| Castle Howard | |
|---|---|
 South (garden) face of Castle Howard | |
| Type | Stately home |
| Location | North Yorkshire, England |
| Coordinates | 54°7′17″N0°54′21″W / 54.12139°N 0.90583°W /54.12139; -0.90583 |
| OS grid reference | SE 71635 70088 |
| Built | 1701–1811 |
| Architects | John VanbrughandNicholas Hawksmoor |
| Architectural style | English Baroque |
| Owner | Castle Howard Estate Limited[1] |
| Website | castlehoward.co.uk |
Listed Building – Grade I | |
| Official name | Castle Howard and East Court |
| Designated | 25 January 1954 |
| Reference no. | 1316030 |
| Official name | Castle Howard |
| Designated | 10 May 1984 |
| Reference no. | 1001059 |
.svg)  Location of Castle Howard in North Yorkshire | |
Castle Howard is anEnglish country house inHenderskelfe,North Yorkshire, 15 miles (24 km) north ofYork. A private residence, it has been the home of theCarlisle branch of theHoward family for more than 300 years. Castle Howard has been used as a filming location in several films and television shows, including inGranada Television's1981 television adaptation ofEvelyn Waugh'sBrideshead Revisited and in a2008 film adaptation.
In 1577, the4th Duke of Norfolk's third son,Lord William Howard, married his step-sister Elizabeth Dacre, youngest daughter of the4th Baron Dacre. She brought with her the sizable estates ofHenderskelfe in Yorkshire andNaworth Castle inCumberland.[2] Castle Howard was commissioned by the3rd Earl of Carlisle, who was amale-line descendant of Lord William Howard. The site selected was part of the Henderskelfe estate, including theformer castle.[3] The creation of Castle Howard, began in 1699, with the start of design work byJohn Vanbrugh. It was completed with the decoration of the Long Gallery in 1811.[4]
The house is surrounded by a large estate which, at the time of the7th Earl of Carlisle, covered over 13,000 acres (5,300 ha) and included the villages ofWelburn,Bulmer,Slingsby,Terrington andConeysthorpe.[5] The estate was served by its own railway station,Castle Howard station, from 1845 to the 1950s.[6] While attendingGirton College during the earlyEdwardian era, Lady Dorothy Georgiana Howard, the daughter of the9th Earl and "Radical Countess" of Carlisle, befriended six of her fellow students, including the future archaeologistGisela Richter and future candidate for Roman Catholic SainthoodAnna Abrikosova. All six were invited by Lady Dorothy to Castle Howard as guests during holidays.[7] After the death of the9th Earl in 1911, Castle Howard was inherited by his fifth son,Geoffrey Howard, with later earls havingNaworth Castle as their northern country house.Henry 'Chips' Channon, the diarist and future Conservative MP, visited Castle Howard in August 1923 and recounted in his diary that 'The house is uncomfortable in the extreme and is badly kept up. Everywhere there are signs of decaying magnificence.' Channon added that 'The galleries are reminiscent of the Vatican with their hundreds of busts and statues of emperors and gods. The great library is an enormous narrow red room the length of the house and is hung with enough paintings to found a museum.'[8]
In 1952, Castle Howard was opened to the public by its then-owner,Lord Howard of Henderskelfe, a younger son of Geoffrey Howard. It is now owned by a Howard family company, Castle Howard Estate Limited,[1] and managed by the Hon. Nicholas Howard (the second son of Lord Howard of Henderskelfe) and his wife, Victoria.[9]
The 3rd Earl of Carlisle first spoke toWilliam Talman, a leading architect, but commissioned Vanbrugh, a fellow member of theKit-Cat Club, to design the building. Castle Howard was that gentleman-dilettante's first foray into architecture, but he was assisted byNicholas Hawksmoor.[4] Vanbrugh's design evolved into aBaroque structure with two symmetrical wings projecting to either side of a north–south axis. The crowning central dome was added to the design at a late stage, after building had begun. Construction began at the east end, with the East Wing constructed from 1701 to 1703, the east end of the Garden Front from 1701 to 1706, the Central Block (including dome) from 1703 to 1706, and the west end of the Garden Front from 1707 to 1709. All are exuberantly decorated in Baroque style, with coronets, cherubs, urns and cyphers, with RomanDoricpilasters on the north front andCorinthian on the south. Many interiors were decorated byGiovanni Antonio Pellegrini.[4]
