Burton Constable Hall
The Burton Constable Hall is a large Elizabethan country house with an interior from the 18th and 19th centuries and a beautiful cabinet of curiosities of the 18th century. The mansion, which English Heritage has listed as a Grade I Historic Building, is set in a 1.2 km park designed by Capability Brown . The property is 3 miles southeast of the village of Skirlaugh in the East Riding of Yorkshire county , about 14 miles northeast of the city of Kingston upon Hull . The Constable family lived there for over 400 years .
history
Despite its apparently uniform architectural style, Burton Constable Hall has a long and complicated architectural history. The lower section of the limestone north tower is the oldest part of the house that still exists today and dates back to the 12th century when a medieval Pele Tower was used to protect the village of Burton Constable from King Stephen's government . At the end of the 15th century a new brick mansion was built at Burton Constable and subsequently replaced the Halsham mansion as the family home. In the 1560s, Sir John Constable moved into the Elizabethan mansion that still stands today. This included remnants of the previous mansion, as well as new rooms, such as a knight's hall, which takes up the entire height of the building and receives its daylight through a lantern from above, a salon, bedroom and a south wing.
Remodeling of the house in the 1760s
In the 18th century the knight's hall appeared old-fashioned and a plan from around 1730 that has survived to this day suggests that Cuthbert Constable wanted to have the entire interior of the house rebuilt. But the renovation did not take place until the 1760s, when his son William Constable commissioned a number of architects with the planning. These included John Carr, Timothy Lightoler, and Capability Brown . The decorative stucco work was done by James Henderson from York . At that time Constable also procured the stucco figures of Demosthenes and Hercules with Cerebus as well as stucco busts of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius and the Greek poetess Sappho from the sculptor John Cheere . Above the open fireplace there is a relief made of oak branches and garlands made of bay leaves, crowned by an order of garter, which enclose the family crest of the Constables in stucco marble by Domenico Bartoli .
The dining room was fundamentally remodeled by William Constable in the 1760s; he commissioned Robert Adam , Thomas Atkinson and Timothy Lightoler with the plans . The latter finally received the order for the implementation. The ceiling bears witness to the interest in the excavations in Pompeii and Herculaneum at the time ; the stucco work was done by Giuseppe Cortese . The relief on the mantelpiece with Bacchus and Ariadne on a panther was modeled on well-known antique cameos , which were depicted in the text Pierres Antiques Gravées by Philip Baron von Stosch and Bernard Picart published in 1724 . This room was redecorated again in the 19th century.
The long gallery
The long gallery on the upper floor along the western front was completed at the end of the 16th century. When '' Dame Margaret Constable '' received permission in 1610 to “walk for her edification”, the Long Gallery was sparsely furnished and remained so for the entire 17th century. The wood paneling, however, dates from the end of the 17th century, as does the marble open fireplace. Cuthbert Constable had their elm and mahogany bookshelves built in in the 1740s, and the New Jacobean stucco on the ceiling and frieze dates from the 1830s. In 1833 the Clifford Constables began renovating the Long Gallery. This also included the procurement of sphinx tables by Giuseppe Leonardi with table tops made of special marble by Giacomo Raffaeli .
Museums
Even if you know that there was a museum in 1774, you don't know its location. In the inventory list of 1791 it was referred to as the “white room next to the gallery”. At the time it housed a number of framed drawings. According to a plan from 1775, today's museum rooms were two bedrooms with a dressing room in between. In the 1850s, a finely furnished theater was created here, with the outer space serving as an auditorium and the inner space as a stage and train . The museum rooms in their current form date from the 1970s, when William Constable's collections of scientific material were cleared from the attic, where they had been stored since the beginning of the 19th century. The museum now presents parts of the most extensive cabinet of curiosities that has been found in English country houses. In 2003 the Burton Constable Foundation acquired an 18th century telescope that was a well-known piece in the house before it was sold in the 1960s. It was originally bought by William Constable, who bought it in 1760 from the famous watchmaker Henry Hindley of York for the price of 100 guineas. It is said to be the first equatorially mounted telescope in the world.
