Burghley House
Burghley House is an English country castle from the end of the 16th century in the English Unitary Authority City of Peterborough not far from Stamford in Lincolnshire . It is considered one of the most outstanding examples of the architecture of the late Elizabethan era and has served as a family residence ever since.
architecture
Facades
The richly decorated facades are a specialty among English castles and country estates. Apart from the outer facades, the facade of the central pavilion in the inner courtyard is of particular importance in terms of art history. The executing architect used various elements for the design: On the lower and first floors, he took the execution from an element of French architecture, the so-called triumphal arch motif. In the second above, the bay window is again classic English architecture. The decorations around the clock in the attic and the other flourishes, on the other hand, come from Flemish models. The facade is framed on both sides by pairs of high-pedestal columns around niches according to the classical canon, i.e. Doric below , Ionic above and Corinthian above .
building
Burghley House is a four-winged building made of light blocks and enclosing a rectangular courtyard . At its northeast corner there are farm buildings, which are grouped around two further courtyards. Its roofs are decorated with numerous decorative elements such as turrets, lanterns , arcades and columns . Even the fireplaces are architecturally decorated. It is the Tudor period and the first Renaissance influences are already clearly visible. Inside, more than 115 rooms can be counted.
The castle chapel comes from Italy and originally belonged to a church on Murano near Venice . It was removed there stone by stone and rebuilt in England.
Inside the palace you can visit one of the largest private collections of Italian art, Chinese porcelain, tapestries and furniture from the 18th century, as well as the first inventoried collection of Japanese ceramics in the West, that of John Cecil, 5th Earl of Exeter , and his wife, Lady Anne Cavendish, in the 1680s and 1690s. Many of the rooms have beautiful stucco work or magnificent ceiling paintings by Antonio Verrio and his student Louis Laguerre, among others . The large kitchen with its fan vault and its rich equipment of copper appliances is located in one of the oldest remaining rooms.
Gardens and parks
In the early days of Burghley House, the garden was comparatively small. At the beginning of the 18th century, the garden architect George London laid out decorative fish ponds, terraces, canals and a maze.
A few decades later, most of these garden details had to give way when the famous English landscape gardener Capability Brown redesigned the 100 hectare park in the English landscape style from 1756 onwards , based on existing, sometimes very old, planting. He also created the 7 hectare lake and the Lion Bridge .
A large herd of fallow deer has lived there since the 16th century .
history
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Burghley House was built between 1555 and 1587 by William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley , Treasurer of Queen Elizabeth I. In honor of the Queen, the building had an E-shaped floor plan. The land had previously been left to William's father, a servant at the courts of Henry VIII and Edward IV , by the royal family after the Peterborough monastery there was dissolved in 1536. Most likely Sir William Cecil was the architect himself, but had a stonemason named Henryk from Antwerp at his side, who advised him on both the drafts and the execution. During the 32-year construction period, however, William Cecil was rarely present, and even later he never lived in the house for long periods, as he was mostly at court in London. The property became the ancestral home of the Cecils, who were named Earl of Exeter in 1605 and Marquess of Exeter in 1801 .
In the 17th century, the west wing of the castle was redesigned by John Cecil, 5th Earl of Exeter, among other things to accommodate the immense collection of art treasures that he and his wife, Lady Anne Cavendish , made on several long trips through France and Italy rose. In the south wing, the previous open loggias on the ground floor were converted into closed rooms and many rooms were furnished for the first time. Many baroque paintings and ceiling paintings were created in that phase, for example the following were designed by the Italian painter Antonio Verrio : the Heaven Room with depictions of ancient gods - probably his most important masterpiece - as well as the adjoining Hell Staircase with the depiction of the Grim Reaper and the the gaping mouth of a big cat in which souls are tormented - his last work for Burghley House.
When John Cecil died in 1700, the renovation work was still ongoing and then came to a standstill. It was not until Brownlow Cecil, 9th Earl of Exeter , that the work continued and the current landscaped park was created. Among other things, the 36,000 square meter castle pond was enlarged to a 105,000 square meter lake that looks like a meandering river. Capability Brown not only influenced the design of the park, but also that of the building. On his advice, Brownlow Cecil had the then northwest wing laid down in order to have a better view of the new park. In addition, the south facade was raised and the architectural decorative elements were arranged in such a way that the building was more symmetrical. After all, the state apartments (the George Rooms ) were fitted out and furnished during this period .
Burghley House is now owned by a foundation established by the Cecil family to maintain the complex and is part of the Treasure Houses of England consortium .
film records
The castle has often served as a backdrop for film productions. In Pride and Prejudice , a 2005 film adaptation of Jane Austen 's novel of the same name , Burghley House was used as Castle Rosings by Lady Catherine De Bourgh, while the Great Hall of the castle in the film The Da Vinci Code was used for the scenes in the papal Residence in Castel Gandolfo were used.
Equestrian sport
The Burghley Horse Trials have been held on the grounds of Burghley House every year since 1961 . This event is one of the six highest ranked events in eventing .
literature
- Simon Jenkins: England's Thousand best houses . Penguin Books, London 2004, pp. 339-341, ISBN 0-141-00625-0 .
- Hudson's Historic Houses & Gardens . Norman Hudson & Company, Banbury 2006, p. 321, ISBN 1-904387-03-9 .
- Lady Victoria Leatham, Jon Culverhouse, Dr. Eric Till: Burghley House . English Life Publications, Derby 2000.
- Harad Busch, Bernd Lohse: Architecture of the Renaissance in Europe , Umschau Verlag, Frankfurt / Main 1960
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Harad Busch, Bernd Lohse: Architecture of the Renaissance in Europe , p. 119.
- ^ S. Jenkins: England's Thousand Best Houses . P. 339.
- ↑ burghley.co.uk as of May 24, 2007.
Coordinates: 52 ° 38 ′ 33 " N , 0 ° 27 ′ 11" W.