The house sits on rising land above a minor road. The Georgian frontage has two projecting wings and a central colonade. A dwelling has been on the site for 750 years, the last major rebuild being in the 18th century and the last major alteration being the addition of the library wing in 1815. The Coach Hall adjacent to the house serves as ticket office and tea room when the house is opened to the public. The estate is quite large and includes the Cadbury Castle hill-fort nearby (see separate entry)
When my sister and I visited the house, we were welcomed by Catriona Furzdon, the lady of the house, at the Coach Hall. We had a look at the gardens surrounding the house before joining a guided tour of the house interior. The house has some quite interesting rooms filled with old furniture, the details being ably narrated by our guide. The gardens around the house have various sub-sections and at the rear they look down on the older parts of the house. Behined the house are terraced beds of herbs and roses, and a thatched round house. Below the house and across the road is the Meadow Garden, which has trees and a pond. We enjoyed our visit here, as we liked the house and garden and had a warm welcome. We enjoyed the tea and cake too. http://www.fursdon.co.uk
Private, HHA
At Althorp, a great Georgian palace is surrounded by a wide park and gardens, and supported by some impressive out-buildings. Inside are collections of paintings and treasures, and outside, pathways lead the visitor around a lake set among flowers and plantings of trees. The gardens date from the 1860’s. The wider estate has 14,000 acres of countryside under management in three counties. Althorp has been the home of the Spencer family for 500 years.
The house is clad in what looks, even when one gets up close and touches it, like pale brick, but is in fact a rare system of engineered tiling designed to look like brickwork. The Spencer family has assembled an impressive collection of portrait art including several pieces painted by the Flemish master Anthony van Dyck.
When I visited in 2010, part of the house was clad in self-supporting scaffolding for a major external restoration project, so one could see at once where one’s entrance money was going. I opted to see the upstairs rooms as well (then an optional extra). “Day including Upstairs” tickets permitted access to the upstairs rooms including the five state bedrooms, Great Room, Chapel and the magnificent long Picture Gallery as well as what was included within the Day ticket. As it turns out, much of the more interesting stuff is upstairs. It’s not clear why ‘upstairs’ should be an optional extra except that, as is often the case, there is no provision for disabled access.
Outside, I walked around the oval lake, which makes a pleasant walk. The pavilion at the far end commemorates the late Diana, Princess of Wales. The italianate Stables were clearly built to impress, as well as housing up to 100 horses. The former Stables block, built around a square yard, now contains various amenities.
Althorp has a short visiting season each year in July-August. A discount is offered for English Heritage members, so remember to ask for it.
Revisited Aug 2023. House tickets now all include upstairs. Visitor parking is in a field opposite the West Gate public entrance. Disabled parking is next to the stable block, with entry via the power-operated gates, while able-bodied visitors have a half-mile walk. The walled garden is a recent creation. Walled garden & rooftopsWalled gardenOval pondPeacockOval pond and islandWest wing and stables
Syon anteroomThe house, square, white, and with obviously ornamental crenllations,, was remodelled in the 18th century by Robert Adam. Five main rooms on the west, south and east sides of the House, from the Great Hall to the Long Gallery were refurbished in the Neo-classical style. Syon House is recognised as an early Adam masterpiece. Outside are extensive gardens and the Great Conservatory. A courtyard of old farm buildings is re-used for commercial purposes.
Despite its expansive setting, the house, vaguely reminiscent of a toy-box white fort with ornamental crenellations on top, is not particularly attractive. Inside, however, it’s a different matter. The main entrance opens into Adam’s impressive Roman-inspired hall, all monochrome stucco with black and white checkered flooring. Next is the Ante-room, still Roman but a riot of colour, with a famous scagliola floor, black marble columns, gilded statues and elaborate ceiling. An inconspicuous doorway in the outer corner leads down to viewable rooms in the basement. Next is the State Dining Room, all white and gold, with statuary, bare of any textiles that might retain the smell of food. The Red Drawing Room, besides scarlet silk-hung walls, has a remarkable coved ceiling painted with 239 medallions, and portraits of the Stuart royal family. In the 136ft. Long Gallery, there is elaborate pale plasterwork on the walls and ceiling. When I saw it, the room retained ancient grime but some sampled areas had been cleaned. One visits more fine rooms with more recent interiors, before reaching the main staircase where one can ascend to visit some interesting bedrooms (around to the left at the top of the stairs) passing a collection of portraits IIRC. Before leaving the house one can enter the attractive central courtyard around which one has just walked. In the basement are structural relics of the religious building of conjectural size which once stood on the site.
