traced to her childhood enthusiasm for building personal spaces in the garden, woods and fields.

Laura's residency has now ended but her three commissioned pieces and the works that visitors helped to create will remain in the grounds for you to enjoy.

 Residency funded by Arts Council England.

Laura's evaluation

What seems very clear to me now is the influence of the seasons within the work. The artworks I have created began as the comparatively small, 'First Encounter' built not only as a 'hidden' piece, but made in retreat of the late spring sun. The open, airy, web-like forms that followed with their riotous colour refers back to those gathered memories of tents and dens in the garden (some of which are recorded here in the first few pages). There is something about summer that persuades us to bring things out of the home and into the garden; cushions, fabrics, furniture, perhaps these recalled memories sparked my interest to develop work with man-made materials, something essentially out of place but spun into a form that nestles itself entirely into the space available. The quick turn of the weather into a cold autumn seemed to define the use of foraged material, as if gathering sticks and building in the leaf litter was somehow more fitting and wholesome. Perhaps the scent of the leaf mould and the nesting instinct took over...

I have had some great feedback and wonderful conversations with people whilst creating the work and I hope that the pieces I have made will be enjoyed over the coming months. Making these pieces has been less about the production of a sculpted form and more about the activity of making. At times I hardly slept with excitement about what I was making and if I did sleep, I was stringing lines of ribbon into trees in my dreams, quite wonderful times! I hope therefore that this 'process of making' has revealed itself in the work and has made the artworks more accessible perhaps. I have aimed for visitors to wonder how the pieces were made and perhaps, why? I've smiled to myself on many occasions as passers-by have stumbled upon a grown woman at various heights of a tree, materials cascading out of my hands and spooling onto the woodland floor. Most commonly this resulted in matching smiles and often delight on the part of the viewer and I kept a reserve of good humour for those viewers who were perhaps not entirely ready for an obsessive weaver perched between the yew and the overgrown box tree.

I started the residency with various questions: what is it about the hand-made space that intrigues us? Why are our memories of dens so special? As visitors, why do we enjoy finding the makers mark? What is it about a crafted space that excites us? I'm not sure I have found specific answers to these questions, but rather that my experiences at Compton Verney have heightened my senses much more. My early diary entries (a limited few of which are detailed in this book) describe the things I saw on site, (the wonder of the architecture and the big birds that I enjoyed on lawn) and not necessarily the things I felt. Perhaps one needs to spend time to 'feel' a site a little more, or maybe one's senses can be honed (more questions... ).

Public Interaction

Overall I was thrilled to see how much people enjoyed the workshops and it was great to draw out people's ideas and thoughts. It was useful that the workshop weekends were close to the finish or the beginning of one of my pieces as it was great to involve people in the designs. Children seemed really thrilled with the results and it was great to witness their enjoyment, although I confess that it was the intrigue and wonder from adult viewers that inspired me more. The result of many conversations was that the articulation of fingers and use of materials (especially in an outside space) is a language that many adults have forgotten and struggle to reclaim. I hope the workshops and my three structures will inspire people to indulge their ideas and regain these joys again.

Visitor comments

These comments were recorded by staff at Compton Verney.

"Laura’s work is wonderful, her use of natural forms is interesting as well as manmade forms/materials. It’s a nice relationship between humans and nature. Lovely to see her working on new weaves and seeing the process such as soaking the willow before weaving."

"Love them! More to see in the wood."

"Laura’s weaves were fantastic. We had a chat with her .Great to see the process in action. We found her work very organic and complex. The constructions we were able to walk into reminded me of the dens I used to make as a child."

"Laura’s work is very complimentary within the grounds. They work well with nature and it was really interesting to ‘discover’ them."

"Laura’s work is really interesting and the scale of some of the pieces really surprised us. It’s nice to see this kind of work in the grounds."

"The white coloured weave was the most interesting because we could walk into it and look at it from every direction."

"Laura’s weaves are wonderful. Beautifully made with an organic feel. They look like large nests/beehives, or it could be that I have shrunk and have become able to walk inside and explore these nests."

Laura Ellen Bacon's "First Encounter" made from buff willow, built into a yew tree. June 2011.

Laura Ellen Bacon with her second artwork, "Web Site". Polyproylene Ribbon, built into a small cluster of trees.  August 2011.

Third artwork, "Autumnal Clearing". Hazel and wellingtonia branches from the Compton Verney grounds, built into a copse of Portuguese Laurel. October 2011.

Images from the public participation workshops.

History of the grounds

Compton Verney is set in more than 120 acres of Grade 2 listed classical parkland, landscaped by Lancelot 'Capability' Brown, the most eminent landscape architect of the eighteeth-century. Although the original estate was split up and sold a century ago, the ‘pleasure grounds’ still clearly reflect the sweeping grassland, ornamental lakes and Cedars of Lebanon for which Brown is famous. On arrival at the site visitors pass one of the lakes and cross a bridge, designed by Robert Adam, which is now adorned by four recently recovered sphinxes.

In common with the house, the grounds were badly neglected during the twentieth-century and returning the Grade 2 listed landscape to its former glory requires considerable restoration, for which Compton Verney has drawn up an extensive recovery and replanting programme. In 2003 the Trust re-acquired the historic south park and is restoring wildlife habitats by replacing crops with an eighteenth-century landscape of trees and grassland.

The grounds are home to a rich variety of wildlife, such as birds and three species of bat, including the relatively rare Lesser Horseshoe. Compton Verney is working with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) to preserve the bat habitats, which include the former ice house. Future plans also include restoring the network of footpaths laid out by 'Capability' Brown and restoring the historic balance of trees and shrubs in the woodland.