Template:Short description Template:For Template:Use British English Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox historic site Harlaxton Manor is a Victorian country house in Harlaxton, Lincolnshire, England. The house was built for Gregory Gregory, a local squire and businessman. Gregory employed two of the leading architects of Victorian England, Anthony Salvin and William Burn and consulted a third, Edward Blore, during its construction. Its architecture, which combines elements of Jacobean and Elizabethan styles with Baroque decoration, makes it unique among England's Jacobethan houses. Harlaxton is a Grade I listed building on the National Heritage List for England, and many other structures on the estate are also listed. The surrounding park and gardens are listed Grade II* on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. It is now the British campus of the University of Evansville.
HistoryEdit
Harlaxton is first recorded in the Domesday Book as Harleston. The current mansion is the second Harlaxton Manor. The first was built on a different site during the 14th century and was used as a hunting lodge by John of Gaunt. By 1619, Sir Daniel de Ligne purchased the manor.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The original house was deserted after 1780; it was inherited by Gregory Gregory, and was torn down in 1857.
Gregory familyEdit
Gregory Gregory (1786–1854) was born Gregory Williams, adopting the surname Gregory when he inherited his uncle's estates. His father was William Gregory Williams (1742–1814) and his mother Olivia Preston (1758–1835). In 1822 Gregory inherited Harlaxton Manor and other property from his uncle George de Ligne Gregory (1740–1822).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The original Harlaxton Manor was an ancient building in need of repair so Gregory did not move to the house, living at the nearby Hungerton Hall. In 1831 he commissioned the architect Anthony Salvin to build his mansion, a process which took 20 years. Unmarried, childless, with no interest in traditional country pursuits, and averse to socialising and entertaining, the building of Harlaxton, and the acquisition of architectural elements, paintings, furniture and glass to fit it out, became Gregory's all-consuming passion.Template:Sfn The diarist Charles Greville, visiting during the house's construction in the 1830s, recorded Gregory's obsessive approach, [see box].
In 1851 Gregory moved into the completed manor with a staff of fourteen servants including a butler, a house keeper, three footmen, seven domestic maids and two grooms. By 1854 he was dead.Template:Sfn The house was inherited by his cousin, George Gregory. Gregory had loathed his distant relation and attempted to bequeath Harlaxton to a friend but was unable to break the entail on the estate.Template:Sfn George Gregory (1775–1860) had been born in London, son of Daniel Gregory (1747–1819). George did not follow his father's occupation as a merchant and instead bought an estate in Lincolnshire. In 1825 at the age of 50, he married Elizabeth Price, twenty years his junior.Template:Sfn They moved to Harlaxton after he received his inheritance.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> With other owners of large houses in the area, George decided to open the house to visitors. George died in 1860 at the manor and another distant relative, John Sherwin Gregory, inherited the house.Template:Sfn
John Sherwin Gregory (1803–1869) was born John Sherwin Longden. His father was John Longden and his mother was Charlotte Mettam. His father had inherited Bramcote Manor in Nottinghamshire. When his father died in 1818, John received the Bramcote property, changing his surname to Sherwin, becoming John Sherwin Sherwin. In 1829 he married Catherine Holden.Template:Sfn The couple lived at Bramcote<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> until inheriting Harlaxton in 1860, at which point Sherwin again changed his surname, becoming John Sherwin Gregory.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
John died in 1869 and Catherine continued to live at Harlaxton Manor until her death in 1892 at the age of 86. Her obituary recorded that she was highly regarded as a benefactor, both of the church at Harlaxton and of the sick and poor of the parish.Template:Sfn When she died in 1892, Thomas Sherwin Pearson, who was the second cousin and godson of John Sherwin Gregory, inherited the manor.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Thomas added Gregory to his surname, becoming Thomas Sherwin Pearson Gregory (1851–1935). He was born in Barwell, Leicestershire, son of General Thomas Hooke Pearson and Francis Elizabeth Ashby Mettam.Template:Sfn Thomas' grandfather the Reverend George Metttam was the brother of John Sherwin Gregory's mother Charlotte Mettam and was John's second cousin. Thomas was educated at Rugby and the University of Oxford, becoming a first-class cricketer.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 1885 he married Mabel Laura Payne and, in his inheritance in 1892, moved to Harlaxton with his wife and their son Philip John Sherwin Pearson-Gregory (1888–1955), who himself inherited the estate in 1935. Philip decided not to live in the house and, following an auction of the contents which lasted three days, it was sold in 1937.<ref name="auto">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
