Shardeloes

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Shardloes

Shardeloes is a country house west of Amersham in Buckinghamshire . A previous mansion on this site was demolished when the current structure was built between 1758 and 1766 for William Drake Sr. , MP for Amersham.

Design and construction

The architect and executive builder was Stiff Leadbetter ; the interior design was created by Robert Adam in 1761. The house is built of stucco bricks in the Palladian style. It has a main floor on the ground floor and a mezzanine designed it.

On the north side there is a large portico with Corinthian columns. The last windows on the first floor are set back in shallow niches as they form the end of the east side. The roof is hidden behind a baluster , typical of the Palladian style . The original plans for Leadbetter's house make it look more like Holkham Hall , with angular towers at the end, but Adam opposed it and advocated the portico.

Inside the house there is plastering work by Joseph Rose . The entrance hall has Doric pilasters and huge doors at the north and south ends. The dining room has stucco decorations in the ceiling. The library was designed by James Wyatt in the classicism style and is decorated with paintings by Biagio Rebecca . The house was designed so that all of the main rooms, including the bedrooms, were on the ground floor and there was no need for a grand staircase.

On the west side of the house is a chores block and stable building that were built at the same time. The stable area is entered through five arches; the rectangular building with its clock tower has outstanding side wings and a steep roof.

terrain

Humphry Repton was commissioned to design the surrounding area as an English landscape garden on the slope of the elevation on which the house stands. Repton dammed the Misbourne River to create a lake.

Another story

The house was the seat of the Tyrwhitt-Drake family until World War II . Then the house was confiscated as a maternity hospital for women evacuated from London . Around 3000 children were born there. Among them was Tim Rice in 1944 . After the end of the war it seemed as if the house would be demolished until a local interest group and the Council for the Protection of Rural England campaigned to keep the house. Shardeloes is now divided into private apartments and the large reception rooms have been preserved as common rooms for the residents.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Shardloe's entry on Historic England, accessed November 17, 2015.
  2. ↑ G.Eland (Ed.): Shardeloes Papers of the 17th and 18th Centuries. Oxford University Press, 1947.
  3. ↑ bills by Joseph Rose from the years 1761-63, about £ 1,139 18s 0d be Geoffrey Beard: Decorative Plasterwork in Great Britain. 1975, p. 244.
  4. ↑ Tim Rice: Oh, What a Circus: The Autobiography. Coronet Books.

Coordinates: 51 ° 40 ′ 18.4 "  N , 0 ° 38 ′ 45.4"  W.