Howard Family Estates : Castle Howard York 4/2/60 O.K. BY THE SAME AUTHOR Fiction Castle Howard The Age of Consent (also published as Waiting For Love) The Twelve Days of Christmas Fred's First Waltz THE LIFE AND TIMES OF A Social History STATELY HOME Where Have All the Cowslips Gone? Shadows of Past the Echoes of the East End Venetia Murray (192H) Hami, 203 Entrack 1994 NY VIKING Castle Howard 'The Perfect Victorian' was a mortal blow to the 7th Earl, who had always been particularly of a set of values which it has since become fashionable to decry. close to his mother - in retrospect, dangerously so. She was the her summing up she wrote that: recipient of his confidences, his mentor and his chief correspondent - Carlisle spent a lifetime of diligent work in public service. Though never they exchanged letters several times a week until her death. His shaper of great events, he lived up to his assertion, made in 1830, that th mother's influence remained the dominant factor in Carlisle's life aristocracy could never be so well employed as when it was honorabl until he was well into middle age, and may explain why he never mar- engaged in the service of the people. He demonstrated the length and lim ried. of what could be achieved in Victorian government by a man of exceller The 7th Earl thus became the last of the line to inherit the title connections, high principle, and the best of intentions. directly from his father; after his death the succession passed first to one of his brothers, and subsequently to a nephew - who, in his turn, And The Times wrote in its obituary that Carlisle's career had been i became the last Earl of Carlisle to live at Castle Howard. keeping with the family motto: "Volo non valeo", and he W: one of the most popular men in this country, because of the "volo" and despite the "non valeo" a good, kind nobleman in the bes The 7th Earl's health collapsed in 1864, and it became clear that he sense of the word could no longer continue in office. He suffered from intermittent The death of the 7th Earl of Carlisle not only broke the direct lin attacks of dizziness and a species of paralysis, which affected his speech of inheritance but also, in a sense, signalled the beginning of the en as well as his mobility. Carlisle's departure from Dublin was a sad of a way of life for the Howards, and indeed for Castle Howard itsel occasion: instead of a farewell speech to the crowds who had come to Aristocratic privilège was already threatened; the balance of pow see him off, the Earl could barely manage one coherent sentence. His had begun to shift, away from the wealth implicit in land towards th final words to the Irish, who had been witness to the 7th Earl's one riches of industry; and the concept of socialism was already in the ai: political triumph, were these: The next generation of the Howard family would be riven b irrevocable feuds; within sixty years the estates would have been spl I leave, after my term of office, undimmed by one particle of personal and Castle Howard would have ceased to be the home of the Earls C bitterness either on the present or the crowded memories of the past. Carlisle. Less than four months later he died at Castle Howard and was buried in the mausoleum. On his death Harriet Martineau dismissed Carlisle's achievements, and wondered at his popularity: Such regret as is felt at the departure of this nobleman is something rare in the case of a man who has not rendered himself necessary to his country by his statesmanship, nor commanded homage by his genius, nor established or continued a great family [He] left no enduring work behind him to make him known to future generations, or to illustrate his own time. Diana Oliens, however, in Morpeth - A Victorian Public Career, 'I am willing but not able'. The words are taken from the Confessions of S points out that "Morpeth" had been the perfect Victorian, the epitome Augustine, chosen by the founder of the family, Lord William Howard. 184 'No Time for Faded Grandeur' family and was unable to take any part in the management of the IO estates. Castle Howard passed into the hands of the next brother in line - Admiral Edward Howard, who was created Lord Lanerton in 'No Time for Faded Grandeur' 1874. Lord Lanerton retired from the Navy, after a most distinguished career, in order to assume control of Castle Howard. He was a man of strong religious feeling and devout faith who took a particular interest in the ecclesiastical affairs of the Howard estates. He rebuilt the church at Slingsby, one of the neighbouring villages, and repaired The 8th Earl never lived at Castle Howard: the 9th never cared for it. many of the other churches on the estate. But, above all, Lanerton In 1885, barely twenty years after the death of the 7th Earl, the poet was responsible for the complete renovation and the glorious Pre- Wilfrid Scawen Blunt was appalled at the way standards had been Raphaelite decoration of the private chapel at Castle Howard. allowed to lapse in the daily routine of the great house: The private chapel is, and always has been, an Anglican one, life in this house is that of a Bedouin camp Everything cut down to although many other branches of the Howard family are Roman the barest necessity of existence; no one to open the gates at the lodge, not a Catholics. In Lord Lanerton's time, as in all Victorian households, the servant to be seen except at meals and no footman with the carriage. Gardens entire staff were summoned to join the family in daily prayers every neglected morning, and regular services were held in the chapel. (Nowadays there are approximately fourteen services a year, timed to coincide The days of pomp and splendour, of glitter and opulence, had gone with major church festivals, and the chapel is also used for private for good. Nevertheless, the closing years of the nineteenth century weddings, baptisms and funerals.) were far from barren in the history of the family fortunes, largely The alterations to the chapel, initiated by Lord Lanerton, were thanks to the Howards' enlightened patronage of contemporary artists begun in 1870, under the direction of the architect R.J. Johnson. It - particularly the Pre-Raphaelites and their followers. was decided to enlarge the existing chapel, mainly by lowering the floor and by changing the entrance to the room. The area designated, Since the 7th Earl of Carlisle died without issue the succession passed at the end of the West Wing, was originally described by Tatham's to his eldest brother, William Howard, who held the title from 1864 drawings (which had been commissioned by the 5th Earl in 1800) as a until 1889. The 8th Earl had originally chosen a career in the Church 'columned dining hall', but it had never been used as such. Both the and was allotted one of the family livings in Yorkshire;* however, as pillars of the existing room, and the ceiling - which was a copy of the has already been explained, he had a mental breakdown early in life one designed for the Chapel Royal at St James's Palace - were which grew progressively worse. By the time the 8th Earl inherited retained, although redecorated. The artist W.H. Hughes was commis- the title he was confined to a lunatic asylum, where he remained for sioned to paint the frescoes on the south wall, depicting the Old the rest of his life. He was thus never more than the titular head of the Testament prophets, and he also painted the large picture above the altar, Christ at the Pillar, for which he was paid £110. The lovely. * A sinecure which he retained almost to the end of his life, thanks to an anomaly in stained-glass windows in the chapel were designed by Sir Edward ecclesiastical law. Burne-Jones and executed by the firm of Morris and Co. in 1872. 186 187 Castle Howard 'No Time for Faded Grandeur' They are generally considered to be the finest examples of Pre- already been written about the consequences of this marriage and the Raphaelite stained glass in the world, and have become one of the character of the 9th Earl's wife. Opinions differ, but in this particular major attractions of Castle Howard. The organ was made by the context it is sufficient to say that Rosalind Carlisle was a formidable celebrated firm of Harrison and Harrison, at a cost of £835 IOS., and woman, whom even her own daughter described as having 'An Eye was originally powered by a hydraulic engine. In 1953 this mechanism like Mars, to threaten and command'. She was a year younger than was replaced by an electric motor. her husband and at the time of their engagement the dominant element of her character was more or less quiescent: nevertheless, even at that stage she was capable of reproving her fiancé for laziness: Lord Lanerton died in 1880, but the 8th Earl lingered on for another 'I don't think you are very capable of applying yourself to hard nine years. Castle Howard passed to the heir presumptive, George study," she wrote, a few weeks before the wedding. George was in Howard, son of yet another brother of the previous generation - his love with her - as, indeed, Rosalind was with him - and replied ador- father, Charles, had been fourth in the line of succession but also ingly: predeceased the 8th Earl. George Howard however, was an artist, You seem to me the perfect idea of guardian angel and saint combined, yet and had little desire to take on the role of aristocratic landowner. In better than any saint because you are pure and noble, not by denying the any case both George and his wife Rosalind preferred Naworth to human element of your nature but by raising it, purifying and ennobling it., Castle Howard, and always regarded Cumberland as their home, If anything could make my life of any use you will. rather than Yorkshire. In fact, during the early years of their marriage most of their time was spent either in London or on long trips The young Howards began their married life at Naworth, and the abroad: the grand life implicit in Castle Howard held little appeal for medieval castle remained, for both, even after they separated, a either of them and they went there as seldom as possible. Nevertheless symbol of the romantic and physical side of their life together and of the future 9th Earl, and in particular his Countess, had enormous the happiness they had once shared. For the marriage was an influence upon the fortunes of Castle Howard. undoubted success during the early years; it was not until after they George Howard inherited his artistic talent from his mother, Mary had produced eleven children that the relationship turned sour and Parke, a daughter of Lord Wensleydale. She died giving birth to terrible rows began to spoil not only their own lives, but those of all George, in 1843, at the age of twenty, but in the course of her short around them. lifetime she established a lasting reputation as a serious artist in her The newly-weds loved Naworth, but they had no desire to live own right. Mary was a pupil of the artist De Wint and painted in the there all the year round: George wanted to live in London, so that he Victorian water-colour tradition. She was an exceptionally prolific could pursue his painting studies at the South Kensington School of artist, considering the brief time at her disposal, and her works are Art, where he worked under both Legros and Costa. Accordingly, in much sought after today. Although George never knew his mother 1865, Philip Webb was commissioned to build a house for the personally, he grew up surrounded by her paintings; a desire to Howards in Palace Green, Kensington. George Howard had already emulate her example was obviously one of the factors which become a member of the Pre-Raphaelite circle centred around Dante influenced his decision to opt for an artistic career. Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris - all of In 1864, at the age of twenty-one, Howard married Rosalind whom contributed to the building and decoration of No. I Palace Stanley, daughter of Lord Stanley of Alderley. Several books have Green. It took five years to complete and was an unusual house for its 188 189 Castle Howard 'No Time for Faded Grandeur' time, in as much as it was built in brick, whereas the normal practice supporting the beams of the ceiling are painted with conventional foliage, was to face a new building in plaster to create the appearance of the free acanthus-like leaf which Morris loved, in golden browns and russets Portland stone. Despite the initial controversy, No. I Palace Green The panelling of the ceiling itself is enriched with a Morris design came to be regarded as one of the most beautiful houses of the late painted in soft colours. A very fine chimney-piece, grate and fender, after nineteenth century. Mr Philip Webb's designs, a superb gilded cassone with old Italian painting In 1889, the year George Howard succeeded to the title and became in its panels, and an old metal coffer are the most notable objects in the the 9th Earl of Carlisle, The Studio, a contemporary art magazine, room, where no superfluous furniture or bric-d-brac intrudes to destroy the devoted a long article to the house, headed 'The Cupid and Psyche air of repose Frieze by Sir Edward Burne-Jones, at No. I Palace Green': The writer goes on to elaborate the furniture and other works of art throughout the house, and ends by pointing out the originality of the It would seem a rash statement to affirm of the decoration of any single building and praising Lord Carlisle's innovative decision to build a apartment that it was absolutely the best example of the style it obeyed. Yet genuinely contemporary house, rather than following the Establish- if ever it were safe to speak thus unreservedly, it might be concerning the ment pattern, which was to copy the architecture of the previous beautiful morning-room at the Earl of Carlisle's town house, Palace Green; century: representing, as it does, the united efforts of Burne-Jones, William Morris, and Philip Webb Yet all these objects of art do but play their part in adorning