The rise and ruin of an Elizabethan Hall that tried in vain to prepare a war poet for the trenches
Wilfred Owen was one of a myriad First World War troops who learned the art of trench warfare at Park Hall.
Charlotte Anne Fletcher was just 12 years old when she inherited her family's business. Her early years were split between London and the more tranquil surrounds of Peel Hall (not to be confused with Kenyon Peel Hall, in the same Lancashire village) — a new-build property, reportedly designed by Charles Barry for her grandfather, Matthew Fletcher.
The Fletchers’ wealth came from coal and it was this 'black gold' that Charlotte inherited following the untimely deaths of her mother, Anne, in February 1857, and her father, Jacob Fletcher Fletcher, two months later.
In 1870, after her guardians released her inheritance, Charlotte spent some of her mammoth wealth on Park Hall, a beautiful Elizabethan house on the edge of the market town of Oswestry, in Shropshire. A Latin motto was inscribed above the front door: 'Quod tibi fieri non vis Alteri feccris', or, 'Do not do unto others what you do not want done to yourself'.
The entrance hall with its unusual canopied fire-side seat.
In 1866, 20-year-old Charlotte had married the Hon Robert Wellington Stapleton-Cotton. Though she bore him two children, the marriage was far from a happy one and Charlotte petitioned for divorce in 1879, citing abandonment. The case was reported in the national press. Evidence included an astonishing, three-year-old letter from Stapleton-Cotton:
‘I have behaved to you as badly as a man could do, and by the time you receive this I shall be far away with another woman. You may blame me, but you must own that we were never suited to each other. Forget me if you can, and think of me as never having belonged to you. It will be no use in to make us go back, as nothing will ever make us retract from the step we have taken. If you can be kind to my brother and sister as regards to the allowance they have had from me, I implore you to do so.’
A divorce was granted, though it appears that Charlotte was left to pick up the costs. It was to be one of the best decisions of her life.
The house's south-west corner and the chapel.
In 1886, she remarried. This time, happily, to Major Alfred Wynne Corrie of Itchen Abbas, Hampshire. By this time, Charlotte was so respected for her charitable deeds that the Mayor of Oswestry presented the happy couple with a diamond star, on behalf of the town.
It was a great union. The couple set up home in Park Hall, managing to modernise it (including installing a lift in 1910), without compromising any of its historic charm. Wynne Corrie went on to become Mayor of Oswestry, a Deputy Lieutenant and Justice of the Peace, dedicating his life to the service of his new community.
The dining room's impressive plasterwork ceiling.
In 1903, they invited Country Life to visit Park Hall. The writer was enchanted, describing it as ‘commodious and comfortable’, and a ‘mansion of very excellent and original character’. Photographs from the article, reproduced here, show intricate and detailed woodwork and carvings throughout the principal rooms.
Nine years later, the couple celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary at home.
On June 18, 1913, Charlotte was in the lift, heading downstairs for dinner, when its rope snapped. She died two days later from shock and her injuries.
Alfred put Park Hall up for sale a year later, by which time the First World War was looming large. It failed to sell and so, like others, he offered his land to the military for training purposes. He then volunteered for service and served as an honorary Major in the Volunteer Defence Force for the duration of the war.
One of the most powerful voices and critical anti-war writers of the First World War, Wilfred Owen was killed in action on November 4, 1918, at the age of 25, seven days before the Armistice.
One of the painstakingly-carved, Elizabethan stairways.
In the ensuing years, Park Hall’s land became a temporary home to thousands and thousands of men — including the poet Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) — as they perfected the terrifying art of trench warfare. It eventually housed a sizeable prisoner of war camp.
Months after the hostilities had finally ceased, another disaster struck. On December 27, 1918, a fire took hold in the chapel. It quickly spread through the wooden hall, consuming the entire building in hours.
Wynne Corrie died four months later. He had remarried in 1916, but was laid to rest with Charlotte in his childhood home of Itchen Abbas.
In August 1919, the Government announced that it had purchased Park Hall’s land for an undisclosed sum from the executors of Wynne Corrie’s estate. The plan was to use it as a training ground for demobilised soldiers who wanted to become market gardeners, but nothing came to fruition. Instead, an existing hospital continued to operate; during the Second World War it was used as a military camp and, after that, by troops on National Service.
The land has finally found a semblance of peace in the 21st century, as a new estate of 110 houses. And Park Hall’s former farm is now an adventure park where children can interact with the animals, drive small tractors and run around in trenches as they are taught the history of the land on which they stand.
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