When the doors to Cherkley Court in Surrey closed to visitors in December 2009, it was thought that low visitor numbers had proved it uneconomic to keep the house and gardens open. However, as predicted by a commenter to my original blog post [thanks Andrew], Cherkley Court is now for sale and has been launched with a double-page centre spread in the Sunday Times Home section today [19 Sept 2010].
If one was to try an define what might constitute a perfect trophy estate in Surrey, Cherkley Court might well tick most of the estate agents’ criteria. The grade-II listed house, built c1870 (and rebuilt after a fire in 1893), is a four-storey, chateau-style mansion extending to over 24,000 sq ft with home cinema and five grand reception rooms, with nearly 400-acres of gardens and parkland.
The house is now for sale following a 7-year, £10m restoration of the house and grounds orchestrated by the architect Christopher Smallwood and David Mlinaric, the interior designer. The house became a famous venue for parties under the ownership of Max Aitken (later Lord Beaverbrook) and his wife Gladys who lived there until her death in 1994. It was her death which sparked a bitter legal dispute between beneficiaries of the will which has forced the sale.
So if you have £20m and don’t mind the restriction on not landing your helicopter in the grounds, have a word with Savills.
Cowdray Park House, West Sussex (Image: Knight Frank)
Despite a house having been in the family for over a hundred years, sometimes it can seem the most rational choice to sell. For the current Lord Cowdray, the idea that he might saddle his heir with what he considers a burden has led to his decision to put the impressive Cowdray Park House up for sale.
If you mention Cowdray often the first house which springs to mind are the atmospheric ruins which are all that are left of one of the grandest Tudor houses in the country. The fire in September 1793 destroyed not only a large part of the house but also many priceless and historically important artefacts including William the Conqueror’s sword and also the roll-call of those present at the Battle of Hastings. Just two weeks after the fire the 8th Viscount Montague drowned whilst swimming in the Rhine, forcing the title to a distant descendent of the the 2nd Viscount, who died childless, extinguishing the Viscountancy.
The tragedies continued – the 8th Viscount’s sister inherited but both her sons died whilst swimming off Bognor in 1815. The three daughters who then inherited in 1840 eventually decided to sell and it was bought by the 6th Earl of Egmont for £300,000. The current Cowdray Park House dates from 1878 when the 7th Earl, who had inherited the estate in 1874, massively enlarged the Keeper’s Lodge to create the house we see today. A large rambling, but very picturesque creation, it obviously has taken its cues from houses such a Knole and Penhurst with their varied rooflines and many courtyards. The grounds had been previously landscaped by Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown between 1768 and 1774 with the ornamental gardens laid out in the early 18th-century.
The house was bought in 1908 by Sir Weetman Pearson who was created Viscount Cowdray in 1917. Sir Weetman was a brilliant engineer who not only built the Blackwall Tunnel under the Thames but also had extensive oil interests in Mexico. The house then passed through the Pearson family with few changes until the 3rd Viscount, in pursuit of his passion for polo, created one of the premier polo grounds in the country within the 16,500-acre estate.
Yet being a titled aristocrat living in a 16-bedroomed, 44,000 sq ft house in the middle of a fine estate proved to not be what the current Viscount hoped for after he inherited in 1995. In May 2009 it was announced that he and his wife and son were to move out of the main house and into a smaller house on the estate, Fernhurst, where they had lived before inheriting. The 2009 plan involved finding someone to take a long lease and create a hotel and spa in the house but the wider economic circumstances have forced this plan to be abandoned. Unwilling to continue managing such a large house, with all the attendant issues with staffing and maintenance, the Viscount has decided to sell, putting it on the market, with 110-acres, for £25m, whilst retaining the rest of the estate including the world-famous polo grounds. Renting the house out, he says, would just be delaying the decision.
Speaking to the Sunday Times in 2009 when he announced his plans, Viscount Cowdray admitted that “I’m not the sort of person who feels hugely attached to things, and it’s a big house.” and later speaking to the Observer that same year he said “I have worried whether I will be leaving Perry a wonderful asset or a noose around his neck. I fear it is likely to be the latter,”.