a quiet and The room at first sight appears by no means gorgeous, nor even sumptuous restful home. The house is in sharp contrast with the average town mansion, - indeed its momentary effect is somewhat austere; but as the eye lights on where Louis XIV, XV, and XVI, varied by a trace of Adam, reign supreme. the frieze which surrounds it, the coffered ceiling with decorated beams Compared with the average Park Lane palace it looks severe and simple; but above, and the panels of the dado below, rich in gold and silver, the whole it is pre-eminently an artist's home, which not only genius has enriched, but appears to glow like a page of an illuminated missal; and yet so well is the good taste has controlled splendid things fall into the scheme simply and balance kept by the plain masses of peacock-blue paint that, even when the unobtrusively. Even its good taste is not ,unduly evident, but becomes the eye has focused all the gorgeous decoration in detail, the breadth of treatment more apparent the more closely you observe it. By thus avoiding emphasis of the whole still retains a splendid simplicity of all kinds, the treasures it holds seem but ordinary fittings, until more Below each panel runs a long quotation from the poem, inscribed in curious inspection shows many of them to be unique masterpieces. The thin Roman letters of gold upon the dull peacock-green of the woodwork. majority of these are modern - a singularly pleasing exception to the average The woodwork was at first entirely in white; but this pigment was 'palace' of today, which, if it holds masterpieces of any kind, is singularly found to mar the effect of the paintings, and SO it was replaced by the present careful that they shall be of goodly age, hall-marked as it were with official colour The scheme of the paintings, although frequent use of white in approval of their sterling value. the robes of the figures keeps the whole fairly light, is not in a high key; here and there, as for Psyche's box and for her lamp, raised and gilded gesso is George Howard had expectations of wealth, but was far from rich used, but only sparingly. The panels below are filled with a beautiful design during the early years of his marriage - at least in comparison with by Morris, worked in flat gold and silver. The corbels and the 'styles' of the his peers. His income in 1864 was £1,000 a year, 'Not Much', as his decorated panelling immediately below the frieze are covered with a simple future mother-in-law, Lady Stanley, remarked doubtfully when the diaper in red, upon a burnished gold ground. The spandrels of the brackets engagement was proposed. However, both sets of parents, as well as 100 I9I Castle Howard 'No Time for Faded Grandeur' George's uncle, Lord Carlisle, helped with financial contributions 22s. a dozen, 'plus a further 72 bottles of the same', and thirty-eight from time to time, and, in any case, neither of the Howards had bottles of 'best claret at 4/6'. expensive tastes. For example, neither spent much money on their The lists of furniture bought for Palace Green, and the prices the appearance: in 1864, the year they married, their joint expenditure on Howards paid for it, show just how greatly the price of antiques has clothes came to no more than £100 IOS. George had already adopted risen - in little more than IOO years. Many of the items mentioned the distinctive 'uniform' which he was to wear for the rest of his life: could, today, cost up to 1,000 times their purchase price in the 1870s. a large, floppy tam o' shanter, worn with an outfit consisting of soft Among the more tantalizing pieces listed are: collar, large bow tie, waistcoat, tweed jacket and knickerbockers. Rosalind, though beautiful in her youth, abhorred vanity and usually A Chippendale mahogany side table £6 8s. od. dressed in plain, loose-fitting, dark gowns, which may have been A Sheraton inlaid side table £7 ISS. 6d. cheap but did little to enhance her looks. 16 Sheraton chairs, inlaid, covered in morocco for a By 1870 the Howards were installed in Palace Green, which at once further £16. became a centre for all the most illustrious artists of the period. Later, Satinwood sofa table with 2 flaps and 2 drawers £4 5s. od. after George had joined the Etruscan School, founded by the Italian Turkey rug for the dining-room £28 16s. od. painter, Giovanni Costa, the house also served as the nexus between Indian rug for the library £24 IOS. od. crosscurrents of European, as well as British, artists. A typical dinner Persian rug for the sitting-room £18 party, in January 1871, included William and Jane Morris, Edward 14 Chippendale carved mahogany chairs for the library £15; and Georgiana Burne Jones, and Mr and Mrs Carnegie, of American covered in morocco for a further £16 library fame and money. On that particular occasion both Rossetti Sofa for the library, 'ebonised, with brass ornaments', £12. and Webb declined. Other guests who came often to Palace Green - The drawing-room furniture included an Empire sofa, which cost and also to Naworth, though seldom to Castle Howard - included £10, a round, inlaid, satinwood table made by Sheraton for £5, a Lord Leighton, Sir John Millais, Browning, Thackeray, Gladstone, pair of black and gold bamboo chairs at £2 5s. each, and two Queen Arthur Balfour and the George Trevelyans. The Howards gave a Anne gilt carved mirrors for £18. In the sitting-room there was a dinner party for Princess Louise and Lord Lorne when they announced Charles II walnut bureau, which cost £28 IS. 6d., and a 'Pier looking their engagement (she was a painting friend of George's, and he was a glass over the chimney piece', bought for £12, 5s., while the windows cousin), and when Costa and his wife came to England they gave were covered with 'embroidered curtains dated 1600', marked at £27 another, in the Italian artist's honour. in the accounts. Among the pieces bought for Rosalind's bedroom Rosalind's account books illustrate the life the Howards led at there were two wardrobes, one of them Chippendale, which cost the Palace Green. Housekeeping expenses between October 1870 and July princely sum of £30 4s., and an oval Pembroke table, 'mahogany, 1871 came to £385, and in one week, during June, they had three with satinwood border', bought for only £2 dinner parties, on successive nights - for twelve, fourteen and thirteen It is surprising that the Howards, who insisted upon contemporary, people respectively. The drink bill for nine months in 1871 was £60 rather than classical, design when building the house, and whose IS. - at this stage in their lives neither had turned teetotal - and greatest extravagance was in buying 'modern' should furnish their included sixty bottles of manzanilla, I32 bottles of sherry, thirty-four house with so much antique and eighteenth-century furniture. It bottles of champagne, seven of brandy, 180 bottles of light claret at seems most unlikely that, even then, second-hand furniture was 192 TO2 Castle Howard 'No Time for Faded Grandeur' regarded as an economy, particularly since there is a note beside one And George's own friends, of course, welcomed his dedication to of the most expensive pieces bought for the house, clearly intended to work; had he behaved like the usual aristocratic dilettante they would justify its price, to the effect that it 'belonged to Ldy Ellenborough'. never have taken him seriously. Stopford Brooke, staying at Naworth The piece in question was an antique, and it cost the Howards during the summer of 1872, confirmed this view of Howard: £37 IS. It is not strange and yet it is, how entirely this place is apart from modern George Howard was a serious artist, and he made a small but life and its associations when one is outside the house, and even in. G.H. is so steady income from his paintings. He sold his first picture, a water- unlike a mere modern gentleman, and so much one of the artist band who colour of an Italian landscape, in 1865 for £25. Rosalind was belong to all time, in manner and in thought, that the illusion is still delighted, and wrote triumphantly that he was: 'No longer an supported. I suppose it is on account of this that this place rests me (almost) amateur, for better or worse he has taken his stand amongst the more than any I know. artists.' A few years later his income from painting had riscn to £218 1873 ISS. in one year, and by the 1880s the price of his water-colours had George, himself, thought otherwise. The following autumn he doubled, from around £25 a picture to an average of £50. An oil complained strongly that the constant social life at Naworth, centred painting of Mentone fetched £71 I3S. 3d. in 1883: today, even a small round his wife's political ambitions, stopped him painting: 'Gladstone water-colour by George Howard can cost hundreds. At first, however, and Mrs next week. I get no time to do anything I want to do with Rosalind had been unsure of her husband's talent. She wrote in her all these people here.' Gladstone, on the other hand, was delighted diary, in 1869: with his visit and charmed by his host: he wrote in his diary that 'George Howard made the most clever sketch of me in the forenoon.' He has not any inventive genius and can one be a great painter without that? culitapes It was the Howards' custom to spend several months every winter I think he is getting on but I don't know that he will ever be a really first on painting trips travelling around Europe. They particularly favoured rate painter and yet I see that daily he is becoming more engrossed by Italy, where George fell in love with the landscape and produced painting. He thinks and talks of nothing else now; he seems to care less about some of his finest work. Year after year they returned, staying in politics. All the friends he seeks out and cares to talk to if they are not artists different pensiones or villas all over the peninsula, from San Remo on are people who care to talk art. the Ligurian coast to Naples and Capri in the South. George first There is a querulous note already in this particular comment of explored the Campagna with Costa in 1866; ten years later he was Rosalind's: doubtless she had realized that George would always again in the company of Costa when he wrote of his life in Rome: 1876 prefer art to current affairs, and that, though sympathetic to the Every day I work - very slowly though. Once a week I ride on the Liberal cause, he would never feel as strongly about politics as she did. Campagna - which is more heavenly than anything you can imagine. (Encouraged by his wife, Howard did, in fact, stand for Parliament in Yesterday I rode where the whole country looked like a Cumberland moor 1880, and spent five years as the Liberal member for East Cumberland. covered with asphodel instead of heather. In 1886 Gladstone brought in the Bill for Home Rule for Ireland: a general Election was called, and Howard, who was opposed to the One summer the Howards rented a villa at Oneglia, where he painted Bill, relinquished his seat.) In any case Rosalind was quite wrong the women washing clothes at the river, in the evening light. This about her husband's artistic potential: he was already well on the way picture was exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1878 and provoked to being recognized as one of the finest painters of his generation. Walter Crane to write: 'I congratulate you more particularly on the TOA 195 Castle Howard 'No Time for Faded Grandeur' twilight at the river's mouth. One can almost hear the distant sound of the waves where the river meets the sea.' The Italian pictures firmly established George Howard's reputation, both with the general public and among his fellow artists. In August 1879 Stopford Brooke wrote to George reporting a marvellous accolade for Howard's work from Burne-Jones, regarded as the ultimate arbiter by the Pre- Raphaelites: cars, tears 1 know not what tno I dined with Burne-Jones the talk fell upon your work. When I told you at mean Oneglia what he had said, it seemed as if he did not say much to you Rosalina Tears fn the tepths divini despir personally about it, and though I am a little shy of saying to you all he said Rise in the heart and either to the eyes On looking on the happy autumn fields for I do not know quite whether you will care to hear a report of a And thinking of the days that are no more conversation, yet I give it to you because it was all so pleasant. He not only resh as the first peam flittering on a sail said over again what I told you - that it was years ago since you had passed That brings friends up from the underworld. Sad as the last Which nddens OVER one. :- clear away from the amateur to the artist, but went on to say that your That sinks with all we love beneath the verge : drawings were simply the best water colour work that was done at the S sad, so fresh, the azys that are nomoie present day; the most refined, the most poetic, the most 'erudite' (many of them) in technical treatment of certain things - trees, distant roofs and buildings He spoke with real enthusiasm of the beauty of the trees - and of many other things. He said, not only that the Italian drawings should one and all be bought by everyone who cared for Italy, and that no other Italian Song written in 1878 for Rosalind Carlisle during a visit to Oneglia in Italy, drawings were to be compared to them - but he said that for himself there illustrated by William Morris. were some of them which were quite enough to make him sit down in a corner and cry with pleasure I can never forget them it is no small (Though not, of course, the title, since his uncle, the 8th Earl, was still thing for me to say that there are many of these drawings, among the alive.) Neither he nor Rosalind were particularly pleased: from multitude of drawings that are now produced, which have [meant?] SO much George's point of view it was an enormous inheritance which he had to me, and which are so vividly before my eyes that I can never forget them neither the desire nor the