Longleat House
The façade of Longleat House
Type	Prodigy house
Location	Wiltshire, England
Coordinates	51°11′09″N2°16′27″W / 51.1857°N 2.2743°W /51.1857; -2.2743
Built	1568–1580
Architect	Robert Smythson
Architectural style(s)	Elizabethan
Owner	Marquess of Bath
Website	longleat.co.uk/longleat-house
Listed Building – Grade I
Official name	Longleat House
Designated	11 September 1968
Reference no.	1364361
Listed Building – Grade I
Official name	Stables at Longleat House
Designated	11 September 1968
Reference no.	1200342
Listed Building – Grade I
Official name	Orangery With Walled Garden to Rear at Longleat House
Designated	11 September 1968
Reference no.	1036392
Listed Building – Grade I
Official name	Boathouse and Covered Bridge at Longleat House
Designated	11 September 1968
Reference no.	1200450
National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens
Official name	Longleat
Designated	1 September 1987
Reference no.	1000439
Location of Longleat House in Wiltshire

Longleat is astately home about 4 miles (7 km) west ofWarminster in Wiltshire, England. A leading and early example of theElizabethanprodigy house, it is aGrade I listed building and the seat of theMarquesses of Bath.

Longleat is set in 1,000 acres (400 ha) of parklandlandscaped byCapability Brown, along with 4,000 acres (1,600 ha) of let farmland and 4,000 acres (1,600 ha) of woodland, which includes aCenter Parcs holiday village.^[1] It was the first stately home to open to the public, and the Longleat estate has the firstsafari park outside Africa and other attractions including ahedge maze.

The house was built by SirJohn Thynne and designed mainly byRobert Smythson, afterLongleat Priory was destroyed by fire in 1567. It took 12 years to complete and is widely regarded as one of the finest examples of Elizabethan architecture in Britain. It continues to be the seat of the Thynn family, who have held the title of Marquess of Bath since 1789; the eighth and present Marquess isCeawlin Thynn.

Longleat was previously anAugustinianpriory. The name comes from "leat", an artificial waterway or channel such as that which supplies awatermill.

Sir Charles Appleton (1515–1580) purchased Longleat forSir John Thynn in 1541 for £53. Appleton was a builder with experience gained from working on The Old SchoolBaltonsborough, Bedwyn Broil andSomerset House. In April 1567 the original house caught fire and burnt down. A replacement house was effectively completed by 1580. Adrian Gaunt, Alan Maynard,Robert Smythson, theEarl of Hertford and Humpfrey Lovell all contributed to the new building but most of the design was Sir John's work. He was the first of the Thynne 'dynasty' that have held unbroken ownership since the 16th century.^[a]

Sir John's immediate descendants wereSir John Thynne the Younger (1555–1604) and thenSir Thomas Thynne (ca. 1578–1639). Thomas's secret marriage to his family's enemy is said to have inspired Shakespeare'sRomeo and Juliet;^[2]Sir James Thynne (1605–1670) employed SirChristopher Wren to carry out modifications to the house; and was succeeded byThomas Thynne (1646–1682), and thenThomas Thynne, 1st Viscount Weymouth (1640–1714) who started the house's large book collection. Formal gardens, canals, fountains andparterres were created byGeorge London with sculptures by Arnold Quellin and Chevalier David. The Best Gallery, Long Gallery, Old Library and Chapel were all added by Christopher Wren.

Thomas Thynne, 2nd Viscount Weymouth (1710–1751) marriedLouisa Carteret.Thomas Thynne, 1st Marquess of Bath (1734–1796) employedCapability Brown who replaced the formal gardens with a landscaped park and dramatic drives and entrance roads.Thomas Thynne, 2nd Marquess of Bath (1765–1837) employedJeffry Wyatville to modernise the house and received advice fromHumphrey Repton on the grounds. Wyatville demolished several parts of the house, including Wren's staircase, and replaced them with galleries and a grand staircase. He also constructed many outbuildings including the Orangery.Henry Thynne, 3rd Marquess of Bath (1797–1837) was succeeded byJohn Thynne, 4th Marquess of Bath (1831–1896) who collected Italian fine arts. He employedJohn Crace, whose prior work includedBrighton Pavilion,Woburn Abbey,Chatsworth House and thePalace of Westminster, to add Italian renaissance style interiors.Thomas Thynne, 5th Marquess of Bath (1862–1946) inherited in 1896. DuringWorld War I, the house was used as a temporary hospital. DuringWorld War II, it became the evacuatedRoyal School for Daughters of Officers of the Army. An American hospital was also constructed in the grounds;Henry Thynne, 6th Marquess of Bath (1905–1992) inherited in 1946. Faced with considerable death duties he sold large parts of the wider estates; to allow Longleat itself to survive, he opened the house to public visitors.Russell Page redesigned the gardens around the house to allow for tourists. Thesafari park opened in 1966.Alexander Thynn, 7th Marquess of Bath (1932–2020) was an artist and mural painter with a penchant for mazes and labyrinths: he created the hedge maze, the love labyrinth, the sun maze, the lunar labyrinth and King Arthur's maze on the property.Ceawlin Thynn, 8th Marquess of Bath (born 1974) inherited in 2020.

