exercise involved some 1,500 troops and was watched by a crowd of at least 12,000. In 1874 the estate passed to Clay's eldest son, also Henry Clay, who lived there until his death in 1921 aged 96. In 1882, a cricket match took place at Piercefield between a Chepstow and District team and an England eleven including E. M. Grace; the Chepstow team won. 20th and 21st centuries Henry Clay's son, Henry Hastings Clay, moved the family home to Wyndcliffe Court and in 1925 sold the house and much of the estate to the Chepstow Racecourse Company, of which the directors were all members of the Clay family. The new racecourse on the estate was opened in 1926. The house, already in a poor state of repair, was abandoned and stripped, gradually decaying to its current ruinous condition, with just the main walls still standing. During World War II the area was used by US forces training before the Normandy landings and the house was damaged during live fire exercises. The woods overlooking the river became established as a nature reserve, and footpaths which now form part of the Wye Valley Walk were reopened in the 1970s. Plans to develop the site as a hotel or outdoor pursuits centre have so far been unfulfilled, with emergency repairs to the house carried out in 2008–09. The estate was put up for sale in October 2005 with Jackson-Stops for an asking price of £2 million. It came into the possession of David and Simon Reuben in 2006 through their ownership of Northern Racing. All subsequent attempts at marketing have failed to conclude a sale and the condition of the house continues to deteriorate. In July 2013, a campaign was launched by Marcus Binney of SAVE Britain's Heritage to seek protection for the building. The park has been the site for the Green Gathering, an environmental festival, since 2011. Architecture and description The available sources agree that George Smith commissioned designs for rebuilding from Sir John Soane in 1784–85. The architectural historian John Newman suggests that Soane produced further designs, for a completely new house, in 1792 and that construction commenced, to this design, in 1793. Cadw disagrees, contending that the new building, begun in the late 1780s, was undertaken under the direction of George Vaughan Maddox. Cadw's designation report acknowledges that the design was "very dependent on Soane's ideas" and closely followed