Outside, one can visit the Great Conservatory, an unique structure of glass and metal, with a dome topping a central block, and curving wings, resembling a great palace, or maybe St Peter’s in Rome. It’s under-used for plants today, either because the expense of heating it would be hideous, or because it makes a promising function room. There are 200 acres of formal garden and informal parkland to explore, and the interested visitor con find bits of the old Syon Park farm embedded in the garden centre and café areas.
It’s possible to reach Syon Park by train, if you don’t mind a train/bus interchange or a tedious walk. Now, visitors will have to avoid confusing Syon Park with the London Syon Park luxury hotel, which opened in the park in early 2011. (pics from Syon Park official download). Syon HouseConservatory dome
Temple of Concord and VictoryNational Trust.
The National Trust acquired the gardens in 1990, and since then have restored over 40 temples and monuments in the Georgian gardens, said to be the most influential landscape gardens in Europe. There are lakes, trees and valleys, with a variety of walks and vistas occupying a wide area. Checking out all the monuments and visiting the furthest reaches of the park can take many hours.
I have visited the park on several occasions and usually find something fresh to enjoy each time. The Park part-surrounds Stowe School, so if you visit in term-time, don’t be surprised to encounter some of the jeunesse dorée at leisure.
Aug 2012 update: A new NT visitor reception (New Inn) opened early 2012 at the opposite end of the Gardens. Road access from Buckingham is now shorter and simpler. There is a 500 metre walk or land-train ride from the New Inn car park to the new garden entrance. The refurbished New Inn visitor reception is worth a visit.
After visiting the Park, you might take up the challenge of visiting some of the outlying monuments. The Corinthian Arch which dominates the usual approach from Buckingham is easy to access – just drive up to it (or walk back from the new visitor centre). The Wolfe Obelisk, 100 ft high, is accessible from the far end of the old NT car park, (MK18 5DQ) a few hundred yards past the Stowe School entrance, as is the small Conduit House, an octagonal pavilion. “Stowe Castle” can be viewed through binoculars if you stand in the right spot near the Gothic Temple, and the back of it can be acccessed by road. (There is now a set of rural industrial units next to it). There are one or two others in outlying positions including the Bourbon Tower, closer to the gardens than the Wolfe Obelisk, but obscured by trees and with no obvious path to it.
The route to the Bourbon Tower (pic. below) starts near the far end of the old NT car park, at the same point as the path to the Wolfe Obelisk. A weathered signpost points towards the Wolfe Obelisk, and, in the opposite direction, to the Bourbon Tower. Walk alongside the private road leading to the Stowe playing fields, and at the T junction cross over it and enter the field ahead containing a small obelisk and the Tower. From this field one also has a clear view of “Stowe Castle”. The tower has a ditch and the remains of a wall surrounding it; the entrance is on the far side. The tower is in poor condition, with former windows blocked up. There is an interesting hole under the outer wall, which leads to a small rectangular stone-lined chamber, possibly an ice-house. Corinthian ArchBoycott Pavilion (W)Actors by lakeDome ceiling - Gothic TempleGothic Temple interiorChinese HousePebble AlcoveGatehouses @ BuckinghamBourbon TowerSmall Obelisk nr. BourbonNew Inn roomNew Inn courtyard
The Hall was originally a Tudor manor house, and was given its present Classical frontage in the 17th-18th century. It contains a number of fine rooms. The Hall, now owned by a preservation trust, contains a wealth of fine furniture, books and paintings collected by the Isham family. Most were bought during the third Baronet’s Grand Tour of Europe, in the 1670s. They include portraits by Van Dyck, Kneller, Lely and others. Adjacent to the house is the stable yard, a paved square surrounded by a warren of old buildings.
The gardens to one side of the house include a tall Alpine rockery, the earliest Alpine garden in England, and peopled with minature figures, the world’s first garden gnomes. Today the gardens include extensive herbaceous borders and shrubbery walks containing some rare and interesting plants. House and gardens are set in an extensive grassy park.
