Wilson Online Reference
Baker and Jones 1996
Author
Rosa Baker and Rosemary Jones
Title/Description
'The Park and Gardens of Colomendy Hall'
Publisher
Flintshire Historical Society
Country
Wales, UK
Date of Publication
1996
Printed/Manuscript
Secondary published
Document Inventory/Accession No
ISSN 0140 8429
More Information
Flintshire Historical Society Journal, vol. 34, pp. 33-52. The article charts the history of Colomendy Hall in North Wales, its owners and the laying out of its grounds. Multiple references are made to Wilson, and his cousin Catherine Jones who lived there.
Full Text
'Colomendy lies to the south of the road from Mold to Ruthin in North Wales, at Loggerheads in the parish of Llanferres. It is currently owned by Liverpool City Council, who run it as a centre for outdoor education. Best known for its connections with Wilson, who died there in 1782, Colomendy Hall stands in a well-maintained landscaped park, with wooded pleasure grounds, where paths and steps lead round picturesque outcrops of carboniferous limestone. Less well known are the walled garden and its forgotten features, the important cast and wrought iron gates, the clapper bridge and the defile or sunken path leading to a tunnel of rustic rockwork, which frames a dramatic view of Moel Famau'. (p. 33) Sections of the text most relevant to Wilson: 'At the end of the seventeenth century the estate still belonged to the ancient family of Jones of Colomendy, who had been there from time immemorial. [ ... ] Catherine Jones, the last of her line, lived to be eighty-five, and although she appears infrequently in documents, she ran the estate and was a benefactress of Llanferres parish, with a much higher profle than any previous member of her family. [ ... ] The Colomendy land agent was her cousin, John Wilson, a Collector of Excise in Mold, and the eldest of Richard Wilson's brothers. Catherine Jones' greatest claim to fame is that she took in her cousin Richard Wilson in the last sad years of his life.' (pp. 34-35) '[Wilson] was first cousin both to George Wynne, by whom his artistic education was sponsored, and to Catherine Jones, to whom he seems to have been close throughout his life. It is a firmly held tradition that Richard Wilson was a frequent guest at Colomendy, and Ieuan Iâl, writing in 1833, says he had spoken to elderly people who remembered Wilson at Colomendy fifty years before, and that Wilson "often visited his cousin Madame Jones at Colomendy during the time he resided in London".' (p. 40) 'There are no descriptions of the earlier hall, the one which Richard Wilson would have known [ ...]' (p. 42)
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2019-09-26 00:00:00