Think about "Changing Rooms" and "Grand Designs"? well If you want real grand designs you will come to Staffordshire, not only do we have the Grandest of old houses in Staffordshire but feast your eyes on these beautiful works of architecture that have stretched through centuries! To me, beautiful architecture as this, will stand the test of time!
The Ancient High House, located in Stafford's busy
town centre, was constructed in 1595 by the Dorrington family.
In the 17th
century the house was occupied by Richard Sneyd, a member of one of
Staffordshire's most important families, and in 1642 King Charles I stayed here
as his guest.
Today, over 400 years since it was built, The Ancient High
House is still a spectacular sight on Stafford's skyline. The impressive
building is the largest timber-framed town house in England.
The Ancient High
House is now owned by Stafford Borough Council and is a registered
museum.
The museum displays are set out as period room settings representing
aspects of The Ancient High House's history. The top floor houses the
Staffordshire Yeomanry Museum.
Chillington Hall is a fine red-brick
Georgian house set on a remote hilltop site in the former Forest of
Brewood.
The Chillington estate has remained in hands of the Giffard family
since the 12th century but the present house dates entirely from the 18th
century, when the property passed to a junior Catholic branch of the
family.
The house was built in two stages.
In 1724 Peter Giffard built the
three-storeyed south wing which stands to the east of the entrance range. This
was probably designed by Francis Smith of Warwick (or his brother William), and
represented the rebuilding of one side of the existing 16th century courtyard
house.
The rest of the house was replaced in 1786 - 89 when Thomas Giffard
commissioned the celebrated architect Sir John Soane to rebuild the entrance
range and north wing. Soane made his name creating country houses in a
personalized variant of the neoclassical style but is most famous for his later
public buildings, particulary the Bank of England.
The house has seen little
change since that time and today it is an important example Soane's earlier
work.
Chillington Hall is approached by a long straight
avenue.
The entrance front is dominated by a vast Ionic portico of local sandstone but Soane's plain red brick facade was originally intended to be stuccoed.
The front of the south wing of 1724 is more elaborate and has the decorative mannerisms found in a number of houses created by the Smith brothers.
The visitor enters through the bare Hall, supported by Ionic columns, and passes through into the magnificent top-lit Saloon. This grand room was built by Soane within the walls of the hall of the previous house and was originally intended as a Chapel. The huge room, one of the most impressive of any late-18th century English house, has high bare walls and a lantern rising out of a dome resting on pendentives. The unusual chimneypiece is said to have been made from armorial fragments from the previous house.
After Thomas Giffard's marriage in 1788 funds were seriously reduced and the remainder of Soane's rooms - the Drawing Room and Dining Room in the main block and the Library in the north wing - do not exhibit the architect's great talent for organising internal spaces.
Most of the rather meagre decoration in these rooms was carried out after Thomas Giffard's death in 1827. The contents of Soane's rooms include a pair of Grand Tour portraits of Thomas Giffard and his father by Pompeo Batoni and a bust by Christopher Hewetson.
The visitor also views two interiors in the south wing.
The comfortable Morning Room, with its elaborate plaster ceiling of 1730 - 40, has a more intimate atmosphere than Soane's spacious rooms and the Staircase Hall has lively plasterwork and a splendid wooden staircase created by the Smith brothers.
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The entrance front is dominated by a vast
Ionic portico of local sandstone but Soane's plain red brick facade was
originally intended to be stuccoed.
The front of the south wing of 1724 is
more elaborate and has the decorative mannerisms found in a number of houses
created by the Smith brothers.
The visitor enters through the bare Hall,
supported by Ionic columns, and passes through into the magnificent top-lit
Saloon. This grand room was built by Soane within the walls of the hall of the
previous house and was originally intended as a Chapel. The huge room, one of
the most impressive of any late-18th century English house, has high bare walls
and a lantern rising out of a dome resting on pendentives. The unusual
chimneypiece is said to have been made from armorial fragments from the previous
house.
After Thomas Giffard's marriage in 1788 funds were seriously reduced
and the remainder of Soane's rooms - the Drawing Room and Dining Room in the
main block and the Library in the north wing - do not exhibit the architect's
great talent for organising internal spaces.
Most of the rather meagre
decoration in these rooms was carried out after Thomas Giffard's death in 1827.
The contents of Soane's rooms include a pair of Grand Tour portraits of Thomas
Giffard and his father by Pompeo Batoni and a bust by Christopher
Hewetson.
The visitor also views two interiors in the south wing.
The
comfortable Morning Room, with its elaborate plaster ceiling of 1730 - 40, has a
more intimate atmosphere than Soane's spacious rooms and the Staircase Hall has
lively plasterwork and a splendid wooden staircase created by the Smith
brothers.
