Along the Moors - Apley

Wellington Or Bust

As the only defendable property of any size within the vicinity of Wellington, Apley became a prime target for Parliamentary forces during the English Civil War. When the house was first garrisoned by Royalist forces in 1643, the town had already staged King Charles’ declaration of war on his Parliament (which legend decrees he made the previous September at Orleton Park) and a number of minor skirmishes subsequently took place in the area, with much of the attention centred on the Charlton’s home. Apley fell victim to a number of sieges and was eventually slighted by the Royalists in 1645, so that it could not be used as a garrison by the Parliamentarians again. It is difficult to ascertain what happened to the house after the conflict ended but there is enough evidence to suggest it did not become the uninhabitable ruin some histories of the estate claim.

While Apley may not have been completely restored, it was still assessed at two pounds and four shillings in the Hearth Tax of 1672 and documentary evidence from the mid-1700s shows coal was still being sent to the house for ‘burning in the rooms with pictures in them’. By then, Captain St John Charlton Chiverton Charlton (a former naval officer) had already built a new home in Wellington itself, called The Vineyard, which was completed around 1721. However, the family did not reside in town for long and it was Captain Charlton’s son, St John (who inherited the estate in 1742), who eventually paved the way for a move back to the ancestral residence. He bequeathed the residue of his estate to his son on the proviso that it be used to build a ‘convenient manor house with proper offices and improvements, on the site or near Apley Castle, for the habitation of himself and family’. Plans for a new house were drawn up in 1791 that, on completion, would become one of the finest stately homes in Shropshire.