Arlington Court
[4] Sir Bruce's unmarried daughter and heiress, Rosalie Chichester (d. 1949), donated the mansion to the National Trust together with 3,500 acres (14 km2) two years before her death in 1949.
[5]: 11 Often mistakenly likened to the slightly more flamboyant Greek Revival architecture, the style confines most ornament to the interior of the house, leaving the symmetrical exterior almost unadorned and chaste, relying only on window and door apertures and shallow recesses and apses and the occasional pilaster to relieve the austerity of the facade; at Arlington, this is seen in the shallow twin pilasters terminating the two principal façades, the lack of either aprons or pediments to the windows and, in place of the near conventional classical entrance portico of the era, is a single-story, semi-circular pillared porch.
Sir Alexander (a man of extravagant tastes, whose expenditure was to ultimately bring the family to the point of financial ruin[5]: 8 ) also created the large, central staircase hall (marked 1 on the plan); this was achieved by combining several smaller rooms on the ground and upper floors.
[5]: 8 The style of the hall, that of a Renaissance courtyard, overlooked by a gallery reached from an imposing staircase was a fashionable country house feature of the time – providing a common assembly area for house-guests and a convenient space to display works of art and curiosities; similar halls can be seen at Highclere Castle, Mentmore Towers and Halton House.
A cube room, it has a saucer dome, segmental arches and inset pier glasses, all in the style of Soane, whose pupil, Lee, was responsible for the house.
Later additions include the marble fireplace, and mirrored alcoves and pilasters to the corners, creating an elongated hexagonal shape also in the style of Soane.
At the time, the National Trust, permitted to carry out only limited work, prioritised the creation of staff flats on the upper floor, over the conservation of the house.
[citation needed] The Chichester family, which in 2012 still exists in several branches and survives in North Devon at Hall, two miles SE of Bishops Tawton, was historically one of the leading ancient gentry families of Devon, having been established in 1384 at the manor of Raleigh, in the parish of Pilton near Barnstaple, upon the marriage of John Chichester of Somerset to Thomasine de Ralegh, daughter and heiress of Sir John de Ralegh.
It was later given by the Chichesters to a younger son from a second marriage, Amyas Chichester (d.1577), who married Jane Giffard, daughter of Sir Roger Giffard of Brightley in the parish of Chittlehampton, and by her produced a family of nineteen sons and four daughters, thus establishing there his own branch of the family.
Sir Alexander Palmer Bruce Chichester, the last male Baronet of Arlington court, was born in Malta in 1842 and later married Rosalie Amelie Chamberlyne in 1865.
[11][6] Although her father had kept his own pack of hounds at Arlington, known as "Sir Bruce Chichester's Foxhounds",[12]: 187 she developed a strong aversion to hunting.
Again in 1900 a hunted stag was killed in the lake, and Miss Chichester threatened Sir Ian Murray Heathcoat-Amory, 2nd Baronet (1865–1931), then resident at Hensleigh, Tiverton, with an injunction.
[12]: 173 The masters made every effort to abide by her wishes but the hunt followers became exasperated, and a small group, in open defiance of her instructions, pointedly galloped across her lawn in full view of the house.
The result was described by one of the party: "The clatter and noise of our arrival broke things up and we left the precincts and the stony stare of Miss Chichester herself as fast as we could".
[12]: 186 Miss Chichester's step-brother and neighbour at Youlston Rear-Admiral Sir Edward Chichester, 9th Baronet, although not himself a hunting man, had little sympathy for her and on 25 February 1904 wrote a letter to the North Devon Journal opposing her suggestion that shooting was a more humane method of deer control: "Dear Sir, Having read a lot of twaddle lately in the papers about the hunting of red deer in this district which has been described as inhuman and cruel, and as the owner of Arlington has suggested to me through her Man of Law that the alternative of shooting them should be resorted to...".
