Tag Archives: Mansion

THE 1970’S: THE FUTURE OF ENGLAND’S COUNTRY HOUSES

June 18, 2018 Delicto

On the eve of ‘The Destruction of the Country House’ exhibition, an aspiring writer traced the social and economic reasons for the decline of the English country house and described the dangers that threatened those remaining

Heveningham Hall - Suffolk - Illustrated London News - 1 Oct 1974 (BNA) — Heveningham Hall in Suffolk, created by George III’s architect, Sir Robert Taylor, in 1778, though open to the public it had had most of its contents dispersed. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

In October 1974, a landmark exhibition opened at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The Destruction of the Country House had been conceived following a conversation between the museum’s director, Roy Strong, and John Cornforth, the architectural historian, then compiling his important report on the ‘present’ state of our country houses, the first since the 1950 Gowers Report. The exhibition included a Hall of Destruction decorated with falling columns and illustrations of some of the hundreds of country houses demolished since 1875.

By the end of the exhibition, the total number of houses was found to be over 1,600. Forty years later, Matthew Beckett, ‘the statistician of loss’, found that between 1880 and 2014, the number of houses demolished was 1,921. A record of these can be found on his Lost Heritage website, and the number keeps increasing as we find more candidates – vanished, forgotten and then remembered again!

The exhibition was curated by Roy Strong, John Harris, then working at the Royal Institute of British Architects, Marcus Binney, soon to become Architectural Editor of Country Life Magazine, and Peter Thornton, from the V&A’s Department of Furniture and Woodwork. The exhibition did more than anything to bring the plight of our ‘suffering’ country houses to the attention of the public.

The Destruction of the Country House (Historic Interiors) — ‘The Hall of Destruction’ in the 1974 exhibition designed by John Wade. It resonated with Lists of the Fallen, solemnly intoned by John Harris, county by county. Image: SAVE Britain’s Heritage.

Days before the opening of The Destruction of the Country House, an article appeared in the Illustrated London News, written by John Martin Robinson, a 26-year-old Lancastrian who had just been awarded a doctoral degree for work on the architect Samuel Wyatt. By the end of the year, he was working for Greater London Council’s Historic Buildings Division, contributing to the Survey of London, inspecting buildings in Westminster and revising the Statutory Lists of Historic Buildings across the city. In time, we would know Robinson as an Architectural Writer for Country Life, as well as being the author of almost thirty books.

In 1974, John Martin Robinson was an unknown entity, but mature enough to write The Future of England’s Country Houses for a magazine that had been published since 1842. Unfortunately, like many of the country houses featured, the magazine eventually disappeared. However, forty-four years later, Robinson’s narrative still provides a definitive account as to how England’s country houses had got into such a perilous situation.

“No country can rival England in the number and beauty of its country houses in their setting of gardens, avenues and parklands. They are an association of beauty, art and nature achieved through centuries of effort, which has seldom, if ever, been equalled in the history of civilisation. The English country house is the greatest contribution made by England to the visual arts: thus, the Gowers Report on ‘Houses of Outstanding Historic and Architectural Interest’ summed up the object of its investigations in 1950. Yet despite their unquestionable artistic importance the survival of these houses has been increasingly jeopardised in this century and many have been destroyed.

“With hindsight the rumblings of the avalanche can already be discerned behind the apparent calm and opulence of the Edwardian heyday of the country house, threatening the tranquil world of tea under the cedar trees and white-gloved footmen festooning smilax around the dining-room candelabra.”

Blickling Hall - Norfolk - Illustrated London News - 1 Oct 1974 (BNA) — Blickling Hall in Norfolk, built between 1616 and 1642, was the first house to be bequeathed to the National Trust. It was left to them by the Marquess of Lothian in 1940. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

“From 1870 onwards, English agriculture faced an increasingly serious crisis and its economic viability was destroyed by large imports of cheap grain from North America. As a result, land ceased to be profitable and the economic base of the country house was undermined. The effects were not immediately apparent because the overall financial power of the country’s trade and industry helped subsidise country house owners, but that was a situation that could not last forever.

“The huge staffs of Edwardian houses were partly a response to the rural unemployment caused by agricultural decline. In many areas domestic service was the only means of providing a livelihood for the inhabitants of whole villages. One result of the agricultural slump was disastrous, and that was the amendment of the settled land law in 1882, which enabled landowners to sell entailed heirlooms, particularly works of art, to meet their debts and day-to-day expenses. This opened the floodgates, and the systematic disposal of the fabulous collections assembled here between 1610 and 1850 has gone on ever since.”

Trentham Hall - Staffordshire - Illustrated London News - 1 Oct 1974 (BNA) — Sir Charles Barry’s Trentham Hall in Staffordshire, was abandoned in 1910 when sewage in the nearby river rendered it uninhabitable. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

“Estate duty was first introduced in 1897 and greatly increased in Lloyd George’s 1909 budget. This was followed quickly by the First World War in which it was common for two or three heirs to be killed one after the other, thus incurring multiple death duties. Then in the period between the wars came drastic increases in the rate of income tax which bore more heavily on landowners than on any other section of the community.

“The destructive effect of increased taxation upon the upkeep of country houses is well known. Another equally powerful but less widely recognised factor has been the steady encroachment of industry and urban development in certain areas, and it is those areas which have seen the worst losses of country houses – particularly South Lancashire, parts of Durham, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire and outer London. South Lancashire has sustained the worse losses of all and today only two country houses are still lived in. Six are museums, over 50 have been demolished and the remainder lie derelict or have been converted into institutions.”

Cassiobury Park -Watford - Illustrated London News - 1 Oct 1974 (BNA) — Cassiobury Park, near Watford, which had a Wyatt exterior and splendid seventeenth-century state rooms, was demolished in 1922. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

“The first two important English houses to go, heralds of doom, were Giacomo Leoni’s Bold Hall in Lancashire in 1900 and (Sir Charles) Barry’s Trentham in Staffordshire in 1910. In both cases industrial development was immediately responsible for the abandonment of the house. At Trentham the river had become so polluted with sewage from Stoke-on-Trent as to render that palatial seat no longer pleasantly habitable. In the case of Bold Hall, the coal mines crept up to the park walls and the owner finally sold out to the colliery company which demolished the house, thus contributing to an ironic pattern of development whereby the lucrative mineral, which had paid for so many fine houses, now destroyed them.”

Bold Hall - Lancashire — Bold Hall, Lancashire, the home of the ancient family of Bolde, who settled there before the Norman Conquest and ran the estate for hundreds of years. When Peter Bold MP died in 1761, leaving three daughters but no son, the estate passed out of the hands of the family and was eventually broken up. The Hall and the remaining 1500 acres were sold in 1893 to a syndicate of colliery proprietors.

“The crash occurred in the 1920s. In 1922 Stowe was sold up, and though the house was saved from demolition for use as a school the interior was largely dismantled, and the surroundings littered with gymnasiums, laboratories and all sorts of necessary new buildings, to the permanent spoliation of the gardens, the finest in England. Then house after house was demolished. In 1922 the worst loss was Cassiobury Park near Watford, where a Wyatt exterior concealed splendid seventeenth-century state rooms. In 1925 Leoni’s finest English house, Lathom House in Lancashire, was razed to the ground. In 1929 occurred the most regrettable vandalism of all, the wanton smashing of domed Nuthall Temple in Nottinghamshire, which contained superb rococo plasterwork. And so, the melancholy story continued until the eve of the Second World War.”

Stowe - Illustrated London News - 1 Oct 1974 (BNA) — Perfect embodiment of the Palladian ideal, Stowe House, Buckinghamshire, is the work of Giovanni Battista Borra, who in 1774 altered and executed a design prepared by Robert Adam. The gardens are largely the work of Lancelot brown. In 1922 the house was sold up and is now used as a school. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

Nuthall temple (Nottinghamshire History) — Nuthall temple, Nottinghamshire, was one of five country houses built in the United Kingdom said to have been inspired by Palladio’s Villa Capra in Vicenza. When its last occupant, the Reverend Robert Holden, died in 1926, his son made several attempts to sell it. He succeeded in 1929 and its contents were stripped. The empty shell was sold for £800 to J.H. Brough of Beeston, who presided over a public demolition. ‘The west wing was loaded with firelighters, sprinkled with paraffin and set alight to the delight of the expectant crowd’. Image: Nottinghamshire History.

Nuthall Temple - Illustrated London News - 1 Oct 1974 (BNA) — Nuthall Temple, Nottinghamshire. Built for Sir Charles Sedley by Thomas Wright in 1754. It was demolished in 1929 and was a variation on Palladio’s Rotunda. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

Lathom House - Illustrated London News - 1 Oct 1974 (BNA) — Lathom House in Lancashire was built for Sir Thomas Bootle between 1725 and 1730. Designed by Giacomo Leoni, it was considered to be one of his finest English houses. Thomas Henry Wyatt enlarged it in 1862; it was demolished in 1925. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

“However, the horizon was not one of unrelieved gloom. New country houses continued to be built, often on a considerable scale, particularly such late works of Sir Edwin Lutyens as Gledstone Hall, Castle Drogo and Middleton Park. The latter was completed only in 1938, and had 12 principal bathrooms including Lady Jersey’s, which was lined in pink onyx and white marble with a vaulted ceiling. A casual glance through the pages of Burke’s ‘Landed Gentry’ shows that ‘new’ families continued to be recruited throughout the period. They bought estates and either built their own houses or brought new life to old ones. Those who restored old houses often assembled in them fine art collections and laid out gardens on an almost eighteenth-century scale. Three of the most notable achievements of this type now belonging to the National Trust: Buscot Park and Upton House near Oxford, and Anglesey Abbey near Cambridge.

“This period also saw the beginning of a constructive attempt to save the country house from ruin. In 1924 the National Trust first pressed for legislation to grant tax concessions to the owners of country houses. This was unsuccessful, but in 1934 Parliament passed a Bill enabling the Trust to accept historic houses. The first house received by the Trust, Blickling in Norfolk, was bequeathed in 1940 by the Marquess of Lothian. It was followed in the same year by Wallington in Northumberland, and today the Trust owns and maintains some 150 great houses.”

Castle Howard - Illustrated London News - 1 Oct 1974 (BNA) — Two views of Castle Howard, North Yorkshire; the entrance front from Colen Campbell’s ‘Vitruvius Britannicus’, 1715, and above, the south front with the Atlas fountain. The cupola and lanterns of the dome, destroyed by fire in 1940, had been restored. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

“During the Second World War houses were used as hospitals, schools and army barracks. The eventual result of this was, in many cases disastrous. As readers of ‘Brideshead Revisited’ will know the Army was not an appreciative tenant. A typical example is Egginton Hall in Derbyshire where, when the Army relinquished the house in 1945, all the taps were left running. The interior was irreparably damaged by water and the house was subsequently demolished. Schools were reckoned to be more civilised occupants, although while Castle Howard was in use as a school half of it was gutted by fire.”

Egginton Hall - The Tatler - Jan 3 1917 - BNA — A charming photograph of Egginton Hall, Burton-on-Trent, this one from the First World War when the country house was used as a Red Cross hospital. It was built in 1726 and was once the ancestral home of the Every family. The house wasn’t so lucky in the Second World War. It was demolished in 1955 after vandalism by occupying troops. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

“At the beginning of the war the Government refused to give guidance and help to private owners over the storage and protection of art collections. As a result, a great deal of unnecessary damage was caused. The Duke of Bedford relates how, on inheriting Woburn, he found the famous Sèvres dinner service lying loose in the straw in the stables, while French eighteenth-century chairs were piled up in heaps with kitchen table legs stuck through the seats.”

