Bid to restore dilapidated boathouse at Shropshire estate

The Shavington And Cloverley Estate wants to carefully take down the heavily rotted boathouse at Cloverley Hall, Calverhall, near Whitchurch. They would then set aside all reusable elements in appropriate dry workshop storage; reconstruct the boat house in-situ (in due course) on a completely like for like basis, repairing reusable elements with any new construction fabric to match.

The plans were submitted to Shropshire Council this week and will be determined in the coming months. Agents Balfours say the boathouse is in a heavily-overgrown location.

It added: “The site is heavily-overgrown and the structure is unsafe to fully survey or record.”

A statement from the estate said: “Cloverley Boathouse is a Grade II-listed building set at the north end of Cloverley Pool, a man-made lake located some 200 metres south-east of Cloverley Hall. Cloverley Hall is situated half a mile east-south-east of the small North Shropshire village of Calverhall.

"The boathouse is accessed through historic parkland via a farm track. Also in the woodland at the north-west corner of Cloverley Pool are an old water mill and an icehouse. Neither of these structures are listed.

“The estate was for many centuries the seat of the Dod family. It will have been the Dods who funded the works of excavation and damming to create Cloverley Pool. Records tell of the fact that the boathouse was constructed in 1869 and the total wages paid to the carpenters – who expended 221.5 ‘man-days’ in constructing it – was £34.15s.2p.

“Unfortunately the account books do not give record of the sums paid to the person who designed the boathouse.

“However, the stylistic quirks and construction qualities of this building prompt the thought that one of the nation’s best respected architects of the time was responsible for its design.”

Disused

It added: “Although the parkland and Cloverley Pool remained in the Heywood-Lonsdale family ownership, the mid-Victorian boathouse was little used.

“The last time it is understood to have given cover to a boat was in the early 1990s.

“Disused and ever increasingly screened from view by trees and vigorous laurels, the boathouse is now broken-backed and several of its principal parts are kneeling in the water.

“Over the course of the past five years extensive works have been undertaken to the dam to render Cloverley Pool safe and compliant.

“Works have also been carried out upstream – and are ongoing – to improve the quality of the pool’s water.

“The mill’s failing tile roof has been stripped, the tiles carefully stored and the building protected from the rain through the fixing of a tin roof.

“In the long term, plans to revitalise Cloverley Pool, the rescue of the boathouse is a key endeavour.

“Exposure to the elements has caused much of the building’s timberwork to rot.

“In a three phased scheme of works the first phase will see the slates carefully removed and the wooden structure dismantled with as much of the original woodwork as possible saved for reinstallation.

“This historic fabric is to be carefully stored in a nearby shed where, once it has dried out, the Phase II works will see splicing repairs undertaken and new members made, as necessary, in replication of the originals.

“In Phase III minor works will be undertaken to make good tree root damage to the bays’ brickwork and the wooden boathouse will be re-erected to its original form.”