Compton Wynyates

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Compton Wynyates in Warwickshire, circa 1983

Compton Wynyates is a country house in the English county of Warwickshire . English Heritage has listed it as a Grade I Historic Building. The Tudor period house was built of red brick around a central courtyard. It is provided with battlements and partly with turrets. After the English Civil War , wooden gables were partially built in to replace damaged parts of the building. The house stands in the midst of topiary gardens and green lawns and gives the impression of idealized English country life. However, this is in sharp contrast to the history of the house and the family who lived in it for over 500 years. Both experienced rise, fall, and rise at the same time.

The Compton family , who still live in this private house today, appear in the documents as residents of this property as early as 1204. Since then, the family lived in the manor as knights and squires of the county , until Sir Edmund Compton (died 1493) decided around 1481 to have a new family seat built.

Edmund Compton's house

Edmund Compton had the house built from bricks that have a glowing raspberry color of astonishing intensity. Edmund's four-sided house around a central courtyard can be seen from the thickness of the walls of 1.2 meters, which form the core of today's manor house. This new fortified house was entirely surrounded by a moat ; Parts of the old moat now form a garden pond. There was also a second, presumably dry, moat and a second drawbridge . And yet the fortifications weren't the only aspect of the new mansion - dark brick damascene and decorative bars loosen up the facade. Above the entrance, the royal coat of arms of England is supported by the dragon and greyhound of Kings Henry VII and Henry VIII . The architect and builder of the mansion are not known.

William Compton's house

A 19th century romanticizing depiction of Compton Wynyates

Edmund Compton died at a young age, and so his son William became ward of the crown, as was the custom. At the court of Henry VII, the orphaned 11-year-old boy became the page of the 2-year-old Prince Henry, and so began a deep friendship that continued when the Prince became King Henry VIII. Out of this lifelong friendship, Henry VIII gave William, who was also to become a military hero, many goods, including the ruins of Fulbroke Castle . Many of Fulbrook Castle's fixtures and fittings were brought to Compton Wynyates to enhance the mansion, such as: B. a large bay window full of heraldic glasses that looks out of the knight's hall into the courtyard . Many Ajimez windows with wine barrel decorations were also built into the castle .

At that time, around 1515, the grand entrance porch, chapel and many of the towers were also built. In fact, this was the beginning of many additions over the next 10 years that were attached to the house without any sense of symmetry , height or regularity. The house was simply expanded as much as possible in the limited space within the moat. The brick fluted and crooked chimneys also date from this period and now represent one of the bemerkenswertesten Details of the house represents.

Unlike other houses from this period, Compton Wynyates has not seen major remodeling over the centuries. This is because Henry Compton, 1st Baron Compton , the owner of the house, began building one of Britain's finest houses, Castle Ashby House , in 1574 . The Comptons wasted money on this new mansion over the next 100 years or so, and as a result Compton Wynyates has survived as an almost intact, perfect mansion from the Tudor era because the ongoing renovations of subsequent generations have not been carried out.

Royal visits

As loyal and wealthy citizens of the crown, the Comptons often hosted ruling sovereigns of their time. The frequency of state visitors was a measure of their wealth. At that time, a one-day visit by a monarch could completely ruin its host financially, which happened often enough.

King Henry VIII often stayed at Compton Wynyates, and on the window of his bedroom you can still see the royal coat of arms in leaded glass in combination with the coat of arms of those of Aragon , home of Henry's first wife and queen. Much later, in 1572, Elizabeth I stayed in this house. In 1617 King James I spent one night there; he used to be a frequent visitor to Castle Ashby House. In 1629 the King made Lord Campton Earl of Northampton . Later that century, his successor, Charles I , was a guest at Compton Wynyates. The ceiling of the royal bedchamber is decorated with the monogram of all the monarchs who stayed here.

A Civil War anecdote tells that the commander of Cronwell's troops liked the state bed where so many monarchs slept that he commandeered it for himself. After the re-establishment of the monarchy, the 3rd Earl got the bed back and had it put up again at the old location. Later, when the family got into economic trouble in 1744, it was sold for £ 10 and never reappeared.

Civil war

The 2nd Earl of Northampton.

Spencer Compton, 2nd Earl of Northampton , godson of Elizabeth I, was a close friend of King Charles I, and so the Comptons' royalist ties were close in the English Civil War . At the Battle of Edgehill , about 6 miles from the manor, Spencer and three of his sons fought for the king; the three sons were later all knighted for their service on the battlefield.

The 2nd Earl fell at the Battle of Hopton Heath in 1643 and his son and successor James was wounded.

After the death of the 2nd Earl, his family was defenseless. On June 12, 1644, Compton Wynyates was besieged by Cromwell's forces and fell two days later. The Roundheads are said to have taken 120 prisoners of war on this occasion . They took away £ 5,000 (the equivalent of £ 720,000 in 2008), 60 horses, 400 sheep, 160 cattle, 18 hauls of war (this was believed to be the entire furnishings of the manor) and six clay pots with coins they found in the moat . The traces of cannon impacts can still be seen on the manor house and the adjoining chapel.

Legend has it that the 2nd Earl's widow hid in the attic of the sprawling mansion and, undetected by the Roundheads, tended to wounded royalists until an escape was possible. Since the house is a maze of small staircases, passageways and almost hidden rooms (in a tower room, the priest's room, three stairwells are hidden behind the wooden paneling), this story can actually have happened that way.