training to manage, and which could only - There is that sunset at Oneglia, and a drawing at Monte Oliveto, and four interfere with his painting. Rosalind wrote to her mother that: or five of the Roman drawings and of the Venice ones and others. (He did "Personally we feel sorry about having these extra responsibilities not mention all, nor did I press him.) thrust upon us." Initially they compromised, making occasional visits He said - lest you should think I have nothing to say on the other side - in to Castle Howard, but continuing to regard Naworth and Palace his figures, the faces have not the true roseate tint of pure flesh. They are not Green as their real homes. As time went by, however, Rosalind exquisite. It is not flesh colour, it has a 'brick dust' look - I think that was began to see the point of being a chatelaine on such a grand scale, and the word. He ought to make them as pure and fine as the rest. eventually took over the management of all the estates herself. George In 1880 Lord Lanerton died and George inherited Castle Howard. quietly continued painting, travelling abroad more and more often 196 I07 Castle Howard 'No Time for Faded Grandeur' alone, only too happy to leave his financial affairs in the hands of his noting, for example, which shops would deliver free, and which wife. charged extra for the use of a packing case. Every scrap of linen in the It was a mistake, as Dorothy, Lady Henley, one of Lady Carlisle's house was meticulously counted and its condition at the time of daughters, points out in the book she wrote about her mother: writing noted. There was to be no waste in the Radical Countess's politics apart, present day [1958] assessment of her professional work is household, and certainly no margin by which a light-fingered member critical. In the view of a qualified agent 'her capabilities were poor. She of the staff could take advantage. had no knowledge of forestry; to employ three men for 2,000 acres when Rosalind's authoritarian behaviour and passion for economy could wages were £1 per week was inefficient; to buy oak for gate-making when be carried to ludicrous lengths, as Lady Henley recalls: thousands of young oak were screaming to be thinned was not clever; she My mother constantly shamed her family by embarrassing demonstrations completely neglected the eighteenth century Follies, Temple, Mausoleum, during travel. Mary [the eldest daughter] described the way she would arrive Bridge etc; she was often told that the roof of the Temple needed repairing at an Italian hotel at midnight with six children or attendants, and mountains but she said it was unnecessary.' of luggage, and expect rooms to be ready though she had not ordered any, Rosalind was a Radical who had long disapproved of the lux- and if the rooms were not satisfactory she would go off and try another urious image of Castle Howard. The amount of money spent upon hotel. This was still happening when I was taken to Venice: after we had all maintaining it in Lord Lanerton's day had been a constant source of got into a hotel late at night and everything seemed settled and the luggage annoyance to her for years. She referred scornfully to the 'satined carried up, my mother found out that candles were 'extra' in the charge. So walls of the bedrooms' and had complained to the trustees about 'the we were all bundled into another gondola and a hotel found which 'included' bad decoration and greenhouses and such freaks as repainting the candles! frescoes in the salon'. One of Rosalind's first acts on assuming The Howards' income during the 1880s averaged between £17,000 control of the house was to cover the priceless Pellegrini murals in the and £18,000 a year, a huge amount at the time, and there was really High Saloon with William Morris wallpaper. (This was later removed, no need for all this anxiety about money. The accounts for a trip to but the Pellegrini paintings were lost in the fire of 1940.) 'We must Egypt, for example, show just how cheap travel was at the end of the make things ship-shape and délabré finery is not pleasant to see, she nineteenth century: wrote to George. The 'Radical Countess' had no time for faded grandeur. 1887 Journey to Egypt, with 5 children for 3 months: Total The inventory records, however, indicate that Rosalind was surpris- cost £ 1024. ingly influenced by fashion in interior decoration. Thus, when the Hotel life for 79 days at 12/3 per day per person craze for Oriental artefacts swept the country during the 1880s, she Tickets to First Cataract and back to London £532. indulged in an orgy of shopping at Liberty's and Swan and Edgar, the Donkeys, Expeditions etc. £72.16.0 two leading London stores at the time. Castle Howard was filled with Luggage to Cairo and back £30 'palampores' (cotton hangings, made in India), Turkey carpets and Less, saved in housekeeping, wages and stable expenses at Oriental china, including '48 Japanese eggshell plates', 'tall Imari jars Naworth £472 thus reducing expenses of journey to £552. from Swan and Edgar' and 'Oriental jars, to be fitted up as gas George had no more liking for luxurious living than his wife, but lamps'. The account books show an incredible attention to detail, he did, however, have one consistent extravagance, which was liable 198 IOO Castle Howard 'No Time for Faded Grandeur' to cause a deficit at the end of the year - contemporary art, particularly the sale of peaches and £58 IIS. from the pigs, but nothing significant. paintings by his friends. For example, the year that he inherited his The account book notes that the total included the wages of the head father's estate (1880), the total amount spent on paintings came to gardener, at £115 6s. 3d. a year, and those of the labourers, which £2,044. This figure included: £1,240 for the magnificent Burne-Jones came to £467 IOS., but fails to specify how many men were employed. Annunciation £200 to Walter Crane, as part payment for the In any case, this kind of garden was clearly labour-intensive as it morning-room frieze at Palace Green W. Richmond's portrait of stood, and it did make more economic sense to concentrate on lawns Rosalind, which cost £210 Two pictures by Legros - an oil at rather than flower-beds. Castle Howard was certainly not unique in £125 and a water-colour at £30 and a Costa for £120. All this decision - virtually none of Nesfield's parterres have survived to through the 1880s George continued to increase his collection of the present day. contemporary paintings. In 1881 he bought another Burne-Jones, a The money went elsewhere - much of it on Rosalind's charitable circular water-colour entitled Dies Irae, for £450, and a painting by works. For example, she had long been distressed by the plight of Costa, of Lerici, for £120. The same year he bought a bust of his working-class women condemned to live in the new industrial towns, current hero, Mazzini, for £50, and commissioned a carpet for the and in 1883 she converted the inn in the Castle grounds into a guest drawing-room at Naworth from William Morris. In 1882 he commis- house for ailing women. Every month - except one, when the sioned Burne-Jones to paint a fresco for the library at Naworth, Matron had a break herself - twelve women were given a month's paying him £500 on account, while in 1885 the bills for paintings holiday in the country. This practice, which cost between £300 and include £240 for another Italian landscape by Costa, and a copy of £400 a year, was maintained right up until the First World War. Watts's portrait of Tennyson by Miss Hawkins, one of his Pre- Another of her innovative ideas was to arrange country holidays for Raphaelite friends, for £37 IOS. town children: over 500 were selected by the Leeds Charity Organiza- It is clear from the accounts of the period that the needs of Castle tion Society and billeted on the local cottages. (One cannot help Howard came low on the list of financial priorities. Even after they wondering how that worked out.) She wrote to the Leeds Mercury, ask- inherited the house, the Howards continued to spend far more time at ing for subscriptions towards the cost of the scheme, in emotional vein: Naworth, which the family had always preferred. For example, housekeeping expenses averaged £21 a week at Castle Howard, £25 As I sit under the apple tree in the garden under these old castle towers, I a week at Palace Green and £30 at Naworth. Another set of household hear the song of the birds, carolling on every. side, and the warm sunshine figures, dated 1888, confirms the pattern: the expenses at Castle and the soft wind fills the heart with the sense of the blessedness of summer; Howard for a month are given as £77 17s., whereas the equivalent the flowers are blooming; all the earth is newly dressed in her garment of figure for Naworth is £139 IIS. - virtually double: similarly, the rich foliage freshness and beauty is in every blade of grass Then send, amounts spent on furniture for the two houses in the same period are oh send, us your children quickly, that no single day of this bounteous season respectively £35 and £173. may pass away and not shed its fullest radiance on the little children who are In the same context, the figures quoted for the garden at Castle so buried in the grimy towns that often their only contact with great mother Howard explain Rosalind's decision, at the end of the nineteenth earth is the pleasure of making mud pies near the street gutter, or perhaps, in century, to abolish Nesfield's pretty floral parterres. The total cost of some happier cases, to cherish a few pale window plants. the garden in 1888 came to £790 19s. 5d., and the following year it was £805 4s. There was an occasional profit, such as the £17 from Unfortunately Rosalind, like many women philanthropists, found 201 200 Castle Howard 'No Time for Faded Grandeur' it easier to love and understand other people's children, particularly if Rosalind as unforgivable treachery. Nevertheless, the following year they were underprivileged, than her own. Her relationship with her the family went to Egypt together for most of the winter. presumably sons in particular was disastrous and tragic. One after another she in an attempt to preserve the marriage Neither George nor quarrelled with Charles, Hubert, Christopher, Michael and Oliver: Rosalind wanted a scandal, so there was no official separation - the the rows were about politics, money, drink, girls, ideas - anything couple simply avoided each other. George tended to live in London and everything. Moreover, by some bitter twist of fate, these very or at Naworth, while Rosalind stayed in the country dividing her five sons all died prematurely, predeceasing their mother, who was time between Castle Howard and Naworth, but there was no hard left to mourn their estrangement. Only Geoffrey remained in her life and fast rule and, in fact, they often coincided under the same roof. to the bitter end - and it was indeed bitter. The girls fared better in Lady Henley described the atmosphere at Naworth towards the their dealings with Rosalind, who was, after all, one of the original end: feminists, but even they were not immune to their mother's fearsome rages. Dorothy Henley described her mother's reaction to the For whiles all would appear happy and smooth. Then suddenly clashes announcement of her engagement to Francis, who, though a future would come. My mother would shut herself up in her own quarters and Baron, was also a brewer, and moreover was connected with the send my father innumerable letters, many by me, to the other side of the Stanleys, whom Rosalind had grown to hate: house, and I brought back his written answers. This absurd system was entirely hers; to my father it was distasteful. These quarrels were not My mother received me grimly sitting in the South Parlour [at Boothby, in primarily political, I am certain, but personal, and often concerned my Cumberland]. That evening she was insane, with the insanity of rage father's friendships. uncontrolled There sat my mother in the black dress of her widowhood There was an unwritten agreement that George should be responsible She cursed all that was to be mine, my life, my children, my husband. I for the older children - though Mary and Cecilia married in 1889 and was to suffer the deaths, the humiliations, the miseries and infidelities she had 1891 respectively - and Rosalind should have control of the younger suffered; it was even in Biblical and mediaeval language. Insanity may be ones. In practice, as they came of age, all the boys, except Geoffrey, hard to define in a court of law, but she was crazy then. It was spell-binding. shared their father's political views on Home Rule and other such But not for long: suddenly there came a grotesque anti-climax. She said explosive subjects, and therefore kept out of Rosalind's way. (In fact, 'And don't let him come here offering me his samples!' I walked out of the neither George, nor the majority of his sons, were all that interested room; left the house; and we did not meet for ten months. in politics anyway.) One of the main reasons for the split between the Howards is In spite of her difficult nature, Lady Carlisle was in many ways an mentioned in this quotation: during the 1880s George Howard almost admirable woman. She was a genuine philanthropist, a passionate certainly had an affair, and fell in love with his pretty, flirtatious Liberal, and one of the founders of the great crusade for Women's sister-in-law Maisie Stanley. Venetia Stanley (with whom the Prime Rights. Lady Carlisle was not known as the 'Radical Countess' Minister Asquith corresponded at such length) was generally thought without reason. A complete list of the causes she espoused - and for to be George's daughter. The other great cause of dissension between which she worked with tremendous energy all her life - would make the couple was the question of Home Rule: Rosalind was passionately daunting reading. At Castle Howard, among many other activities, in