_-_north_west_view.JPG)
The Earl then turned his energies to the surrounding garden and grounds. Although the complete design is shown in the third volume ofColen Campbell'sVitruvius Britannicus, published in 1725, the West Wing was not yet started when Vanbrugh died in 1726, despite his remonstration with the Earl. The house remained incomplete on the death of the 3rd Earl in 1738, but the remaining construction finally started at the direction of the 4th Earl.[4] Vanbrugh's design was not completed: the West Wing was built in a contrasting Palladian style to a design by the 3rd Earl's son-in-law,Sir Thomas Robinson. The new wing remained incomplete, with no first floor or roof, at the death of the 4th Earl in 1758. Although a roof had been added, the interior remained undecorated by the death of Robinson in 1777. Rooms were completed stage by stage over the following decades, but the whole was not completed until 1811 underCharles Heathcote Tatham.[4]
A large part of the house was destroyed by a fire on 9 November 1940. The dome, the central hall, the dining room and the staterooms on the east side were entirely destroyed. Antonio Pellegrini's ceiling decoration, theFall of Phaeton, was lost when the dome collapsed. In total, twenty pictures (including twoTintorettos) and several valuable mirrors were lost. The fire took the Malton and York Fire Brigades eight hours to bring under control.[10] Some of the devastated rooms have been restored over the following decades. In 1960–61 the dome was rebuilt, and in the following couple of years Pellegrini'sFall of Phaeton was recreated on the underside of the dome[4] by Canadian artist Scott Medd.[11] The East Wing remains a shell, although it has been re-roofed.[4]In 2009 an underwater ground-source heat recovery system was installed under the castle's lake that halved the heating bill.[12] According to figures released by the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions, over 269,000 people visited Castle Howard in 2019.[13]
Castle Howard has extensive and diverse gardens.[14] There is a large formal garden immediately behind (i.e., on the south side of) the house. The house is prominently situated on a ridge and this was exploited in the development of anEnglish landscape park, which adjoins and opens out from the formal garden. The gardens are Grade I listed on the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.[15]
Two major garden buildings are set in this landscape: theTemple of the Four Winds at the end of the garden, andThe Mausoleum in the park. There is a lake on either side of the house. There is awoodland garden,Ray Wood, immediately east of the house, and theWalled Garden which contains decorative rose and flower gardens. The Ray Wood walls date from the 18th century and were restored in 2007.[16]
Further buildings outside the preserved gardens includeThe Pyramid, restored in 2015,The Obelisk, and several follies and eyecatchers in the form of fortifications which have been restored in recent years; these includeCarrmire Gate andPyramid Gate. In nearbyPretty Wood, there are two more monuments,The Four Faces anda smaller pyramid by Hawksmoor.[17][18]
Located on the estate, but operating separately from the house and gardens and run by an entirely independent charitable trust, is the 127 acres (51 ha)Yorkshire Arboretum.[19]
The house isGrade I listed[20] and there are many other listed structures on the estate, several of which are on theHeritage at Risk Register.[21]
Castle Howard's most famous appearance in film was as Brideshead Castle in both the1981 TV series and the2008 film adaptations ofEvelyn Waugh's novelBrideshead Revisited.[22] It has been used as a location in many other TV and film productions including: the 1965 filmLady L;[23] the 1966 filmThe Spy with a Cold Nose;[24]Stanley Kubrick's 1975 filmBarry Lyndon;[25] the 1995 mini-seriesThe Buccaneers;[23] the 2006 filmGarfield: A Tail of Two Kitties;[26] the 2013 TV seriesDeath Comes to Pemberley;[27] the 2015 Bollywood filmShaandar;[28] in the 2016 ITV seriesVictoria;[23] and the 2020Netflix seriesBridgerton (2020).[23]
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