20th centuryEdit
Violet Van der Elst, a businesswoman and inventor, made her money from developing the first brushless shaving cream and made her name by campaigning against capital punishment.Template:Sfn She restored the house, having renamed it Grantham Castle, and had it wired for electricity, before losing almost all of her fortune in "obsessive litigation".Template:Sfn During the Second World War, Harlaxton was requisitioned by the Royal Air Force as the officers' mess for RAF Harlaxton and later to house a company of the 1st Airborne Division.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 1948, Harlaxton was purchased by the Society of Jesus, who used it as a novitiate.Template:Sfn Stanford University leased Harlaxton Manor from the Jesuits in 1965, and with only 80 students in its first year, it was the first American university in Great Britain. Students attended classes from Monday to Thursday, often travelling on the weekends, similar to the Harlaxton schedule today. Stanford used the manor as part of its British study abroad programme. But the relative isolation of the house made it unpopular and the programme relocated to Cliveden in Berkshire in 1969.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
University of EvansvilleEdit
Harlaxton is now owned by the University of Evansville, operating as Harlaxton College, and is the base for their study-abroad programme.Template:Sfn A number of other American universities also use the estate. Evansville began using the property in 1971 as its British campus, but it was bought personally by William Ridgway, a trustee of the university, and held by him until he donated it to the university in 1986.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Immediately after the purchase the university began renovating the entire facility.Template:Efn<ref name="auto"/> Since 1984, Harlaxton Manor has also been the site of the annual Harlaxton Medieval Symposium, an interdisciplinary symposium on medieval art, literature and architecture.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The house and gardens are occasionally opened for public tours.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
WUEV Harlaxton Bureau at Harlaxton CollegeEdit
On 30 July 1997, 91.5 FM WUEV opened the Harlaxton Bureau at Harlaxton College, Lincolnshire, England. Shortly thereafter, Harlaxton Bureau correspondents covered the death of Princess Diana and were subsequently recognized by the Indiana Society of Professional Journalists. This made the University of Evansville the first American university project to have a student-run news bureau on a foreign campus.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Media appearancesEdit
The manor is a popular location for filming. Exterior and interior shots have featured in The Ruling Class,<ref name="auto1">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The Last Days of Patton,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The Lady and the Highwayman, The Haunting,<ref name="auto1"/> The Young Visiters<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and The Secret Garden.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Architecture and descriptionEdit
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Nicholas Antram, in his revised Lincolnshire volume of the Pevsner Buildings of England published in 2002, describes the approach to Harlaxton Manor as a "crescendo of effects".Template:Sfn From the entrance gates on the A607, just outside of the village of Harlaxton, the drive descends into a valley before crossing a serpentine lake by way of a five-arch bridge.<ref name="NHLEBridge">Template:NHLE</ref> It then passes the Kitchen Gardens<ref name="NHLEKitchenWalls">Template:NHLE</ref> before going through an outer gatehouse.<ref name="NHLEFormerStablesGatehouseNW">Template:NHLE</ref> It continues past the stables before entering the Cour d'honneur through a second, double, gatehouse, described by Antram as a "pyrotechnic display".Template:Sfn<ref name="NHLEGatewayScreen">Template:NHLE</ref> The visitor is then confronted by the "towering façade" of the main house. Gregory employed three of the major architects of the Victorian era to achieve his effects; Anthony Salvin was responsible for the majority of the exterior work,Template:Efn Edward Blore was consulted, and William Burn undertook the conservatory and the kitchen range. There is debate among architectural historians as to who was responsible of the design of the interiors. Salvin had been dismissed by the time of their fitting out, and Burn seems unlikely. Historic England suggests that Gregory "acted largely as his own architect"<ref name="NHLEHouse">Template:NHLE</ref> and Antram and Mark Girouard agree that Gregory must have made a major contribution.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn But Jill Allibone, Salvin's biographer, is certain that Gregory alone could not have been responsible for the extraordinary designs.Template:Sfn