favour, George was not. In 1886 he became a Liberal Unionist, in she served on the local district council, supervised the Friendly Society, company with five of his sons, an act which was regarded by inaugurated a Temperance Association, launched a Coal and Clothing 202 203 Castle Howard 'No Time for Faded Grandeur' Club and a Widow's Charity; and the pattern was repeated at I see in to-day's issue that I have destroyed 1,500 bottles of old vintage at Naworth. She was a member of the National Union of Women Castle Howard. The so-called wine in the 800 bottles that have been thrown Workers, the British Women's Temperance Association, the Women's away was sour stuff condemned as worthless and undrinkable so years ago Liberal Federation, and Women's Suffrage - although her views on and was left as rubbish at Castle Howard by our predecessors. Not even a the last named issue were somewhat qualified. She was a formidable dipsomaniac under the influence of his worst drink craving would have advocate, an articulate and intelligent speaker and motivated by touched the mixture of fungus and smelly liquid. genuine belief. The problem with Rosalind - and the reason she made so many enemies - was that she appeared both arrogant and As a peer who was also an artist of considerable standing in his own intolerant. As early as 1876 Lady Paget, whom Rosalind had never right, George 9th Earl of Carlisle was an influential member of the liked, wrote spitefully that: Establishment. He became Chairman of the Trustees of the National Gallery, after serving on the Committee for twenty-two years, and Mrs Howard had an expression of hardness in her light blue eyes and her made them a magnificent donation of some of the finest classical complexion was too florid for beauty Both she and her husband hoped paintings in the Howard collection. Philip Webb rightly said of the that they were extreme Radicals. She put her ideas into practice by being the 9th Earl that he was 'A constitutional caretaker of precious things'. As veriest tyrant at home. one of his many contributions to the artistic world he was involved in Lucy Cavendish, a cousin, was more perceptive when she wrote in commissioning murals for the House of Lords, in which context he her diary five years later: 'This description of Rosalind's customs and employed, among others, the artist Byam Shaw. Carlisle was a manners at Castle Howard make one despair of her ever knowing generous and imaginative patron of the arts, and he took a particular how to be gentle, humble or considerate; and yet she is kind and interest in helping the young. In 1908 he was elected President of an affectionate.' Rosalind seems to have been literally incapable of seeing international congress for the development of teaching art and its that anyone who disagreed with her might, in fact, not only be worth application to industry - a subject which had always been dear to his listening to, but might have a valid point of view. And, in any case, heart - and he was also on the selection committee which chose the that they were entitled to their own opinions. masters for the famous South Kensington School of Art. Lady Carlisle's character invited apocryphal stories. One of the better George Howard, as he signed himself, was a compulsive, dedicated ones, still in circulation today, arose from her attitude to Temperance-an artist, never seen without a sketchbook in hand. During the last twenty issue, incidentally, with which her husband was in complete agreement. years of his life he went on a number of long painting safaris, to The inns on both estates were closed, and when they inherited India, the West Indies, and South Africa as well as all over Europe. Castle Howard it was said, and widely believed, that Rosalind had Today George Howard's paintings, of landscapes, friends and family, thrown all the rare wines in the cellar into the lake. (In fact, wine fill the walls of the Museum Room at Castle Howard. continued to be served to guests at Castle Howard until 1903, when The 9th Earl of Carlisle died of heart failure at the age of sixty- the Countess was elected President of the National British Women's seven in 1911. King George V sent a message of sympathy to Temperance Association.) Needless to say this story caused consider- Geoffrey Howard on hearing 'the sad news of the death of your able outrage, and was brought up again in the popular Press in 1916. father whom I knew so well'. And his old friend Wilfrid Scawen Lady Carlisle was accused of wasting wine that might have saved the Blunt commented sadly: 'George Howard Lord Carlisle is dead. He was lives of wounded soldiers in hospital. She replied with the truth: one of the best of men, as well as one of the most domestically tried.' 204 205 Castle Howard The 9th Earl left a will which caused a good deal of speculation and controversy, and led to the break-up of the Howard estates. His II eldest son Charles, who became the 10th Earl, inherited only Naworth Castle and a small amount- of surrounding land in Cumberland, which had already been entailed: the whole of the rest of the estate, 'A Losing Battle for Survival' including Castle Howard, was left outright to Rosalind Carlisle, who would thereby remain free, on her own death, to dispose of it however she wished. She had quarrelled irrevocably with Charles many years before, and in any case he predeceased her. In her own will Rosalind decided to bypass Charles's son, another George,* who had become Wealth and austerity are relative concepts. Thus, though the the 11th Earl and the new titular head of the family, and instead, after magnificence and display so loved by earlier generations of Carlisles favouring various of the grandchildren in turn, left Castle Howard had long since vanished from Castle Howard by the beginning of the and the rest of the estate to her eldest daughter, Lady Mary Murray. twentieth century, the family continued to live in a style which seems However, by the time Rosalind finally died in 1921, at the age of the height of elegance and ease when compared to the standards seventy-six, Lady Mary was firmly established with her own family prevalent today. Furthermore, the discrepancy between one person's in Oxford, where her husband Gilbert Murray was Professor of estimate of his own wealth and position, and other people's perception Greek: neither of the Murrays had any desire to live at Castle of the same, can be very different - and tends to illustrate character Howard, or to run an estate of such magnitude, and so Lady Mary rather than fact. Though Rosalind Carlisle was herself convinced that gave it back, lock, stock, and barrel, to her brother Geoffrey. At the she had imposed a regime of Spartan economy upon Castle Howard, same time, the family decided by mutual agreement that their in the eyes of the next generation the house remained a powerful mother's will was inequitable and were able to modify the terms to a symbol of aristocratic splendour. certain extent. Alternative provision was made for the other siblings, Gilbert Murray O.M., the classical; scholar who later married the and for the descendants of those who had died, including the new 9th Earl's eldest daughter, Lady Mary Howard, described his first Earl of Carlisle and his children. Thus, Castle Howard passed out of encounter with Castle Howard and its chatelaine in a. broadcast on the the hands of the Earls of Carlisle for ever, but remained in the C to commemorate his ninetieth birthday: Howard family. The next great influence on my youth befell me in my last year at college when I was on a picnic with the Sidgwicks [Arthur Sidgwick], and talking I remember to a little girl who was trying with her small paintbox to paint the river a proper blue, when suddenly an impressive lady whom I didn't know said to me in a severe voice, 'Mr Murray are you a teetotaller?' 'I'm afraid I am,' said I. She followed with questions on Home Rule and Woman's Suffrage, to both of which I pleaded guilty. The lady proved to be * George Howard, 11th Earl of Carlisle, was born in 1895, died in 1963 and was the famous temperance enthusiast and radical, Rosalind, Countess of Carlisle, succeeded by his son, Charles, the 12th Earl, who still lives at Naworth Castle. and the incident led to several summer holidays at Castle Howard. 207 Castle Howard 'A Losing Battle for Survival' It was a striking experience, a great house, many guests, lots of cricket and represents a formidable amount of leisure by present standards. By tennis and unceasing political discussion, much of it novel and exciting, this time, of course, many of the functions of former domestic posts touched by the old Whig tradition, which held that all Tories were born bad had become obsolete, for example that of the postillion. The head but rapidly became worse as they grew up. However, there was also an coachman and his satellite grooms had been replaced by a chauffeur, atmosphere of art and culture and knowledge of foreign literatures, which and neither a house steward nor a groom of the chambers were any was new to me and greatly impressive. Castle Howard taught me much, and longer deemed necessary. Footmen, too, had disappeared from the besides, gave me a wife who seemed the answer to all my ideals, and who scene, along with the splendid liveries which had been worn by the through good and evil days in a long life has never once failed in courage, male staff in the past. But there was still a butler in formal dress and never once missed an opportunity of doing a kindness [Lady Mary the family as well as their guests still changed for dinner every night Howard, the eldest of the 9th Earl's eleven children] as a matter of course. The resident housekeeper, who was paid £90 a year and had her own private sitting-room, still ruled the roost below The socialist principles indicated in this quotation, which were so stairs: and the cook, paid £52 a year, still had a scullery maid and a strongly advocated by Lady Carlisle and her circle, must also be kitchen maid working under her. Three resident housemaids, in judged in the context of contemporary society, if they are not to seem descending order of rank and wages (ranging from £52 a year to absurd. Before the First World War - and in some cases even after- £24 a year) cleaned the rooms and looked after the fires, with the wards - it was taken for granted that a household comparable to help of a daily charwoman to scrub the floors. And there were others, Castle Howard would employ a large number of living-in servants. the very name of whose jobs evokes luxury, if not grandeur, and a Labour was still cheap and the class system still ingrained in the public most nostalgic image of gracious living - for example there was a consciousness; furthermore, domestic service was a means of providing 'sewing maid', full-time and paid £50 a year, and a 'parlour-maid', employment on the great estates, and noblesse oblige was still regarded doubtless complete with frilly white apron and starched cap, who as important. would have come into her own at tea-time, serving muffins and seed Many of the Tory establishments so despised by the Countess cake from a silver tray. continued to flaunt their status with spectacular parties, liveried footmen, and other symbols of conspicuous consumption: in comparison to such, the standard of living at Castle Howard was Leisure, before the First World War, was still a serious business. It indeed relatively modest. Nevertheless, the Carlisles' breed of socialism must be remembered that the modern concept of escaping to the in the early part of the twentieth century certainly did not entail country to relax in peace after a hard week in the office was not forgoing the comfort implicit in keeping a comparatively large applicable to this generation. Few of the Castle Howard guests at this domestic staff: nor was there any question of the family regarding period needed to work for their living: the great estates had not yet their servants as anywhere near their social equals. been decimated and the majority of the upper classes could still count As long as Rosalind Carlisle was alive (and, in fact, for a few years upon an unearned income. And since the great Victorian credo that after her death), Castle Howard continued to employ twelve full-time 'the Devil finds work for idle hands' continued to haunt the living-in servants, as well as a number of daily and part-time staff. twentieth-century conscience, it was important to organize the days This figure is just over a quarter of the one given for the size of the in meticulous detail - the mornings in study, or other worthwhile 6th Earl and Georgiana's household, some IOO years earlier, but it still activities, and the afternoons in planned entertainment. 208 209 Sources and Selected Bibliography Cannon, J., Aristocratic Century, Cambridge University Press, 1984. Clarke, John, George III, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1972. Clay, Christopher, 'Marriage and Inheritance and the Rise of Large Estates in England 1660-1815', Economic History Review. Sources and Selected Bibliography Downes, Kerry, Sir John Vanbrugh. A Biography, Sidgwick & Jackson, London, 1987. Duncan, Andrew I.M., A Study of the Life and Public Career of Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle, 1748-1825, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Oxford, 1981. Duncan, Andrew I.M., A Georgian Country Estate: Castle Howard 1770- SOURCES 1820, unpublished, 1988. Fowler, John, and Cornforth, John, English Decoration in the Eighteenth The majority of the material used in this book comes from the Castle Century, Barrie & Jenkins, London, 1974. Howard archives. Other sources include: The Dictionary of National Fowler, Marian, Blenheim - Biography of a Palace, Viking, London, Biography, York Municipal Library, the Public Record Office, the 1989. Historical Manuscripts Commission, the British Library, the London Fowler, Sybilla Jane, The Stately Homes of Britain, Debrett/Webb & Library, Bath Public Reference Library, and other local libraries. Bower, London, 1982. Publications include: Geduld, H.M., Prince of Publishers: A Study of the Work and Career of The Gentleman's Magazine. Jacob Tonson, Bloomington, London, 1969. The Malton Messenger and other contemporary local George, Dorothy M., London Life in the 18th Century, Kegan Paul, London, 1925. newspapers. The Spectator 1711-14 (ed. Steele and Addison). Gibbs, Lewis, The Admirable Lady Mary, Alan, Dent, London, 1949. The Tatler 1709-II (ed. Richard Steele). Girouard, Mark, Life in the English Country House, Yale University Press, The Times (Obituaries, Court Circular, etc.) 1978; Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1980. Grundy Heape, R., Georgian York, Methuen, London, 1937 Henley, Dorothy, Rosalind Howard, Countess of Carlisle, Hogarth Press, London, 1958. