You know you’ve landed on your (gentrified) feet when you measure your parkland in square kilometres not old fashioned hectares. Better still when your toffish turnip patch is in Norfolk, with postcodes so posh there’s currently a chronic shortage of cleaning ladies (or gentlemen). Listing is like degrees: it’s best having a Grade I and getting a 1st or being unlisted and getting a 3rd. Throw in a (mostly) James Gibbs exterior and (mainly) William Kent interior and – bravo! – you’ve arrived at Houghton Hall. But first the yellow Snatterscham stone Kentish stables. For non Cholmondeley family members and guests, lunch served on monogrammed china in the courtyard is still pretty swanky. Venturing up to the silvery Aislaby sandstone house, much of the piano nobile is open to the public. Upper floors and wings attached to the main block (with its domed square corner towers) by colonnades in true Palladian fashion are not. Who’s the family? Who are the guests? Who’s Who?
A rustic floor (fully exposed basement) handily elevates the piano nobile to max out views of the 18th century rolling (thanks to a haha) parkland by Charles Bridgeman. Pride of place in the centre of the garden elevation is the double height Stone Hall, a 12 metre cube. The State Bedchambers are especially sumptuous. Most atmospheric of all is the top lit Great Staircase, a tower of ghostly shadows. On the dining table in the Marble Parlour is a contemporary Jasperware piece by Magdalene Odundo inspired by Josiah Wedgwood’s correspondence with a slave turned abolitionist Olaudah Equiano discovered in Houghton’s archives. Just one of Antony Gormley’s 100 sculptures (positioned at the same height to create a single horizontal plane) makes it into the interior: the body is half submerged in the rustic floor Arcade.
