Piercefield House, a Grade II-listed mansion that may have been the prototype for Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, is now ‘seriously distressed’
It was once home to Britain’s first black sheriff, and a destination on the 18th-century tourist trail that held a place in the public imagination alongside the Lake District.
Piercefield House and its views of the Wye Valley inspired William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It was also a monument to the riches of Britain’s slave traders and their investors.