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Historic Houses - Conversations in Stately Homes, Condé Nast Publications, Ashton, J., Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne (2 vols.), Chatto & London, 1969. Windus, London, 1900. The Household Book of Lady Grisell Baillie, 1692-1733, Edinburgh Univer- Askwith, Betty, Piety and Wit, Collins, London, 1982. sity Press, 19II. Bell, Alan, Sydney Smith. A Biography, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1982. Hussey, Christopher, English Gardens and Landscapes 1700-1750, Country Life, London, 1967. Bingham, Madeleine, Masks and Facades, Allen & Unwin, London, 1974. Borsay, Peter, The English Urban Renaissance: Culture and Society in the Laver, James, A Concise History of Costume, Thames & Hudson, London, Provincial Town 1660-1770, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1989. 1969. Buck, Anne, Eighteenth Century Dress, Batsford, London, 1979. Lees-Milne, James, Earls of Creation, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1962. 220 228 Castle Howard Sources and Selected Bibliography Lees-Milne, James, English Country Houses - Baroque 1685-1715, Country Wharncliffe, Lord (ed.), The Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Life, London, 1982. Richard Bentley, London, 1837. LeFanu, William (ed.), Betsy Sheridan's Journal, Eyre & Spottiswoode, Wilkinson, J. Brooke, History of Carlisle House, Soho, London, 1939. 1960. Woodforde, John, Georgian Houses For All, Routledge & Kegan Paul, Leveson-Gower, G. (ed.), Hary-o: The Letters of Lady Harriet Cavendish, London, 1978. 1796-1809, London, 1940. Leveson-Gower, Iris, The Face Without a Frown, Muller, London, 1944. Moir, E.E., The Discovery of Britain. The English Tourists 1540-1840, London, 1964. Nicolson, Nigel, The National Trust Book of Great Houses of Britain, The National Trust and Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1978. Oliens, Diana, Morpeth - A Victorian Public Career, Ph.D. dissertation, University Press of America, 1983. Passages from the Diaries of Mrs Lybbe Powys 1756-1808, Longmans, London, 1899. Porter, Roy, Health for Sale: Quackery in England 1660-1850, Manchester University Press, 1989. Roberts, Charles, The Radical Countess, Steel Brothers, Carlisle, 1962. Saumarez Smith, Charles, The Building of Castle Howard, Faber and Faber, London, 1990. Saumarez Smith, Charles, Charles Howard, Third Earl of Carlisle and the Architecture of Castle Howard, Ph.D. dissertation, University of London, 1986. Smith, Nowell C. (ed.), Selected Letters of Sydney Smith, Oxford Univer- sity Press, 1981. Stevens, John, Knavesmire - York's Great Racecourse and Its Stories, Pelham Books, London, 1984. Stone, Lawrence, Family and Fortune. The Howards, Earls of Suffolk 1574- 1745, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1973. Stone, Lawrence, The Family, Sex and Marriage 1500-1800, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1977; Penguin Books, 1979. Surtees, Virginia, The Artist and the Autocrat, Michael Russell, 1988. Waterson, Merlin, The Servants' Hall, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1980. Webb, Geoffrey (ed.), The Complete Works of Sir John Vanbrugh. The Letters (Vol. 4), Nonesuch Press, London, 1928. 230 Castle Howard Page 1 of 2 THE HERITAGE TRAIL I CASTLE HOWARD The 4th Duke of Norfolk's youngest son, Lord William Howard, acquired this elevated site just 15 miles from the centre of York in the 16th century. In 1661 his great grandson, Charles, was created the first Earl of Carlisle, but it was the 3rd Earl who employed the fashionable opportunist of the day to build his prestigious home. John Vanbrugh, better known for his play writing at that time, had no previous knowledge of building but somehow managed to convince the Earl that he would be able to produce something stunningly different. It took less than 10 years to create the palatial structure, but a further 15 years to complete the lavish external decoration and the opulent interiors. After the deaths of Vanbrugh in 1726, and the Earl in 1738, a new Palladian style wing was 000000000900 added, giving a lop-sided appearance to the original concept. Many alterations were undertaken in sub: West of years but the contrasting splendour of Baroque against the subdued lines of the Palladian features hav Sios maintained to give Castle Howard its striking silhouette. Whilst the 3rd Earl can take the credit for this inspired and impressive stately home, the 4th and 5th Earl important contributions to the works of art. Both travelled abroad extensively, one collecting antique SCI and the other an outstanding gallery of Old Masters, as well as numerous contemporary paintings. Their for classical Italian work is prominently displayed throughout the house, but in the Antique Passage and t Gallery the vast collections are exhibited to their best advantage. Each successor at Castle Howard has map their own touch of individuality to the growing collections, including many portraits, porcelain and furniture. During the 19th century a link was established with the great Derbyshire house of Chatsworth when the married the daughter of the 5th Duchess of Devonshire. Both the 6th and 7th Earls were long-servin performing many public duties. Commemorative items and gifts from the times when the 7th Earl Wi www Lieutenant of Ireland are dotted around the house. George Howard and his wife Rosalind, the 9th E Countess, moved in the pre-Raphaelite circles, and one of their many friends was William Morris. As ai Liberal MP, a great traveller and an accomplished painter, the 9th Earl's influence on Castle Howard is visible. The Museum Room is almost pure Victorian and contains many of the Earl's landscape paintings, splendid Anglican chapel has hints of William Morris designs among the items brought into this area Countess. When the 9th Earl died in 1911, Castle Howard witnessed the end of an era, with Naworth Castle becom Earl of Carlisle's main residence. Castle Howard experienced a brief period of uncertainty before George returned to live at Castle Howard after the Second World War. Working together with his wife, George r the sparkle to Castle Howard and was proud to pass on the inheritance to his son, the Hon. Simon Howa continues to live there with his own family. http://www.theheritagetrail.co.uk/stately%20homes/castle%20howard.htm 3/23/2004 Howardian Hills - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Page 1 of 2 Howardian Hills From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Howardian Hills The Howardian Hills form an Area of Outstanding Natural Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty Beauty in North Yorkshire, England. located between the Yorkshire Wolds, the North York Moors National Park and the Vale of York. The AONB includes farmland, wooded rolling countryside, villages and historic houses with parkland. The hills take their name from the noble Howard family who owned large areas of the hills. Contents 1 Topography View of the Howardian Hills 2 History 3 Settlement Country United Kingdom 4 Land use County North Yorkshire 5 See also 6 References Location Yorkshire and the Humber 7 External links Area 204 km2 (79 sq mi) Founded 1987 Topography Website http://www.howardianhills.org.uk/ The Howardian Hills form a roughly rectangular area of well- wooded undulating countryside rising between the flat agricultural Vales of Pickering and York. The irregular 180 metres (591 ft) ridges of the Howardian Hills are a southern extension of the rocks of the North York Moors. Jurassic limestone gives the landscape its character. The area contains a rich tapestry of wooded hills and valleys, pastures and rolling farmland, as well as extensive views from the higher ground across the agricultural plains below. On the eastern edge, the River Derwent cuts through the Hills in the Kirkham Gorge, a deep winding valley which was formed as an overflow channel from glacial Lake Pickering. [1] History In the spring of 1993 North Yorkshire County Council with the aid of a grant from the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England carried out a field survey of the Howardian Hills to help in its preparation for a Management Plan for the area. Extensive cropmarks of discontinuous parallel ditches were recorded on the dip slope to either side of Barton le Street. Similar features are seen on the Yorkshire Wolds, their appearance suggesting adaptation and reuse of the landscape, over considerable periods of time and possibly serving different functions at different times. Also similar to the Yorkshire Wolds was the identification of square barrow cemeteries which sometimes appeared to be associated with trackways. [2] Settlement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howardian_Hills 5/8/2010 Howardian Hills - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Page 2 of 2 The AONB contains no towns, although the market towns of Helmsley and Maltoniniesjust boundary. From Brandsby to Coneysthorpe is a line of spring line villages. The area has many attractive stone-built, red pantile-roofed buildings. It is the setting for a number of fine country houses, whose parklands are an intrinsic part of the landscape. These grand houses and designed landscapes, such as Castle Howard, Newburgh Priory, Hovingham Hall, Gilling Castle and Nunnington Hall, have a dramatic effect upon the scene. The most notable of these is Vanbrugh's famous masterpiece, Castle Howard. Land use High grade arable land, pasture and managed woodland makes this rich farming country whose diversity creates its attractive rural character. [1][3] See also Terrington References New stone walling conservation 1. a b "AONB Howardian Hills". Natural England. work in the Howardian Hills AONB http://www.countryside.gov.uk/LAR/Landscape/DL/aonbs /aonb_howardianhills.asp. Retrieved 2008-05-20. 2. ^ "Howardian Hills NMP". English Heritage. http://www.english- heritage.org.uk/server/show/nav.8779. Retrieved 2008-05-20. 3. ^ "Facts" (pdf). http://www.howardianhills.org.uk/downloads/Facts.pdf.Retrieved 2008-05-21. External links Bateman, J. (2006) 'Howardian Hills Field Collection Survey' John Bateman: York Archaeological Survey Report. Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howardian_Hills" Categories: Geography of North Yorkshire | Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty in England Mountains and hills of Yorkshire This page was last modified on 18 August 2009 at 14:06. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of Use for details. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howardian_Hills 5/8/2010 The Howardian Hills Series of Walking Books Page 1 of 1 Carlsberg CLICK HERE build your own orange TO WATCH THE website NEW AD NOW englandteamtolk.com report abuse The Howardian Hills Series of Walking Books Walks in the Howardian Hills AONB How to Order The Walks The Books "Walks from Slingsby" features 12 walks all starting from the village, well known for its castle and maypole. "Walks from Eastern Villages" has walks from Appleton-le-street, Bulmer, Hovingham, Kirkham, Swinton, Terrington, Welburn and Whitwell on the Hill. Each book contains 12 easy to follow walks averaging between 4 and 5 miles. There are around 50 miles of walks in each book. "Walks from Castle Howard" has 13 walks including some longer walks taking in many of the villages in the other books plus Low Hutton, Ganthorpe and Crambeck. "Walks West of Hovingham" has 16 walks and features walks from Hovingham, Nunnington, Coulton, Scackleton, Gilling East, Ampleforth, Sproxton, Yearsley, Brandsby, Stearsby, Ouiston and Coxwold. There are around 80 miles of walks in this book with suggestions for combining some to make longer walks - cracking value! A plan and detailed route description support every walk. In addition there is a comprehensive introduction to the area, transport, refreshment places and a guide on where to stay. The books are on sale at village shops, from Tourist Information Centres in the area, Castle Howard Bookshop and the NY Moors Visitor Centre at Sutton Bank. Buy direct from the author using the form on the 'How to Order page on this website at a discounted price, post free. orange Carlsberg TO WATCH THE NEW AD NOW englandteamtalk.com http://howardianhillswalks.website.orange.co.uk/the_walks.5.ht 5/8/2010 H Please take care when journeying through the grounds. Map of Ray Wood showing CastleHoward Surfaces can be slippery and uneven. seasonal walks Main track More detailed information can be found in our Ray Spring seasonal walk Wood self-guided trail booklet. Available to buy at Mausoleum the house entrance, gift shops and ticket office. Summer seasonal walk (no public access) Level entrance to the House Autumn seasonal walk Temple of the Kelly Car - free transport Four Winds Other paths pick up points Site of the Temple of Venus Fence and gate Toilets and baby change facilities New River Information panels Routes and pathways Bridge Contours Cascade Ray Wood Lakeside Temple of the Holiday Park Four Winds Adventure Playground Polar Bear Walk South Lake and Boat Trips Time Capsule Prince of