The subject of wartime requisitioning was one that John Martin Robinson would return to. His book, The Country House at War was published in 1989. Twenty-five years later, it was followed with the weightier Requisitioned: The British Country House in the Second World War.

“In 1945 the country house presented a huge, seemingly insoluble problem. No general maintenance had been done for at least six years, and many garden buildings and subsidiary structures had not been repaired since before the First World War because owners had had no money to spend on such ‘inessentials’. In many cases there seemed no alternative to demolition and over the next ten years hundreds were pulled down or truncated, as at Woburn, where half the house was demolished because of dry rot. The losses in this period were quantitively much greater than in the 1920s and 30s, though it could be argued that individually the houses destroyed were not of such great importance. The one absolutely irreparable loss was Coleshill, a statement of the utmost value to English architecture. It was gutted by fire in 1952. The Government declined to serve a preservation order on the shell, which as a result was demolished.”

Coleshill - Illustrated London News - 1 Oct 1974 (BNA) — Coleshill in Berkshire was one of five houses built by Roger Pratt, a Norfolk gentleman. He designed it for his cousin Sir George Pratt c 1649. It was gutted by fire in 1952, and the shell later demolished failing a preservation order. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

“By the early 1950s it seemed as if the end had come for the country house, but there was in fact a remarkable recovery. This was largely due to the efforts of individual owners and also the post-war Labour Government. In 1945 the Minister for Housing and Local Government was empowered to make lists of buildings of special architectural and historic interest which were to be legally protected from demolition or unsympathetic alteration. Although slow in compilation (only 120 houses out of a target of 1,450 were listed in the first five years) and full of omissions and inconsistencies, they were better than nothing, and have developed in the succeeding years to become the foundation of all preservation work in this country. Then, at the invitation of Stafford Cripps, Chancellor of the Exchequer, a committee was set up to investigate the possibility of making grants and tax concessions to the owners of outstanding historic houses. In 1950 this committee produced the Gowers Report, as a result of which the Historic Buildings Council was established with the power to make annual grants for the restoration of great buildings.

“At the same time there was a dramatic revival in English agriculture. Landowners have reorganised their estates much more efficiently, and together with Government subsidies this has led to a doubling of the output of English farming and the restoration of its economic viability. Large-scale opening to the public, which started with Longleat in 1949, also provides funds for the upkeep of houses. This has given them a completely new raison d’etre, as well as presenting owners with additional incentive to maintain and improve their houses. As a result, many of the greatest country houses have been splendidly restored since 1960, and Chatsworth, Wilton, Holkham, Ragley and Althorp have never been so well cared for or looked so magnificent as they do today.”

John Martin Robinson’s use of the Duke of Devonshire’s Chatsworth House was a good example. The property had been ‘closed-up’ for many years but is now regarded as one of the country’s most popular visitor attractions. The other houses remain open to the public, in the case of Althorp in Northamptonshire, its popularity reached unprecedented heights for being the home and final resting place of Lady Diana Spencer, later Princess of Wales.

Rounton Grange - Illustrated London News - 1 Oct 1974 (BNA) — Rounton Grange in Yorkshire, built for Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell between 1872 and 1876, was designed by Philip Webb. It was demolished in 1950. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

Montgomerie House - Illustrated London News - 1 Oct 1974 (BNA) — Montgomerie House in Ayrshire was built for Lord Montgomerie by John Paterson in 1804. It was burnt and demolished in 1969. This photograph appeared in the original magazine article, a strange one considering it was about English country houses. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

Eaton Hall - Illustrated London News - 1 Oct 1974 (BNA) — The staircase of Eaton Hall, Cheshire. This flamboyant house was built for the first Duke of Westminster in about 1870. Everything but the chapel, clock tower and stable court was demolished in 1961. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

“A year ago, this article could have finished on that happy note, but now there are new dangers. The possibility of increased taxation, together with general economic recession, threatens the precarious finances of the owners of great houses. If a wealth tax were to be imposed upon such houses and their contents it would lead to certain ruin. Already there have been disquieting events. For example, Heveningham Hall in Suffolk had to be sold as a result of capital gains tax in 1969 and although bought by the Government most of its contents were dispersed and it stands today empty and without a use, a sad place to visit.”

The Wealth Tax didn’t materialise. Denis Healey, the Labour chancellor misquoted for saying “squeeze the rich until the pips squeak” came closest in his 1974 election pledge but was forced to backtrack. However, the possibility remains a distant threat as is the recurring menace of a Mansion Tax, a common name for an annual property tax on high value homes. There was a happy end for Heveningham Hall, after all. The halls and grounds were bought in 1994 by Jon Hunt and his wife to use as a family home. Extensive work has been carried out to restore the house and the Capability Brown grounds.

Upton House - Illustrated London News - 1 Oct 1974 (BNA) — Upton House in Warwickshire now belongs to the National Trust. It was conveyed to them by the second Viscount Bearsted in 1948, together with its grounds and gardens with herbaceous borders. The house dates from the late seventeenth century and contains a fine collection of pictures. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

Ragley Hall - Illustrated London News - 1 Oct 1974 (BNA) — One of Britain’s finest houses, Ragley Hall, top, was owned and still occupied by the Marquess of Hertford. It was built between 1680 and 1690 by Robert Hooke and has a great hall designed by James Gibbs with plasterwork by Francesco Vassali. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

“The great increase in the monetary value of works of art is also, ironically, a threat. Not only are owners tempted to sell, as in the case of the Longford Castle Velasquez, but the increased monetary value of country house collections makes them a great security problem, as was highlighted by the recent spectacular theft of pictures from Russborough in Ireland. These treasures, however, form the greatest portion of the works of art in this country and far surpass in both quantity and quality the contents of our provincial museums. As well as the furniture and portraits which obviously form a unity with the architecture, about 100 great English houses contain important collections of European works of art formed between the seventeenth and mid nineteenth centuries, which as collections are of the greatest and aesthetic importance. England is the only country in the world where such historic collections survive on such a scale, and it would be tragic if they were to be dispersed.”

When John Martin Robinson referred to the theft of pictures (by the IRA) from Russborough House in County Wicklow, he wasn’t to know that they would be recovered, but stolen a further three times.

He continued:

“Another threat is to the landscaped parks in which these houses are situated. Unlike historic buildings, they enjoy no statutory protection despite the fact that they form some of the greatest works of art ever produced in this country. Those at Petworth and Chillington, designed by Capability Brown, as well as Port Elliot by Repton, are threatened by motorways. At Audley End the local council wish to place a sewage works in the middle of Capability Brown’s landscape, and many other eighteenth-century parks are also menaced by incongruous developments.

“It is essential therefore that the machinery of Statutory protection be expanded to cover the parks, gardens and the essential contents of historic houses. At the same time the system of grants should be extended to pay for such works as the renewal of the planting in eighteenth-century parks and the proper maintenance of the pictures and furniture in all privately-owned houses regularly open to the public. In 1950 the Gowers Report recommended that all the repair and maintenance costs of historic houses and their contents should be subject to tax relief. It was also recommended that landowners should be able to set aside part of their estates to produce a tax-free income for the support of the house in perpetuity.

“These recommendations were not adopted at the time, but their implementation is even more urgent now, and it is to be hoped that the Government will at least introduce effective legislation to protect country houses, their contents and collections, their parks and gardens from ruin. It would be tragic if despite the hard work of the last 18 years, the cultural achievement of five centuries were still to be needlessly sacrificed.”

And so he ended. Nine years after Robinson wrote about parks and gardens, the ‘Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England’, was established in 1983. It now identifies over 1,600 sites, including many country house properties, assessed to be of particular significance and which are graded similar to that of historic buildings.

Of course, there were many things John Martin Robinson couldn’t have foreseen in 1974.

The resurgence in agriculture was to stall, the full impact of joining the Common Market in 1973 still around the corner. The days of quotas and subsidies from the European Union were still to come. In fact, agriculture was to see the biggest change ever.

Country house visits increased in popularity during the remaining years of the 20th century. Those houses managed by the National Trust and English Heritage (formed in 1983) are now some of the country’s biggest visitor attractions. They’ve been joined by those properties belonging to the Historic Houses Association (now known as Historic Houses), a not-for-profit organisation representing about 1,600 privately owned historic houses, and created in 1973, a year before Robinson’s magazine article.

More than anything, the country house has had to reinvent itself. This was highlighted in the television series, Country House Rescue, which showcased large properties heading for oblivion. The programmes made intelligent attempts to persuade owners that the house must pay for itself. Some succeeded; some failed due to the stubbornness of the property holder. A large number of country houses are now hotels, conference centres, training facilities, wedding venues and specialist event centres. The trend of the seventies and eighties, when mansions became offices for large companies has reversed – many of these given over to the hospitality industry and even reverting back to residential use.

Sadly, the days of aristocrats in their big houses are a thing of the past. A large number are still in private ownership, but you’ll far more likely see a country house owned by a self-made businessman, a Russian oligarch or a middle-eastern billionaire.

Thankfully, the number of country houses being demolished is now a trickle, confined to those unfortunate not to be included on Historic England‘s ‘National Heritage List for England’ (NHLE). Probably more houses have been destroyed through fire, as in the cases of Clandon Park, Kelsale Hall and Parnham House, whose shells still survive due to the listing process, one that wasn’t afforded the magnificent Coleshill back in 1958.

The Destruction of the Country House: 40 Years On (2014) is still available to purchase from SAVE Britain’s Heritage

John Martin Robinson. Born in 1948 and an Architectural Writer for Country Life magazine for over 40 years, contributing over 400 articles and reviews. He covered the subject again in ‘Felling the Ancient Oaks: How England Lost its Great Country Estates’ in 2011.

BUCKINGHAMSHIRE, LOST HOUSES

ASTON CLINTON HOUSE

June 11, 2018 Delicto

Nothing remains of this former mansion; the only reminder of its existence is the balustrading which once encircled the garden at the front of the house.

Aston Clinton 1 (Lost Heritage) — The exact date of Aston Clinton House, and who built it, are unknown but it was sometime between 1770, when a house called Church Farm was still the manor house, and 1793 when, on the plans for a proposed canal a house was marked as ‘seat of General Gerard Lake’. Image: Lost Heritage.

The age of opulence. In October 1902, The Sketch visited Aston Clinton House, to the south-east of the village of Aston Clinton in Buckinghamshire, thought to have been the most charming of the country houses belonging to various members of the Rothschild family and their immediate descendants. As one observer said: “This typically English homestead gains rather than loses by contrast with its stately neighbour, Waddesdon.”

The long, low white building was unpretentious in general design, and had been bought in 1851 by Sir Anthony de Rothschild from a well-known Aylesbury banker. Both the house and the estate had been improved and altered; but the general appearance of the fine old square manor had not been altered, and the additions were charmingly picturesque, while the views from the windows commanded the loveliest prospects.

Sir Anthony Nathan de Rothschild (1810-1876) was the third child and second son of Nathan Mayer Rothschild and Hanna Barent Cohen, and had worked for N.M. Rothschild & Sons in London as well de Rothschild Frères in Paris and M. A. Rothschild Söhne in Frankfurt. In 1840 he married Louise Montefiore (1821-1910), a cousin, and daughter of Abraham Montefiore and Henriette Rothschild.

Aston Clinton 3 - The Sketch - Oct 15 1902 (BNA) — Aston Clinton House in 1902. The Buckinghamshire seat of Lord and Lady Battersea. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

Sir Anthony and his wife Louisa made alterations from 1853 using the architectural talents of George Henry Stokes, assistant of Joseph Paxton, and using the builder George Myers. Extensions to the existing house included a ‘billiard room building’, dining room, offices and a conservatory. Between 1864 and 1877, they turned to the steady work of George Devey who designed the park gates and various cottages on the estate.

