Tag: sir robert walpole

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Houghton Hall + Gardens King’s Lynn Norfolk

Big Boots To Fill

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?

Lady Rose Hanbury and David Cholmondeley (the 7th Marquess and Marchioness of Cholmondeley to you) are famously great chums with Wills and Catherine (the Prince and Princess of Wales, again to you). And neighbours: Sandringham is so close there’s simply nobody else in between who matters. Built for de facto first British Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole, his collection of 400 Old Masters may have dwindled when his grandson flogged most of them to Catherine the Great of Russia, but David Cholmondeley is forever hosting exhibitions of contemporary artists. That’s when he’s not acting as Lord-in-Waiting for King Charles. Back when he was David Rocksavage (so many surnames) he directed a film version of Truman Capote’s semiautobiographical first novel Other Voices, Other Rooms. David has revived the Walled Garden in honour of his grandmother Sybil Sassoon. Six full time, two part time and 12 volunteer gardeners look after these heavenly two hectares.

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.

Lady Rocksavage’s polished boots are set out. Anyone for riding?

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Architecture Art Country Houses People

Strawberry Hill House Twickenham London + Horace Walpole

The Royal and Imperial Academy’s Study Leave Part I

Before the quips of Oscar Wilde there were the quotes of Horace Walpole. Take, “The world is a tragedy to those who feel but a comedy to those who think.” Or, “The whole secret of life is to be interested in one thing profoundly and in a thousand things well.” His description of Twickenham, “Dowagers as plenty as flounders inhabit all around,” might have come straight from the script of An Ideal Husband. But Horace was a century earlier, destined to be forever ahead of his time.

The man who added a consonant to a style. The man whose house became an architectural genre. The man who loved cats. Horace Walpole was the son of Sir Robert Walpole, Britain’s first Prime Minister. He stretched the term ‘polymath’ to its very limit. Strawberry Hill Gothick was his contribution to the lexicon of architecture. Its origin was his summer villa Strawberry Hill which was both a private retreat and a house for show. A maison de plaisance.

Strawberry Hill, created over the latter half of the 18th century, was “The castle of my ancestors”. Or at least the ancestors of his imagination. Aware of his status as landed gentry rather than aristocracy, Horace boldly set out about designing a house with the help of friends such as Robert Adam to elevate his social standing. Medieval revival meets idiosyncratic charm. Carcassonne comes to TW1. Phallic finials, pepperpotted polygonal perpendicular verve, cusped lights, quatrefoils and crenellations, it’s a sugary confection, a castle dipped in wedding cake icing.

Horace desired theatrical effect, nostalgic ambience and what he called “gloomth”, not historical accuracy. He dream that, “Old castles, old pictures, old histories and the babble of old people make one live back into centuries that cannot disappoint one.” To this end, after spending half a century filling Strawberry Hill to the rafters or at least rib vaults, no stranger to self publicity, he published a catalogue A Description of Strawberry Hill. Half a century later, the collection was posthumously dispersed in a 24 day sale. Lost Treasures is an exhibition of some of his collection returned on loan to its original setting. For the first time this century, it is possible to enjoy the vision of the man who put the gee into ogee.