Page 29 - cn - ah national trust society and nature 25-03-24

Newark Park, Surrey.

The Bower is set apart from the house and is positioned at the edge of the raised Top Terrace, overlooking the
gardens and pleasure grounds below and the valley beyond which were laid out in the 1790’s.
The title of the painting and pose of the figure {the artist’s wife} are both ambiguous, this composition invites the
suggestion of a possible meeting or a moment of contemplation whilst viewing the garden beyond the leafy
protective inner space. The Bower is a reference to the female domain and sanctity, as well as being a leafy shelter.
The stone seat with its carved plaque signifies times past and distant verse. The painting makes reference to
Pre-Raphaelite rendering of historical themes through the approach to painting language.
This enchanting garden has its history from Elizabethan roots, when Newark Park (then called ‘Newe Worke’) was
built around 1550 as a hunting lodge for the Tudor courtier at Henry VIII’s court, Sir Nicholas Poyntz. The estate
passed on to Sir Nicholas’s widow Joan until she remarried. Newark Park stands tall on the Cotswold escarpment
with views down onto the Ozleworth Valley. This out of the way place in south Gloucestershire is a secret and
unspoilt place. In the 1670’s Sir Gabriel Lowe doubled the size of the house by adding the west range. Newark
became the place we see today when in the 1790’s the house was remodelled for the Rev Lewis Clutterbuck from
the then Tudor to a Neo-Classical style. It remained in the same family until 1949 (albeit rented out from 1860.) In
1898 the house was leased by Mrs King who was the widow of a wealthy Bristol shipping agent, Richard Pool King.
She gave new life to the place adding a new servants wing to the north side and brought up their five children. Mary
was a keen gardener who replanted the Walled Garden and created the Woodland Garden. The house was given to
the National Trust in 1949 by Mrs Catherine Annie Power-Clutterbuck in memory of her son James who was killed
in 1917 when serving in the Royal Flying Corps.
The house was saved by one man, Robert Parsons when he took on the tenancy of Newark Park as it was left in a
distressed state. Parsons was born in Oklahoma in 1920 but raised in Wichita Falls, Texas. He came to Britain
th
during WWII with US Army 65 Fighting Wing stationed in Anglia. He fell in love with England’s ancient
buildings and way of life. After studying architecture at Harvard, Parsons returned to England in 1950 pursuing the
th
restoration of a 16 C cottage in East Anglia. In 1970 through a friend’s introduction to Newark Park, Parsons took
up the tenancy and spent the rest of his life remaking the derelict house and abandoned gardens.

The Bower, Newark Park,

Ozleworth, Gloucestershire,
Oil on canvas 603/16 x 403/16 inches