Back in 1902, Constance Flower, Lady Battersea (1843-1931), the only surviving child of Sir Anthony, and his widow, the venerable chatelaine of Aston Clinton, were interested in gardening, long before horticulture had become a fashionable hobby; accordingly, the gardens of Aston Clinton were full of rare and interesting plants and shrubs. Fortunately, Cyril Flower, 1^st Baron Battersea (1843-1907), was as keen a horticulturist as was his wife, and both at The Pleasaunce, their other property at Overstrand, Norfolk, and at Aston Clinton, he had given up much time and thought to the practical beautifying of the grounds.

The interior of Aston Clinton was arranged in an artistic and original manner. The rooms weren’t large, but a corridor connecting the principal apartments was full of objets d’art, collected by the Rothschilds. Particularly beautiful was the china, arranged in such a fashion that it added to the artistic effect, instead of, as was too often the case, detracting from it.

Aston Clinton 2 (Lost Heritage) — After Gerard Lake’s death in 1808 his son Francis Gerard (1772-1836) inherited the title and the estate and used the house as his country residence. Francis died in 1836 without heirs and the title and estate passed to his younger brother Warwick (1783-1848). Image: Lost Heritage.

Lady de Rothschild’s boudoir was hung with fine tapestries, and the white panelling in the dining room had been carved by a sixteenth-century Dutch artist. The drawing-room contained more fine works of art, worthy of inclusion in any world-famous collection, and among hundreds of curios was an old clock showing a mighty Sovereign walking in a procession, while above his head waved a Royal umbrella.

According to the commentator in The Sketch, “Pictures were here, there and everywhere, sharing the space with books, etchings and prints.” Sir Anthony Rothschild had been a generous patron of painters and etchers, and had been ready to back his own taste, a love of creative art that was shared by his son-in-law Lord Battersea, whose study at Aston Clinton contained a remarkable series of amateur photographs, several watercolours and engravings, each chosen with reference to their intrinsic interest or artistic value.

A feature at Aston Clinton was a splendid winter-garden (conservatory) which had been arranged in such a manner that it became part of the long corridor already mentioned. ‘Lady de Rothschild, bringing, as it were, the varied delights of leaf, fruit, and blossom into the house itself’.

Aston Clinton 4 - The Sketch - Oct 15 1902 (BNA) — Aston Clinton House in 1902. The Conservatory and North Wing. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

Both Lady Battersea and her mother showed a practical interest in the welfare of their poorer neighbours. Anthony Hall, a building erected by Sir Anthony’s widow in memory to him, formed a centre not only for those in the neighbourhood, but also for the many practical philanthropists who met there at the invitation of Lord Battersea. The Aston Clinton Coffee Tavern was another familiar benefaction conferred on the village by the Rothschild family, and successful had been the Training Home for Girls, an institution that had solved locally ‘that difficult modern problem – the servant question’.

Both were keenly concerned in what was going on in the political, artistic, and philanthropic worlds. The Sketch painted a lavish, if not saccharine, portrayal. “They are among those whom the nation should delight to honour, for they have done all in their power to make happier and better the many large circles of human beings with whom they are brought in contact. Lady Battersea has the energy of her wonderful race, and she is ardently interested in all that affects the welfare of her own sex.”

When Lady de Rothschild died in 1910, Aston Clinton reverted to the Rothschild estate, but Lady Battersea and her sister, Annie Henrietta (1844-1926), remained in occupation until the First World War. It was given over to the Commanding Officer of the 21^st Infantry Division, then based on the Halton estate.

The Rothschild estate sold Aston Clinton for £15,000 in 1923 – a house with seven reception rooms, billiard room, ballroom, thirteen principal bedrooms and dressing rooms, seventeen secondary and servants’ bedrooms, four bathrooms and domestic offices. To commemorate the sale the Rothschilds placed a tablet in the wall of the portico recording that the family had owned Aston Clinton between 1853 until 1923, a period of 70 years.

The country house was bought by Dr Albert Edward Bredin Crawford who used the house as a school for boys. Evelyn Waugh was a schoolmaster for a short time from 1925, and in his diaries he referred to it as “an unconceivably ugly house but a lovely park” and “a house of echoing and ill-lit passages.”

Aston Clinton 2 - The Sketch - Oct 15 1902 (BNA) — Aston Clinton House in 1902. A charming pool in the grounds. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

After a brief period as the Aston Clinton Country Club in 1931, the house was on the market again the following year and described as being suitable for a club, school or institution.

Aston Clinton became the Howard Park Hotel in 1933, ‘a first-class country hotel’ complete with a landing strip for aeroplanes. It was run by Mr Stanley Cecil Howard, the son of a well-known hotelier, and had studied hotel improvement across the world. (The house itself was owned by Charles Richard Stirling of Sysonby Lodge, Melton Mowbray, and was rented on a five-year lease). Howard had trained as a hotel manager and a restaurateur in Paris and Dusseldorf and had been the general manager of the Royal Hotel in Scarborough.

The Howard Park Hotel was a business failure and became the Green Park Hotel in 1938, run by Douglas Haslett of Surrey. The curtain came down on Stanley Howard’s career when he was declared bankrupt in 1939. (The ownership of the house had since transferred from Richard Stirling to Stanley Howard; on his bankruptcy it was seized by H.M. Treasury before being sold to Thames Side Property Developments Ltd).

Aston Clinton 3 (Lost Heritage) — Warwick Lake decided to sell the estate and put it up for sale in 1836. The sale attracted the attention of the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos but didn’t actually complete until 1838. It was later sold to Sir Anthony de Rothschild. Image: Lost Heritage.

The Green Park Hotel was more successful and survived until the late 1940s. During the Second World War it became the temporary headquarters for Oxo Ltd, while the stables were used by Eric Kirkham Cole for his Ecko Radio Company, which used them as offices and for the development of radar.

Buckinghamshire County Council bought the country house and land in three lots between 1959 and 1967. Aston Clinton House was demolished in 1956, and Green Park Training Centre eventually built in its place. The extended garden of Aston Clinton House is now incorporated into Green Park, while the stables survive as part of the training centre.

Aston Clinton 1 - The Sketch - Oct 15 1902 (BNA) — Aston Clinton House in 1902. One of the Entrance-Gates. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

Green Park (Aston Clinton) — The same view in modern-times. Very little remains of Aston Clinton House. This is now the entrance to Green Park.

GLOUCESTERSHIRE

PIERS COURT

June 10, 2018 Delicto

“It is the kind of house that takes a lot of living up to,” Evelyn Waugh wrote in his diary, as if rehearsing his favourite role as country squire

Piers Court 1 (KF) — Image: Knight Frank.

The selling point for Piers Court, on the market at Knight Frank with a £3 million guide price, is its connection with Evelyn Waugh, the author of Brideshead Revisited, who lived here between 1937 and 1956.

Notwithstanding, Piers Court at Stinchcombe, near Dursley, has a history going back much farther. The Grade II* listed house stands on the site of a medieval manor of that name burned down by Parliamentary troops searching for Prince Rupert on his march from Cirencester to Berkeley Castle (about six miles away) in 1645. Piers Court, a safe house for Royalists, was owned by the wealthy land and mill owning Pynffold family who remained for 150 years.

According to Historic England, the remains of the earlier building were incorporated into an 18^th century property which is the house we see today.

Piers Court 2 (KF) — Image: Knight Frank.

Evelyn Waugh was born in Hampstead in 1903, the second son of Arthur Waugh, who was a contributor to The Yellow Book, an essayist and a publisher. He was educated at Lancing and Hertford College, Oxford, and, like many other writers, he taught in a private school for a time. His first novel, Decline and Fall, was published in 1928 and he followed it with nine years of travel which included the Arctic, tropical America and Abyssinia. He became a Roman Catholic in 1939 and had a varied war service, including membership of the British Military Mission to Yugoslavia in 1944. He married Laura, a daughter of Colonel Aubrey Herbert, an MP for Yeovil, in 1937 and settled at Piers Court, where he collected books. His novels included Decline and Fall (1928), Vile Bodies (1930), Black Mischief (1932), A Handful of Dust (1934), Scoop (1938), Put Out More Flags (1942), Brideshead Revisited (1945), The Loved One (1948), Helena (1950) and Men at Arms (1952).

Piers Court 2 - The Sketch - Feb 10 1954 — Evelyn Waugh poses by one of the many fine pieces of ornamental statuary which enhanced the beauty of the garden at Piers Court. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

Evelyn Waugh bought Piers Court for £3,600 in 1937, having been given the money by his future parents-in-law, in readiness for his marriage to Laura Herbert, his second wife. (His first marriage to Evelyn Gardner had been annulled in 1926).

The outbreak of war meant their stay at Piers Court was cut short. The Waugh’s let the house to a convent school for £600 a year in October 1939, Laura moved to Pixton Park in Somerset, and Evelyn served with the Army in Crete and Yugoslavia. It wasn’t until September 1945 that they returned.

There are contradictory stories about Evelyn Waugh’s feelings towards Piers Court. He was initially said to have ‘fallen in love’ with the house; his son, Auberon Waugh, later recalled in his book Will This Do? how he and his siblings knew “the front of the house belonged strictly to my father . . . one detected his presence as soon as we walked into the pretty hall, with its white and black stone floor and glass chandelier”. The enforced absence might have been responsible for his later abating attitude regarding Piers Court.

Piers Court (Evelyn Waugh Society) — Image: Evelyn Waugh Society.

Frances Donaldson, in Evelyn Waugh – Portrait of a Country Neighbour, wrote in 1968:

“I always loved the drawing-room at Piers Court. The rest of the house was a question of taste – Evelyn’s taste. Personally, I became very fond of that too, but I could understand why other people disliked it. Evelyn liked dark surfaces and pattern, heavy furniture, silver and glass. There was much that was Victorian in the house, but his taste was masculine and, although the house was enlivened with personal eccentricities, it was genuinely of the period.

“In his library the carved shelves were built out in bays as they are in a public library and painted dark green, but it was a big room and the effect was rather beautiful while this arrangement provided room for his collection of books. The dining-room was sombre but the hall, staircase and landing above were light and elegant. The whole house right down to the Abyssinian paintings in the gentlemen’s lavatory was uniquely different from any other house I have ever been in.

“The drawing-room into which we were shown on that first night spoke as much of Laura as of Evelyn. They both loved and had considered knowledge of fine furniture and they bought eighteenth-century pieces when they could afford to. On the walls hung pictures from Evelyn’s collection of Victorian painters including the Augustus Egg of two girls in a boat, and I remember with vivid affection the faded green velvet curtains banded with chintz which hung in the circular bay window and the cushions which they had bought in a country house sale. On this night a fire burned in the grate and the chintz-covered chairs and sofa were reassuring.”

Piers Court 1 - The Sketch - Feb 10 1954 — Evelyn Waugh photographed with his family in the grounds of Piers Court, at Stinchcombe: Evelyn Waugh, Harriet, Septimus, James, Laura Waugh, Maria, Margaret and Auberon Alexander. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

According to Knight Frank, much can be learnt about Evelyn Waugh and his time spent at Piers Court from his diary entries and the letters he wrote to his friends, many of whom were noted intellectuals in the twentieth century.

Ironically, it was also Knight, Frank and Rutley who handled the sale of Piers Court when the Waughs tired of the house. The official line was that Evelyn had, in June 1955, received an unsolicited visit from Nancy Spain, a reporter from the Daily Express, demanding an interview. He showed her the door, but the damage had been done. Spain wrote up the episode and, within weeks, Waugh put Piers Court on the market. “I felt as if the house had been polluted,” he wrote to the estate agent, furious at the invasion of his privacy. “If you happen to meet a lunatic who wants to live in this ghastly area, please tell him.”