Wales Fountain Boathouse Café 11 AA+S Exhibition Wing Grand Firs Open 11am-4pm Ground Source Heating Display Atlas Fountain Great Lake House Entrance Open 11am-4pm Aztec The Pyramid Access to the Mountain, Boar Garden Glade X The Fitzroy Room and House Gift Shop Reservoir 11 APT Level entrance to the House Walled Garden with Rose Collection and Ornamental Vegetable Garden Boar Garden (outdoor tour meeting point) X Garden Centre Polar Bear Time Ticket Office Stable Courtyard Walk Capsule Courtyard Café Coffee Shop Farm Shop Carriage House P Bookshop House Entrance II Apto Boar Garden Open all year, 10am-5pm TI Coaches (4pm January & February) P FREE ADMISSION Stable Courtyard Car Park Castle Howard Page 1 of 2 CASTLE HOWARD Quick Search: ABOUT CASTLE HOWARD I LATEET NEWT I EVENTS I RECRUITMENT I TITE INDEX I PRESS ROOM I USEFUL LINKS HOME HISTORY, ARCHIVE & RESTORATION History, Archive & Restoration I History of Castle Howard I Research The Howard Family Management I Guide Training I Archives Enquiries History, Archive & Restoration The House Gardens & Grounds History, Archive & Restoration Plant Centre Eating at Castle Howard Welcome to Castle Howard, which has been home to the Howard family for 300 years. Mi Corporate Events more than just a stately home, the history of the house, the collections and the grounds Filming & Locations stretches back over three centuries. Let Property Tree Nursery & Forestry Fishing Lakeside Holiday Park Park Farm On-Line Shop REGISTER YOUR E-MAIL is - TALK TO US SITE INFO The construction of Castle Howard took more than 100 years before it could be said to ha been finally completed, and spanned the lifetime of three Earls and numerous architects craftsmen. As the house was built and decorated so the grounds were filled with lakes, temples, monuments and a grand mausoleum. A thriving estate grew up encompassing S villages and acres of farmland. Indoors, furniture, paintings, sculptures and a host of oth treasures were assembled by successive generations after their tours of the Continent. But the story of Castle Howard is really one of incessant change. The house and grounds grown and altered through successive generations of the family, and it is this essential dynamic, continued through the unbroken occupation of the house, that has made Castle Howard so special today. The single most significant event since the day it was built has been the calamitous fire C 1940, which destroyed the dome and nearly 20 rooms, as well as numerous treasures. F next few years much of Castle Howard was open to the skies, its once splendid rooms gu shells. George Howard, who inherited the house, after the deaths in action of his two bro in World War Two, determined that the house should be lived in once more, and made tr decision to recover Vanbrugh's architectural masterpiece. http://www.castlehoward.co.uk/archive.shtm 3/23/2004 Castle Howard Page 2 of 2 It is largely due to his remarkable efforts that Castle Howard is today still home to the Hi family, and enjoys such popularity with the public, and people who visit today are always asking questions, for there are so many things to illustrate and explain, and so many sto tell. From the smallest object inside the house, to the largest feature outdoors there is a multitude of things to stimulate the eye and excite people's interest at Castle Howard. Nr wonder people spend an entire day here, absorbing all the beautiful sights and immersin themselves in the stories of the past; and usually they come back again for more. Visitors to Castle Howard are free to wander through the house and grounds at their owr and guides are on hand to offer information. There are leaflets, guidebooks and exhibitio that illuminate much of the past; and there is a continuous programme of lectures, public and research in the archives that is always yielding fresh and exciting information about history of the house, the family, the collections and the grounds. The past is always comi light at Castle Howard. All over the estate a major programme of restoration work is dedicated towards preservir priceless heritage, ranging from large projects dealing with the masonry, lead roofing, th gardens, and the lakes and waterways, to smaller but no less important objects such as I statues, paintings, books and furniture. For each of these items has its own very special to tell in the history of Castle Howard. TOP About Castle Howard I Latest News I Events I Recruitment Site Index I Press Room I Useful Links http://www.castlehoward.co.uk/archive.shtml 3/23/2004 Castle Howard Page 1 of 4 CASTLE HOWARD Quick Search: ABOUT CATTLE HOWARD I LATEIN NEWS I EVENTS RECRUITMENT 3 RITE INDES I PRESE ROOM I U.EFUL LIMICS HOME HISTORY, ARCHIVE & RESTORATION History, Archive & Restoration I History of Castle Howard I Research The Howard Family Management I Guide Training I Archives I Enquiries History, Archive & Restoration The House Gardens & Grounds The History of Castle Howard Plant Centre Eating at Castle Howard Although building work began C. 1699 the construction of Castle Howard took more than Corporate Events hundred years before the House could be said to have been finally completed, and spanr Filming & Locations the lifetimes of three Earls and numerous architects and craftsmen. Let Property Tree Nursery & Forestry Fishing Lakeside Holiday Park Park Farm On-Line Shop REGISTER YOUR E-MAIL TALK TO US SITE INFO Initially the 3rd Earl of Carlisle approached William Talman, the leading architect of the d furnish him with designs for his new house but his proposals were rejected and in the sur of 1699 Carlisle turned to his fellow Kit Cat Club member, the dramatist John Vanbrugh, at that point, had never built anything in his life. How Vanbrugh was able to convince Carlisle that he was the right choice we shall never I the bravado of the amateur, the experienced man of the theatre, someone who was willi try his hand at anything, and the genial camaraderie of the Kit Cat Club - all of these mu have contributed to the relationship between the two men. Between 1699 and 1702 the design for the house evolved through a series of prototypes before its final form was arrived at. The idea of two projecting wings had always feature the proposals, but incredibly the idea of the huge crowning dome was not included until ( late, after building work had actually begun. http://www.castlehoward.co.uk/archive-history.shtml 3/23/2004 Castle Howard Page 2 of 4 Vanbrugh, who by this time had recruited Nicholas Hawksmoor to assist him in the practi side of design and construction, had boldly orientated the house on a north/south axis, W was to have significant consequences with regard to the future layout of the grounds. Built from east to west the mansion took shape in just under ten years. The East Wing W constructed in 1701-03; the eastern wing of the Garden Front in 1701-06; the Central BI including the dome, in 1703-06; and the western wing of the Garden Front in 1707-09. Carlisle's new home was surmounted with a dramatic masonry dome, the first of its kind crown a private residence in the England. The facades were bristling with exuberant carv decoration, including coronets, ciphers and coats of arms, a frieze of sea horses and cher and a carving of Diana, executed by the Huguenot carver, Nadauld. Statues and urns fill niches in the North Front and the skyline presenting a vast dramatic spectacle. There we different orders for the pilasters of the two fronts: Doric for the north and Corinthian for South - when challenged over this Hawksmoor replied that nobody could see both fronts simultaneously! Carlisle's building project had quickly became the talk of fashionable society and by 1725 an engraving of the house appeared in the third volume of Vitruvius Britannicus most of exterior structure was complete and its interiors opulently finished. This striking view rev to the world at large the full magnificence of the building and grounds which during some years had cost Carlisle as much as 30 per cent of his annual income. But the Vitruvius view represents a building that was unfinished at this date and which W never completed in this manner. The House lacked a West Wing and was to do so for and quarter of a century. One of the reasons for this was that from roughly 1715 onwards Ca had diverted much of his energy and income away from the house and into landscaping 1 surrounding terrain. Vanbrugh, although involved in the landscaping, was nevertheless anxious that the hous should receive its symmetrical West Wing. His pleas were ignored and the house remaine lopsided. In 1724, two years before his death, he pleaded with Carlisle to attend to the unsightly area about the house, urging him to 'remove that disagreeable confusion and li that is a mighty drawback upon the beauty of the court and north appearance of the hou At the time of his death in 1726 the house was still incomplete, as it still was when the 3 died in 1738. Little could both men have guessed that when the house came to be compl by Carlisle's son-in-law, Sir Thomas Robinson, Vanbrugh's flamboyant baroque design WC be anchored to a sober Palladian wing. Inspired, in part, by William Kent's designs for th Houses of Parliament, Robinson designed a low rustic storey and a piano nobile with a ce http://www.castlehoward.co.uk/archive-history.shtml 3/23/2004 Castle Howard Page 3 of 4 octagonal dome and pavilions at each end surmounted with a pyramidal roof. At the death of the 4th Earl in 1758 the wing was only partially finished and lacked a roo first floor. In spite of Robinson's boast that the interiors would rival any in the world for 'magnificence and convenience', by the time of his death in 1777 the wing was roofed bu unfinished inside, owing to the strict regimen of the trustees of the young 5th Earl who to allow any money to finish the interiors. Although some of the bedrooms were completo in use at the end of the century, the Long Gallery and projected new Dining Room beyon remained unfinished, until decorated in 1801-11 by Charles Heathcote Tatham. From the outside, the unbalanced appearance of the house provoked a mixed response f visitors, many of whom perceived the discrepancy, one of whom, in 1778, imagined the separate wings to 'stand staring at each other, as much as to say, What business have y here?'. In his unpublished Reminiscences the 5th Earl remembered how the family found difficult to comprehend their father's decision to build a new wing 'not correspondent to t other, or to the centre part of the House', and he recalls that his father too was unhappy the result, registering disgust 'with all its unconquerable faults'. Indeed it seems likely th Robinson been allowed to continue such was his zeal that he would have demolished Vanbrugh's house and rebuilt Castle Howard from west to east in a Palladian manner. The building of Castle Howard was finally completed with the decoration of the Long Galli Tatham, but further alterations were to be made to the house when the pavilion rooms a either end of the West Wing were removed during the refurbishment of the Chapel in 18 as part of a plan to bring both wings into greater harmony. Thus today the final appearance of the House bears little resemblance to the idealised vii Vitruvius Britannicus: two identical wings are replaced by two wings that do not match; t house has a spectacularly assymetrical appearance as Vanbrugh's baroque progression is challenged by Palladian afterthought. Tragically further change was to occur in the middle of the 20th century when, on the mc of 9 November 1940, fire broke out in the South-East Wing and swept through the house the Great Hall, destroying the dome and nearly twenty rooms. For the next few years m Castle Howard was open to the skies, its once splendid rooms gutted shells. George How who inherited Castle Howard after the death of his two brothers in action during the war, determined that the House should be lived in once more, and made the bold decision to recover Vanbrugh's damaged architectural masterpiece. It is largely due to his remarkable efforts that Castle Howard is today home to the family enjoys such enormous popularity with the public. In 1960-62 the dome was rebuilt and redecorated, and in 1981, in conjunction with Granada Television and the filming of Bride Revisited, the Garden Hall was rebuilt. As time and money permit, the gradual task of restoring the fire-damaged sections continues. In the early 1980s a New Library was buil 1994-95 the Central Block was re-roofed. All over the Estate restoration work and essent maintenance are carried out, ranging from large projects dealing with masonry, lead roof the gardens, and the lakes and waterways, to smaller but no less important objects such lead statues, paintings, books and textiles, all of which testify to the family's dedication t Castle Howard. Since 1952 the House has been open to the public and each year nearly 200,000 visitors through the doors, and thousands more attend various events and outdoor concerts. TOP About Castle Howard I Latest News I Events I Recruitment Site Index Press Room Useful Links http://www.castlehoward.co.uk/archive-history.shtml 3/23/2004 Castle Howard, historic houses, archives, art, gardens, mausoleum Page 1 of 2 CASTLE HOWARD Quick Search: ABOUT CASTLE HOWARD I I EVENTY I RECRUITMENT RITE INDEX I PRESS ROOM I U.FEFUL LINICS HOME HISTORY, ARCHIVE & RESTORATION History, Archive & Restoration I History of Castle Howard I Research The Howard Family Management I Guide Training I Archives Enquiries History, Archive & Restoration The House Gardens & Grounds Archives Plant Centre Eating at Castle Howard The Castle Howard Archives are privately owned and administered by Castle Howard Esta Corporate Events Ltd. They are open to established scholars and other researchers by appointment only. Filming & Locations Let Property Tree Nursery & Forestry All enquiries must be addressed in writing to the Curator, Dr Christopher Ridgway Fishing stating clearly the object