Holkham Hall

Coordinates: 52°57′00″N 00°48′11″E / 52.95000°N 0.80306°E / 52.95000; 0.80306
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

facade with its Ionic portico is devoid of arms or motif; not even a blind window is allowed to break the void between the windows and roof-line, while the lower windows are mere piercings in the stark brickwork. The only hint of ornamentation is from the two terminating Venetian windows
.

Holkham Hall (

Neo-Palladian style for the 1st Earl of Leicester (of the fifth creation of the title)[2][3] by the architect William Kent, aided by Lord Burlington
.

Holkham Hall is one of England's finest examples of the Palladian revival style of architecture, and the severity of its design is closer to Palladio's ideals than many of the other numerous Palladian style houses of the period. The Holkham Estate was built up by Sir Edward Coke, the founder of his family's fortune. He bought Neales manor in 1609, though never lived there, and made many other purchases of land in Norfolk to endow to his six sons. His fourth son, John, inherited the land and married heiress Meriel Wheatley in 1612. They made Hill Hall their home, and by 1659, John had complete ownership of all three Holkham manors. It is the ancestral home of the Coke family, who became Earls of Leicester.

The interior of the hall is opulent, but by the standards of the day, simply decorated and furnished. Ornament is used with such restraint that it was possible to decorate both private and state rooms in the same style, without oppressing the former.[4] The principal entrance is through the Marble Hall, which is in fact made of pink Derbyshire alabaster; this leads to the piano nobile, or the first floor, and state rooms. The most impressive of these rooms is the Saloon, which has walls lined with red velvet. Each of the major state rooms is symmetrical in its layout and design; in some rooms, false doors are necessary to fully achieve this balanced effect.

Architects and patron

Holkham Hall. Top right: one of the four identical secondary wings.

Holkham was built by

cockfighting.[7] He made a disastrous investment in the South Sea Company and when the South Sea Bubble burst in 1720, the resultant losses delayed the building of Coke's planned new country estate for over ten years.[6] Coke, who had been made Earl of Leicester in 1744, died in 1759—five years before the completion of Holkham—having never fully recovered his financial losses. Thomas's wife, Lady Margaret Tufton, Countess of Leicester (1700–1775), would oversee the finishing and furnishing of the house.[8]

Although

Restoration it was replaced in popular favour by the Baroque style. The "Palladian revival", popular in the 18th century, was loosely based on the appearance of the works of the 16th-century Italian architect Andrea Palladio. However it did not adhere to Palladio's strict rules of proportion. The style eventually evolved into what is generally referred to as Georgian,[10]
still popular in England today. It was the chosen style for numerous houses in both town and country, although Holkham is exceptional for both its severity of design and for being closer than most in its adherence to Palladio's ideals.

Although Thomas Coke oversaw the project, he delegated the on-site architectural duties to the local Norfolk architect Matthew Brettingham, who was employed as the on-site clerk of works. Brettingham was already the estate architect, and was in receipt of £50 a year (about 8,000 pounds per year in 2024 terms[11]) in return for "taking care of his Lordship's buildings".[12] He was also influential in the design of the mansion, although he attributed the design of the Marble Hall to Coke himself. William Kent was mainly responsible for the interiors of the Southwest pavilion, or family wing block, particularly the Long Library. Kent produced a variety of alternative exteriors, suggesting a far richer decoration than Coke wanted. Brettingham described the building of Holkham as "the great work of [my life]", and when he published his "The Plans and Elevations of the late Earl of Leicester's House at Holkham", he immodestly described himself as sole architect, making no mention of Kent's involvement. However, in a later edition of the book, Brettingham's son admitted that "the general idea was first struck out by the Earls of Leicester and Burlington, assisted by Mr. William Kent".[12]

In 1734, the first foundations were laid; however, building was to continue for thirty years, until the completion of the great house in 1764.[13]

Design

Simplified, unscaled plan of the piano nobile at Holkham, showing the four symmetrical wings at each corner of the principal block. South is at the top of the plan. 'A' Marble Hall; 'B' The Saloon; 'C' Statue Gallery, with octagonal tribunes at each end; 'D' Dining room (the classical apse, gives access to the tortuous and discreet route by which the food reached the dining room from the distant kitchen), 'E' The South Portico; 'F' The Library in the self-contained family wing IV. 'L' Green State Bedroom; 'O' Chapel.