Piers Court - Harry Ransom Center - Iniversity of Texas at Austin — Evelyn Waugh in his beloved library. Image: Harry Ransom Center/University of Texas at Austin.

Piers Court 5 (KF) — The library benefits from a large bay window and overlooks the parkland. Image: Knight Frank.

The truth about their departure was probably best summed up by Frances Donaldson:

“Whether or not I am right in my view, the happy days came to an end in 1956. Evelyn began to be restless, ostensibly because he believed the town of Dursley was creeping up to his gates, but really I think because he wished for change, to break the rut of boredom in which he was sunk.”

Various buyers came to light, among them a Colonel and a Sir Anthony Lindsay-Hogg, but it wasn’t until June 1956 that a Mrs Gadsden made an offer of £9,500 for Piers Court, which was accepted. The Waughs moved to a manor house at Combe Florey in Somerset where Evelyn died in 1966.

Piers Court 4 (KF) — Leading up the stone steps and behind a heavy panelled door one finds a classical Georgian hall with a flagstone floor and cantilever staircase with a mahogany polished hand rail and wrought iron balustrading. Image: Knight Frank.

Piers Court 3 (KF) — The drawing room looks to the front of the house and down the alternating copper and green beech avenue. Image: Knight Frank.

Piers Court 6 (KF) — Off the inner hall is the beautiful dining room with its Adam fireplace, polished oak flooring and large sash windows with a westerly aspect. Image: Knight Frank.

Piers Court is approached up a long drive, lined with high beech hedges.

According to Knight Frank, the house is extremely well presented and benefits from both an imposing, formal layout ideal for entertaining, yet to the rear of the property lies a homelier arrangement of rooms ideal for family living. Off the main entrance hall are the formal drawing room and library, both of which provide the grandeur that would be expected of a Georgian manor house.

Described by Country Life as a genial, pleasantly rambling family house with some 8,400sq ft of accommodation, including five reception rooms. There is also a kitchen/breakfast room with a beautiful beamed ceiling, tiled floor and lovely rustic feel. Upstairs there are eight bedrooms and six bathrooms … plus extensive attics and a one-bedroom staff wing.

The front garden is lawned with a circular clipped yew hedge encompassing an ornamental fountain. The secret garden is of particular note, with high clipped yew hedges and bordered by a stone wall. Gravel walkways lead to the Gothic edifice which was built by Evelyn Waugh when he was creating the gardens. The croquet lawn and tennis court are well screened by a high beech hedge which creates a corridor of alternating green and copper beech.

Piers Court has an array of deep beds which fill with colour in the spring and summer months. There are many garden components. The Coach House looks over the oval walled garden with ornamental ponds framed by careful planting. The park is arranged as pasture with parkland trees including horse chestnut, lime, oak and copper beech. Lying to the south of the parkland is further grassland divided by a hedgerow. A footpath crosses part of the land to the west of the house.

Of course, there have been a few owners since, and probably most traces of Evelyn Waugh’s existence have long-since disappeared. Back in 2004, the then-custodian revealed that his beloved library was long gone. “Under a previous owner, the library where Waugh wrote was shipped, piece by piece, to Texas, where it was supposed to be reconstructed as a museum but is still in packing cases.”

Piers Court 7 (KF) — The sitting room overlooks the English country garden and terrace, benefiting from an open fire with a painted stone surround. Image: Knight Frank.

Piers Court 8 (KF) — The Elizabethan rear of the house, with its slightly less formal rooms, lends itself to be the nucleus of family living. The kitchen has a range of traditional wooden cabinets, granite work surfaces and a terracotta tiled floor. Image: Knight Frank.

Piers Court 9 (KF) — The first floor offers the primary accommodation with a beautiful en-suite master bedroom with stunning south westerly views of the parkland. There are four further bedrooms on this floor, all of which are en-suite. Image: Knight Frank.

Piers Court 10 (KF) — Image: Knight Frank.

Uncategorized

THE 1930’S: THE TOLL OF DEATH DUTIES

June 7, 2018 Delicto

The stately homes of England were being closed down or sold: the cruel toll of super-taxation

Owing to heavy death duties Sir Oswald Hart Dyke, son of Sir William Hart Dyke, who had died three months previous, was unable to keep Lullingstone Castle open. This photograph from 1931 shows the sale of contents in progress at the Baronial Hall. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

“This will catch ————-,” said Sir William Harcourt in 1894, when, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, his devastating measure revolutionising death duties passed its third reading. The name he mentioned was that of a big landed proprietor whom he detested.

Sir William Harcourt (1827-1904) was a solicitor, journalist, politician and cabinet member in five British Liberal Governments, who in 1894 had achieved a major reform in death duties.

As Chancellor of the Exchequer, he introduced estate duty, a tax on the capital value of land, in a bid to raise money to pay off a £4 million government deficit. The imposed graduated tax on the total estate of a deceased person was capable of producing much more revenue than taxes only on the amounts inherited by beneficiaries.

Sir William Harcourt (National Portrait Gallery) — Sir William Harcourt died at Nuneham House in 1904. “I love Nuneham, and have always wished to live and die there.” However, it came at a cost. Nuneham passed to his son, Lewis Vernon Harcourt, 1st Viscount Harcourt, who had just married Mary Ethel Burns, a niece of American financier and banker, J. P. Morgan. The estate inherited by the young couple was in need of major renovations, which they could not afford. Morgan established a £52,000 line of credit at his London bank for his niece, which he told her did not need to be repaid. The Harcourts used these funds to renovate the old buildings and grounds. Image: National Portrait Gallery.

The new death duties were passed despite the opposition of many, including William Gladstone and the 5^th Earl of Rosebery, who believed that easily increased taxes would encourage frivolous Government spending. Other opponents regarded the tax as an attack on the great hereditary landowners.

By a rare instance of poetic Justice Sir William himself was one of the earliest to suffer under an Act which increased death duties according to the degree of relationship. He succeeded unexpectedly to Nuneham, the Harcourt family place near Oxford, and was taxed heavily by his own clauses concerning inheritance from kinsmen.

Nuneham House was built in 1756 by Simon Harcourt, 1st Earl Harcourt, and was developed by his descendants before they sold it to Oxford University in 1948, while it was in use by the RAF, and was used for studying and storage.

It was a contentious act that impacted on the nation’s country houses throughout the opening years of the 20^th century.

However, it took a few years before the long-term implications for landowners were realised. The Sphere, ‘an illustrated newspaper for the home’, had been founded in 1900 by Clement Shorter, who also founded The Tatler in the following year. In 1931, it highlighted the problems created by Sir William Harcourt’s act:

“The confiscation of capital – glossed under the name of ‘capital levy’ – has become the thickest plank in the Socialist and Communist platform. It has also become the practice in countries wherever the opportunity has offered. But in England – the monarchical and democratic – this confiscation has been going on steadily ever since the passing of Sir William’s Act. Later legislation has added burdens both to land and capital, with the result that the ultimate burden is becoming too heavy to be borne, and whole estates, or parts of estates, have to be sold merely to meet the death duties. However, the process may be disguised under ‘duties,’ the fact remains that men have to pay fortunes to the State simply because they have inherited money or its equivalent in land. Actually, the confiscation of capital. And that capital is used year after year as part of the national income.”

Despite the gloomy outlook of 1931, Lullingstone Castle has remained in the Hart Dyke family for twenty generations, including the current owner Guy Hart Dyke. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

It wasn’t only The Sphere that voiced opinion. George Holt Thomas’ The Bystander was equally opposed to death duties:

“The landed classes are, in fact, being taxed out of existence under our very noses and before our very eyes. It is one of the most dramatic and cruel episodes in the whole of England’s chequered career, and most people who should know better talk like the Socialists and say that it is all for the public good. They forget that England became what she is as a result of the feudal system and that the feudal system is the best possible thing for the countryside. Time and time again in the past great landlords used to remit the rent to their tenants if it was a bad year. They were able to see that tenants got proper attention if they were ill. In fact, they looked after them. Today there is no one to do that. There is no doubt about it that the politicians have got the country into such a position that there is practically no chance for any great estate to survive financially the death of two consecutive heads of the family. It might be possible if there were a couple of very long minorities. But that is the only hope. In fifty years’ time who can say with any assurance if a single one of the great houses will still be in private hands?”

There could, said The Sphere, be only one result – the sale or closing of big country houses, with the consequent loss to local employment, tradespeople, charitable subscriptions, cutting down pensions to old servants, probably the raising of cottage and farm rents; in short, the withdrawal of one of the biggest influences in the English countryside, especially strong where the landowners have realised their responsibilities.

The newspaper’s response came after news from Lullingstone Castle at Eynsford, in Kent, where the Hart Dykes had lived in unbroken succession for five hundred years, a house famous for its hospitality and kindliness. The new baronet, Sir Oswald, had been obliged to close the house because, not only had he paid the duties upon his father’s death, but also on the reversion of his elder brother, on whom it was entailed, and had died in the late Sir William’s lifetime.

Lord Durham, too, had to close Lambton Castle, near Durham, having had to pay something like half a million in duties owing to the successive deaths of his father and uncle. If the late Lord Durham had lived a little while longer the duties would have been three-quarters of a million.

Sir Oswald Hart Dyke hoped to return to Lullingstone ten years later, but the Duke of Newcastle, closing Clumber House, after succeeding his brother, could entertain no hope so definite, and had lent some of the best pictures in the house to the Nottingham Museum. (Clumber House was demolished seven years later).

The Duke of Leeds wasn’t even fortunate enough to be able to close Hornby Castle and wait for better times. It had been demolished and the materials sold piecemeal. Stowe House, in Buckinghamshire, which Lady Kinloss had inherited from her father, the last Duke of Buckingham, had become a public school. Moor Park, at Rickmansworth, formerly belonging to Lord Ebury, was a country club. Ashridge Park, the old Brownlow property at Berkhamsted, had to be sold, and had been bought as a memorial to Mr Bonar Law, and was a training college for Conservative workers.

And the list went on. According to The Sphere, “these instances are repeated all over the country.”

Clumber House (Nottinghamshire) - The Sphere - 9 July 1938 (BNA) — Probably one of the last photographs of Clumber House, for generations the ancestral home of the Dukes of Newcastle and one of the show places of the Dukeries. The house was demolished in 1938 due to increasing taxation. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

The Duke of Portland had already expressed doubt, publicly, whether his heir would be able to live at Welbeck. There were rumours, too, that two big ducal castles, one in the north and the other in the south, may have to be closed, and the announcement had just been made that Lord Derby wished to dispose of his London home in Stratford Place.

Another sign of the pressure of taxation was the coming to market of The Old Palace at Richmond, the homes of Kings and Queens from the time of Henry I to Queen Charlotte, and where Queen Elizabeth died. For many years it had been the scene of delightful parties given by Mr Middleton, who had done much for its restoration. Yet other signs were Lord Harewood and Princess Mary leaving Chesterfield House, and Lady Louis Mountbatten leaving Brook House.

And Devonshire House, Grosvenor House, Dorchester House, Lansdowne House, Spencer House – where were they? Said The Sphere: “Taxation answers – flats or clubs.”

Modern inheritance tax still dates back to William Harcourt’s intervention in 1894. Today, inheritance tax is paid if a person’s estate (their property, money and possessions) is worth more than £325,000 when they die. The rate of inheritance tax is 40% on anything above the threshold, and that rate may be reduced to 36%, if 10% or more of the estate is left to charity.

