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Soulton Hall
Location within Shropshire
Former names	Saulton, Suletune, Suleton, Soleton, Sulton, Sowton, Soughton[1]
General information
Architectural style	Tudor architecture, Prodigy house, Renaissance architecture
Location	near Wem, Shrewsbury, Shropshire
Country	England
Coordinates	52°52′04″N 2°40′44″W / 52.8678°N 2.679°W / 52.8678; -2.679
Elevation	125 m (410 ft)
Construction started	prior to 1017 for the manor, on the current site by the late 1300s, with the current hall (corps de logis of wider ) begun c. 1556
Completed	by 1560
Technical details
Material	Single phase construction using Grinshill sandstone and Tudor brick, incorporating timber framing which reused older timbers in some cases
Design and construction
Architect(s)	? Matthew Parker
Website
www.soultonhall.co.uk

Soulton Hall is a Tudor country house near Wem, England. It was a 16th century architectural project of Sir Rowland Hill, publisher of the Geneva Bible.^[2] Hill was a statesman, polymath and philanthropist, later styled the "First Protestant Lord Mayor of London" because of his senior role in the Tudor statecraft that was needed to bring stability to England in the fall out of the Reformation. The building of the current Soulton Hall, undertaken during the tumult of the Reformation, is therefore associated with the political and social work required to incubate the subsequent English Renaissance.^[3][4]

Soulton Hall is understood to be constructed in an elaborate set of humanist codes drawing together concepts from classical antiquity, geometry, philosophy and scripture. It is further understood that the building influenced the architecture of many later buildings of similar style.^[5]

With a hidden chapel in its basement, a priesthole, and bookcases hidden within its thick walls to hide heretical documents, Soulton Hall is likely to have served as a base for the conspiracy which led to the publication of the Geneva Bible, which bears the name of Rowland Hill on its frontispiece as publisher.^[6]

The grounds of the hall contain archaeology of a lost theatre. Emerging scholarship^[7][8][9] links the manor to Shakespeare,^[10][11] and in particular the play As You Like It^[12][13][14] which concerns the estate of a character called "Old Sir Rowland".^[6][15] Sir Rowland Hill was a cousin of Shakespeare's mother Mary Arden by reason of the marriage of his heiresses Elizabeth Corbett to Robert Arden in the 1580s.^[16][17]

Mentioned in the Norman Domesday Book, Soulton has housed a manor since late Anglo Saxon times, and a "lost castle" rediscovered in 2021^[18] undergoing a multi-season archaeological investigation by DigVentures.

The modern manor incorporates a working farm pioneering various sustainable agriculture approaches, and also houses a series of contemporary monuments including standing stones and long barrow burial site.

Sir Rowland Hill's renaissance hall

A recent scholarly appraisal of the building said:

There must have been an important master mason behind the house's design; if only we knew more about the original build.^[19]

Since that was written, more understanding has been shared and is emerging.

The present hall building was constructed between 1556 and 1560 by Sir Rowland Hill, but is only the corps de logis (private block) of a much bigger palace complex subsequently muted and lost in intervening stages of development. It is constructed of brick, produced at the site, with Grinshill stone dressings.^[20]

Hill was the first Protestant Lord Mayor of London in 1549, and, as Sheriff of London. Hill was the coordinator of the Geneva Bible project and an enthusiastic patron of the arts, in particular drama. He has been linked with the character of Old Sir Rowland in Shakespeare's As You Like It.^[21][22][23] He was also involved in the case which established Parliamentary Privilege.^[24]

House of state, literary connections and inspiration

Soulton was acquired by Hill and his protégé Thomas Leigh in 1556 from Thomas Lodge.^[25] Lodge's son, also called Thomas Lodge, would have been familiar with the woods at Soulton.^[26] Lodge Jr was the writer and dramatist, who wrote prose tale of Rosalynde, Euphues Golden Legacie, which, printed in 1590, would go on to be the acknowledged source from which William Shakespeare took inspiration when writing his pastoral comedy 'As You Like It'.