Chinese room
The Chinese Room was inspired by Marianne Lady Clifford-Constable and her sister Eliza's visits to the Brighton Pavilion in the 1830s. Thomas Brooks carved the gilded dragons. Marianne designed the dragon chair, which was carved by Thomas Wilkinson in 1841 during his apprenticeship with Thomas Ward in Hull.
Property and park
The medieval open field system was used before the deer park was created in 1517. The 1621 report by William Senior shows that the park at that time consisted of a series of enclosures and that the main entrance to the house was on the east side. It was accessible through a garden path. The old moat stretched on two sides of the mansion. A little further to the west there are three long fish ponds. In 1715 extensive work was carried out for William Constable, the 4th Viscount Dunbar. Land was leveled for new gardens. At that time a lawn was probably laid on the west facade and to the north of it a wooded area with a geometric pattern of paths. 1757 William Constable asked the head gardener of Londesborough Estate , which the Earl of Burlington belonged to Thomas Knowlton , for advice. Knowlton proposed the construction of a menagerie at the northern end of the lakes, which is now listed by English Heritage as Grade II Historic Building, as well as a house garden near the west facade of the manor house, which contained a 62 m long greenhouse. Lancelot "Capability" Brown, who was responsible for the landscaping from 1772 to 1782, connected the ponds and created two lakes, separated by a walk-in dam, where he planted groups of trees, sunken fences and a ha-ha . The Elizabethan-era stable block attached to the manor was demolished and replaced by Lightoler's stables in the Palladian stables in 1768 . This site was listed as a Grade I Historic Building by English Heritage in 1966. Closer to the house, a new orangery was completed in 1782 according to plans by Thomas Atkinson with ornaments made of artificial stone by Eleanor Coade . This was listed as a historical building of the second degree in 1966.
Whale skeleton
An unusual detail in the park in the 19th century was the skeleton of an 18 m long sperm whale that was erected on iron supports. The male whale was stranded on the shores of nearby Tunstall in 1825 and was carefully dissected and studied by James Alderson , a noted surgeon from Hull. The skeleton was brought to Burton Constable Hall because Sir Clifford, the Lord Paramount of the Seigniory of Holderness , had the rights to anything of interest that was washed up on the coast. This famous whale was also noticed by Herman Melville , who published his masterpiece Moby-Dick in 1851: “at a place in Yorkshire, England, Burton Constable by name, a certain Sir Clifford Constable has in his possession the skeleton of a Sperm Whale (. ..) Sir Clifford's whale has been articulated throughout; so that like a great chest of drawers, you can open and shut him, in all his long cavities - spread out his ribs like a gigantic fan - and swing all day upon his lower jaw. Locks are to be put upon some of his trap doors and shutters; and a footman will show round future visitors with a bunch of keys at his side. Sir Clifford thinks of charging twopence for a peep at the whispering gallery in the spinal column; threepence to hear the echo in the hollow of his cerebellum; and sixpence for the unrivaled view from his forehead. " (Eng .: "In a place in Yorkshire, England, called Burton Constable, a certain Sir Clifford Constable has the skeleton of a sperm whale (...) Sir Clifford's whale is talked about everywhere; that it is like a large drawer in all of his Long bones can open and close - he sticks out his ribs like a gigantic fan - and you can swing yourself over your lower jaw every day. Locks have to be attached to some of his trap doors and shutters and a man with a bunch of keys should have visitors at his side in the future Sir Clifford would like to charge two pence for a look at the whispering gallery in his spine; three pence to hear the echo in his hollow cerebellum; and six pence for the sole view from his forehead. ")
The whale skeleton can still be seen today at Burton Constable Hall, in the Great Barn.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Burton Constable Hall . English Heritage. ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved February 25, 2015.
- ↑ The Menagerie approximately 45 meters to the West of Burton Constable Hall . English Heritage. ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved February 25, 2015.
- ^ Stables and Carriage House approximately 20 meters to the South-East of Burton Constable Hall . English Heritage. ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved February 25, 2015.
- ↑ The Orangerie approximately 10 meters to the South-West of Burton Constable Hall . English Heritage. ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved February 25, 2015.
- ↑ John Chichester-Constable , Telegraph. December 23, 2011. Accessed February 25, 2015.
Web links
Coordinates: 53 ° 48 ′ 49.5 " N , 0 ° 11 ′ 45.6" W.