Welbeck Abbey, Nottinghamshire. After World War Two, Welbeck was let by the Dukes of Portland to the Ministry of Defence and operated as Welbeck College, an army training college, until 2005. Lady Anne, the unmarried elder daughter of the 7th Duke, owned most of the estate until her death in 2008. William Henry Marcello Parente, son of her younger sister, inherited and the house has become his home. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

Moor Park, Rickmansworth, London. Built by the Duke of Monmouth in 1640 and re-fronted in the Italian style by Benjamin Styles. Subsequent owners included Lord Anson, the victor of Cape Finisterre, the first Marquess of Westminster, Lord Ebury, and Lord Leverhulme, who bought it in 1922 to use as a golf club house . Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

A King’s Palace to let! The Old Palace, Richmond Green, Surrey. All that remained of the historic building, which dated from the time of Edward I, where Henry VII lived and Queen Elizabeth died, was to be let at a rental of £450 per annum. Even so comparatively small a rent for a palace was difficult to obtain during those terrible times of taxation. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

Stowe House, Buckinghamshire. The ancestral home of the Dukes of Buckingham and Chandos was sold for £50,000 in 1921. The buyer was Mr Harry Shaw who intended to gift the house to the nation, but was unable to pay for an endowment to maintain the building. It was sold again in 1922 to the governors of what became Stowe School. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

1280px-Ashridge_2007-09-01_035 — Ashridge Park, better known today as Ashridge House, Hertfordshire. In 1929 it was renamed the Ashridge Bonar Law Memorial, carrying on the work of the Philip Stott College, Northampton, which had closed. Courses in government, history and economics were given to prospective Conservative candidates. Tory ministers and MPs received instruction, some 150 residing at Ashridge at a time, in weekly courses.

ABERDEENSHIRE

TILLYCORTHIE

June 6, 2018 Delicto

A supreme example of a property that has been fortunate enough to have been rescued and restored to its former glory

Tillycorthnie 1 (Savills) — Image: Savills.

Tillycorthie is in the parish of Udney, three miles south of Pitmedden and about eleven miles north of Aberdeen. The house was built in 1911 for James Rollo Duncan, a local born entrepreneur, and is regarded as a fine example of a steel-reinforced concrete structure. Tillycorthie was built by James Scott and Son of Aberdeen, pioneers in this method of construction throughout England and the south of France. The house is now on the market at Savills with offers wanted over £1.5 million.

James Duncan (1860-1938) was born in the village of New Leeds, near Fraserburgh and had to earn his own living when he was only ten years of age. He became a herd boy, a farm worker, a herring fisherman, and later served his apprenticeship as a stonemason.

He had frequent periods of unemployment during the winter as a stonemason, and being an ambitious and enterprising youth, he went with a friend to Bolivia who had an uncle living there. He had no knowledge of mining but found work in a silver mine. He wasn’t content to be an employee working for someone else and started prospecting gold from a river bed. It wasn’t a profitable scheme and he had greater success as a building contractor where his practical experience as a stonemason proved invaluable.

Duncan could see that mining was the way forward and a prospecting expedition to the Andes was more successful. He struck rich tin deposits, and working at relatively low cost, was able to make money from the scheme. In 1900 he returned to Scotland but soon returned to Bolivia, carrying on at his old mine.

Steadily he developed his interests and remained for over 40 years. Adjoining mines were acquired, and Duncan soon became one of the country’s leading owners. He visited Scotland on several occasions, but it wasn’t until 1911 that he returned to take up permanent residence. Back in Bolivia, tin had once been practically worthless but had risen in value and was now a desirable commodity. Duncan spoke that at the end of a year’s working he paid back everything he owed, put the mine in good working order, and was still about £100,000 to the good.

James Duncan - Aberdeen Press and Journal - 5 Feb 1938 (BNA) — James Rollo Duncan was born in New Leeds and brought up by his maternal aunt who had a sweet shop there. In 1882 Duncan emigrated to Bolivia where he made his fortune in the tin and silver mines, becoming a partner in the mining firm Penny and Duncan, Bolivia. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

For a time, Duncan rented the mansion house and estate of Tillery, alongside the Tillycorthie estate. While carrying on the farm at Tillery he found the house accommodation too limited and decided to have a new house built on lower more sheltered ground, about a quarter of a mile away. He hadn’t been the first to contemplate such a scheme, several years earlier Major Ross had considered building a house in the same place.

Duncan didn’t take part in public affairs, but nevertheless took great interest in the welfare of the county. He was the pioneer of the Kintore, Ellon and Ballater electricity schemes, and through Duncan’s Electricity Supply Company, the village of Udney was the first in the north east to have electricity.

He also built several properties including one as a wedding present for a daughter, the public hall and he made considerable use of the old Formartine and Buchan Railway, which his daughters used for getting to St Margaret’s school in Aberdeen. On occasion he was seen waving the train down from the side of the tracks on the rare occasion the girls were late. The line has long since been converted into a cycleway/footpath which winds its way through beautiful countryside.

Tillycorthie 1 (BNA) — The front elevation of Tillycorthie, from an original drawing. From the Aberdeen Press and Journal in January 1912. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

Tillycorthie 2 (BNA) — Tillycorthie in the course of construction. This photograph appeared in the Aberdeen Press and Journal in January 1912. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

Work started on Tillycorthie, situated beside a belt of woodland, in July 1911 and took just 12 months to complete, largely due to the nature of its construction. It was built in the style of a Spanish residence, from plans by John Cameron, an architect from Aberdeen.

Duncan wanted Tillycorthie to remind him of the Spanish-styling of his South American past. Hennebique’s British agent L.G. Mouchel published plans and a list of works in 1920, providing evidence that the hollow-walled construction is entirely in Mouchel-Hennebique ferro-concrete. With a lake of some two to three acres to the south-west, fringed with trees at the end furthest from the house, its picturesque situation added to its desirability as a country seat.

Tillycorthnie 2 (Savills) — Image: Savills.

Tillycorthnie 3 (Savills) — Image: Savills.

Tillycorthnie 4 (Savills) — Image: Savills.

James Scott and Son, with a reputation of high-workmanship, were entrusted with the building of Scotland’s ‘first mansion house of reinforced concrete’. (It was not quite the first, Beachtower at Dundee, in 1874, and the Hydropathic at Melrose were earlier). Many tons of granite chips were secured from Stirlinghill quarry and were ground to the size required for making concrete. The material was taken to Tillycorthie and prepared using steel rods and compact, thick wire frames which formed an important part of the construction. The walls were practically double, with an air space between the outer and inner walls. In these cavities, enclosed in metal tubes, were the wires used for electric lighting.

In 1911, the use of so little woodwork in its construction was an innovation, and with electric wiring in its infancy, the risk of fire was reduced. The chief woodwork had been confined to the window frames, which were seasoned teak, strong, durable and neat in appearance.

In the central covered court, with a glass roof, a fountain played, and around it was a circular carriage drive and beds of flowers and evergreens. It is said that the central courtyard was originally chalked out from the turning circle of the Daimler motor car belonging to James Duncan’s wife, Isabella, with its huge South American teak glazed sliding doors providing shelter to the tropical plantings within.

The conservatory was filled with choice flowering plants at the south-east end of the house adjoining the drawing room. Brightness and beauty were the characteristics with views towards the south-west.

Tillycorthnie 5 (Savills) — Image: Savills.

Tillycorthnie 6 (Savills) — Image: Savills.

Adjoining the drawing room, along the east side of the house, were large bedrooms and adjoining bathrooms, taken from the Spanish custom of having the bathroom immediately adjoining the bedroom. The smoking room, sitting room, business room, morning room, and other accommodation formed the principal features of the east and north side of the building.

When Tillycorthie was built, much was made of the ventilation; the open spaces between the walls were carried up from the cellars, allowing a current of air to pass between the walls, as well as beneath the house. A deep trench was dug, extending around three sides of the house, where it was possible for people to walk, with drainage pipes underneath carrying off any water that found its way into the foundations. A current of air passed beneath the house, the entrance through a protected opening beneath the drawing room window giving ingress and egress from the east, and a similar opening to the other side of the house providing a similar function.

During construction, the Aberdeen Press and Journal described all the rooms as being lofty, with no stinting of air-space or light in any of the rooms, except to the south-west of the basement, where a somewhat extensive, low, comparatively dark space, could be utilised for the growing of mushrooms – ‘an ideal place for such a purpose when the conditions for the successful cultivation of this delicacy can be so well obtained’.

Tillycorthnie 24 (Savills) — Image: Savills.

The people of Tillycorthie were somewhat surprised at the mention of a lake. Duncan had chosen a low-lying field and transformed it into a lake of several acres. A foundation of 5,000 old railway sleepers, bought from the North British Railway Company, was laid to a depth of two to three feet from the surface of the water. The lake was filled from an artesian well sunk near to the top of rising ground to the east. (This was also used to supply water for the house). Duncan, from his South American experience, valued water for power, and arranged for the generating of electricity from an overflow in the lake.

A few hundred yards from the house, a bowling green, lawn tennis court and croquet ground were built, sheltered on the north-east side by a belt of trees.

A carriage drive was built from the Udny turnpike road by Mr W. Tawse, a contractor from Aberdeen. He laid a granite foundation 9 inches deep, used by contractors during the building of Tillycorthie, and when finished the drive was finished with a coating of road metal and a surface of tarmacadam.

Tillycorthnie 7 (Savills) — Image: Savills.

Tillycorthnie 8 (Savills) — Image: Savills.

In 1913, James Duncan turned his attention to the interior of the house. He employed a team of highly skilled workers and decorative artists from Paris, who spent six months on the drawing-room. The aim was to re-produce a faithful copy of the designs of the artist Sir William Chambers from the 1760s. This period had created new styles and gave a rich harvest of the daintiest decoration ever executed and adapted to English homes. Some of Chambers’ work had existed at Carrington House, Whitehall, long disappeared.

To achieve this, the subbase was panelled out of yellow pine and richly carved. In the door the fluting and the patres in the moulds were balanced with delicate Carton Pierre ornament in the panels, while the walls above the architrave were panelled out and the frieze and cornice richly embellished. A dozen coats of paint left the soft surfaces, rich in tone, colour and finish, and formed a background for the figures and cupids painted onto it. The fireplace, with an inlay of antique French gilt, was chased with the same ornament, surrounded with sky-loss marble slips.

James Duncan devoted himself to the various estates he acquired. His practical knowledge of farming was valuable, and he carried on commercial agriculture with success, improving and building up all kinds of crops and livestock. He was a staunch supporter of several agricultural societies and organisations and was a prominent exhibitor at shows in the district.

Tillycorthnie 10 (Savills) — Image: Savills.

Tillycorthnie 11 (Savills) — Image: Savills.

Isabella survived her husband by 15 years, passing away in 1953, but with no male heir to take over the formidable business interest and farms, the estate was broken up and by the year end Tillycorthie farm and the Mansion House had been acquired by Aberdeen University. While the farm flourished, the Mansion fell into some disrepair until the early 1980s, when a developer managed to acquire the Estate in its current form and proceeded to divide the property into three separate dwellings.

Tilliecorthie 1 (Canmore) — The estate grounds included an artificial lake, constructed from railway sleepers, a workshop with a rooftop skating rink and two baronial lodges. The house had a glass covered courtyard, large enough to allow the owner to turn his car in it and to accommodate a large granite fountain originally from the New Market in Aberdeen. By the late 1960s Tillycorthie was used as an agricultural store but has since been restored. Image: Canmore.

