Melbourne Hall

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Main entrance to Melbourne Hall

Melbourne Hall is a mansion in the English county of Derbyshire . It was once the seat of the Prime Minister of the Victorian era , William Lamb . This is how the Australian metropolis Melbourne got its name. The house is now the seat of Lord and Lady Ralph Kerr and is open to the public. The house itself was designated a Historic Building II * by English Heritage . Grade listed, but there are more than twenty properties on the property that have been listed as Grade I Historic Buildings.

history

The manor house of Melbourne belonged to the Bishops of Carlisle in the 12th century and was rebuilt in 1629–1631 by builder Richard Shepherd of Derbyshire for Sir John Coke. In 1692, Thomas Coke (1675-1727), a gentleman builder in the golden age of English amateur architects, inherited the property. With the professional support of the gardener Henry Wise, he laid out the formal gardens that still exist today from around 1696 to 1706 : There are avenues, a ground floor , a yew path that has become a yew tunnel, basins and fountains, as well as figures made of lead and stone mostly from John Nost. Coke toured the Netherlands and turned to Nost, the famous sculptor who was born in the Austrian Netherlands and owned an estate on Haymarket in London . He supplied lead figures of puttos , vases, flower baskets and mythological figures that can still be found in Melbourne Hall today, in particular the "Seasons Vase" from 1705, one of the finest examples of baroque lead sculpture in an English garden. Nost also supplied a number of mantels in the house, as well as for Sir Thomas' house on St. James Place , London, each of which cost £ 50. Sir Thomas purchased a copy of Sebastiano Serlio's Five Books of Architecture, English'd by Robert Peake , on the sale of Nost's remains , which is still in the Melbourne Hall library.

Detail of a figure on a large vase in the gardens of Melbourne Hall

Among the fine wrought iron work that Robert Bakewell created for the Melbourne Hall estate is a wrought iron arbor called the 'birdcage'.

Even if Sir Thomas drew a plan to modify the manor house from the 16th and 17th centuries and had the west wing rebuilt by Francis Smith of Warwick, it was reserved for his son, George Lewis Coke, in the years 1743–1744, the east facade to renovate the garden and have the south facade adapted according to a plan by William Smith, the son of Francis Smith. Its gatehouse construction was built "according to His Highness' s sketch" by Smith of Warwick, but was demolished before the end of the 18th century. Unknown alterations were made by the builder William Gilks ​​from Burton-upon-Trent in the years 1720-1721. The character George Lewis Coke remains illustrious. Some people say he never went back to Melbourne Hall after going on a trip abroad when he was just under 20.

During the entire century, the interiors were changed in various construction stages. In 1745 the Joseph Hall of Derby was paid for a mantelpiece in the parade dining room. In the 1760s, stucco work was carried out by Samuel Franceys and in 1772 further interior alterations were carried out by leading Derbyshire architect Joseph Pickford for the first Viscount Melbourne . The second Lord Melbourne, Queen Victoria's Prime Minister, separated from his wife, Lady Caroline Lamb , in 1825 , who became known as her liaison with Lord Byron .

The mansion fell to the Cowper family when Emily Lamb , sister of the childless, third and final Viscount Melbourne, married 5th  Earl Cowper . It remained in the Cowper family until Lady Amabel Cowper married the Royal Navy Admiral Lord Walter Kerr, who made Melbourne Hall his family residence in 1906.

The current owner, Lord Ralph Kerr, also owns Ferniehirst Castle in Scotland . He is the heir to the Marquess of Lothian , as his brother, the 13th Marquess, better known as politician Michael Ancram  , has no sons.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Melbourne Hall and Gardens . Visit Derbyshire. Retrieved May 29, 2015.
  2. ↑ `` Melbourne Hall, South Derbyshire ''. Images of England. ( Memento of the original from April 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved May 29, 2015. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.imagesofengland.org.uk
  3. ^ A b Howard Colvin: A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects, 1620-1840 . 3rd edition 1995. Chapter: Thomas Coke and William Gilks .
  4. ↑ a b c Rupert Gunnis: Dictionary of British Sculptors 1660-1851 . Revised edition.
  5. ↑ William Jackson of Melton Mowbray was the builder; he received £ 1,500 for it.
  6. ↑ She later married another Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston .

literature

  • Melbourne Hall, Derby. The Seat of Earl Cowper, KG In: Country Life Illustrated . Vol. 6, No. 142, September 23, 1899, ISSN  0045-8856 , pp. 368-373.
  • David Green: Gardener to Queen Anne. Henry Wise (1653-1738) and the formal garden . Henry Wise, London [a. a.] 1956.
  • Christopher Hussey: English Gardens and Landscapes 1700-1750 . Country Life, London 1967.

Web links

Commons : Melbourne Hall  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 52 ° 49 ′ 12.7 "  N , 1 ° 25 ′ 27.1"  W.