Wilton House
| Wilton House | ||
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 East and south wings |
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| Geographical location | 51 ° 4 '41.8 " N , 1 ° 51' 34.9" W | |
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Wilton House is a manor house in Wilton in the county of Wiltshire in the United Kingdom . The manor house, classified as a Grade I cultural monument, is the seat of the Earls of Pembroke and is famous for its landscaped park and for its sumptuous interior, which are counted among the most beautiful baroque rooms of the 17th century in Great Britain.
history
The mansion is on the site of a nunnery founded by Alfred the Great in the 9th century . In the 12th century the monastery was converted into a Benedictine abbey, which after its dissolution in 1542 was given by Henry VIII to his brother-in-law, the politician and General William Herbert . He had the abbey buildings demolished and a new mansion built from 1547 to 1563.
In 1644 the south wing and part of the east wing were badly damaged by fire. Inigo Jones drafted the plans for a new building in the Palladian style , which was completed by John Webb after his death . Between 1801 and 1815, the building was redesigned in a neo-Gothic style by James Wyatt , who built the cloister in the courtyard, relocated the main entrance to its current location and changed the north and west facades. The neo-Gothic alterations to the outer facade were removed again at the beginning of the 20th century, so that the exterior appears again in the classicism style .
Since May 1, 1951, part of the interior and the garden can be visited.
investment
The mansion consists of a four-winged building made of natural stone with two or three storeys as well as elevated corner projections. The east facade used to be the entrance facade and still has a four-storey gate tower in the middle, built in 1550 in Tudor style . The south facade is considered a prime example of 17th century Palladianism.
Interior
In the piano nobile there is a series of seven state chambers designed by Jones in the splendid early baroque style.
- In the ante room , the anteroom, you can see Dutch and Flemish masters as well as a ceiling painting by Lorenzo Sabbatini .
- The corner room is adorned with paintings by Andrea del Sarto , Rubens and Frans II Francken . The ceiling painting, The Conversion of Paul is by Luca Giordano .
- The Colonnade Room , decorated in white and gold, is equipped with fluted columns.
- In the Great ante Room there are paintings by Anthony van Dyck , Willem van de Velde and a portrait of Rembrandt's mother .
Jones designed the double and single cube rooms especially for the family portraits that van Dyck created for the 4th Earl of Pembroke . The Double Cube Room , measuring 9 m × 18 m × 9 m, has the proportions of a double cube, similar to the banqueting house in London, also designed by Jones . The heavy, gilded furniture in the white, gold and red Double Cube Room was made by Thomas Chippendale and William Kent in the 18th century .
- The Single Cube Room , a perfect cube measuring 9 m × 9 m × 9 m, is white and gold. The ceiling painting by Giuseppe Cesari shows scenes from Sydney's Arcadia.
The seventh room of the state apartments , the hunting room, is used privately by the Herbert family and cannot be visited. In addition to the state apartments, other rooms such as the entrance hall, the library, the smoking room and the sculpture collection in the cloister can be visited. There are numerous other paintings in the rooms, including by Tizian , Tintoretto , Reynolds , Hals , Lely and other masters.
garden
Around 1632, the Flemish horticultural artist Isaac de Caus began to lay out a magnificent baroque garden. This was transformed into a landscaped garden in the 18th century, the Lebanon cedars of which are the first trees of this type to be planted in England. In 1737 the bridge over the River Nadder was built by William Kent. The bridge is the scaled-down version of an unexecuted design by Palladio for the Rialto Bridge in Venice and later copied twice. A copy, built a year later, is in Stowe Park in Buckinghamshire , and another copy of the bridge was built around 1755 in the gardens of Prior Park near Bath . Around 1820 the garden was transformed into an Italian garden. In the 19th century, the so-called Holbein portal, the former entrance portal to the large hall, was moved to the park, which is now 8.5 hectares.
Trivia
Philip Sidney , the brother of Mary Sidney , wife of the second Earl of Pembroke , wrote numerous poems and his state novel Arcadia at Wilton House .
The world premiere of As You Like It was performed by Shakespeare on a stage in the park.
During the Second World War, the Double Cube Room served as Churchill and Eisenhower's headquarters during the Allied invasion .
The mansion and the garden were often used as a location for films, etc. a. for Young Victoria , Sense and Sensuality , King George - A Kingdom for More Mind or Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ The National Heritage List: Wilton House. Retrieved January 5, 2012 .
- ^ Images of England: Wilton House. Retrieved December 30, 2011 .
- ^ British Listed Buildings: Palladian Bridge, Stowe. Retrieved March 3, 2013 .
- ^ British Listed Buildings: Palladian Bridge in Grounds of Prior Park. Retrieved March 3, 2013 .
- ^ Gartenvisit.com: Wilton House Garden. Retrieved January 3, 2012 .