of study and any personal qualifications held. Lakeside Holiday Park Park Farm All applications to visit are at the discretion of the Hon Simon Howard and the Cu On-Line Shop REGISTER YOUR Applications must be made at least one month in advance of the requested date E-MAIL visit. On-Line Shop TALK TO US A copy of the index for the Castle Howard Archives is available for consultation at SITE INFO National Register of Archives, Quality Court, Chancery Lane, London, WC2A 1HP. 020 7242 1198. All researchers are strongly advised to consult this document in advance of any application to visit Castle Howard. Access is not allowed to un- catalogued material or to fragile items. All researchers must supply a letter of reference, and upon arrival they will be asl read and sign a copy of the "Regulations for Research at Castle Howard". The following categories of researchers are recognised: Full-time students working on a thesis or dissertation. Normally access is allowed condition that a copy of the completed thesis/dissertation is given to the Archives element of the reading charge will also be levied depending on the demands mad the Archives. Academic researchers and other scholars working towards a publication. There is requirement that one copy of the publication is given to the Archives. Genealogists. Due to limited staff resources, commitments to existing research programmes with visiting scholars and researchers, and to the major in-house cataloguing projects, Castle Howard is not normally able to accommodate applicat to visit by genealogical researchers. Only in the most exceptional circumstances r it be possible for genealogists to visit. Opening: The Archives are open between March and October on a limited basis from 10:00 am to & pm, Monday to Wednesday, and only one researcher is permitted to visit at any one time Access can only be given when a member of staff is present to supervise the Reading Ro There is a daily reading charge of £25.00. The Archives are shut for one hour at lunch, W the Reading Room is closed. A cafeteria is available for refreshments. http://www.castlehoward.co.uk/archive-archives.shtml 3/23/2004 Castle Howard, historic houses, archives, art, gardens, mausoleum Page 2 of 2 Photocopying of any materials is always at the discretion of the Curator. A charge will t made for photocopying. Copyright of all material is retained by Castle Howard Estate Ltd Application for permission to publish material from the Archives should be made in writin the Curator. Transport/Accommodation: Public transport to and from Castle Howard is limited and researchers are advised to cont the following for information on bus services, some of which are seasonal only: Yorkshire Coastliner: 01653 692 556 The nearest railway station is Malton (5 miles away) with services to and from York, whic on the main East Coast line. The journey time between York and London is approximately hours. For information on accommodation the following numbers are useful: Malton Tourist Information Office: 01653 600 048 York Tourist Information Office: 01904 640 896 Pickering Tourist Information Office: 01751 473 791 Castle Howard Estate Office Castle Howard North Yorkshire York Y060 7DA Tel: +44 (0)1653 648 444 Fax: +44 (0)1653 648 529 TOP B About Castle Howard I Latest News I Events I Recruitment Site Index I Press Room I Useful Links http://www.castlehoward.co.uk/archive-archives.shtml 3/23/2004 GARDENS AND THE PICTURESQUE This 2/ole Studies in the History of Landscape Architecture John Dixon Hunt Cest, 1992 LAMSON LIBRARY PLYMOUTH STATE COLLEGE PLYMOUTH, NH 03264 The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts CONTENTS List of Illustrations ix Preface xvii Introduction: Reading and Writing the Site 3 PART ONE Gardens, Words, Pictures 1 Castle Howard Revisited 19 2 Theaters, Gardens, and Garden Theaters 49 3 Emblem and Expression in the Eighteenth-Century Landscape Garden 75 4 Ut Pictura Poesis, Ut Pictura Hortus, and the Picturesque 105 5 Sense and Sensibility in the Landscape Designs of Humphry Repton 139 PART TWO Pictures, Picturesque, Places 6 Picturesque Mirrors and the Ruins of the Past 171 7 John Ruskin and the Picturesque 193 8 Ruskin, "Turnerian Topography," and Genius Loci 215 PART THREE Picturesque, Impressionism, Modernism 9 French Impressionist Gardens and the Ecological Picturesque 243 10 The Picturesque Legacy to Modernist Landscape Architecture 285 Postscript: Gardens in Utopia: Utopia in the Garden 305 Notes 337 Index 379 9/201 242 CASTLEHOWARD Christopher Ridgway. Castle Howard North Yorkshire, England Location: approximately 15 miles (24 km) northeast nade surmounted by a shallow cap above a clerestory; of York inside there is a chapel on the upper level with a crypt and vaults below. Begun in 1729 it was finished in the Generally regarded as one of the earliest examples of 1740s to a different design after a triumvirate of gentle- the style known as the English landscape garden, the man architects had intervened in the execution of the house and grounds at Castle Howard were begun in building. These were Henry Howard, future fourth earl 1699 when Charles Howard, third earl of Carlisle, of Carlisle, his brother-in-law, the architect Sir Thomas resolved to build himself a new home at Henderskelfe in Robinson, and Richard Boyle, third earl of Burlington, Yorkshire, close to the prosperous and important city of the influential patron of Palladian architects. Their alter- York. ations included a bastion wall surrounding the edifice Carlisle initially chose William Talman as his architect and the addition of a set of steps on the east side but dismissed him in favor of Sir John Vanbrugh, whose (modeled on those at Burlington's own villa in Chiswick, decision to reposition the proposed house on a north- Middlesex). south axis was to have profound consequences for the In addition to the water features in Ray Wood, the development of the grounds. Early proposals for formal exploitation of abundant natural water sources led to gardens at Castle Howard, attributed to the leading the creation of the South Lake (1724) and the fashion- nurseryman George London, show designs that included ing of New River (1732), which was spanned by New formal parterres, canals, and plantations. These were River Bridge (1744). declined, and instead Carlisle, with Vanbrugh and Comparable English gardens of the period include Nicholas Hawksmoor, favored a more innovative devel- Stowe, Buckinghamshire (1713-50), where Vanbrugh opment of the grounds, shunning the geometrical styles also worked, as well as Studley Royal, North Yorkshire influenced by prevailing French and Dutch fashions. (1715-30), and Duncombe Park, North Yorkshire Ray Wood, an ancient woodland to the east of the (begun 1713). The landscaping operations at Castle house, was fashioned into a series of serpentine walk- Howard were completed in under half a century, and ways and ornamented with lead sculptures, water fea- early descriptions of the grounds unanimously praise tures, and pavilions. Early accounts by visitors reveal the natural or extensive landscaping together with the this woodland garden to have been executed by 1710, buildings and monuments surrounding the house. although it was to fall into disrepair and vanish by the The early 18th-century gardens were altered little dur- middle of the 18th century, ing the following century, with the exception of the By 1715, with the building of the mansion largely South Parterre, where the wilderness and most of the complete, a plain grass parterre was laid out to the obelisks and statues were removed. In the 1790s the south of the house and filled with statues, obelisks, Great Lake to the north of the house was fashioned urns, and a column, with a symmetrical wilderness fash- with an adjoining pond. ioned out of fir trees beyond, which can be seen in the The next significant period of change occurred in bird's-eye view in volume 3 of Campbell's Vitruvius Bri- 1850 with the arrival of William Andrews Nesfield, pre- tannicus (1725). mier landscape architect of the early Victorian period. Attention was given to the wider landscape, too, with Commissioned by the seventh earl of Carlisle, Nesfield the erection of Vanbrugh's Temple of Diana (now known added a new pond to the Great Lake, known as the as the Temple of the Four Winds). Modeled on Palladio's Reflecting Pond. At the same time, to the south of the Villa Rotonda at Vicenza, it was begun in the 1720s and house, he began work on an elaborate, geometrical par- completed in 1739. A second temple by Hawksmoor, terre de broderie, consciously modeled on the 17th- known as the Temple of Venus, was constructed in the century designs of Le Nôtre and other French baroque 1730s, but this no longer survives. Other features by designers. A color lithograph of the parterre appeared in Vanbrugh included his Obelisk (1714-15), the Pyramid Adveno Brooke's The Gardens of England (1857). Two Arch (1719; expanded in the 1750s), and his Mock For- fountains were also installed with the assistance of the tifications (1720s). Buildings by Hawksmoor included engineer James Eastoin The first, known as the Atlas the Carrmire Gate (late 1720s), the Pyramid (1728), and Fountain, was shown at the Great Exhibition in London a smaller pyramid in Pretty Wood (date unknown). before being dismantled and brought by rail to Castle Hawksmoor's most important building was the Mau- Howard, where it was situated in the center of Nes- soleum. On the outside it is a tall cylinder with a colon- field's parterre, A second fountain, known as the Prince CASTLE HOWARD 243 of Wales Fountain, was placed in the South Lake, which 1960s Ray Wood replanted by James Russell was formalized in a geometrical fashion. These 1979 Castle Howard Arboretum started improvements were completed by 1853 at enormous 1985 Commencement of restoration of fountain, cost. Ten years later Nesfield advised on the extension lakes, and waterways of the South Waterways with the creation of a cascade, a basin, and a waterfall, which connected the South Further Reading Lake with New River beyond. Castle Howard, S.I.: Castle Howard Estate, 1997 Nesfield's landscaping was largely erased in 1893 by Downes, Kerry, Hawksmoor, London: Zwemmer, 1959; the ninth countess, who objected to his parterre on aes- New York: Praeger, 1969; 2nd edition, London: thetic grounds bur also the expense of maintaining it. Zwemmer, and Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT The parterre was replaced with a grass terrace and yew Press, 1979 hedges. Trees and shrubs were also planted on the Downes, Kerry, Vanbrugh, London: Zwemmer, shores of the lake, and in time these grew to obscure the 1977 vista across the waterways. After years of neglect in the Hawthorne, Lin, "A Woodland Paradise at Castle 20th century, the fountains, lakes, and waterways were Howard," Northern Gardener (Summer 1996) comprehensively restored between 1985 and 1992. Hunt, John Dixon, "Castle Howard Revisited," in Ray Wood, which had been clear telled during World Gardens and the Picturesque: Studies in the History War II, was replanted under the direction of George of Landscape Architecture, by Hunt, Cambridge, Howard and James Russell in the 1960s; today the Massachusetts, MIT Press, 1992 wood boasts an unparalleled collection of rhododen- Hussey, Christopher, English Gardens and Landscapes, drons, Pieris, wild roses, magnolias, hydrangeas, vibur- 1700-1750, New York: Funk and Wagnalls, and nums, maples, and rowans. In 1979 James Russell also London: Country Life, 1967 began designing the Castle Howard Arboretum, which Murray, Venetia, Castle Howard: The Life and Times of today is jointly administered in trust with the Royal a Stately Home, New York and London: Viking Press, Botanic Gardens, Kew 1994 Although Castle Howard is rightly famed as an 18th- Pevsner, Nikolaus, The Buildings of England: century landscape, it bears significant traces of Victo- Yorkshire, the North Riding, Harmondsworth: rian involvement as well as important late 20th-century Penguin, 1966 developments. Ridgway, Christopher, "The Restoration of the Lakes and Waterways at Castle Howard," Country Life Synopsis 173, no. 30 (27 July 1989) 1699 Charles Howard, third earl of Carlisle, begins Ridgway, Christopher, "Design and Restoration at new family home and chooses Sir John Castle Howard," in William Andrews Nesfield: Vanbrugh as architect Victorian Landscape Architect, edited by Ridgway, 1710 Ray Wood fashioned into woodland garden York, North Yorkshire: Institute of Advanced with meandering walkways and other Architectural Studies, 1996 features Ridgway, Christopher, *Using the Archive," European 1715 Castle Howard largely built; South Parterre Gardens 2 (Summer 1996) begun Ridgway, Christopher, "Making Heroes Fit for a 1720s Vanbrugh's Temple of Four Winds begun Landscape," Country Life Art and Antiques (6 May 1724 South Lake created 1999) (special issue) 1729 Hawksmoor's Mausoleum begun Saumarez Smith, Charles, The Building of Castle 1732 New River fashioned Howard, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, and 1744 Mausoleum completed London: Faber, 1990 1770 South Parterre modified Simmons, John, "Castle Howard Arboretum Trust," 1797 Great Lake to north of house fashioned Newsletter of the Tree Register of the British Isles 7 1850 William Andrews Nesfield begins work at (1997-98) Castle Howard Simmons, John, "He Could See the Wood for the 1864 Extension of South Waterways Trees," Country Life 193, no. 13 (1 April 1893 Removal of Nesfield's parterre 1999) 1940s Ray Wood clear felled, grounds and buildings in acute disrepair CHRISTOPHER RIDGWAY CHICAGO BOTANIC GARDEN Encyclopedia of ARDENS History and Design Volume 2 G-O EDITOR CANDICE A. SHOEMAKER FD FITZROY DEARBORN PUBLISHERS CHICAGO LONDON 5/31/14 Morris & Co. in a Baroque Setting Eeyan Hartley Sir John Vanbrugh's baroque masterpiece Castle Howard is perhaps as unlikely a setting for the work of the leading exponent of the Arts and Crafts