Hill was a close associate of Thomas Wriothesley, 1st Earl of Southampton^[27] (whose grandson Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton was the dedicatee of Shakespeare's sonnets) to the point of attending the private burial with the family on his death.

The third Earl's wife Elizabeth Vernon is associated with Hill via her grandfather, who shared his childhood with Rowland Hill with them both being baptised at Hodnet within a couple of years of each other, and both families having stationed links to the area. Another Vernon, Margaret Vernon, a daughter of George Vernon, was the wife of Sir Thomas Stanley, whose family reputedly patronised Shakespeare, and is and is also associated with the writer to whom their epitaphs have been attributed to the writer in St Bartholomew's Church in Tong, Shropshire.^[28]

Within the building are traces of older Tudor or medieval building phases on the site, with timber materials re-used from predecessors of the manor's various halls. Examples of simple pargeting can be seen within the building.

To the east of the hall is what is now a walled garden, accessed by steps from the terrace on the north, or by a Tudor gate to the north.

At the front of the hall is a Pillared forecourt, again part of the 1550s design concept.

The evacuation of Sir Rowland's Library at Soulton

It has been suggested that Hill's statecraft involved the accumulation of state papers and culturally important texts at Soulton, which then passed, via the Alkington Cottons, into the Cotton Library (which includes the Beowulf manuscript and copies of Magna Carta) and this, along with the repeated memorialization of Sir Rowland Hill with Magna Carta, offers a potential explanation for the battle of Wem in the English Civil War during which Soulton was ransacked.^[29]

The influence of Hill's publishing is underlined by the way the design on the Geneva Bible's frontispiece is understood to have been the inspiration for Benjamin Franklin's design for the Great Seal of the United States.^[30]

Clandestine features

Humanist, Classical and Scripture Codes

Cosmati pavement and Rhombic dodecahedrons

The Tudor hall's unusual quoining relates to Anglo-Saxon architecture, while incorporating other features at that time only seen in the architecture of Corpus Christi College Cambridge. This together with its unusual strict geometry and the mathematical relationship between the hall and walled garden, represent a geometric philosophical allegory seen in stately architecture as diverse as the Anglo-Saxon Mercian royal crypt at Repton, and the Coronation Theatre of Henry III at Westminster Abbey with the Cosmati Pavement at its centre.^[31]

The geometry is understood, as stated by James D. Wenn include commentary on sacred geometry:

Soulton's sermon in stones concerns the geometry of the rhombic dodecahedron — a solid that has certain ‘perfect’ characteristics, including that it can fill space (as cubes can), and is the 3D projection of a 4D Platonic Solid called the hyperdiamond. The former characteristic lends it an allegorical quality, because the concept of a civilised person fitting into a society, often represented by cubes, is made a little more complex and nuanced. Everybody can fit into a harmony, but it may take some patience — indeed, tolerance — to find the right fit. The connection to the fourth spatial dimension invokes ideas of God's power beyond the constraints of time, as discussed by ancient theologians such as Boethius. Even before Boethius, these ideas were discussed in ancient Greek philosophy. Plato's book Timaeus sought to reflect the harmony of the natural world, and by the invention of the Atlantis story (which later inspired Bacon), attempted to encourage civic harmony, too.

Ellusis

The whole precinct of the hall and linked courts to the north, east and south is matched to the geometry of the Telesterion at Ellusis, giving a compound of 55 yards square.^[23] This shows conscious engagement with those Greek mysteries. At Soulton a nine grid is laid over the precinct to give compartments of 55 foot squares. The current hall itself if 55 foot cubed: a number which recurs at the Washington Monument, amongst other places.

These observations were first made in modern times by James D. Wenn.^[32]

Dancing pavement

To the south of the current hall is a cobbled yard of Victorian date (1847). It is based on similar patterns seen at the preserved Tudor Hall at Plas Mawr it is likely the design was taken from Tudor features within the hall lost during subsequent renovations. Scholars have interpreted this as a dancing pavement linked to some of the ideas of harmony explored by Ptolemy.^[33]

This pavement was installed by the 6x great grandmother of the current generation as cultural compensation for the loss of the Sir Rowland hill plasterwork ceilings which did not survive the mid 19th century.^[34][35] Other buildings in the region have retained such ceilings, such as Plas Mawr in Conwy.

