Highcliffe Castle
Highcliffe Castle is a mansion in Dorset in the United Kingdom . The manor house, classified as a Grade I cultural monument, is considered to be the most significant preserved building of the Neo-Gothic style influenced by Picturesque and Romanticism in the first half of the 19th century in Great Britain.
location
The manor is on the border between Dorset and Hampshire west of Highcliffe and about 6 km east of Christchurch . It sits on a cliff above Christchurch Bay and offers sweeping views over the bay and the Isle of Wight . The manor house is surrounded by a garden and landscaped park of over 5 hectares; a footpath leads from the manor house to a bay with a sandy beach. To the west of the mansion is the Highcliffe Castle Golf Club , the wider area is densely built.
history
Around 1775, the former British Prime Minister Lord Bute of Capability Brown or Robert Adam had a first mansion built on the cliff. His fourth son, General Charles Stuart , inherited the property after his death in 1792 and sold it in 1795. The mansion was demolished and replaced with a new building. Charles Stuart's son, Charles Stuart, 1st Baron Stuart de Rothesay , was finally able to buy back the property around 1824. He had the existing mansion demolished and from 1831 the current mansion built according to his ideas by the architect William Donthorne. Donthorne had learned from the architect Jeffry Wyatville , in the execution of the construction he was influenced by the Fonthill Abbey designed by Wyattville's uncle James Wyatt .
After Stuart's death, his daughter Charlotte, Countess Canning, the wife of Charles Canning, 1st Earl Canning , the former Viceroy of India, inherited the property. She received frequent high-profile visits, including from Edward , the then Prince of Wales, with his family, Prime Minister Gladstone and numerous other guests. Since she died childless, her sister Louisa inherited the manor house and after her death in 1893 her distant cousin Edward Montagu-Stuart-Wortley . Montagu-Stuart-Wortley served as a British officer and took part in numerous campaigns in the British colonies in Asia and Africa. When he only received half pay after 1904 , he rented Highcliffe temporarily. In 1907, after a state visit to the United Kingdom , the German Kaiser Wilhelm II spent a three-week holiday in Highcliffe. In order to improve the strained German-British relations, Montagu-Stuart-Wortley published the contents of his conversations with the emperor in the newspaper The Daily Telegraph , which led to the Daily Telegraph affair , almost a year after this visit . From 1916 until the mid-1920s, Highcliffe was rented to department store owner Harry Gordon Selfridge .
The mansion remained in the possession of the Montagu-Stuart-Wortley descendants until it was sold in 1950 to businessman JH Leonard Lloyd, who used it as a children's convalescent home. However, after just one year, allegations of abuse were raised. The allegations could not be confirmed, but Lloyd shortly thereafter closed the home and sold the property. The next owner sold the park area north of the mansion as building land before the Claretian Order bought the building for £ 14,000 in 1953 and used it as a Catholic seminary until 1966 . The high maintenance costs and declining student numbers forced the order to sell the building, but shortly before the conclusion of the purchase agreement with three local businessmen, the large hall, which had been converted into a chapel, burned down in 1967. Another fire damaged the manor house so badly in 1968 that its demolition was discussed. The roofless ruin continued to deteriorate over the next few years until it was acquired by the City of Christchurch in 1977. Beginning in the 1990s, the manor's exterior was restored with grants from English Heritage and with the help of the Heritage Lottery Fund and volunteer helpers. The interiors have been changed and restored in a simplified manner. The manor house can be visited today and is used for exhibitions and events.
investment
Exterior
The neo-Gothic mansion was built from exposed ashlar stones. The builder, Lord Stuart, had been the British ambassador to France. From Normandy he had stones from the partially demolished Jumièges Abbey near Rouen and from the demolished Manoir de Radeval (also Grand 'Maison ) from Les Andelys brought to the south of England, where they were reused for the construction of his new mansion. In Paris, Lord Stuart was able to purchase antique furniture from the 18th century, which he used to furnish his new country house. For the numerous windows of the manor house, he acquired stained glass windows from France, Germany and Switzerland, most of which were from the 16th century, but some also from the 13th century. Through this reuse of old building materials, the house, which is provided with bay windows, roof parapets and decorative turrets and richly windowed, looks older than it actually is.
The middle part of the irregular, L-shaped building is two-story and is framed by two three-story towers. The two ends form two single-storey tracts, with the southern end having a richly decorated bay window . The bay window is said to come from the room of the Grand 'Maison, where, according to legend, Duke Antoine de Bourbon died in 1562 in the presence of his son, who later became King Henry IV of France . The main entrance on the north side leads to a portal which, modeled on Fonthill Abbey, leads under an almost 10 m high pointed arch with tracery windows into the great hall.
Interior decoration
The main rooms are on the ground floor of the west wing, including the dining room, great hall, drawing room , library, and winter garden. Due to the fire, however, the former equipment and furnishings were lost. The rooms have been restored in a simplified way, the walls of the dining room and the adjoining drawing room are made of exposed brickwork. Parts of the old stained glass windows were preserved and were removed after the fire in 1967 and thus secured. The stained glass window in the Great Hall, dating from 1547, was reinstalled in 1998.
Highcliffe Castle in the movie
Highcliffe was used as the location for the Rosamunde Pilcher film adaptation With the Eyes of Love in 2001 and as the location for an episode of the Antiques Roadshow in 2007 .
Web links
- Internet presence of the manor house
- Highcliffe Castle on the National Heritage List of English Heritage ( Memento from October 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) “”
Individual evidence
- ↑ Home. Highcliffe Castle, accessed October 1, 2014 .
- ↑ Alan MacDonald: "A lack of offensive spirit?" the 46th (North Midland) Division at Gommecourt 1st July 1916. Iona, 2008, ISBN 978-0-9558119-0-6 , p. 25
- ↑ Rosamunde Pilcher filming locations: Highcliffe Castle. Retrieved October 1, 2014 .
- ↑ Antiques Roadshow Season 30, Episode 9: Highcliffe Castle (Oct. 28, 2007). In: IMDb. Retrieved October 1, 2014 .
Coordinates: 50 ° 44 '16.8 " N , 1 ° 42' 50.8" W.