The Palladian style was admired by

I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura
, but with modifications.

The plans for Holkham were of a large central block of two floors only, containing on the piano nobile level a series of symmetrically balanced state rooms situated around two courtyards. No hint of these courtyards is given externally; they are intended for lighting rather than recreation or architectural value. This great central block is flanked by four smaller, rectangular blocks, or wings,[15] and at each corners is linked to the main house not by long colonnades—as would have been the norm in Palladian architecture—but by short two-storey wings of only one bay.[6]

Exterior

The external appearance of Holkham can best be described as a huge

facade. On the ground floor, the rusticated walls are pierced by small windows more reminiscent of a prison than a grand house. One architectural commentator, Nigel Nicolson, has described the house as appearing as functional as a Prussian riding school.[17]

The principal, or South façade, is 344 feet (104.9 m) in length (from each of the flanking wings to the other), its austerity relieved on the piano nobile level only by a great six-columned portico. Each end of the central block is terminated by a slight projection, containing a Venetian window surmounted by a single storey square tower and capped roof, similar to those employed by Inigo Jones at Wilton House nearly a century earlier.[18] A near identical portico was designed by Inigo Jones and Isaac de Caus for the Palladian front at Wilton, but this was never executed.

The flanking wings contain service and secondary rooms—the family wing to the south-west; the guest wing to the north-west; the chapel wing to the south-east; and the kitchen wing to the north-east. Each wing's external appearance is identical: three bays, each separated from the other by a narrow recess in the elevation. Each bay is surmounted by an unadorned

English Baroque style in favour ten years earlier, employed at Seaton Delaval Hall[19] by Sir John Vanbrugh. One of these wings, as at the later Kedleston Hall
, was a self-contained country house to accommodate the family when the state rooms and central block were not in use.

The one storey porch at the main north entrance was designed in the 1850s by Samuel Sanders Teulon, although stylistically it is indistinguishable from the 18th-century building.

Interior

Marble Hall
View of the Green State bedroom

Inside the house, the Palladian form reaches a height and grandeur seldom seen in any other house in England. It has, in fact, been described as "The finest Palladian interior in England."[20] The grandeur of the interior is obtained with an absence of excessive ornament, and reflects Kent's career-long taste for "the eloquence of a plain surface".[21] Work on the interiors ran from 1739 to 1773. The first habitable rooms were in the family wing and were in use from 1740, the Long Library being the first major interior completed in 1741. Among the last to be completed and entirely under Lady Leicester's supervision is the chapel with its alabaster reredos.

The house is entered through the Marble Hall (though the chief building fabric is in fact pink

Temple of Fortuna Virilis
, also in Rome. Around the hall are statues in niches; these are predominantly plaster copies of classical deities.

The hall's flight of steps lead to the piano nobile and state rooms. The grandest, the Saloon, is situated immediately behind the great portico, with its walls lined with patterned red caffoy (a mixture of wool, linen and silk) and a coffered, gilded ceiling.[22] In this room hangs Rubens's Return from Egypt. On his Grand Tour, the Earl acquired a collection of Roman copies of Greek and Roman sculpture which is contained in the extensive Statue Gallery, which runs the full length of the house north to south.

The North Dining Room, a cube room of 27 feet (8.2 m) contains an

Aelius Verus, set in a niche in the wall of this room, was found during the restoration at Nettuno. A classical apse
gives the room an almost temple air. The apse in fact, contains concealed access to the labyrinth of corridors and narrow stairs that lead to the distant kitchens and service areas of the house.