Tilliecorthie 2 (Canmore) — “We had rented one of the wings for two years whilst we were looking for something to buy. I had wanted a nice Georgian house but we couldn’t find one and the two boys were settled here so we bought the main house.” – Cynthia MacGregor. Image: Canmore.

Tilliecorthie 3 (Canmore) — “The ceilings were damaged and a lot of water was coming in so the only way to approach it was to buy it as a whole and tackle it as one project.” Image: Canmore.

Gordon and Cynthia MacGregor acquired all three dwellings over a three-year period, and by 1998, took down the final wall that separated the property. They have lavished much energy, passion and expense to ensure that Tillycorthie has been reinstated to its former glory. The many ornate fireplaces all have open chimneys and are fully functional. Moulded ceilings, cornice work and ceiling roses are in abundance. Grooved door frames, deep skirting boards, panelled doors and original oak parquet flooring have been lovingly waxed and polished.

According to Savills, the 18-acre gated, and walled estate includes a 4-acre lake with boat house, and within the grounds, there are three properties which have long since been sympathetically converted into detached executive homes, along with a further three lodges at the West and North entrances to the estate. A brick chimney (the ‘sair thoom’) rises in the adjacent field, evidence of a failed plan to have the smoke taken from the basement’s coke fuelled boilers.

Tillycorthnie 16 (Savills) — Image: Savills.

Tillycorthnie 12 (Savills) — Image: Savills.

Tillycorthnie 13 (Savills) — Image: Savills.

Tillycorthnie 14 (Savills) — Image: Savills.

Tillycorthnie 15 (Savills) — Image: Savills.

LONDON

HILL HOUSE

June 5, 2018 Delicto

A house with a retail history. This house was bought twice from the fortunes of shopping empires

hill-house-173-stanmore-hill-stanmore-middx-ha7-000022662_STN120476_IMG_08

One hundred years ago today, the picturesque and well-placed residence, known as Hill House, went to auction at the Mart, Tokenhouse Yard, in London.

Grade II listed Hill House at Great Stanmore, then in the county of Middlesex, was built in the early 1700s by John Boys, Vicar of Redbourn, Hertfordshire, who also owned nearby Aylwards and Broomhill. It was originally called the Great House, probably due to its imposing appearance on the top of rural Stanmore Hill.

It was sold in 1771 to Reverend Samuel Parr, a master at Harrow School, who after the disappointment of missing out on becoming headmaster, set up a rival establishment at the Great House, taking many of the pupils with him.

The school was short-lived but was used as a schoolhouse again when it was bought by John Sharpe.

Henley & Finchley Times - Fri 31 May 1918 (BNA) — The auction notice from the Henley & Finchley Times, 5 June 1918. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

One of its greatest occupants was Charles Drury Edward Fortnum (1820-1899), who had moved to South Australia in 1840 where he bought a cattle ranch. Five years later he left for Europe with the objective of putting together a collection of art, especially minor arts of the Italian renaissance. He married Fanny Matilda Keats, a cousin, that provided access to the wealth of the grocery store Fortnum & Mason in Piccadilly. With an advance of £4,000 from his wife’s fortunes, Fortnum chose Stanmore to settle – buying and repairing Great House in 1852 and later renaming it the Hill House. Fortnum also become an alderman of the Middlesex county council, and eventually also a deputy-lieutenant of the county too.

Together they travelled the world and gathered a large collection of ceramics, bronzes and other objects most of which were later donated to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. The collection was so large they had to build a separate wing to the newly-named Hill House, now called the Fortnum Gallery. Fanny died in 1890 and Charles died nine years later, leaving the remainder of his collection to the British Museum.

After Charles Fortnum’s death in 1899 it became the residence of Mr and Mrs Charles Waterlow. In 1904, they were honoured to receive Princess Louise Augusta of Schleswig-Holstein, who opened a bazaar in aid of the ‘Church of England Waifs and Strays Society’.

Princess Louise at Hill House - The Sphere 23 Jul 1904 (BNA) — Princess Louise of Schleswig-Holstein, the King’s niece, opening the bazaar at Hill House. From The Sphere. 23 July 1904. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

The house was later the home of Sir Matthew Wilson but appears to have been let to several tenants. The most notable of these were the Count and Countess Benckendorff who stayed in 1914-1915. They were in good company. Close neighbours were the Earl and Countess of Essex, who had Cassiobury Park and the Earl and Countess of Clarendon at The Grove, Watford.

Hill House 1 (Google)

We don’t know who purchased the house at the 1918 auction. The most likely candidate is Frank Charles Bearman (1870-1956), who was resident at Hill House during the 1920s and 1930s. A draper by trade, Bearman had opened a shop in Leytonstone High Street in 1898 that became a thriving family business for the next 64 years.

Bearmans Department Store was a success, and in 1910 he built Bearmans Arcade, which led to the popular Rialto Cinema. Frank Bearman copied the style of successful London shopping arcades, with a glass roof and the highest quality goods on display. Between 1908-1921, Bearman was also the co-owner of Allders, the Croydon department store, building it into a 50-store business.

WF2012bearmans1905.JPG.gallery — Frank Bearman opened his shop in the north end of Leytonstone High Road in 1898 as ‘the store with the personal touch’. Image: East London & West Essex Guardian.

After Frank Bearman’s death in 1956, Bearmans suffered increasing competition and it was eventually sold to the London Co-Operative Society. It finally closed in 1982.

His son, John Garland Bearman, later married the Hon. Gloria Mary Curzon, daughter of Richard Nathaniel Curzon, 2^nd Viscount Scarsdale, of Kedleston Hall.

The Second World War had an impact at Hill House. In common with many large houses it was requisitioned as a secret RAF establishment, a satellite of RAF Bentley Priory.

The RAF remained until the 1950s but Hill House itself became home to Air Chief Marshal Sir John Nelson Boothman (1901-1957), who was Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief Coastal Command from 1953 until his retirement in 1956. Sir John had piloted a Supermarine S-6B plane in 1931 which had won the Schneider Trophy outright for Britain at a speed of more than 342 mph.

mw109788 — Air Chief Marshal Sir John Nelson Boothman. When he left the RAF in 1956 he joined the board of Kelbin and Hughes, makers of technical instruments, as technical director.

The house and stables have now been converted into flats.

Hill House 2 (Google) — Hill House. Once standing in a rural idyll, but now ‘swallowed by suburbia’. Repair works in the building revealed original elements of the house. In the roof void, intricate gold embossed carvings were found and the removal of dry rot in the entrance uncovered a series of elegant 18th century arches.

SOMERSET

EASTERLANDS

June 3, 2018 Delicto

Slavery, evacuees, refugees and a donkey called Petronella

Easterlands (SWNS) — ‘Easterlands stands in a lawn, tastefully laid out with a fish pond at its base, and commands a beautiful view of its park-like grounds well studded with ornamental trees and the surrounding country.’ From a sales brief in 1862. Image: SWNS.

Back in 2014, this country house hit the market with a guide price of £3.1 million. Unsold, apparently unwanted, it remains for sale with a vastly reduced guide price of £2.25 million. Easterlands at Sampford Arundel, near Wellington, is an impressive residence surrounded by its own parkland with secondary accommodation, traditional outbuildings and mature grounds and gardens.

Knight Frank, who are marketing the property, believe the house dates to the late 19^th century. However, it is probably earlier than that, possibly early 1830s because its architectural style is typically Georgian.

Easterlands 1 (KF) — The sale of Easterlands provides the opportunity to acquire a significant seven bedroom country house in need of some refurbishment, set in an outstanding ringfenced park in a truly convenient location for many schools and businesses in the West Country. Image: Knight Frank.

Easterlands House was most likely built for William Bellet who bought the land in 1816 from Richard Yendle of Uplowman, yeoman, and Jeremiah Woodbury of Exeter, innkeeper. His daughter Elizabeth married John Shattock (1792-1860), an English landed proprietor and merchant, who made his fortune at Kingston, in Jamaica, and returned to England between 1831 and 1833. Shattock was connected to Jamaica’s slave trade and duly awarded compensation by the British Government when the Slavery Abolition Act was passed in 1833. There were two small awards, for a group of about ten enslaved people in Good Air, St. Andrew, and for the enslaved people on St. Mary, Jamaica.

A man of immense wealth, the couple settled at Easterlands and when John Bellett Shattock died in 1860 it passed to his eldest son, the Rev. John Bellett Shattock of Stalbridge, Dorset, who put the estate up for sale in 1862.

Taunton Courier and Western Advertiser - 10 Sep 1862 (BNA) — Easterlands was put for sale by the Rev. John Bellett Shattock in 1862. This notice is from the Taunton Courier and Western Advertiser. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

Easterlands 1 (SWNS) — From the top of the land there are views over the surrounding Taunton Vale, Blackdown Hills and Wellington Monument and down to the village with the tower of the village Church forming an attractive focal point. Image: SWNS.

Easterlands was sold to Charles Moore in 1864. He was a Liverpool merchant and appears to have let the fully furnished property. Occupants included Charles Hutton Potts (1823-1886) and Major-General Cookson, who was a yearly tenant when the estate was put up for sale again in 1876. Failing to find a buyer, it went back on the market in 1878 under the instruction of Mary Louisa Moore of Clontarf, Dublin.

Dorset County Chronicle - 25 Aug 1864 (BNA) — Getting ready for a new owner. This sales notice from the Dorset County Chronicle indicated that Easterlands was being cleared for the arrival of Charles Moore. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

The estate was sold to Robert Arundel Were (1822-1892), a solicitor and gentleman of Wellington, who held many appointments with local authorities including Superintendent Registrar Clerk to the Wellington Bench, the Board of Guardians, the Rural Sanitary Unit and Milverton Highway Board. When he died in May 1892 the estate was put up for sale just weeks later.

It remained unsold and was let to Arthur Tristram E. Jervoise before the house and estate of 140 acres were bought for nearly £9,000 by Frederick George Slessor in 1897. Slessor, chartered civil engineer, was the son of Major-General Slessor of Sidmouth, Devon, and remained until his death in 1905.

Easterlands 3 (KF) — The house is approached through a wide gated entrance, guarded by a three bedroom lodge cottage, down a long tree lined avenue affording tantalising glimpses of the house amongst the mature trees in the garden and park. Image: Knight Frank.

After going to auction in 1906 it was bought by Colonel Joseph Henry Moore, a retired officer in the Royal Army Medical Corps. He’d spent 30 years in the Army, serving in the Ashanti War, the defence of the hospital at Foomana and in the Afghan War the occupation of Kandahar and the Battle of Khelal-i-Ghilzai. He later held several appointments in India and was principal medical officer both at Quetta and Bombay.

Easterlands c 1920-1930 (SampfordArundelorg) — A picturesque view of Easterlands. This photograph is thought to date from the 1920s or 1930s. Image: sampfordarundel.org.

Colonel Moore enjoyed Easterlands only briefly. He died there in 1908 but his family remained until 1924 when it was offered for sale by private treaty.

Up until this point, Easterlands had slipped between families and it wasn’t until Alderman Gerald Fox bought the property in 1925 that the house enjoyed any stability. He moved here with his wife, Beatrice Cornish-Bowden, youngest daughter of Admiral Cornish-Bowden, of Newton Abbot, and was affectionately known as ‘Bee’.

Easterlands 4 (KF) — Image: Knight Frank.

Easterlands 5 (KF) — Image: Knight Frank.

Easterlands 6 (KF) — Image: Knight Frank.