Epidaurus Court, a Tudor theatre space

A theatre court, modelled on the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus, was built by Hill in the precinct of the house to the east of the current hall:^[36] the hall itself forms the theatre screen.^[37][38]

This was completed by 1560 and therefore predates Teatro Olimpico and the Elizabethan Theatres such as The Globe and The Rose.

Parlours in the basement and Rithmomachia Floor

Some of the basement rooms retain their original Tudor treatment, including flooring, indicating that these were 'polite' rooms, rather than service spaces.

One of these rooms (The Rithmomachia Room) contains in the tiles a games board for Rithmomachia, which is an early European bard game also known as The Philosopher's Game, an account of which Sir Rowland Hill printed with the title The most ancient and learned Playe, called the Philosopher's Game invented for the honest recreation of Students and other sober persons, in passing the tedious of tyme to the release of their labours, and the exercise of their Wittes.^[39]

Abaton

The central room on the southern face of Soulton Hall has been identified as a classically-inspired 'abaton' medical incubation space; that room is inside a conceptual rhombicdodecaedron and also in a room that has a cross lantern effect designed into the configuration of the house.^[40]

Priest hide

There is a priest hide on the principle floor of the house in the south west corner of the building in a turret containing several chimneys, in the interior of the room (believed to be Sir Rowland Hill's studiolo). It is not known whether this hiding place was ever used but provides evidence of early intent to use the building as a safehouse, from the time of its construction. More associated with the hiding of Catholics during the reign of Elizabeth I of England, the early date of the priest hole's inclusion in the architecture at Soulton combined with Rowland Hill's position suggests they were more likely intended for use to hide prominent protestants such as Matthew Parker from the inquisitions^[41] of Mary I. Uniquely among protestant leaders Parker did not flee England yet somehow survived. His whereabouts, and that of his library during this time have always been a matter of speculation. It has thus been inferred that Parker may have been sheltered at Soulton by Rowland Hill, with whom he was later associated, not least by both being Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Causes at the dawn of Elizabeth I's reign.^[42]

The history of the priest-hole has been memorialised by the addition of a modern plaque which says:

Behind this tablet lies a space believed to have been intended to be used to hide scholars and priests from the authorities during the turmoil of the sixteenth century.

This memorial honours all who have suffered persecution for their beliefs.^{[citation needed]}

On the beams in this room there are also quotations from Michel de Montaigne.

Parker connection

These features of the hall's design may have been influenced by the scholarship of Hill's contemporary, historian and protestant theologian Matthew Parker of Cambridge.^[43][31][23]

Well of Catharsis

The avenue between the eastern face of the hall and Soulton Bridge as a dressed springhead, which is a reference to the Well of Catharsis.^[44]

Representation of Holy Amandal

Soulton is thought to have been copied by Francis Bacon when he built Verulam House. It is further thought that the construction of Soulton Hall (with its lost pyramidal roof) is done to represent a Holy Almandal.^[45]

Concealed chapel

The basement of the house contains a room called the 'Ædicule'; a concealed chapel in the east front (which is the only truly symmetrical face of the 1550s design and is intended to conjure Solomon's Temple).The central position of this room was prioritised so strongly that its doorway interrupts a load-bearing wall supporting the hall above, thus requiring that other walls had to be reinforced. It is the only room in the building to have a central window.^[46] The house's alignment is taken from this room which addresses the range of dates possible for the celebration of Easter.^[47]

The Sir Rowland Hill furniture

Sir Rowland Hills chair of estate, justice table, and bench - a suite of renaissance state furniture - has survived with its provenance in the hall at Soulton; this furniture shows deep familiarity with classical antiquity and shares stylistic details with a mid 16th century staircase.^[48][49]

Other features

Curtilage buildings

The broader precinct incorporates a number of 18th-century farm buildings constituting a 'model farm' from the Regency Era Age of Improvement. Most intact among these is a linear range now known as Soulton Court bearing a 1783 datestone relating to later work, but incorporating an earlier manorial hall or courtroom of unknown date prior to the mid-1600s.

