Wollaton Hall

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Wollaton Hall in November 2010

Wollaton Hall is a country house in the Elizabethan style , which on a small but highly visible hill in Wollaton Park in Nottingham stands. The manor itself now houses the Nottingham Natural History Museum , and the houses in the park house the Nottingham Industrial Museum . The surrounding park is regularly used for major events such as rock concerts, sports festivals and festivals.

history

Wollaton Hall was built by Francis Willoughby from 1580 to 1588 and is believed to have been designed by the Renaissance master builder Robert Smythson , who also designed Hardwick Hall . The building is basically in the Elizabethan style, but already shows echoes of the early Jacobean architecture . The floor plan is said to have been derived from Serlio's drawing (in Book III of his Five Books of Architecture ) of Giuliano de Majano's Villa Poggio Reale near Naples from the end of the 15th century. The facades are said to come from Hans Vredeman de Vries . Architectural historian Mark Girouard believes that the construction was actually derived from the `` Nicholas of Lyras '' reconstruction and Flavius ​​Josephus description of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem , with an even more direct inspiration being the mid-16th century Mount Edgcumbe House in Cornwall that Smythson knew. The building is made of Lincolnshire Ancaster limestone and is believed to have been paid for in coal from the Wollaton mines, owned by Willoughby. Cassandra Willoughby, Duchess of Chandos , wrote in 1702 that the master masons and other staff had been brought from Italy . The decorative but cute gondola attachment rings , which were cut into the stone of the outer walls, prove this, as do other architectural details. French and Dutch influences are also clearly visible.

The building consists of its high central hall, which is surrounded by four towers. Unfortunately, a fire damaged Smythson's interior decoration in some of the first floor rooms, but it caused little structural damage. The renovations were carried out by Jeffry Wyatville in 1801 and dragged intermittently into the 1830s.

Wollaton Hall 1880

In the gallery of the main hall you will find the oldest organ in Nottinghamshire, which is attributed to the late 17th century and probably the organ builder Gerard Smith. It is still played today with a hand-operated bellows. The ceiling frescoes and one mural are attributed to Antonio Verrio or his assistant John Laguerre . A "viewing room" is built in directly above the main hall, from which one can look far over the park. Under the main hall there are many cellars and corridors as well as a cistern with an attached water tank, in which an admiral of the Willoughby family is said to have taken a bath every day.

The Willoughbys are known for the many researchers who produced them. Most famous is Sir Hugh Willoughby , who died in the Arctic in 1554 while looking for the Northeast Passage for Cathay . The phantom island of Willoughby’s Land , which was marked on maps of Northern Europe from the end of the 16th to the middle of the 17th century, is named after him.

In 1881 the property was still owned by the head of the Willoughby family, Digby Willoughby, 9th Baron Middleton , but at that time it was “too close to the smoke and bustling activity of a large industrial town (…), just across a narrow strip of land from the outskirts so the previous head of the family, Henry Willoughby, 8th Baron Middleton , had started leasing the house. In 1881 it was then empty.

In April 2007, Wollaton Hall reopened after being closed for renovation. The viewing room on the upper floor and the kitchens in the basement were made accessible to the public, but only as part of guided tours. These can be booked on site, take about an hour and cost a small amount of money.

Owner of Wollaton Hall

Wollaton Hall Park , painting by Hendrik Frans de Cort

Others

In 1855, nearby in Buckinghamshire , Joseph Paxton designed a replica of Wollaton Hall, now called Mentmore Towers . In 2005, Mentmore Towers portrayed the Wayne Manor estate in Batman Begins , the prelude to Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy .

In 2012, Wollaton Hall starred as Wayne Manor in the Batman film The Dark Knight Rises - the finale of Nolan's trilogy . Key scenes from the film were filmed outside Wollaton Hall. The structural differences between the two buildings seemed logical in film history, as Wayne Manor burned down in the first part and was rebuilt. The property is also eight kilometers north of Gotham (Nottinghamshire) , from which the name of Batman's hometown , Gotham City , can indirectly be traced.

Nottingham Natural History Museum

Wollaton Hall from the park's north entrance on Wollaton Road

Since opening to the public in 1926, Wollaton Hall has housed the City of Nottingham's Natural History Museum. Some of the 750,000 exhibits from the zoological, geological and botanical collections are on display. They are arranged in 6 main galleries:

  • Natural Connections Gallery
  • Bird Gallery (birds)
  • Insect Gallery (insects)
  • Mineral Gallery (minerals)
  • Africa Gallery (Africa)
  • Natural History Matters Gallery

The museum began as an advocacy group at the Nottingham Mechanics' Institution ; it now belongs to the city ​​of Nottingham .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Sir John Summerson: Architecture in Britain, 1530 to 1830 . Pelican History of Art. Penguin Books, London 1954. p. 31.
  2. ↑ Mark Girouard: `` Solomon's Temple in Nottinghamshire '' in Town and Country . Yale University Press. Yale 1992. pp. 187-197
  3. ↑ Mark Girouard: '' Elizabethan Architecture: Its Rise and Fall, 1540-1640 ''. Paul Mellon Center for Studies in British Art, Yale University Press. Yale 2009. p. 87
  4. ^ Leonard Jacks: Wollaton . 1881. nottshistory.org.uk
  5. ↑ Neil Heath: Batman Boost as The Dark Knight Rises at Wollaton Hall . In: BBC News . BBC . June 16, 2011. Retrieved July 18, 2012.
  6. ↑ The Dark Knight Rises finds new home for Batman in Nottingham . In: Metro.co.uk . Associated Newspapers Limited. June 10, 2011. Retrieved August 20, 2012.
  7. ^ City was paid for Batman filming . In: This is Nottingham . Northcliffe Media. June 30, 2011. Archived from the original on September 10, 2012. Retrieved on August 20, 2012.
  8. ^ The real Gotham: The village behind the Batman stories . BBC News. ( Memento from June 5, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  9. ^ Natural History Museum . Archived from the original on April 8, 2010. Retrieved from ???.

literature

  • P. Marshall: Wollaton Hall to the Willoughby Family. Nottingham Civic Society, Nottingham 1999.

Web links

Commons : Wollaton Hall  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 52 ° 56 '52.4 "  N , 1 ° 12' 34.5"  W.