Hidden away in the Potteries Museum are several hundred drawings related to the rebuilding of Trentham Hall from 1834 onwards, paid for with the wealth inherited by the 2nd Duke of Sutherland. Trentham was transformed from a country house in a Capability Brown park into one of the grandest mansions of the country. The flat and boring landscape left by Brown became the site of the remarkable Italian Gardens. The architect employed was Charles Barry, a rising star then, but later the designer for the rebuilding of the Houses of Parliament. Jon Heal has been working through the drawings, scanning and listing them, and gradually gaining a picture of how Trentham Hall expanded in scale. His view is that Charles Barry was an exceptional genius and the drawings reveal a genius at work.

Image: Barry's No1 of the completed drawings, dated March 1834