This courtroom is traditionally associated with an aborted witch trial of the 17th century.^[50]

Restoration door case

In 1668 a semi-circular door case bearing the marital coat of arms of Thomas Hill, a descendant of Sir Rowland's and a friend of Samuel Pepys was added above the front door.

Lost buildings

A dovecot once existed to the south west of the garden wall which was dismantled by the end of the 1800s.

An octagonal horse engine existed in the 1780s buildings just outside the base court to the north west.

Landscape gardensedit

The landscape across the current farm and beyond to Hawkstone was recruited by Hill to make allegorical references to scripture.^{[citation needed]}

Symbolsedit

Coat of armsedit

The arms of Thomas Hill, sometime high sheriff of Shropshire were added above the senior door in 1668.

Flag and badgeedit

The house flag is a square teal banner with an eight-pointed star inside a circle, with looping garlands between the points of the star: three of these garlands are shaded and five are not. This symbol is taken from the preserved Dancing Pavement on the site and found in documents in the hall's archive.^{[citation needed]}

Linked buildingsedit

In the regionedit

The house of Sir Rocard Clough and his Katheryn of Berain ("the mother of Wales"^[51] whose son John has a dedication in Shakespeare's poem The Phoenix and the Turtle^[52]) at Bachegraig (also called Bach-y-Graig) [cy]^[53] is understood to be 'the first brick house in Wales', built by Sir Rowland Hill's associate and fellow Mercer has been argued to have been based on Soulton Hall.^[54]

Bach-y-Graig is acknowledged to be in an Antwerp style by Flemish craftsmen and were the first brick houses in Wales.^[55][56] While Clough's house has been demolished it shows important features in the Soulton design that were altered in later phases.

The architectural and political project that Sir Rowland Hill instigated is understood to have continued to yield fruits in the immediate area, Hawkstone Abbey Farm and Hawkstone Hall are both buildings taking stylistic cues from the building.^{[citation needed]} Attingham Park, also a Hill house, is also thought to be within the wider cultural project.^{[citation needed]}

The house is historically associated with St Mary's Church, Edstaston: the name of the house and family is carved into the church porch in the 1600s signifying their patronage.^{[citation needed]}

Further afield Wollaton Hall has been identified as a Prodigy House by Robert Smythson which may take cues from Soulton.^[57]

The building is stylistically linked with Alkington Hall, a senior house of the Cotton family.

In Londonedit

The historian James D. Wenn has noted a close connection with Sir Christopher Wren's St Mary Abchurch, which is the same size and shape and echoing a dancing pavement outside.^[23]

It has been suggested on this basis and for other reasons that Christopher Wren contributed to changes made to Soulton in the mid 17th century.^[58]

In the United Statesedit

Some affinity both architectural, and by family connections has been attributed to Soulton with various early colonial American buildings, in particular Rosewell (plantation) in Virginia,^[59] while the Shirley Plantation, near Williamsburg Virginia is linked by family ownership of the Hill family.^[60]

Historyedit

Saxon and earlieredit

Within the manor is evidence of Bronze Age habitation, and some signs of Neolithic activity.^[61]

The name of the manor is Saxon and means either 'settlement with a plough' or 'settlement with reeds' or possibly 'settlement in/near a gully' .^[62]

The manor of Soulton existed at the time of the Domesday Book in 1086 (see: PASE Domesday) and is recorded as "Svltune". The Domesday Book records the manor as having previously been freely held by Brihtric — most likely the same Brihtric who was the brother of Eadric Streona the Ealdorman of Mercia from 1007 to 1017. Both Brihtric and Eadric were slain by King Cnut on Christmas Day, 1017.

Based on its Domesday Book entry there are likely to have been buildings on or near to the site of the extant hall prior to the Norman Conquest, but these have yet to be identified archaeologically.

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