CONTEXT 175 : MARCH 2023 43 VICTORIA PERRY Piercefield has a story to tell Its dark history is part of what makes Piercefield Park near Chepstow the ideal place to help visitors understand the story of Britain’s historic links with Africa and the Caribbean. January’s announcement by the Church Commissioners of the establishment of a £100-million-pound fund to address the ‘past wrongs’ of the Church of England’s historic role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade has received the predictable reaction in some parts of the British press, with cries for the Church of England to sort ‘its own house out’. But surely that is exactly what the C of E is doing? In the USA over the last few years many churches and other institutions, particularly those in the South, have begun to acknowledge their links to plantation slavery and have set up funds to help the communities who have been historically the subject of appalling racism. In Britain we are some years behind. Britain’s historical slave plantation economy, its Deep South, if you like, was thousands of miles away across the ocean in the Caribbean. Like the USA, Britain too has many beautiful houses, landscapes, roads and institutions funded in part or whole from the labour of enslaved Africans. However, perhaps because the descendants of those enslaved people predominantly live in the (now independent) former colonies in the Caribbean, or in large cities in Britain, the historic links are not so apparent as in the USA. It is for this reason that Britain needs a place to promote understanding. This should be neither just an urban museum, nor just websites or an on-line forum (although these are needed too) but a place that builds on centuries-old connections, good and bad. It should be a place that looks forward positively to the future. For this reason, I suggest that this place should be Piercefield Park, a ruined JohnSoane-designed mansion, stable block and its landscaped grounds, just a short walk from the historic town of Chepstow and its racecourse, on the west side of the Severn Estuary. The Grade II* listed house is privately owned and has been left to decay for many years. The grounds, however, are still publicly accessible and are Registered Grade I – the highest form of legal protection afforded to historic sites of ‘exceptional interest’ in Britain as an ‘early example of a sublime landscape’. The reason for this accolade is because from the early 1750s onwards thousands of visitors from the fashionable resorts of Bath, Bristol Hot Wells and further afield made ferry trips across the Severn to see 23 carefully curated ‘scenic’ views from the wooded cliffside walks. The views were recorded by renowned artists such Piercefield House, designed by Sir John Soane, is a roofless ruin. (Photo: Victoria Perry)
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