Mark the Year

Hudson’s roundup of happenings from history to commemorate this year.

ARUNDEL CASTLE, SUSSEX 450 YEARS - 1572

Four hundred and fifty years ago on 2 June on Tower Hill, Thomas Howard, 4th Earl of Norfolk lost his head. He’d been the figurehead of a plot to overthrow Elizabeth I and replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots. The plot was funded by King Philip of Spain and orchestrated by an Italian banker called Roberto Ridolfi and would have restored Roman Catholicism to England. Howard was England’s senior peer, in fact the only Duke in the land, and, despite the fact that he was actually a Protestant, he seized the chance to advance his power. Unfortunately for him, Elizabeth was informed of the plot in advance and a ciphered letter from Mary was found in Norfolk’s London house. After his execution, his estates were forfeited to the Crown but luckily, Arundel Castle and its lands were the property of Norfolk’s first wife Mary Fitzalan, heiress of the 19th Earl of Arundel and could be inherited by her son, Philip. The Fitzalan-Howard family survived the turbulent years of the Tudor era and the current Duke and Duchess of Norfolk still live at Arundel Castle today.

2022 BOSTON MANOR HOUSE, HOUNSLOW 400 YEARS - 1622

2022 is a special year at Boston Manor House. The house, meticulously restored, will open again in 2022 and take its place within the community of Hounslow. Co-incidently, it is also the anniversary of the building of the house in 1622 by Lady Mary Reade. Lady Mary had inherited the Boston Manor estate after the death of her first husband, the elderly Sir William Reade of Osterley. She seems to have immediately set about building a new house, choosing to create one of the earliest examples of a neo-classical house of the English Renaissance. The interior decoration of the drawing room includes a fine plaster ceiling designed by Edward Stanyon, where strapwork panels capture classical figures of the Elements (after designs by Marc Gheeraerts the Younger), the Five Senses, War and Peace and Faith, Hope and Charity. A map of 1635, which hangs at Syon Park in Middlesex, shows the house looking much as it does today, even though Palladian buildings of this type are usually associated with the end of the 17th century. Lady Mary was evidently an architectural taste-maker.

FIRLE PLACE, SUSSEX 400 YEARS - 1622

The estate at Firle Place in Sussex belonged to the Tudor courtier Sir John Gage, Lord Chamberlain to Henry VIII and Mary I; three generations later, it passed to his namesake John Gage. 1622 marks the year in which the family purchased a baronetcy, a title devised by King James 1st as a means of raising funds for the settlement of Ulster. In return, the new Sir John Gage Bt agreed to equip 30 men at arms for the King but also gained a little status with the Stuart monarchy. Since the Gage family had impoverished themselves by sticking to their catholic faith through the long reign of Elizabeth I, it probably looked like a good investment.

THIRLESTANE CASTLE, BERWICKSHIRE 350 YEARS - 1672

John Maitland, 2nd Earl of Lauderdale of Thirlestane Castle was one of the most powerful men in the land during the reign of Charles II. He was a member of the Cabal, a group of nobles who acted as advisors to the King and held the office of Secretary of State for Scotland. 1672 was the year that Charles II created him Duke of Lauderdale and Knight of the Garter in recognition of his support, as Secretary of State for Scotland, in re-establishing royal hegemony in Scotland. 1672 was also a watershed year for Maitland with his marriage to Elizabeth, Countess of Dysart, another royalist favourite with considerable influence over Charles II. Together they were the ultimate power couple of the late 17th century, although the marriage meant that Maitland spent more time at his wife’s new house at Ham near Richmond than at his own seat at Thirlestane Castle.

HOUGHTON HALL, NORFOLK 300 YEARS - 1722

Sir Robert Walpole, Britain’s first prime minister, commissioned a new house at Houghton Hall 300 years ago this year, using architecture and interiors as a showcase for his wealth and influence. He needed somewhere to hang his collection of nearly 400 Old Master paintings including works by Van Dyck, Rubens, Rembrandt and Velasquez. The interiors and furnishings designed for him by William Kent provided an appropriate bravura style and the exterior, the work mostly of Colen Campbell and James Gibbs, a suitably dazzling effect. The first stone was laid on 24 May and the house has survived the centuries remarkably unchanged apart from the loss of paintings sold to Catherine the Great of Russia. Sir Robert still surveys his entrance hall in the form of a marble bust by Sir Michael Rysbrack.

LEIGHTON HALL, LANCASHIRE 200 YEARS - 1822

In 1822, 200 years ago, when Richard Gillow purchased Leighton Hall in Lancashire from his cousin, he established himself as a country gentleman. He refaced the house with white limestone giving it a fashionable gothic appearance and furnished it with many fine pieces made in the family workshops at Gillow & Co, which had become famous as makers of fine furniture in Lancaster and London in the late 18th century. Richard was the grandson of Robert Gillow, a pioneering cabinetmaker and one of the earliest importers of mahogany from the West Indies. The large mahogany dining table is a prototype of the expanding telescopic table invented by Richard’s father who practised as an architect in Lancaster. Leighton is still home to the direct descendants of Richard Gillow.

PARHAM PARK, SUSSEX 100 YEARS - 1922

One hundred years ago this year, the mellow Tudor mansion at Parham Park in West Sussex changed hands. It was purchased by the Hon. Clive and Alicia Pearson who embarked on an enlightened and sympathetic restoration of the House and filled it with carefully selected furniture, paintings and works of art. They also reacquired items that had once been in the House, owned by the previous families who had lived there. Built in 1577, Parham was remarkably complete but in disrepair, and the Pearsons’ sensitive restoration and good taste revitalised it. The House now contains a great many Tudor and Stuart portraits, fine furniture, a collection related to Sir Joseph Banks and an unrivalled collection of Tudor and Stuart needlework. The Pearsons opened Parham to visitors in 1948; it was one of the earliest houses in private ownership to be opened to the public.

TEMPLE NEWSAM, YORKSHIRE 100 YEARS - 1922

Temple Newsam House has been justifiably called The Hampton Court of the North. It is a vast U-shaped Tudor building packed with treasures – paintings, furniture, decorative arts, porcelain and works of art of all sorts - all set in a park by landscaped Capability Brown. This year marks 100 years since this treasure house was sold to the people of Leeds by Edward Wood, 1st Lord Halifax. Halifax had inherited the house from his aunt, a member of the Ingram family who had lived at Temple Newsam since 1622, since, in fact, they had purchased the house from the family of the unfortunate spouse of Mary Queen of Scots, Lord Darnley, who was born here. The house counts among its contents an exceptional collection of the furniture of Thomas Chippendale and part of the Grand Tour collection of two generations of the Ingram family.