Long Gallery

Long Gallery at Haddon Hall

Long Gallery is the name for a special type of gallery in Great Britain . It is considered a hallmark of Elizabethan and Jacobean architecture of the 16th and 17th centuries.

The prototype of the Long Gallery is the no longer preserved Queen's Gallery of Hampton Court Palace , built from 1536 to 1537 , which enabled the Queen and her entourage to watch the deer hunts in the park from the palace. When, in the 16th century, the large living hall in the gentry's mansions became increasingly less important and was only used as an entrance hall, numerous mansions were given a long gallery, which served as a covered promenade, as a practice room for dance and fencing and as a social meeting point. As early as the 16th century, they were also used as an exhibition space for paintings, especially portraits.

The Long Gallery was mostly built on the top floor of the house or a wing . In the beginning it was often divided into a narrow, closed gallery and an open loggia , later only one closed gallery was built as a rule, which stretched over the entire length and often over the entire width of the house or wing. So that it could serve as a promenade in bad weather, it was given large windows that afforded a view of the garden and the surrounding landscape. The oldest preserved Long Gallery is that of The Vyne , and the longest preserved is the 52 m long Long Gallery of Montacute House .

With the advent of Palladianism , the design of the Long Gallery disappeared; the salon took its place in Georgian architecture . In some mansions the existing Long Galleries were rebuilt and used as a drawing room like in Longleat or as a library like in Chatsworth .

Examples of preserved long galleries

• Ashton Hall
• Blickling Hall
• Burghley House
• Ham House
• Hardwick Hall
• Lanhydrock House
• Montacute House
• Sudbury Hall
• Syon House
• The Vyne

literature

• Rosalys Coope: The 'Long Gallery'. Its origins, development, use and decoration. In: Architectural History. Vol. 29, 1986, pp. 43-84.

Individual evidence

1. ^ John Summerson: Architecture in Britain, 1530 to 1830 . Yale University Press, New Haven 1993. ISBN 0-300-05886-1 , p. 25
2. ↑ AH Gomme; Alison Maguire: Design and plan in the country house. From castle donjons to Palladian boxes . Yale University Press, New Haven 2008. ISBN 978-0-300-12645-7 , p. 176
3. ^ Mark Girouard: Life in the English Country House. A Social and Architectural History. Yale University Press, New Haven 1984, ISBN 0-300-02273-5 , p. 101