Each corner of the east side of the principal block contains a square salon lit by a huge Venetian window, one of them – the Landscape Room – hung with paintings by

Gaspar Poussin. All of the major state rooms have symmetrical walls, even where this involves matching real with false doors. The major rooms also have elaborate white and multi-coloured marble fireplaces, most with carvings and sculpture, mainly the work of Thomas Carter, though Joseph Pickford carved the fireplace in the Statue Gallery.[5]
Much of the furniture in the state rooms was also designed by William Kent, in a stately classicising baroque manner.

So restrained is the interior decoration of the state rooms, or in the words of James Lees-Milne, "chaste", that the smaller, more intimate rooms in the family's private south-west wing were decorated in similar vein, without being overpowering. The Long Library running the full length of the wing still contains the collection of books acquired by Thomas Coke on his Grand Tour through Italy, where he saw for the first time the Palladian villas which were to inspire Holkham.[6]

The Green State bedroom is the principal bedroom; it is decorated with paintings and tapestries, including works by Paul Saunders and George Smith Bradshaw.[23] It is said that when Queen Mary visited, Gavin Hamilton's "lewd" depiction of Jupiter Caressing Juno "was considered unsuitable for that lady's eyes and was banished to the attics".[24]

Grounds

Obelisk, 1730
Holkham Lake
Map of the estate from 1946

Work to the designs of William Kent on the park commenced in 1729, several years before the house was constructed. This event was commemorated by the construction in 1730 of the obelisk,[5] 80 ft (24 m) in height, standing on the highest point in the park. It is located over half a mile to the south and on axis with the centre of the house. An avenue of trees stretches over a mile south of the obelisk. Thousands of trees were planted on what had been windswept land; by 1770 the park covered 1,500 acres (6.1 km2).

Other garden buildings designed by Kent are, near the far end of the avenue the Triumphal Arch, designed in 1739 but only completed in 1752 and the domed doric temple (1730–1735) in the woods near the obelisk. Above the main entrance to the house within the Marble Hall is this inscription:

THIS SEAT, on an open barren Estate
Was planned, planted, built, decorated.
And inhabited the middle of the XVIIIth Century
By THO's COKE EARL of LEICESTER[25]

Under

creek off the North Sea
, was created in 1801–1803 by the landscape gardener William Eames.

The Leicester Monument in the grounds

After his death, Coke was commemorated by the Leicester Monument, designed by William Donthorne and erected in 1845–1848[28] at a cost to the tenants of the estate of £4,000. The monument consists of a Corinthian column 120 ft (37 m) high, surmounted by a drum supporting a wheatsheaf and a plinth decorated with bas-reliefs carved by John Henning Jr. The corners of the plinth support sculptures of an ox, sheep, plough and seed-drill. Coke's work to increase farm yields had resulted in the rental income of the estate rising between 1776 and 1816 from £2,200 to £20,000, and had considerable influence on agricultural methods in Britain.

In 1850,

W. A. Nesfield, who had designed the parterres. Work started at the same time on the terraces surrounding the house. This work continued until 1857 and included, to the south and on axis with the house, the monumental fountain of Saint George and the Dragon dated c. 1849–57 sculpted by Charles Raymond Smith. To the east of the house and overlooking the terrace, Burn designed the large stone orangery
, with a three-bay pedimented centre and three-bay flanking wings. The orangery is now roofless and windowless.