Gerald Fox (1865-1947), was the second son of Joseph Hoyland Fox, for many years the chairman of Fox Bros, an old family woollen business at Wellington. He was educated at Marlborough College and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took his B.A.. He joined Lloyds Bank prior to becoming a partner in Fox, Fowler and Co, a Westcountry private banking firm, afterwards absorbed into Lloyds Bank itself. He was also a director of Devon & Courtenay Clay Company, the Commercial Union Assurance Company and of Candy & Company, a pottery firm at Heathfield. Aside his business interests, he also managed to be secretary of Somerset County Rugby Club and Somerset County Cricket Club. (Fox Brothers still survives and is run by ‘Dragons’ Den’ star Deborah Meaden who purchased a majority stake in 2009).

As the current sale particulars point out, Gerald Fox will be best-remembered for taking in several evacuees and refugees during World War Two, when several rooms in the house were converted to accommodate them. Easterlands also became the headquarters for the local Home Guard and had a near miss in 1940 when a German bomber dropped a 100lb incendiary bomb. It cleared the house and fell into the lake causing no damage except to a tree.

Easterlands 9 (KF) — Image: Knight Frank.

After his Gerald Fox’s death in 1947, his widow remained until the early 1950s before selling up and moving to the Quantocks.

Easterlands appears to have then been occupied by Mr Hans K.E. Richter and then Lieutenant-Colonel R.S. Rogers, both of whom little is known. However, in 1963, the estate was bought with great fanfare by Mr Edward Du Cann, the Conservative MP for Taunton and Economic Secretary to the Treasury. In later years he would become chairman of the 1922 Committee, the Conservative party’s parliamentary group.

Edward Du Cann (1924-2017) and his wife had been living in temporary accommodation while they waited for the sale to be finalised. When it was concluded they lived a very public life at Easterlands along with a donkey called Petronella.

He became a well-known businessman with his Unicorn Group, was a director of Keyser Ullman, a banking firm that collapsed in 1974, and later served as a director and chairman of Lonhro (later collapsing owing £10 million to creditors).

After Easterlands he owned nearby Cothay Manor which he was forced to sell after several legal disputes over debts and was made bankrupt in 1993.

13434143_18 — This fine country house has now been in the same ownership for about 35 years and whilst well-cared for and maintained, gives an incoming purchaser the opportunity to refurbish the house and develop the barns and outbuildings to suit their needs, subject to obtaining the necessary planning consents.

Easterlands 17 (KF) — Image: Knight Frank.

Easterlands 21 (KF) — Image: Knight Frank.

The current owners arrived at unlisted Easterlands during the 1980s.

According to Knight Frank, the main reception rooms are well-proportioned with high ceilings and have elegant detailing including substantial fireplaces and panelling. As might be expected Easterlands provides the traditional room configuration – entrance hall, study/drawing room, dining room, garden room, billiard room, kitchen/breakfast room, pantry, larder, utility room, estate office, three cloakrooms, boot room and extensive cellars. Its master bedroom has two en-suite dressing rooms and bathrooms, in addition to a further six bedrooms and bathrooms.

The house also comes with extensive outbuildings including a two-bedroom cottage, a three-bedroom lodge, a coach house with stabling and stores, as well as barns.

Within its 44.4 -acres are a walled garden, hard tennis court, covered swimming pool, a former vineyard, mature gardens, woodland and a lake.

Easterlands 22 (KF) — Image: Knight Frank.

Easterlands 7 (KF) — Image: Knight Frank.

Easterlands 8 (KF) — Image: Knight Frank.

Easterlands 13 (KF) — Image: Knight Frank.

Easterlands 2 (KF) — At the centre of the rambling grounds and gardens is the elegant water feature with its Japanese bridge, which could be right out of a garden in the French village Giverny, Claude Monet’s famous home. Image: Knight Frank.

CO DOWN

BELVOIR PARK

June 3, 2018 Delicto

A five-day auction that brought the curtain down on a fine country house

belvoir-3a (Irish Aesthete) — Belvoir Park. A watercolour painted by the artist Jonathan Fisher at the request of the house’s then-owner Arthur Hill-Trevor, 1st Viscount Dungannon. Image: The Irish Aesthete.

Today marks the 100^th anniversary of an important and interesting five-day sale of the ‘magnificent surplus furnishings’ at Belvoir Park, Newtownbreda, near Belfast. It was an indication that times were changing for this country house… and not for the better.

Belfast News-Letter 1 Jun 1918 (BNA) — The start of the five-day sale. It is not recorded how much money was raised from the sale of the contents. From the Belfast News-Letter. 1st June, 1918. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

The estate, once called Ballyenaghan, had once been the home of the Hill family, named so it is said, by Michael Hill’s wife, Anne Trevor, subsequently married to Lord Midleton, owing to the view (belle voir’) and in part to her childhood recollections of Belvoir castle in Leicestershire. She was responsible for creating the grand mansion and it is suggested used the German architect Cassells for the design. Her son, who became Viscount Dungannon in 1766, inherited the estate before it was sold in 1809.

It was originally bought by three Belfast merchants – John Gillies, Robert Davis and William Blacker – for £35,000 – until it was bought by Robert Bateson, a Belfast banker and landowner, in 1818.

Belvoir Park A (Lord belmont) — Belvoir Park. This photograph is one of several provided by the Northern Ireland Forestry Service to the website – ‘Lord Belmont in Northern Ireland’.

Robert Bateson was born in 1782 and died in 1863. He was created a Baronet in 1818. His eldest son, Robert, was an MP for Co Londonderry; his second son, Thomas was born in 1819, he was raised to the peerage as Baron Deramore in 1885 after 34 years of service in Parliament and died in 1890.

Decline set in after the death of Baron Deramore. For a time, it was occupied by Walter H. Wilson, a shipbuilder and partner in Harland and Wolff’s. It was his widow that instigated the sale of its contents in 1918. Its last resident was Sir James Johnston, Lord Mayor of Belfast in 1917-1918.

West Front - Belvoir Castle (Lord Belmont) — The west front of Belvoir Park. The house was sometimes referred to as Belvoir House. Image: Lord Belmont in Northern Ireland.

cedb7dac24a3597b8af79e4c466bc76c — An interior photograph of Belvoir Park during prosperous times. Some of these contents may well have been included in the auction of 1918.

Belfast was quickly growing, and the estate which had once stretched to more than 6,000 acres, was now only a few miles from the city centre. It falls into the category ‘swallowed by suburbia’; the land was more valuable than the house and was prime residential development.

In the 1920s parts of the estate became a golf course and at one time it was suggested that Belvoir Park might be used as a residence for the Governor of Northern Ireland (Hillsborough Castle was chosen instead).

Belvoir Park before it was blown up — Awaiting its death. Belvoir Park is seen here shortly before demolition. It is unclear if any parts of the house were salvaged and used elsewhere.

belvoir-just-before-being-blown-up (Irish Aesthete) — Members of the Army can be seen standing in front of Belvoir Park as it awaits the inevitable. The house was demolished by the Forest Service in 1961. We must presume the army used explosives to blow it up as a training exercise. Image: The Irish Aesthete.

belvoir-entrance-to-yard-2 (Irish Aesthete) — The last days of Belvoir Park. The photograph shows the entrance to the yard. The house and former grounds are in a pitiful condition. Image: The Irish Aesthete.

Belvoir Park stood empty until 1934 when the building company, W.J. Stewart, leased the building and land. The obvious motive was to build houses on the estate, but this was scuppered by the outbreak of war. The Admiralty requisitioned the house during World War Two as a temporary armaments depot and built over a hundred nissen and elephant huts.

Afterwards, it was handed back to Stewart and Partners and used for the storage of building materials.

From the 1950s Belvoir Park was in serious decline. Empty, derelict and populated only by its by ghosts, the estate was sold to the Northern Ireland Housing Trust in 1955. 150-acres of former parkland was leased to the Forest Service and became Belvoir Park Forest, while the rest was used to build much-needed housing.

Belvoir Park was blown up by the Army, presumably as part of a training exercise, in 1961. The site of the Georgian mansion is now used as a car park.

SHROPSHIRE

COTON HALL

May 18, 2018 Delicto

A Georgian mansion with Victorian additions. Not much remains of the house that General Robert E. Lee’s family once knew

Coton Hall 13 (Savills) — Image: Savills.

The selling-point or Coton Hall is inevitably its connection with the de la Lee family, probably of Norman descent, who owned a sizeable chunk of Shropshire for about 500 years. This was their ancestral home, and in 1636, Richard Lee emigrated to Virginia, where he prospered in tobacco. Another descendant, Richard Henry Lee, was one of the signatories of the American Declaration of Independence, and Robert E. Lee was commander of the Confederate States Army.

The present house was built about 1800 for Harry Lancelot Lee, the last of the family to live at Coton Hall, in the Parish of Alveley. In his book In Search of the Perfect Home, Marcus Binney says “the elegant simplicity of the house is pure Regency, but to Victorian tastes it was a little too plain, and a picturesque Italianate tower and wing was added about 1860.”

With attention drawn to the American link, Coton Hall was on the market for £2.2 million back in January 2017. Eighteen months later, still unsold, the guide price has been quietly dropped to £1.85 million.

Coton Hall 1 (Savills) — Image: Savills.

According to Marcus Binney, the house is hidden until the last moment, and it is the ruined chapel on the grass circle in front that first comes into view. With its fine interiors, the cellars are of interest, being two-storeys deep, and on the lower level is an entrance to a tunnel which leads to the chapel.

There is another side to Coton Hall’s history, one that is often overlooked. The Lee relationship might have ended with Harry Lancelot Lee, but by the time he died in 1821, he had already let the estate to a local curate.

Coton Hall (Share History) — Image: Share History.

Coton Hall was bought by James Foster (1786 -1853), an iron-master and coal-master of Stourbridge. In 1831 he sat in Parliament for the Liberals, became High Sheriff of Worcestershire in 1840, and became the head of the firm of iron-masters, John Bradley and Company. Foster’s wealth was immense and later allowed him to buy Stourton Castle. When he died in 1853, he left his fortune to his nephew, William Orme Foster of nearby Apley Park.

Coton Hall came into the possession of Edward Lloyd Gatacre (1806 -1891), head of one of Shropshire’s most ancient families, having settled at Gatacre Hall in the reign of Henry III. Educated at Rugby and Christ Church, Oxford, he became one of the oldest magistrates in the county and filled the office of High Sheriff in 1856.

Gatacre put the estate up for sale in 1851, and it was bought by the Reverend Edward Ward Wakeman (1801-1855), a man much esteemed for his great kindness to the poor, and his works for charity. He was the son of Sir Henry Wakeman, 1^st Baronet, and Sarah Offley, and married Louisa Thompson in 1835. Wakeman also acquired the Hanley Court estate in 1855, under the will of the Rev. T. H. Newport, but died only months afterwards.

Coton Hall - Shrewsbury Chronicle - 25 Jul 1851 (BNA) — Shrewsbury Chronicle, 1851. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

His eldest son and heir, Offley Francis Drake Wakeman (1836-1865) only came of age in 1857, and the affairs at Coton Hall were briefly managed by his uncle, Offley Penbury Wakeman (1799-1858), 2^nd Baronet of Periswell Hall, in Worcestershire.

After over-exerting himself in a cricket match in 1865, Offley Wakeman was found lying in a pool of blood, his death caused by the rupture of a blood vessel. His brother, Henry Allan Wakeman-Newport (1841-1923), had inherited the Hanley Court estate, and Coton Hall was awarded to the youngest brother, Edward Maltby Wakeman (1846-1926).

Edward graduated from Christ Church, Oxford, with a Master of Arts, became a Chartered Accountant, a J.P., and was awarded Honourable Lieutenant-Colonel in the 3^rd Battalion Shropshire Light Infantry. He married Edith Mary Buchanan in 1874, and had two children, Gladys Louisa Wakeman and Edward Offley Wakeman, an only son, who died within his first year.