Whilst the arguments put by the Viscount seem rational it does seem a shame to divorce the house from the estate. The Cowdray estate has long adapted to changing circumstances but to dismember it seems to be a short-term solution which his son may, with hindsight, regret when he comes to take over, as it leaves one of the most significant estates in Sussex without a principal house.
*Update* Remarkably, Cowdray Park House is unlisted so any buyer has the opportunity to make any changes they wish – and I’m willing to bet they won’t be good. Knight Frank are touting this as a benefit but perhaps representations ought to be made to Chichester District Council to nominate it for listing using this form.
Wilton House, Wiltshire (Image: John Goodall/Geograph)
Any time of economic difficulties can often lead to any expenditure being put on hold, including vital restoration projects. So it’s encouraging to see projects still being completed – but as some of these were approved and started back in the heady days of government largesse, perhaps these are the last we’ll see for a while except where private money can fill the gap?
One of the most impressive has been the award-winning restoration of the family dining room at Wilton House, Wiltshire – and maybe all the more impressive as it was funded privately by the owner, the 18th Earl of Pembroke. Although ranked as joint 574th in the Sunday Times Rich List 2010, with an estimated worth of £115m, most of this wealth is tied up in the value of the house, the contents (including superb paintings by Van Dyck and Rembrandt), and the estate.
Anyone undertaking an architectural project at Wilton is following in some fairly illustrious footsteps. The main house, one of the finest still in private hands, is unusual in that the scale of the house was a response to the incredible gardens designed by Issac de Caus in 1632. The design is sometimes attributed to Inigo Jones but a drawing found by Howard Colvin at Worcester College by de Caus showed he was responsible for the original plan for a much larger, 21-bay palace, with a grand central portico, running to a total length of 330-ft. However, the untimely death of the newly-married Earl in 1636 and the subsequent return of the huge £25,000 marriage dowry (approx £40m today) to the bride’s father, the Duke of Buckingham, meant that the scheme was now too ambitious and so just one half of the original design was built; which is what we see today. The half-a-house was considered plain so Jones became involved, adding the one-storey corner towers to the design.
Private dining room - Wilton House (Image: Historic Houses Association)
Wilton’s interior, in particular the celebrated set of seven state rooms in the southern facade which includes the famous Double Cube room, were largely the creation of Jones, assisted by his able deputy John Webb. Yet there are other fine rooms which had become misused over the years and one has now been restored in sumptuous style as a private dining room. Formerly cluttered with the normal ephemera of family life – CDs, books, old furniture etc – it was fairly sorry sight. The current Earl and Countess of Pembroke have spent an undisclosed, but undoubtedly substantial, sum on creating a glorious dining room but which will sadly not be included on the tourist trail. Tapestries now cover the deep green walls, interspersed with family portraits by Reynolds, completing what James Stourton, chairman of Sotheby’s UK described as “…one of the outstanding country house renovations of the decade.” and winning the 2010 HHA/Sotheby’s Restoration Award.
One of the largest of the recent projects has been the £5.6m restoration of grade-II listed Bedwellty House in Tredegar, south Wales. Built in 1818 for the owner of the first iron works in Tredegar, it was increasingly at risk of falling into dereliction. Realising the importance of the building, the local council spent four years securing grants to fund the ambitious programme from organisations such as the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Welsh Assembly, Blaenau Gwent council, and Cadw [Welsh equivalent to English Heritage] . The works have included work on the ornate plaster ceilings, the sash windows and shutters, and the main structure. Work will now continue on the parkland and gardens to bring them back to their former glory.
The grounds of our country houses were also not just a buffer to keep the world from intruding but also a stage on which to create idealised landscapes and views. To this end they were often populated with follies or architectural creations to catch the eye of those looking out from the house but also those walking the grounds. Sadly, the isolation of these buildings has often meant that in recent years they have been cut-off from the main house, forgotten, or neglected and vandalised. Nowadays these wonderful architectural vignettes have been increasingly valued and urgent works undertaken to restore them. One fine example is the grade-I listed Wentworth Castle Rotunda in Yorkshire. Started in 1739 and finished in 1742, the design is based on the Temple of Vesta at Tivoli near Rome. One of 26 listed buildings in the 500-acre parkland, the temple has now been restored following a grant of £300,000, which has enabled the removal of overgrowing shrubs, and the cleaning and repair of the stonework, roof, and floors.
