Basildon Park

In 1952, a time when hundreds of British country houses were being demolished, it was said of Basildon Park "to say it was derelict, is hardly good enough, no window was left intact and most were repaired with cardboard or plywood.

For these to be fulfilled, Sykes required a grand estate conveniently close to London; he built Basildon Park to serve that purpose.

Born in the West Riding of Yorkshire in 1732, the son of a yeoman farmer, he left his native country to make his fortune in India.

To further his political aspirations he required a house suitable for entertaining and indicative of his wealth conveniently nearer to London than the distant counties of Yorkshire and Dorset.

The commencement of work on the house was delayed until 1776 as a result of the crash of the East India Company's shares, which caused Sykes to lose £10,000 in a single day.

Two years later, in 1774, while Sykes was still a subject of public opprobrium, his finances suffered further when allegations of corruption pertaining to his constituency were made against him.

Although his finances continued to dwindle and he was throughout his life to be vilified as an "archetypal nabob", he managed to regain his political and social lives.

As a result, Charles Dickens, a friend of Maclise, then writing Oliver Twist, based his villainous and cruel character Bill Sikes on Sir Francis.

[13] In 1838, as Oliver Twist was published, Sykes, out of funds and publicly humiliated, finally sold Basildon Park for just £3,000 less than the £100,000 he had been seeking.

From humble beginnings as an employee of a London haberdasher, he had married his employer's daughter, entered into partnership with his father-in-law and expanded the business.

The mansions provided a setting for his huge art collection, which included works by John Constable, J. M. W. Turner and many Italian and Dutch old masters.

At Basildon, Papworth combined the roles of architect and interior decorator, helping to create what Morrison described as "a casket for my pictorial gems.

"[14] Many of Papworth's more ambitious plans were not realised; the demolition and replacement by colonnades of the yards, the conversion of a courtyard into a sculpture gallery, and the creation of a carriage ramp to the piano nobile on the East front were all declined by Morrison.

However, the house was fitted up with a hot water system and fire precautions, and the decoration of the principal reception rooms was completed in suitably classical styles.

Initially, he improved the estate and its buildings, commissioning the architect Edwin Lutyens to design workers' cottages in the neighbouring villages.

[15] In 1914, the house was requisitioned by the British government and used as a convalescent home for injured soldiers, suffering the attendant damage which accompanies institutional use.

During the war Basildon's owner served with distinction, obtaining the DSO and, according to Harold Macmillan, always "insisted on walking rather than crawling under enemy fire.

George also persuaded one of his sons Eric to return from America where he was a cotton grower with his young family to live in the south pavilion then called the east wing.

Eric served in the navy during the war and on his return set about mending the walls that had been damaged by bridging units used on the river and the huge holes left in the demolition area.

While often the Iliffes found great bargains, obtaining 18th-century mahogany doors and marble fireplaces, at other times their luck was less favourable; Lady Iliffe recalled attending the Mentmore Towers auction of 1975 with the intention of buying marble topped console tables for Basildon, but through economic necessity returned with only a coal-scuttle.

This had the double advantage of not only unifying the façade, but also (in a comparatively small mansion) of creating a discrete space for utilitarian stores, lavatories and the drying of clothes.

[32] In any case, the builder of Basildon was not eminent enough to require a suite of state apartments on the piano nobile in permanent expectation of a royal visit.

Thus, in keeping with this newly found spirit of informality Basildon has no formal and symmetrical enfilade of rooms of increasing splendour, but two separate first floor suites, one feminine and one masculine, were placed on either side of the hall.

Unfinished by Carr, the room has an ornate gilded ceiling with recessed panels in the Italian Renaissance style, installed in 1840.

Each panel originally contained a painted lunette or medallion by Theodore de Bruyn, depicting a classical scene in grisaille.

In 1845, the room was redecorated by the architect David Brandon, who replaced Bruyn's paintings with polychrome depictions of Dante's Divine Comedy.

In 1929, the owner, George Ferdinando, stripped the dining room of its painted panels, mirrors, fireplace and doors and sold them to a firm of architectural antique dealers, Crowther's.

During the late 20th century, the artist Alec Cobbe was employed to redecorate the room in a style similar to the original scheme by de Bruyn.

Much of Carr's "loops and bows" plasterwork had survived, and this, coupled with a fireplace and doors salvaged from Panton Hall and very similar to those which crossed the Atlantic, allowed the room to return to its original neoclassical form.

However, unlike in a Baroque house of just a few years earlier, it was not reserved for lesser guests, children and servants, as is evident by its approach from a monumentally grand staircase.