Coton Hall 15 (Savills) — Image: Savills.

In 1878, the roof of the chapel collapsed, and all the Lee monuments were moved to Alveley Church.

Colonel Wakeman died in 1926, and left instructions that his funeral should be ‘the plainest possible description, and that all unnecessary expense should be avoided’. He was drawn in an open bier to the grave at Alveley Church by those whom he had employed. Edward left his property in trust for his daughter, with the request that the successors to the property assumed the name and arms of Wakeman. Gladys Louisa had married Captain Hugh Davenport Colville, Royal Navy, in 1906, and legally changed their name to Wakeman-Colville in 1927. They stayed at Coton Hall until the 1930s.

JMC4 - Church Explorer — Image: JMC4 – Church Explorer.

Coton Hall 3 (Savills) — Image: Savills.

In the 1940s, Coton Hall was home to Mr and Mrs Howard Thompson. The house, which had always maintained a modest degree of secrecy, was opened to the public for one-day in 1956, and was described in the Birmingham Daily Post:

“On show in the Hall – the ancestral home of Gen. Robert E. Lee – will be four of the main rooms. These contain many art treasures, including superb paintings of the Lee family, who owned the hall for more than 500 years.

“In front of the Hall stands the remains of a chapel built in 1275, which was at one time the private domestic chapel of the reigning monarch. It was used by King Alfred the Great and Edward the Confessor. The latter laid a rent charge on the manor which is still paid. A subterranean passage leads from the Hall to a crypt beneath the chapel

“The Hall, which stands on a hill, 550 feet above sea level, commands a wonderful view of the valley and the large trout lake.

“The main feature of the four-acre grounds are the trees, which have plaques attached to indicate their variety. Behind the Hall, overlooking a valley, stands a magnificent cedar tree, planted 226 years ago. In the same year, Thomas Lee sent some seeds to Coton from Virginia. These seeds have now flourished into the tall red chestnut trees in Coton Park.”

Marcus Binney says the ruined chapel is no antiquity. “Local historians have claimed that this is the chapel of ancient Saxon kings, but it is a simple Palladian box with a pretty Strawberry Hill Gothic window in the east end. It is attributed to Shrewsbury architect, Thomas Farnolls Pritchard.”

Coton Hall, built in mellowed sawn grey stone, with a slate roof, is being marketed by Savills and offers excellent family accommodation. Particularly notable are the well-proportioned reception rooms, with their high ceilings and decorative architectural detail. The additional Victorian wing, with Italianate turret, blends admirably with the Georgian part of the house.

Coton Hall 4 (Savills) — Image: Savills.

Coton Hall 5 (Savills) — Image: Savills.

Coton Hall 6 (Savills) — Image: Savills.

Coton Hall 7 (Savills) — Image: Savills.

Coton Hall 8 (Savills) — Image: Savills.

Coton Hall 9 (Savills) — Image: Savills.

Coton Hall 10 (Savills) — Image: Savills.

Coton Hall 11 (Savills) — Image: Savills.

Coton Hall 12 (Savills) — Image: Savills.

BUCKINGHAMSHIRE

HEATHERDEN HALL

May 15, 2018 Delicto

Pinewood outrivals Hollywood. A home where history was made

Heatherden (Heritage Calling)
Once there was a big country house that stood in 92-acres of beautiful parkland. However, in October 1936, The Sphere published photographs from Heatherden Hall, at Iver Heath, when it was about to change its existence forever. The house had been converted from a grand mansion into Britain’s newest and largest film studio. This Victorian house had been turned into a residential club for the stars and was about to enjoy an exciting and completely different future.

Heatherden, with its tree-lined driveway, was built about 1865 by Charles Frederick Reeks, who also designed St. Margaret’s Church at nearby Iver Heath. However, after the Canadian financier and later Conservative M.P. for Brentford and Chiswick) Lieutenant-Colonel Walter Grant Morden bought the property in 1914, he employed the architect Melville Seth-Ward to create the grand country house seen today.

These changes were made between 1914 and 1928 and included a huge ballroom, stone gallery, Turkish bath and a swimming pool, and were reputed to have cost £300,000. (Morden later claimed that the cost was actually between £20,000 and £25,000). The gardens to the south, with their serpentine paths, specimen trees, sunken garden, cascade and lake with ornamental bridge, were laid out at the same time.

twroda008 — In 1929, firemen fought a moorland blaze which threatened to destroy Heatherden Hall. The fire destroyed about 60 acres of grass and woodland. “The fire was about a quarter of a mile away, where some woods were ablaze. Fortunately the wind was north-west. Had it been west the flames would have been carried direct to the hall.”

Colonel Grant Morden was a Canadian, who came to England at the end of the 1890s with a big reputation, and combined business with politics after the war. He was born in Ontario in 1880, educated at the Collegiate Institute of Toronto, and in his business career he founded the British Commonwealth Union and Canada Steamship Lines Ltd. Before long he controlled over a hundred steamers and became interested in various timber and land companies. Morden also obtained the assets of all the cement companies in Canada, which resulted in the formation of the Canada Cement Company Ltd. He arrived in England to found a business for making office furniture and bookcases and became associated with no fewer than thirty-five companies, one of the biggest ventures being the flotation of the British Cellulose and Chemical Manufacturing Company, which eventually had a capital of £6 million. (It specialised in the manufacture of cloth dope used in aeroplane construction).

Morden had a distinguished career in World War One. He served as the personal staff officer to General Sam Hughes and operated in France as an airman, turning Heatherden Hall into a convalescent home for Canadian soldiers.

He combined his busy business life with a vigorous open-air life. Shooting and hunting were his favourite sports, and his hobbies included the breeding of horses and pedigree cattle. The magnificent grounds at Heatherden Hall contained tennis and squash courts and a golf course, which were threatened by a big forest fire in 1929. At one time he owned a yacht claimed to be the one of the best-equipped medium-sized yachts in existence. It had cost him £21,000 but was eventually sold by the bank for £4,000.

Heatherden - The Tatler Nov 9 1921 (BNA) — Some of the guns at Heatherden Hall in November 1921. Left to right: Standing – Commander Neligan, R.N.R., Colonel Sir Mathew Wilson, Bart., the Hon. Harry Stonor, Captain the Hon. Thomas Hay, and Captain J. Bell White, R.N.R.; Sitting – Lord Desborough, Colonel W. Grant Morden, M.P., and Major-General Lord Lovat. (British Newspaper Archive).

In 1931 Morden was declared bankrupt with total liabilities of £151,280. He told the London Bankruptcy Court how he had made and lost a fortune. He said he had been financially interested in over forty companies and in the big slump in securities in 1929 his shareholding greatly depreciated. At one time he had been reported as being a millionaire with household expenses in 1928 of £30,000 – by 1930 these had been reduced to £10,000. The bank seized his assets, including Heatherden Hall, and when Morden died, aged 52 in 1932, he was suffering from serious heart trouble and practically blind. He left just £10 in his will.

For a short time Heatherden Hall became a country club but in 1934 the estate was acquired by Charles Boot, head of the enormously successful Sheffield building firm of Henry Boot and Sons. He lived at Thornbridge Hall, Derbyshire, but the purchase of Heatherden had nothing to do with it becoming a family home.

Charles Boot 1874- 1945 — Charles Boot (1874 – 1945). He was the eldest son of Henry Boot and the driving forced behind Henry Boot & Sons in the inter-war period. As well as creating one of the largest contracting and house-building firms of its time, he was a staunch advocate for better housing and the virtues of private rather than local authority housing. He was the creator of Pinewood Studios and his building firm constructed most of the facilities.

Boot’s dream was to establish a film studio that would rival those in Hollywood and make Britain a big film producer. He went off to Hollywood on a fact-finding mission and returned within months with plans to establish Pinewood as the studios we know today. Those plans were to cost more than £1 million and the first chairman of the company was the millionaire flour-miller and film entrepreneur Mr J. Arthur Rank.

Heatherden Aerial — The development of Pinewood Studios. The stages were modernly equipped as any in Hollywood and covered over 7 acres. Adjoining was the administrative block and residential club – Heatherden Hall – where there were eighty bedrooms available for those who wished to live near their work. (British Newspaper Archive).

Boot and Rank employed the architects A.F.B. Anderson and H.S. Scroxton to develop the parkland to the north of the house, called Pinewood (in Rank’s words, ‘because of the number of trees which grow there and because it seemed to suggest something of the American film centre in its second syllable’). The mansion was used as a residential club and a large administration block was built alongside the house. The studios opened in September 1936 and grew to become a mainstay of the British film industry, home of the Rank Organisation and the birthplace of hundreds of films including The Red Shoes (1947), The Ipcress File (1965), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) and the James Bond and Carry On series. Heatherden Hall itself has frequently been used as a film location, as well as to accommodate visiting actors, directors and production staff.

Haetherden 1 - The Sphere Oct 31 1936 (BNA) — Panelling from the Cunard liner, Mauretania, adorning the walls of the board room at the newly created Pinewood Studios , which had just opened at Iver, Buckinghamshire, and were being occupied by various film companies. (British Newspaper Archive).

Haetherden 3 - The Sphere Oct 31 1936 (BNA) — The Picture Gallery in the residential club, where there were many good examples of nineteenth century art. The club was in Heatherden Hall, originally built at a cost of £300,000 by Lieutenant-Colonel Grant Morden. (British Newspaper Archive).

Haetherden 2 - The Sphere Oct 31 1936 (BNA) — ‘Mr Gladstone rides to Piccadilly in an old-time bus’: A canvas by Alfred Morgan which seldom failed to attract the attention of visitors to the Picture Gallery. It was dated 1885, when the great statesman was nearing the end of his long parliamentary career. (British Newspaper Archive).

Haetherden 4 - The Sphere Oct 31 1936 (BNA) — Where a hearth is at the threshold: The main entrance of the administrative offices was something of a curiosity, being formed from the elaborately carved oak fireplace adorned with hunting scenes and other designs. It was finished in 1568, and came to PInewood from Irlam Hall in Derbyshire. (British Newspaper Archive).

Haetherden 5 - The Sphere Oct 31 1936 (BNA) — The fireplace in what was now the Cocktail Bar, showed the following inscription: ‘In this room, on November 3, 1921, the ratification of the Irish Free State Treaty was settled by the Earl of Birkenhead, Viscount Long, Viscount Younger of Leckie, Sir Malcolm Fraser, Bart., and Lieut.-Colonel W. Grant Morden, J.P., M.P.’ (British Newspaper Archive).

Carry On Nurse.avi_000118360 — Millions of people have seen Heatherden Hall without actually knowing it. This scene is from ‘Carry on Nurse’ (1959) when the country house doubled as Haven Hospital. (British Film Locations).

The Amazing Mr Blunden (Final Image Blogspot) — The final scene from ‘The Amazing Mr Blunden’ (1972) when Heatherden Hall was put to good use. In the same film it was also made to look fire-damaged and derelict. (Final Image/Blogspot).

PinewoodAerial — Pinewood Studios today. The film and television studio is at Iver Heath, about 4 miles from Slough, 2 miles from Uxbridge and about 17 miles west of central London.

HOUSE AND HERITAGE

Tag Archives: Mansion

THE 1970’S: THE FUTURE OF ENGLAND’S COUNTRY HOUSES

ASTON CLINTON HOUSE

PIERS COURT

THE 1930’S: THE TOLL OF DEATH DUTIES

TILLYCORTHIE

HILL HOUSE

EASTERLANDS

BELVOIR PARK

COTON HALL

HEATHERDEN HALL

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Country houses with a story to tell