Chillington Hall is set in a fine park,
created by 'Capability' Brown in the 1760s.
Invisible from the house is one
of the largest lakes created by Brown, with a sham bridge to impound the waters.
A real bridge was later built by James Paine.
The grounds contains three
temples - the Grecian Temple thought to be by Soane. There also are extensive
woodland walks.
Izaak Walton's Cottage... This charming
timber-framed thatched cottage set in the heart of the Staffordshire countryside
is now owned by Stafford Borough Council.
The building was bequeathed by
Izaak Walton (1593 - 1683) the author of the 'Compleat Angler'.
The cottage
has displays on the history of angling.
The ground floor rooms are set out in
17th century style.
Izaak Walton, who famously fished in Dovedale in the Peak
District, is commemorated by a stained glass window in Winchester Cathedral,
created in 1914.
Moseley Old
Hall...In the early light of
8 September 1651, five days after the Royalist defeat at the Battle of
Worcester, Charles II, disguised as a woodcutter, took refuge at Moseley Old
Hall.
Waiting at the rear of the house was Thomas Whitgreave, the owner of
Moseley and his chaplain John Huddleston. They escorted the king through the
heavily studded orchard door and took him by candle light up the narrow stairs
to the priest's room, now known as the King's Room.
Here in the four-poster
bed the king spent his first night in comfort since the battle.
He was shown
a hiding place, barely four feet high, concealed beneath a trapdoor in the
cupboard beside the fireplace.
When the Parliamentarian troops arrived at the
house the next day this is where the king concealed himself.
That night the
king, disguised as a serving man, left Moseley on horseback on the first leg of
his dangerous journey to safety on the Continent.
Charles II did not forget
assistance he received at Moseley Old Hall and on his restoration in 1660 the
king gave Thomas Whitgreave an annuity of £200 per year, a large sum in those
days. When he lay dying in 1685 it was John Huddleston that administered the
last rites and received the King into the Catholic Church.
Moseley Old Hall
was built in around 1600 by the merchant Henry Pitt.
The Elizabethan house would have
originally been half-timbered but in the 1870s the decaying facades were given a
brick facing and the mullioned windows were replaced by casements.
However,
inside the house much of the original panelling and timber framing is still
visible.
The front door opens into the main hall and opposite is the heavily
studded orchard door through which the king entered.
The King's Room on the
first floor contains the four-poster bed in which Charles II slept and the
hiding place where he took refuge.
Off Thomas Whitgreave's bedroom on the
same floor is a little chamber over the front porch where the king watched his
defeated trops struggling northward back to Scotland.
Discreetly situated In
the attics is the oratory which the king visited with John Huddleston.This is
now adorned with an 18th century painted barrel ceiling. Mementoes of Charles
II's visit are on display in the house including a proclamation dated 10
September 1651 offering a reward of £1,000 for the king's capture and a letter
of thanks from Charles II to Jane Lane who helped him escape.
Most of the
furnishings are not original to the house but they largely date from the 17th
century and are such as might have been there when Charles II took refuge at
Moseley.
Contemporary portraits of the king and those how helped him give the
house an authentic atmosphere.
When Moseley Old Hall was constructed it would
have been in the remote Staffordshire countryside but today the house looks out
on the surburbs of Wolverhampton, only yards away from the busy
M54.
Miraculously the 17th century atmosphere of the house is not disturbed
by the noise of the motorway traffic.
The small garden and orchard at Moseley
Old Hall have been reconstructed by the National Trust to a design of
1640.
Only plants that existed in English gardens in the 17th century have
been established. There is an elaborate knot garden and the orchard has been
planted with old varieties of fruit trees.The path to the Nut Alley is fringed
with quinces, medlars and mulberries and the herb garden is sheltered by box
hedges.
Sandon
Hall, an impressive mansion situated in the heart of
Staffordshire, is the ancestral home of the Earls of Harrowby. The house was
rebuilt by William Burn in imposing neo-Jacobean style in 1854.
Although the
mansion is full of splendour and elegance it is still very much a family
home.
The family museum, which was opened in 1994 to considerable acclaim,
incorporates several of the State Rooms.
Sandon Hall is set in 50 acres of
landscaped gardens.
The gardens feature some magnificent trees and are
particularly beautiful in May and autumn.
The house and gardens are
surrounded by 400 acres of superb parkland.
The Shugborough estate
was purchased in 1624 by the Anson family, later Earls of Litchfield. The
original house was built in 1693 for William Anson, a prosperous Staffordshire
lawyer.
In 1720 Shugborough was inherited by Thomas Anson.
He greatly
enlarged Shugborough by adding bow-fronted pavilions on either side, joined to
the main block by single-storey buildings. The delicate plaster ceilings in the
Library and Dining Room by Vassali date from this period.