On the night of January 29, 1645, the Comptons made an unsuccessful attempt to retake their home, but after four hours of fighting they were repulsed. The family fled into exile abroad and only returned after the re-establishment of the monarchy .

neglect

Hall, Compton Wynyates, Warwickshire (1841)

After the re-establishment of the monarchy, the Comptons also got their property back. Since Compton Wynyates was now the family's annex, it was mainly used as the estate of the respective heir. Only minor changes were made, but always with a view to the character of the house from the Tudor period. Around 1730, the 5th Earl had a wing built between two towers on the east side of the house in the classical style , which did not match the previous building at all. At that time the family was getting into economic trouble and so Compton Wynyates began to suffer from neglect. In 1768 the Comptons were so poor that they had to sell all of the house's contents; he never appeared again. The then Lord Northampton, who lived in Castle Ashby House, ordered the demolition of Compton Wynyates. However, the family's estate manager did not obey these instructions and only had the windows walled up (to avoid the window tax ). So the mansion fell into oblivion.

restoration

The 2nd Marquess of Northampton who saved the house from deterioration in 1835

In 1835 Spencer Compton, 2nd Marquess of Northampton (the family was raised to Marquesses by the Earls in 1812), visited Compton Wynyates for the first time and found the manor in a ruinous condition. He had some minor renovations done to prevent it from deteriorating. He also commissioned the architect Sir Matthew Digby Wyatt to Gothicize the east facade carved from the style and to build a new staircase into the house. The work was successful and the east facade is now harmonizing with the earlier facades of the house.

Under the 4th Marquess, the house was completely restored and given to the son, who later became the 5th Marquess, in 1884 as a wedding gift. The 5th Marquess and his Marchioness were the first residents of the house since 1770. The couple planted the topiary gardens and converted the Compton Wynyates into the comfortable mansion it is today.

Wynyates is the birthplace and place of death of Spencer Compton, 1st Earl of Wilmington , who is considered the second Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

today

The manor house today is essentially the house that Edmund Compton and his son William built within 30 years during the rule of the first two Tudor monarchs.

The 6th Marquess of Northampton (1895–1978) took excellent care of the house and spent several months there each year. He had electricity and water installed, but his actual seat was still Castle Ashby House. The wood-clad rooms of Compton Wynyates were only open to the public for a short time: the chapel with the chapel salon, the royal bedchamber, the completely wood-clad salon and dining room with their stucco ceilings and works of art, such as the crucifixion scene by Matteo Balducci, were only open to visitors to a limited extent.

After the takeover by the 7th Marquess of Northampton , the family decided to extensively commercialize Castle Ashby House in order to survive the 20th century. This was achieved and the Marquess and his family returned to Compton Wynyates as the only remaining family seat. In the 21st century, however, Castle Ashby House was closed to the public (with the exception of the occasional wedding party) and the family now resides in both houses.

In 1914, Compton Wynyates was the inspiration for the well-known American architect John Russell Pope , who built Branch House in Richmond for the wealthy financial tycoon John Kerr Branch (1865-1930) and his wife.

A dead end street leads from the village of Upper Tysoe about 1.6 km to Compton Wynyates and ends at the locked entrance gate to the property, a few meters before the church. There is no access from the public road a little further.

In film and television

In 1955, the gleaming sight of the mansion from the driveway opened the Rank Organization's film The Black Tent . (Technicolor / Vistavision).

In 1969 Compton Wynyates appeared as a monastery in the movie The Totally Crazy Camping Paradise . It is said that these scenes were taken from the movie The Black Tent .

1977 served as the location for Compton Wynyates Disney Candleshoe with Helen Hayes , Jodie Foster and David Niven in the lead roles.

The facade of Compton Wynyates appears briefly at the beginning of the 1978 film Death on the Nile as the new country house of the heiress Linnet Ridgeway.

Compton Wynyates also served as the Stratton's mansion in the opening sequence of the 1980s television show Silver Spoons .

Compton Wynyates also plays a central role in Iain Pears' second narrative, An Instance of the Fingerpost (1998).

Compton Wynyates also appears at the beginning of the Miss Marple film Murder in the Mirror (1980) , which starred Angela Lansbury , Elizabeth Taylor , Geraldine Chaplin , Rock Hudson , Tony Curtis and Kim Novak .

The facade of Compton Wynyates appears in two episodes of the first season of the television series The Tudors to illustrate a throwback to fictional incidents from the life of William Comptin, friend of Henry VIII.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Marquess of Northampton (editor): Compton Wynyates . Self-published, approx. 1968, pp. 1–3.
  2. ↑ a b c d Marquess of Northampton (editor): Compton Wynyates . Self-published, approx. 1968, p. 4.
  3. ^ Marquess of Northampton (editor): Compton Wynyates . Self-published, approx. 1968, p. 5.
  4. ^ Nigel Nicolson: Great Houses in Britain . Hamlyn Publishing Group, 1965. ISBN 0-586-05604-1 , p. 39.
  5. ↑ a b c d Nigel Nicolson: Great Houses in Britain . Hamlyn Publishing Group, 1965. ISBN 0-586-05604-1 , p. 43.
  6. ↑ a b c Nigel Nicolson: Great Houses in Britain . Hamlyn Publishing Group, 1965. ISBN 0-586-05604-1 , p. 41.
  7. ↑ a b c Marquess of Northampton (Editor): Compton Wynyates . Self-published, approx. 1968, p. 6.
  8. ↑ a b c d e f Marquess of Northampton (editor): Compton Wynyates . Self-published, approx. 1968, p. 8.
  9. ↑ Architect's Showplace . Traditional-building.com. April 2006. Retrieved April 23, 2015.
  10. ↑ Carry On Camping (1969) . British-Film-Locations.com. Retrieved April 23, 2015.

swell

Web links

Commons : Compton Wynyates  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 52 ° 4 ′ 26.3 "  N , 1 ° 31 ′ 7.1"  W.