Vanbrugh Castle

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Coordinates: 51°28′49″N 0°00′17″E / 51.4803°N 0.0048°E / 51.4803; 0.0048
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Vanbrugh Castle

Vanbrugh Castle is a house designed and built by

Houses of Parliament
.

History

Vanbrugh years

The west face of Vanbrugh Castle, as seen from the adjacent Greenwich Park

The castle was designed and built after Vanbrugh had been the architect of the baroque houses at Castle Howard and Blenheim Palace, and shortly after Vanbrugh succeeded his architectural mentor Christopher Wren as Surveyor to the Royal Naval Hospital in 1716. Vanbrugh took a lease of a 12-acre triangular site of the Westcombe estate from Sir Michael Biddulph, 2nd Baronet in 1718, now known as Vanbrugh Fields.

In contrast to the baroque style used for his professional commissions, he chose a more

Gothic Revival house at Strawberry Hill by 30 years. The main structure was finished in 1719, a three-storey square keep with basement built in brick with tall narrow windows, augmented on the south side square by three four-storey towers: two square flanking towers with battlements and a central projecting circular tower enclosing stairs capped by a conical copper roof. An arched corbel table below the moulded parapet is a feature unique to Vanbrugh at this date, also found at Kings Weston House (1710–1725). The building's narrow sash windows echo medieval arrowslits or lancets
. A garden on the building's lead roof makes the most of the views over the Thames and London.

Aged 55, Vanbrugh married the 26-year-old Henrietta Maria Yarborough in York in January 1719, and he soon added a wing to the east side of the house in a similar style, creating a lopsided, asymmetric construction – said to be the first asymmetric house built in Europe since the Renaissance.[1] It has the "castle air" adopted in Vanbrugh's remodelling of Kimbolton Castle (1708–1719), and also used at Shirburn Castle,[2] both early revivals of a medieval style of architecture.

It has been claimed that the design was based on the

Philip;[3] Mince-pie House or Vanbrugh House, occupied by his brother Charles;[4][5] and later added two white towers made from patented white bricks, perhaps for his two sons[6]
– before reaching a crenelated gateway, with a second gatehouse on the Dover road to the south.

The Grade II listed gates to Vanbrugh Castle

Later history

The house passed through various owners after Vanbrugh's death in 1726. The next owner was Robert Holford (1686–1753) with his wife Sarah (née Vanderput). The novelist Mary Anna Needell, née Lupton, was born there in 1830. Further extensions to the main house were added in the late 19th and early 20th century, but Mince-Pie House was demolished in 1902 and the Nunnery was demolished in 1911. The house was occupied by engineer Dr Laurence Holker Potts from 1838, where he set up a laboratory creating equipment to treat spinal injuries. He left the house before his death in 1850.[7]

Oil merchant

Peter Stanley Lyons, who was simultaneously Director of Music at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, was Director of Music at Vanbrugh Castle School from 1950 to 1954.[11] The school moved to Duke of Kent School in Ewhurst, Surrey in 1976. The house was then acquired by a group of four people for £100,000 and converted to four private flats.[12]

In the 1980s, scenes from the film

Mona Lisa
were performed on location on the front circular driveway of Vanbrugh Castle.

References

  1. ISBN 1-60606-001-5
    , p.141-2
  2. ISBN 0-521-58132-X
    , p.156
  3. ^ Design of the Nunnery, Victoria & Albert Museum
  4. ^ Design of Mince-pie House, Victoria & Albert Museum
  5. ^ Mince-pie House
  6. ^ Sketch of a white tower, Victoria & Albert Museum
  7. ^ The Mining manual and almanack for 1851, Henry English, Simpkin Marshall & Co, 1851, p.203-4
  8. ^ Historic England. "Details from listed building database (1078943)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 9 July 2015.
  9. ^ "Vanbrugh Castle, Greenwich". British listed buildings. Retrieved 13 January 2017.
  10. ^ "WEBB-JONES, James William (1904 - 1965)". Who's Who, Oxford Index. Oxford University Press.
  11. ^ "Peter Lyons, Residential Staff, Vanbrugh Castle School".
  12. ^ Property: The living quarters which earned this castle's keep: Sir John Vanbrugh's last home was built in the early 18th century on the lines of the Bastille prison, The Independent, 25 July 1992

External links

51°28′49″N 0°00′17″E / 51.4803°N 0.0048°E / 51.4803; 0.0048

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