Along the village lane near the house are some interesting old buildings which were part of the same estate.
When I visited Lamport there was an antique fair being held in the stable block, and while I didn’t buy anything I did have an excuse to explore all the old buildings around the stable square. The house and gardens were also open to visitors. The house is quite handsome, and the interiors and collections are interesting. The first floor has undergone extensive restoration, having suffered the kind of rampant decay all too common in old buildings, and now contains further exhibits.
National Trust.
The house, originally built towards the end of the 18th century, was bought by Victorian prime minister and novelist Benjamin Disraeli, who had it radically re-modelled in a Gothic style. The three-storey brick house is surounded by formal gardens, park and woodlands totalling 1500 acres. The west wing of the house was added in 1910. During the second world war, the house was used as a secret intelligence base, where aerial photography of Germany was analysed, and maps made for bombing missions.
Today, the fine gothic-styled ground floor rooms are displayed with rich furnishings and contents, and windows overlooking the garden. Upstairs, the Disraelis’ bedroom has been re-created, and his study is now much as he left it. In the basement and elsewhere are displays about the house’s WWII role. I enjoyed exploring the extensive gardens and park.
Revisited 27 May 2021: The NT have now gained some rooms in the west end of the house, formerly rented out, and turned them into exhibition space for a new exhibition devoted to the WWII mapmaking. At the time of my visit, the basement and upstairs were closed.
English Heritage.
This elegant white Palladian house overlooking the Thames was built for Henrietta Howard, mistress of King George II when he was Prince of Wales. She was also friend of some of the cleverest men in England. It retains its 66 acres of riverside parkland, while the interior has been restored, and some of its dispersed original contents bought back. There are exhibits downstairs, while upstairs the principal saloon has been finely restored and hung with large paintings. Worth a visit.
It appears that the house is now open only on Sat, Sun & bank holiday Mondays, and is by a 1½ hour guided tour once or twice daily.
National Trust.
A great red-brick palace by the Thames, largely created in its present form by Elizabeth, Countess of Dysart, in the 17th century. There are lavish interiors and many paintings and objets d’art. Outside, the formal seventeenth-century layout of the gardens, in which the garden is devised as a series of contrasting compartments, is being re-created. Typically, the treed ‘wilderness’area is actually designed with walks and hornbeam hedges, and four little summerhouses. East of the house a period kitchen garden is being restored, and used to grow vegetables. There is an orangery and other outhouses.
There is plenty for the visitor to look at, both inside and out. A half-day visit is suggested, and a ferry ride across the river is Marble Hill House (EH).
National Trust.
The house, a restrained building of honey-coloured stone, remains largely as created in 1745 to 1750 by its owner William Holbech, probably with help from architect Sanderson Miller. The front door opens into an Italianate hall with rococo plasterwork ceiling. Other grand rooms with fine plasterwork follow.
Outside, the grounds have a lake, and Farnborough’s most distinguishing feature, a long curving grassy terrace that rises for ¾ mile giving panoramic views over the surrounding country. Hedges mask the steep drop below the terrace, and it is backed by a line of trees and shrubbery. Partway up is a little pedimented temple with Ionic columns, and further along is a two-storey domed pavilion. A curving stone staircase gives access to the upper room, which has rococo plasterwork and fine views out. At the end of the terrace is an obelisk.
The Elton Hall estate is near Peterborough, and the 3800 acre estate straddles the Northants/Cambs. county boundary.
The Hall is a remarkable building of somewhat castellated and part-Gothic appearance, of 15th century origins but with 17th, 18th and 19th century additions.
Inside are a number of grand rooms with fine decoration and furnishings. There is a notable collection of paintings.
The formal gardens adjacent to the house were laid out in 1913 and restored in the 1980s. The Gothic orangery was built to celebrate the Millenium. I didn’t spend much time in the impressive gardens on my visit as the weather was wet.
House and gardens are set in 200 acres of parkland. Also on the estate are a garden centre and a restaurant.
House and gardens provide enough to look at to occupy the visitor for the 3 hours opening time (2-5pm). Opening dates are somewhat restricted. The retail outlets, on the other hand, are open daily.
