In his evocative image of the ruinous gatehouse of this 16th-century Shropshire mansion, Edwin Smith captures grace, decline, and signs of life
The relative dereliction, haphazard accretions and partially bricked-in door and windows shown in the photograph cannot hide the graceful proportions of this beautiful Renaissance gatehouse, once part of Madeley Court in Shropshire. The gatehouse was clearly lived in when Edwin Smith captured it on camera – small plants on windowsills, curtains and a bicycle left outside the entrance all signs of human presence. Madeley Court had been built as a grange in the mid-16th century by Sir Robert Brooke, who would later become Speaker of the House of Commons. The site had been previously occupied by a 13th-century monastic grange, whose traces are still visible in the building. Remodelling of the north-west range took place in the 17th century, and a large walled formal garden added. From the following century, however, the manor house went into steady decline and was uninhabitable by the 1970s, when it was restored and later converted into a hotel. It is now Grade II* listed, while the gatehouse, also restored and less altered over the centuries, is now Grade I-listed.