Berrington Estate

 estate (manor / mansion land), National Trust property (UK), Grade II* Listed (UK)

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Berrington was purchased by Thomas Harley, the brother of the fourth Earl of Oxford, c 1775. Harley, banker, government contractor, Lord Mayor of London in 1767-8 and MP for Herefordshire from 1776, soon began to improve his new estate, bringing in Lancelot Brown (1716-83) to work on the park and Brown's son-in-law Henry Holland to rebuild the house. The scale of that work was apparently enhanced in 1781 when his daughter and heir presumptive, Anne, married the eldest son of Admiral Rodney. Harley died in 1804 and was succeeded by the second Lord Rodney. It remained the Rodneys' principal seat until 1900-1 when the seventh Lord Rodney sold Berrington to Frederick Crawley, MP, created Lord Crawley in 1918. When the second Lord Crawley died in 1954 the house and park were surrendered to the Treasury in part payment of Estate Duty. In 1957 Berrington passed to the National Trust, being endowed by the dowager Lady Crawley who lived on there until her death in 1978.

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