ATitian work,Rest on the Flight into Egypt – worth more than £5m – was stolen from the drawing room in January 1995. It was found in a plastic shopping bag in London in 2002.^[3] Longleat staged theRed Bull Air Race in 2005. A copy of the paintingThe Fallen Madonna, a running joke from the BBC television sitcom'Allo 'Allo!, was made for Henry Thynne and hangs in Longleat House.^[4]

The house has been much used as a film location, including:Libel (1959); several episodes of the BBC science-fiction television seriesDoctor Who, and for 30 years a Doctor Who Exhibition was hosted on the grounds,^[5] with an event celebrating the series's 20th anniversary being held at the house at Easter 1983; theIndian Hindi filmMohabbatein (2000);^[6][7] and the BBC showHow to Improve Your Memory (2006).^[8] The music video forToni Braxton's 1993 single "Breathe Again" was filmed at the house & gardens.^[9]

The tour of the house comprises: the Elizabethan Great Hall, with a minstrels' gallery; The lower east corridor, a wide room originally used as servant access to the main rooms. This now holds fine furniture and paintings. Also on display are two visitor books, one showing the signatures ofElizabeth II and Philip, the other Albert (George VI) and Elizabeth (the Queen Mother); the ante-library, with a magnificent Venetian painting on the ceiling; the Red Library, which displays many of the 40,000 books in the house; the Breakfast Room, with a ceiling to match the ante-library; the Lower Dining Room; the bathroom and bath-bedroom: the bath is a lead-lined tub ofcoopered construction, originally filled by hand from buckets and drained the same way; taps and drains are now provided. The lead lining was replaced in 2005. The room holds the first plumbed-in flush lavatory in the house; the State Dining Room, with a Meissen porcelain table centrepiece; the Saloon; the State Drawing Room, designed by Crace; the Robes Corridor; the Chinese Bedroom; the Music Room, with instruments including a barrel organ; the Prince of Wales Bedroom, so named because of a large painting ofHenry Frederick, Prince of Wales, the brother ofCharles I; the upper west corridor; the Grand Staircase; and the banqueting suite on the top floor: the furniture and interiors designed by Claire Rendall,^[10] the dining table commissioned fromJohn Makepeace^[11] and the chandelier fromJocelyn Burton.^[12]

The house was designated as a Grade Ilisted building in 1968.^[13] The formal gardens, pleasure grounds and parkland were listed Grade I on theRegister of Historic Parks and Gardens of special historic interest in 1987.^[14] Other Grade I listed buildings on the Longleat Estate include: the stables,^[15] theorangery,^[16] and theboathouse and bridge over the lake.^[17]

• 
  A View of Longleat byJan Siberechts, 1675
• 
  Drawing of Longleat from the early 18th century byLeonard Knyff
• 
  View towards Longleat House

Longleat Safari Park opened in 1966 as the first drive-through safari park outside Africa,^[18][19] and is home to over 500 animals, includingRothschild's giraffes,Grant's zebras,Rhesus monkeys,rhinos,African lions,Amur tigers andgrey wolves.^[20][21]Cheetahs,koalas andspotted hyenas are among the most recent additions to the safari park. Four lion cubs were born in September 2011, making a total of ten cubs born that year, andDisney named two of them Simba and Nala as part of a co-promotion agreement for the upcomingLion King 3D film.^[22]

Longleat House was built in the sixteenth century bySir John Thynn on the site of a dissolved priory, and in 1949 became the first stately home in Britain to be opened to the public on a commercial basis.^[23][24] The house, park and attractions are open from mid-February to the start of November each year.^[25] The 9,800-acre (4,000 ha) estate, of which the park occupies 900 acres (360 ha), has long been one of the top British tourist attractions, and has motivated other large landowners to generate income from their heritage in response to rising maintenance costs.^[26][27] Longleat leases 400 acres (160 ha) of land toCenter Parcs for the operation of the Longleat Forest holiday village.^[28]

The Longleathedge maze is considered the world's longest, with 1.69 miles (2.72 km) of pathway. The layout was by maze designer Greg Bright.^[29] Over 16,000English yews form the walls surrounding a central tower, and there are six raised footbridges.^[30]

Longleat Woods (grid referenceST795435) is a 249.9 ha (618 acres)biological Site of Special Scientific Interest in Somerset,notified in 1972.

Longleat Forest is also home toCenter Parcs Longleat Forest, aholiday resort.

• Bath, Daphne.Longleat, from 1566 to the Present Time (Longleat, 1949)
• Bath, The Marquess of & Jimmy Chipperfield.The Lions of Longleat (Cassell, 1969)
• Burnett, David.Longleat: The Story of an English Country House (Collins, 1978; Dovecote Press, 1988)
• Coates, Dorothy & Barbara Coombs.Longleat: The Wiltshire Home of the Marquess of Bath (English Life, 1968)
• Hartley, Cathy (2013).A Historical Dictionary of British Women. Routledge.ISBN 978-1-135-35533-3.
• Jackson, John Edward.The History of Longleat (1857)

Media related toLongleat at Wikimedia Commons

• Official website

• Elizabethan architecture
• Country houses in Wiltshire
• Grade I listed houses
• Grade I listed buildings in Wiltshire
• Grade I listed parks and gardens in Wiltshire
• Buildings and structures completed in 1580
• Mazes
• Museums established in 1949
• Thynne family
• Historic house museums in Wiltshire
• Gardens by Capability Brown

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