Treasure Houses of Britain

He points to the effigy of his "twenty-times great grandfather" Robert de Ros, who founded the church, as well as Belvoir Castle—which is briefly shown—and whose descendants, the Earls of Rutland—eight of whom lie entombed in the church—gained "fat rewards" by fighting for the king and by the disposition of monastic lands under Henry VIII.

"[4]As the exteriors of a ruined castle and some intact country houses are shown, Norwich tells of how a large number of British families have maintained their estates through the ages.

[8][6] "The Elizabethans saw architecture as a reflection of power, and for a great potentate, such as Queen Elizabeth I's Lord High Treasurer, William Cecil, a small house was unthinkable.

[21] That Double Cube Room contains the biggest painting by Anthony van Dyck, of the family of the fourth earl, who was Lord Steward to Charles I, but switched to the parliamentary side during the English Civil War.

[30] The State Drawing Room contains tapestries designed by Raphael and a painting, by Edward Irvine Halliday, of the house being used as a girls' school during World War II, to avoid the grounds' being used to billet troops.

[34] The central stone hall was designed, as was the interior of the entire house, by William Kent, who had the help of the sculptor John Michael Rysbrack and the stuccoist Johann Baptist Atari.

)[58] Leonardo da Vinci's Madonna of the Yarnwinder had vanished for 200 years (and subsequent to this program was stolen and recovered) which caused doubts of its authenticity until recently.

[62][63] The survival of Drumlanrig depends on generating sufficient income from the surrounding estate: from crops such as corn and livestock, and from trees, the only renewable natural resource in the British Isles, which still has to import 90% of its requirements.

Behind the facade is evidence of its being a former monastery, including a small courtyard, known as "fish court", where the monks once kept a pool of carp, and around which are grouped the main rooms of the house.

[70] Other painted portraits include that by John de Critz of Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton (1603),[71] who is often identified as Shakespeare's Fair Youth, and of his wife Elizabeth (c.

[74] West Wycombe Park was built in the 18th century by Francis Dashwood, 11th Baron le Despencer, who was from non-aristocratic family that had made its fortune in trade.

He had visited France and Italy on the Grand Tour and was a founder of the Society of Dilettanti, as well as being a freemason, a founder of the Divan Club, and a member of the Hellfire Club, whose members no longer feared eternal damnation, dressed as monks and nuns, and engaged in sexual "hanky panky", in caves on the estate after using Medmenham Abbey, that would have meant jail or being burned at the stake for their grandparents and great-grandparents, and that permissiveness would have meant social ostracism for their grandchildren.

[81] Located on the River Thames in the western outskirts of London on the site of a former convent,[b] Syon House came to represent the climax of Britain's 200-year fascination with Rome that began in the late Elizabethan era.

In the 18th century, remodeling the interior to its present state was begun by Hugh Percy, 1st Duke of Northumberland, who commissioned neoclassical architect Robert Adam.

[85] Belvoir Castle is owned by the Dukes of Rutland, relatives of Norwich, who remembers Christmas-time dinners of 35–40 guests, and refers to children in a painting by James Jebusa Shannon as aunts and uncles.

[89] The paintings are displayed in a room that is one of the earliest in England designed especially for that purpose, including being lighted from above, which is due to the fifth duke's wife, Elizabeth Manners, Duchess of Rutland, who started to rebuild the house in 1801.

Among the statuary at Belvoir are busts of Oliver Cromwell, the Earl of Chatham and his son William Pitt the Younger, and John Manners, Marquess of Granby, who was a general noted for caring for his men.

[92] Belgian painter Constantinus Fidelio Coene produced a romanticized version of the incident and Franz Xaver Winterhalter painted a portrait of the 1st marquess.

[93][94] The American and French revolutions and the Napoleonic Wars that followed gave impetus to radical changes in taste that were termed Romanticism, of which Plas Newydd became a manifestation, when it was redone in order to reclaim a heroic past, by architect by James Wyatt, with the dining room–ballroom done in Gothic Revival and all the other principal rooms in the Neoclassical style.

[95] A painting by Richard Barrett Davis shows Queen Victoria, early in her reign, with many Anglesey courtiers, including the 2nd marquess,[96] before Prince Albert got rid of many of them.

A frequent guest to the house was the artist Rex Whistler, whose rebuses, juvenalia, paintings, and reversible faces (OHOs) are on display in a room set aside as a museum.

[99] Wightwick Manor was built by (Samuel) Theodore Mander, in the 1880s, in the timber-frame style of the West Midlands of the 16th to 17th centuries, with a meticulous attention to detail, both inside and out.

[102] Rosalie, Lady Mander—the daughter-in-law of Wightwick's builder, the house's occupant, and a biographer of Dante Gabriel Rossetti—is an expert on the period, although she once preferred Georgian to Victorian design.

The kitchen remains unchanged, which makes for hard work, with no back entrance, everything being brought through the front, including some heavy furniture designed by Lutyens.

[107] The National Trust administrators were David and Susan Robinson, whose first impression was the daunting power of the castle from approaching it up the side, with many visitors thinking there's nothing inside, where narrow corridors and deep tunnel vaults emphasize the role of fortress the house once had.

Deeply cut windows, with seats for enjoying views of the surrounding marsh and sea, and a brass chandelier and model ship that hang from the hall ceiling, are reminiscent of Dutch interiors that inspired Lutyens.

The sense of living in a fortress is relieved by the long gallery, the sunniest room, where Hudson and his guests would gather—guests that included the Prince and Princess of Wales, H. H. Asquith, and Lytton Strachey.

[109] Norwich's uncle, John Manners, 9th Duke of Rutland, an antiquarian and a scholar, took great pains to restore Haddon Hall, having lived there, with his wife, before inheriting the title, they being the first of the family to reside there in over 200 years.

George Vernon also added a large alcove on the south side to catch the light, which is wood-paneled, with a frieze of heraldic emblems, and with carved portraits of him and his wife on panels below.

The "extraordinary quality" of the sunlight entering the room from three sides is due to each diamond pane "three-dimensionally" set at angles to its neighbors, which produces changing "reflection and counter-reflection".