Thomas was the
elder brother of George, Admiral Lord Anson. A four-year vogage around the world
had made the Admiral rich and famous. He helped fiance his brother's projects at
Shugborough and when he died Thomas inherited the Admiral's fortune.
Thomas
Anson was also responsible for three remarkable neo-Grecian monuments that stand
in the park. They were built by James 'Athenian' Stuart who established a style
of architecture that would remain fashionable for the next 100 years.
The
most imposing piece, the Triumphal Arch begun in 1761, is a memorial to Admiral
Anson and his wife. The Chinese House by the River Sow also commemorates the
Admiral. In 1790 Thomas William Anson, later Viscount Anson, commissioned Samuel
Wyatt to carry out extensive remodelling.
Wyatt added the Ionic portico which
extends across the full width of the central block. He also built the central
bow on the garden facade and the verandahs fronting the links to the pavilions
on either side.
His interior design can be seen in the saloon with its yellow
scagliola columns. The coved ceiling of Wyatt's Red Drawing Room is decorated
with delicate plasterwork by Joseph Rose the Younger.
In 1842 most of of the
contents of the house were dispersed in a sale brought about by the extravagance
of the 2nd Viscount, later 1st Earl of Litchfield.
The magnificent French furniture in the
principal rooms was acquired by the 2nd Earl who set about rescuing Shugborough
in the 1850s. The 2nd Earl's collection includes many splendid 18th century
pieces.
Shugborough also has a display of Chinese artifacts and other
mementoes acquired by Admiral Anson during his travels.
The original
servants' quarters, working laundry, kitchens and brewhouse have been carefully
restored and costumed guides demonstrate how the servants lived and
worked.
In 1966 the house, contents and park were accepted by the Treasury in
part payment of death duties following the death of the 4th Earl of Litchfield
and transferred to the National Trust.
The 5th Earl of Lichfield lived in
part of the house with his family.
Shugborough has 900 acres of
grounds.
The formal terraces decorated with classical urns and cones of
yellow yew descend from the house to the River Sow.
Other features of the
gardens include a Victorian-style rose garden is set around a central sundial
and the Ladies' Walk which meanders through the wild garden to the
south.
Also on the estate is Wyatt's Farm Park which has rare breeds of
livestock, a working restored corn mill and an agricultural museum. isitors can
see bread being baked and butter and cheese being made in the
dairy
Whitmore Hall is a fine Carolean manor house set in landscaped gardens and surrounded by a beautiful park.
The manor of Whitmore has always passed by descent, never by sale, and the present owners, the Cavenagh-Mainwaring family, are direct descendants of the original Norman owners.
In 1546 the heiress of the manor of Whitmore, Alice de Boghay, married Edward Mainwaring of Peover in Cheshire. It was their great-grandson, another Edward, who rebuilt the original timber-framed building.
The new red-brick house was designed in the artisan Mannerist style of the age. Work on the house was completed in 1676, although parts of the building date back to a much earlier period. In 1891 the heiress Ellen Jane Mainwaring married Wentworth Cavenagh.
Between 1863 and 1928 Whitmore Hall was let to the Hollins and Twyford families who remodelled the main interiors. At this time much of the Cavenagh-Mainwaring family's furniture was dispersed.
The main front faces south and dates mostly from the 1670s. The house is nine bays wide under a hipped roof, with large symmetrically placed chimneystacks. An ornate porch was added in the 19th century.
The other facades have a number of 19th century additions and are asymmetrical. None of the interiors date from the 1670s as the house was redecorated in fairly simple Edwardian taste at the beginning of the 20th century.
The Hall has been refurbished and is in fine condition. There are some good pieces of English furniture and family portraits dating in a continuous line from 1624 to the present day.The rooms are light and beautifully proportioned. At the back of the house is the curving staircase, now quite plain. On the landing are the oldest family portraits dating from the 16th and 17th centuries. On the right is the large Drawing Room, created from two rooms. This has Georgian furniture and 18th century portraits.
The Dining Room across the hall has mahogany dado-height panelling and 19th century furniture. The adjacent Admiral's Room was named after Admiral Rowland Mainwaring who fought on HMS Majestic at the Battle of the Nile. The room contains a portrait of the Admiral together with a painting of the famous battle.
An outstanding feature of Whitmore Hall is the early-17th century stables. This extremely rare example of a late Elizabethan stable block has a part cobbled ground floor. The nine original oak-carved stalls are divided by Tuscan pillars with ornamental arches above. The upper floor houses the remains of the stable boys' quarters.
The landscaped gardens contain an early Victorian summer house.
The surrounding home park has a splendid avenue of limes leading to the house and a large lake.
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