Thankfully the official organisations don’t have a monopoly on generosity. Perhaps those selling a house in need of some restoration might take a lead from admirable seller of Newberry Hall, Ireland, Richard Robinson. Realising that the elegant Palladian house with its wonderful flanking pavilions is in dire need of restoration, the elderly owner has put the house on the market but with the offer of a substantial contribution towards the costs of restoration to bring the house back to its former glory. With such generosity, one hopes a suitably sympathetic buyer can be found who will be willing to take on the project and complete an appropriate restoration.
Restoration has always been expensive so in their straitened times we can only hope that funds for basic care and maintenance are found so that in a few years time we are not faced with a slew of houses and monuments suffering from any short-sighted desire to save a few pence today at the cost of many pounds tomorrow. Long may the stories be of enhanced glories such as that at Wilton House rather than urgent appeals to save buildings at risk.
Love is a strange emotion which by chance can leave a person very attached to something. For Clare and Mark Oglesby the object of their affections is the elegant Goldsborough Hall in Yorkshire, which, after five years hard work and a substantial budget has been rescued from dereliction and possible development.
Goldsborough Hall was built between 1601-1625 for Sir Richard Hutton, a London judge who used his wealth to establish himself in Yorkshire and was High Sheriff in 1623. The internal plan of the house is interesting as it features a lateral corridor on all three floors and originally included fashionable features Sir Richard probably learnt of from his London friends such as a long gallery which useful for exercise in the inclement weather. Slightly unusually it was on the first floor (though not uniquely as Beaudesert, Condover Hall, and Treowen House also have this) when they were normally on the upper floors as, high up, their excess of glass gave visitors the most impressive view of the house – see, most famously, ‘Hardwick Hall, more glass than wall’.
The house was then rebuilt in the mid 18th-century for Richard Byerley before being bought by the Earls of Harewood, the Lascelles family, who employed the famous architect John Carr of York to remodel the interior in 1764-5, whilst he was also working on their main house, Harewood. Goldsborough features numerous mementos of the family with their crest embedded in rainwater heads and in stained glass. The house remained in the Lascelles family until 1965 when it was sold to pay death duties. It then became a school, a private home, a hotel and then nursing home before being put up for sale in 2003 when the Oglesby’s first saw it but had their offer rejected. At that time the house was still in good condition but this had changed dramatically when the estate agent contacted them again in 2005 to say it was between them and a developer. They successfully bid but now, just two years later, water was running down the 17th-century oak staircase and the panelling in the library, and the house lacked heating or working plumbing. Undaunted, over the last five years they have spent around £2m on the restoration which has now rescued this wonderful house from ruin and is back to being a family home which pays it way by hosting weddings.
Rise Hall, Yorkshire (Image: Pastscape)
Another house which needed work and has now been restored explicitly as a wedding venue and family home is Rise Hall, also in Yorkshire. Set in a beautiful small park laid in the 1770s, the grade-II* listed seat of the Bethell family was rebuilt between 1815-25, though the architect is disputed with some claiming it’s by Robert Abraham (whose eldest daughter was conveniently married to the owner, Baron Westbury) but more likely, as given by Howard Colvin, it was by Watson & Pritchard who also designed a Doric lodge for the house in 1818. The slightly austere, 9-bay ashlar Georgian facade is dramatically enlivened by a full-height, tetra-style Ionic portico. Inside the house features a top-lit staircase hall and some neoclassical decoration with an Adam-style dining room. The house remained in the Bethell family until 1946 when they moved into the former rectory, now Rise Park, and let the house to the Canonesses Regular of St. Augustine, who ran a Catholic boarding school there until 1998.