Movement, William Morris, as can be imagined, yet that was once the case. Old photographs and account books reveal a house that has almost disappeared and one which is some instances is hard to recognize. The ravages of two world wars, the occupation of a girls' school and recent restoration have resulted in much late-Victorian decoration being rejected in favour of revealing the eighteenth-century character of the house. George and Rosalind Howard, the future 9th Earl and Countess of Carlisle, were, in the early idyllic years after their marriage in 1864, (a perfect aesthetic couple- he a talented amateur artist, she "unbecrinolined" and radical in outlook. When they decided to build a new London home it was natural that they should be influenced by their artistic friends, William Morris and Frederick Leighton, who had both used their artistic vision to create extraordinary houses; Red House at Bexleyheath, built between 1859 and 60, and Leighton House in Kensington, completed in 1864. The Howards employed Morris's friend and colleague Philip Webb to design for them a controversial new house of red brick with an asymmetrical frontage at No 1, Palace Green, Kensington. Completed in 1870, it was decorated throughout with Morris wallpapers and fabrics, Edward Burne-Jones being commissioned to paint a frieze depicting the legend of Cupid and Psyche for the dining room. There can have been little exaggeration by The Studio magazine when it described the interiors as glowing "like the page of an illuminated missal". Whilst it was not surprizing that their newly built home should happily accommodate Morris designs, Castle Howard would provide a more unusual setting. George and Rosalind Howard's first recorded visit to "Morris and Webb's furniture place in Queen Square" was on 3rd November 1866 and it was doubtless the young couple's influence on George's aunt and uncle, Lord & Lady Lanerton who lived at 5 Source: Jounnal the William Maris Society 11.2 (1995):5-9. Castle Howard, that led to Morris & Company receiving the commission for the stained glass windows in the Private Chapel in 1871. Rosalind wrote to her mother that "The Chapel is the one great interest the Lanertons have"? and its re-ordering was lavish. The architect R.J. Johnson was employed to drop the level of the floor and C.E. Kempe advised on the rich polychromatic decoration which overlaid the mid-eighteenth-century pillars and plasterwork. The chief glory of the chapel would be the windows; these were installed on hinged panels SO that extra light could be admitted - a suggestion of Philip Webb who was anxious not to disrupt the exterior appearance of the house. Philip Webb designed architectural frames incorporating the four evangelists' symbols to surround the centre panels by Edward Burne-Jones. Whilst three of the subjects for these centre panels had been decided - the Annunciation, the Nativity and the Adoration of the Magi - the fourth panel proved more problematical, both the Transfiguration and the Presentation in the Temple being suggested before the final choice of the Flight into Egypt. As the size of the centre panels was increased at Lord Lanerton's request, the cost of the windows rose to a final figure of £737.00. The first Morris and Company wallpapers at Castle Howard were bought by the Lanertons; the original bills still survive. In 1872 the patterns dark blue Indian, dark Daisy, dark Fruit and blue Fruit were bought; the following year dark blue Queen Anne and Jasmine and the year after yellow Diaper and light Daisy. The last bill, dated January 14th 1878, was for 7 pieces of Indian wallpaper at a cost of £1.18s.6d. Sadly it is not known where these papers were used. Castle Howard was to occupy an ambivalent place in Rosalind Howard's affections; she preferred her London home and her husband's other ancestral seat, the medieval Naworth Castle in Cumberland. Regarding Castle Howard as over-decorated and over-luxurious, she nevertheless embarked upon her own programme of redecoration after Lord Lanerton's death in 1879. However her first purchases from Morris & Co. were originally destined not for the house itself but for the Castle Howard Inn. The Inn had been built within the park in the mid-eighteenth century to accommodate visitors; Rosalind was to transform it into a Guest House for poor women who were "tired, weak or worn-out through illness, poverty, hard-work or anxiety of mind. Accordingly many Morris wallpapers were ordered in 1881; blue Venetian, Larkspur, Lily, blue Mallow, Chrysanthemum, Trellis and light and green Daisy, to decorate the Inn. Chintzes were also bought, presumably for curtaining; these included Snakeshead, Marigold, and Indian Diaper, but Rosalind's generosity tended to be of a self-serving kind and a later note reveals: "Chintzes from Morris bought for the Guest house, but to be used in the house." The first fabrics bought with the house specifically in mind were revival designs based on historical precedents: Small Stem, an 1830s design adopted by Morris, of which 53 yds were bought at 5s/8d a yard, and "red stamped velvet", probably Utrecht Velvet, an embossed mohair plush inspired by 17th-century furnishing velvets. Of this she purchased 291/4 yds for £17.11s.0d, some of which was used to cover a pair of sofas (since sold from Castle Howard in November 1991). The evidence for this enthusiastic patronage of Morris & Company comes from Rosalind Howard's detailed annual account books which carefully recorded her purchases. In 1882 she bought 36 Sussex chairs at 7 shillings each for Castle Howard, also 12 Sussex round-seated at 10s/6d and 6 Sussex armchairs at 9s/9d. Any suspicion 6 that Rosalind was hankering for the simple life has to be offset by the setting she had created for these chairs. In 1882 a new Dining Room at Castle Howard was made by throwing three rooms into one, the walls covered with gold Japanese leather paper (designed to imitate embossed leather hangings produced in Spain and Holland in the 16th and 17th centuries) and fireplaces aglow with De Morgan tiles; here the Sussex chairs were mingled with the Chippendale to curious effect. Other activity in 1882 included buying 54 yds of "red roman satin" with which to hang the walls of one of the State Rooms. For her own sitting room Rosalind ordered another stamped leather paper which depicted, against a green background, golden cupids squeezing grapes into wine goblets, an odd (and extravagant at £113.8s.0d) choice for such an ardent temperance reformer. The previous November Rosalind had written to William Morris asking his advice as to which patterns to use and Morris had directed his assistant to write "recommended" and "specially recommended" on certain of them; sadly these notes do not survive. On 24th November 1881 he had written that "the gold and red sunflower is on my board at Queen Square & I will do my best to hit the due colour." This he must have done, as 13 pieces at £19.13s.6d appear in the accounts for 1882. His recommendation of the red silk damask he had produced for Saint James's Palace fell on deaf ears, despite his reminding Rosalind that he could do "pretty well any colour you want" including "ravishing yellows, rather what people call amber", and what he inquired would she say "to dullish pink shot with amber, like some of those chrysanthemums we see just now?" Rosalind's reply is unknown. In 1884 wallpapers were again being ordered for Castle Howard, "16 pieces of red mallow for the Boys schoolroom at £4" (a surviving piece was found behind a radiator) and 16 pieces of Sunflower for the schoolroom next door. Yellow Venetian paper was put up in what is now known as Lady Georgiana's Bedroom and red Queen Anne adorned the walls of George Howard's studio. The old Library in the east wing received red Poppy paper and 65 yards of red Kidderminster carpet covered the floor. In the same year 90 yds of Rose chintz and of Pink chintz, presumably for curtains, was purchased as was 62 yds of Indian chintz. The following year 1885 saw one of the most dramatic transformations as the light and airy Long Gallery was smothered in 170 pieces of blood red Sunflower pattern wallpaper. The local decorator, who rejoiced in the name Carass Topham, was paid £89.15s.3d for his trouble, the paper itself cost £46.15.0d. Extra bookcases darkly varnished, oriental carpets and chairs upholstered in blue chinese silk with gold embroidery were introduced, adding to the rich if heavy effect. Evidence of the increasing time the Howards were now spending at Castle Howard was the very practical purchase of 6 rolls of rush matting for the long cold stone passages! The boys' schoolroom was redecorated in 1886, the red Mallow giving way to the much lighter Daisy wallpaper, and this is the only original Morris & Co. wallpaper to survive in situ at Castle Howard. For this reason when the room was enlarged in 1988 to form the souvenir shop it was cleaned and conserved, the wallpaper from the demolished wall rescued and the adjoining room decorated to match, in paper specially printed by Arthur Sanderson & Sons. Another survival from 1886 was discovered in the Caretaker's cupboard in the form of a piece of Axminster carpet. Rosalind Howard had ordered 228 yards of this carpet from Morris & Company for the Tapestry Drawing Room and the Music Room. It can clearly be seen in old 7 photographs of the Tapestry Room, whose cluttered appearance brings to mind William Morris' famous declaration that he had "never been in any rich man's home which would not have looked the better for having a bonfire made outside it of nine- tenths of all it held." Also dating from 1886 is the upholstery on a suite of gilded furniture comprising two sofas and four chairs; the woollen fabric used was a blue version of Bird & Vine, a design popular for church furnishings, which proved remarkably resilient despite its long exposure to light in the sunny south-facing Garden Hall. Whilst Naworth Castle was gradually covered with Morris & Co. wallpapers and chintz during the late 1880s, Castle Howard was given a more varied treatment with wallpapers ordered from Maples; two surviving examples being a "rose branch on gold ground" paper in the Castle Howard Dressing Room and a "blue Stork" paper in the Archbishop's Room. More Japanese leather paper was ordered, this time for the Museum Room where it still remains. It was not until 1892 that Morris wallpaper reappears in the accounts for Castle Howard when Rosalind's two youngest sons, bedrooms were decorated: Michael received Larkspur, Geoffrey (the eventual inheritor of Castle Howard) Bower, with Mallow for their shared dressing room. In the same year the Howards bought twenty "Persian and Shumack" rugs from Libertys and Cardinal & Harford respectively; these were photographed and copies sent to William Morris, who wrote his grateful thanks as the designs would prove of use to him in his carpet designs. Besides the Axminster carpet the Howards had in 1880 purchased several of Morris's hand-made Hammersmith rugs and had commissioned for Naworth Castle Library a large carpet (31 feet 3 inches X 15 feet 2 inches) which, when completed in October 1881, weighed according to Morris "about a ton" and cost the Howards £200.00. Two more state rooms at Castle Howard were to succumb to Morris & Co. wallpaper in 1894, the Orleans Room being decorated with green Acorn, while red Bird & Anemone was used to cover Pellegrini's frescoes of the Fall of Troy in the High Saloon. This mild act of philistinism was reversed in the 1920s by Rosalind's son Geoffrey, who employed the same firm, Topham Brothers of Harrogate, to remove the wall paper and restore the frescoes. Tragically the whole room was then destroyed in the disastrous fire of 1940. William Morris' death in 1896 may have prompted Rosalind's purchase the following year of numerous small quantities of chintz as samples of his work. The designs included: Lea, Brer Rabbit, Rose & Thistle, Lodden, Bird & Anemone, Evenlode, Severn, Cray, Daffodil, Trent, Snakeshead and Eden. The same motive might also be behind the acquisition of one piece each of the following wallpapers: Spring Thicket, Compton, Tom Tit, Blackthorn and Woodland Weeds. These purchases and the remants not used on rooms in the house mean that Castle Howard now possesses a good representative archive of Morris & Company's wallpaper designs. Without doubt the single most important item from Morris & Company to survive at Castle Howard is the three-panel screen especially made for George and Rosalind Howard. The 9th Countess's account book records in 1889 a payment of £80 for the panels (a cheque was sent by George to Bessie Burden on 30th August 1887) and a further £18/7s for making them into an oak screen for Naworth. Now at Castle Howard the serge panels embroidered in wool, silk and gold thread by Jane Morris and her sister Elizabeth (Bessie) Burden were originally intended as wall hangings for 8 Morris' own home, Red House, Bexleyheath, and were part of a series derived from Chaucer's poem The Legend of Good Women', although typically Morris included some heroines of his own. The screen includes three full-length figures with long hair, dressed in flowing medieval robes, standing on flower-filled plots of grass against a floral background; Lucretia carries a sword, Hippolyta a lance and Helen of Troy holds a torch; two are crowned but Hippolyta wears a wreath of laurel leaves. This outstanding example of the skill of Jane Morris and her sister is, because of the necessity of low light-levels, now kept in the private chapel where, together with the magnificent stained glass windows, it provides a visual reminder not only of the patronage by the Howard family of Morris & Company, but also of the personal friendship between George and Rosalind Howard and Jane and William Morris. NOTES The Studio, Vol 15, (October 1898), 3. Diary of Rosalind Howard, 9th Countess of Carlisle; Castle Howard Archives (C.H.A.) J23/102/12, Castle Howard, York