Holkham today

The cost of the construction of Holkham is thought to have been in the region of £90,000.[29] This vast cost nearly ruined the heirs of the 1st Earl, but had the result that they were financially unable to alter the house to suit the whims of taste. Thus, the house has remained almost untouched since its completion in 1764. Today, this perfect, if severe, example of Palladianism is at the heart of a thriving private estate of some 25,000 acres (100 km2).[24] Though open to the public on Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays, it is still the family home of the Earls of Leicester of Holkham.[30]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ "Holkham Hall". Collins Dictionary. n.d. Archived from the original on 17 October 2014. Retrieved 23 September 2014.
  2. earldom was of a new creation, he too became the 1st Earl. It is his descendant Thomas Coke, 8th Earl of Leicester, who resides at Holkham today. The surname
    "Coke" is pronounced "Cook".
  3. ^ a b The Earldom of Leicester has been, to date, created seven times. Thomas Coke, the builder of Holkham, was the 1st Earl of the fifth creation. His grand nephew Thomas Coke was the 1st Earl of the seventh creation.
  4. ^ Nicolson, p.237
  5. ^ a b c Hiskey, Christine. "The Building of Holkham Hall: Newly Discovered Letters". Architectural History. Volume 40, 1997. 144–158.
  6. ^
    ISBN 0-7100-9983-5
  7. ISBN 1-85669-053-9
  8. ^ "Holkham Hall Archived 2012-02-12 at the Wayback Machine". Coke Estates Ltd. Retrieved on 19 June 2008.
  9. ^ Lees-Milne, James. "The Age of Inigo Jones". London: B. T. Batsford, 1953. 54–56.
  10. ^ Downs, Joseph. "The Tower Hill Room". Bulletin of the Pennsylvania Museum. Volume 21, No. 96, October 1925. 4–11.
  11. ^ UK Retail Price Index inflation figures are based on data from Clark, Gregory (2017). "The Annual RPI and Average Earnings for Britain, 1209 to Present (New Series)". MeasuringWorth. Retrieved 11 June 2022.
  12. ^ a b Colvin, H. M. "A Biographical Dictionary of English Architects, 1660-1840". Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1954. 91.
  13. ^ Summerson, 204.
  14. ISBN 1-85669-459-3
  15. ISBN 0-313-31850-6
  16. ISBN 1-85973-508-8
  17. ^ Nicolson, 234.
  18. ISBN 1-884446-00-0
  19. ^ "John Piper". Renishaw Hall. Retrieved on 2 March 2014.
  20. ^ Nicolson, p.230.
  21. ^ Sicca, Cinzia Maria. "On William Kent's Roman Sources". Architectural History, Volume 29, 1986. 134–157.
  22. ^ Summerson, 206.
  23. ^ "The Green State Bedroom Archived 17 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine". Coke Estates Ltd. Retrieved on 20 June 2008.
  24. ^ a b "Holkham Hall: Green State bedroom". Archived from the original on 10 January 2005. Retrieved 20 June 2008.
  25. ^ Benjamin, Clarke. "The British Gazetteer, Political, Commercial, Ecclesiastical, and Historical. Illustrated by a Full Set of Accurately Laid Down County Maps with All the Railways". H. G. Collins, 1852. 488.
  26. ISBN 0-521-22696-1
  27. ^ "The gardener meets a marketing genius". Coke Estates Limited. 2024. Retrieved 2 January 2024. Similarly, after the estate had been inherited by Thomas William Coke (Coke of Norfolk) the fashions in landscapes had changed and after a period of focus elsewhere on the estate, a new designer was sought: Humphry Repton...His first 'Red Book' written for Holkham, uses these devices of 'plans, hints and sketches' for the creation of pleasure gardens land near the lake. It is interesting to note that the volume is addressed not to Thomas Coke, but rather Mrs Coke, his wife...
  28. ^ Hassall, W. O. "Ilexes at Holkham". Garden History, Volume 6, No. 1, 1978. 58–60.
  29. ^ Dickinson, H. T. "A Companion to Eighteenth-Century Britain". WileyBlackwell, 2002. 321.
  30. ^ "A Microcosm of Old England". Evening Gazette, Middlesbrough, England. 24 September 2005. 22.

References and further reading

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Holkham Hall.

52°57′00″N 00°48′11″E / 52.95000°N 0.80306°E / 52.95000; 0.80306

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Holkham_Hall&oldid=1194280216"