The house was then bought as a second home by Sarah Beeny, star of many property restoration TV shows. She and her husband used the house for many years but realised that the 97-room house was simply too large to function as just a weekend retreat and it also needed to pay for its own restoration. Beeny seems to take a rather hard-headed approach – unsurprisingly given her background – but is committed to achieving the right result. The location ruled out use as a hotel so they decided that they would convert it into a wedding venue in just eight months as part of a TV show called ‘Beeny’s Folly‘ which will be broadcast in Autumn 2010 on Channel 4. This will be a chance for the wider public to get a real insight into just how much work is required to restore and maintain a stately home. Who knows, it might even inspire someone with deep pockets and hopefully a sympathetic attitude, to find and fall in love with a one of our other country houses at risk and bring it back to life as a home.
Our best motorways draw us through beautiful landscapes, by turns revealing hills, valleys, broad vistas and narrow glimpses, sometimes punctuated with a country house. Yet, country house owners have long fought many battles to keep the roads from carving up their precious parks and ruining the Arcadian views.
A recent article in the Guardian (‘Britain’s best views: motorway mansions‘) highlighted three great houses of Derbyshire each visible from the M1 motorway: Bolsover Castle, Sutton Scarsdale, and Hardwick Hall. In our haste to get to destinations it’s easy to forget that where we drive was once part of great estates and previous owners would have wielded sufficient political power to ensure roads were routed away from their domains. The echoes of this power can still be seen today if you look at aerial views of some of the great houses – major roads circle the gardens and immediate parkland such as at Chatsworth, Eaton Hall, and Clumber Park (though for the latter the house was demolished in 1938).
Yet, in other cases, officials either due to sheer bureaucratic efficiency, malice, or philistinism have carved roads through some historic parklands, cutting off the house from its setting, sometimes playing their part in step towards the eventual demise of the house. Sometimes the motorway is the gravestone; tarmac lies across the original sites of two lost houses so spare a thought for Tong Castle as you drive northbound just past junction 3 on the M54, or for Nuthall Temple, just north of junction 26 on the M1.
For planners, bypasses naturally need space and the obvious choice would be through the convenient estate which often borders a town. From their perspective, taking on just single owner seems the easiest option, especially as it can be difficult to muster public support to defend a private landowners personal paradise.
One country house owner who has had several run-ins with roads is the National Trust, with varying degrees of success. When they accepted Saltram House in Devon in 1957 they knew that a road was proposed which would cut across the parkland to the east of the house. However, as a matter of principle they had to fight when finally earmarked for action in 1968, particularly as the road was much wider than originally proposed – though ultimately they were unsuccessful. For the private owners of Levens Hall in Cumbria, it was their research which prevented a link road to the M6 cutting across an avenue by proving it was originally planted in 1694 by garden designer Guillaume de Beaumont. Yet other battles were lost; Capability Brown’s work at Chillington, Staffordshire was butchered by the M54, with the road now running just 35 yards from the grade-I listed Greek Temple. At Tring Park in Hertfordshire the A41 slashes through the original tree-lined avenue.
The longest running, and most successful battle has been by the National Trust at Petworth House in Sussex. The Trust has long accepted evolutionary changes but opposes drastic alterations regardless of the possible benefits to the local area – convenience does not trump heritage. The village of Petworth suffers from heavy traffic so in the 1970s a four-lane bypass was approved which would run through the middle of the 700-acre, Capability Brown parkland, forever destroying the celebrated views painted by J.M.W. Turner in the early 1800s. After objections were raised, an alternative, but equally damaging plan was suggested which used a ‘cut and cover’ tunnel – causing just as much destruction, particularly to the gardens, but then hiding their vandalism. However, after a spirited public campaign, which included a dramatic poster showing the house with tyre tracks rolling over it (designed by David Gentleman for SAVE Britain’s Heritage), the plan was blocked and has almost certainly been killed off permanently.
So although the motorway has helped us to visit our wonderful country houses they also have, and continue to, pose a threat to them. Thanksfully, stronger planning legislation which recognises the value of historic parkland has made it harder for the planners to simply draw a line between A and B without regard for the beautiful and important landscapes they would destroy.
The Country Seat 