The house cost Gregory in the region of £100,000, (£Template:Inflation in Template:Inflation/year adjusted for inflation)Template:Inflation-fn a significant sum for a landowner with an annual income of £12,000, but as it had been over 30 years in the planning and as building was undertaken at a leisurely pace, the sum was affordable from his income.Template:EfnTemplate:Sfn
ExteriorEdit
Harlaxton is built to an Elizabethan E-plan. The foundation stone of the main central block was laid by Gregory in 1832 and it was complete externally by 1837. All of this is by Anthony Salvin, with Gregory's input.Template:Sfn The main construction materials are Ancaster stone ashlar and brick.Template:Efn<ref name="NHLEHouse"/> Salvin enhanced the drama of the entrance front by making the entry at basement level, the corresponding garden elevation behind opens directly onto a parterre.Template:Sfn The main architectural style is that of an Elizabethan or Jacobethan prodigy house, such as nearby Burghley or Wollaton Hall in Nottinghamshire, although with notable European influences.Template:Sfn Mark Girouard, in his 1979 study, The Victorian Country House, records that Gregory had visited "Bramshill, Hardwick, Hatfield, Knole, Burghley, Wollaton, Kirby Lonleat, Temple Newsam and the Oxford and Cambridge colleges " in pursuit of Elizabethan inspiration.Template:Sfn The uniqueness of Harlaxton, however, is the fusion of Elizabethan and Jacobean styles with the architecture and design of the Baroque.Template:Sfn Girouard notes that this blending continues "in varying proportions all through the house"Template:Sfn and suggests David Bryce, William Burn's chief assistant, as a possible source.Template:Sfn
Entrance frontEdit
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The entrance front consists of a central block with a two-storey oriel window flanked by three-storey towers with bay windows and topped by cupolas. The doorway is framed by two pilasters. Behind this there is a square tower, with an octagonal turret containing a clock and again finishing in a cupola.<ref name="NHLEHouse"/> The sources for all of these elements can be traced: the overall impression is of Burghley House; the pilasters are a direct lift from a 16th-century German architectural work, the Architectura by Wendel Dietterlin, a copy of which Gregory is known to have owned;Template:Sfn the oriel is from Hengrave Hall in Suffolk. Antram also identifies elements from Northumberland House and from Stonyhurst.Template:Sfn Girouard writes, "the resulting impression of power, exuberance and abundance is sensational".Template:Sfn To the left is a service wing by Burn, which is visually balanced by a gazebo to the right, drawn from Wollaton Hall.Template:Sfn
Inner and outer gatehousesEdit
By the time Gregory came to begin the building of the entrance to the cour d'honneur, Salvin had been dismissed. The reason for this is unclear, but the consensus among architectural historians is that disagreements of Gregory's future plans for the design and decoration of his house led to an estrangement.Template:Sfn After some consultations with Edward Blore, Gregory employed William Burn. Historic England credits Burn, his assistant David Bryce, and Gregory himself with the design of the gateway.Template:Efn<ref name="NHLEGatewayScreen"/> Antram considers the lodges and screen to be unlike anything else in England of that date, and comparable only to the work of John Vanbrugh at Blenheim Palace.Template:Sfn The central gateway is flanked by two pavilions with pierced archways and larger lodges to each side.<ref name="NHLEGatewayScreen"/> The outer lodges are topped by "scrolled consoles [supporting] sacrophagi...the scale gargantuan".Template:Sfn
The outer gatehouse is earlier and was designed by Salvin in a much more restrained Tudor Revival style.<ref name="NHLEFormerStablesGatehouseNW"/>
InteriorEdit
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The interiors at Harlaxton have been described as "a prodigious display of decorative virtuosity unparalleled in 19th century England". The designers are an uncertain mixture of Salvin, Burn, Bryce and possibly others, all influenced by Gregory himself. Jill Franklin, in her 1981 study, The Gentleman's Country House and its plan 1835-1914, writes of the unusual nature of the interior layout of Harlaxton. Noting that there is no easy means of circulation, and that the entrance hall, the only public space at the front ground floor level, leads up via flights of stairs to two awkwardly placed landings, through which entrance is made into the main entertaining rooms of the house by concealed jib doors, she suggests that the house was always in fact designed for show, rather than for living; "a guided tour, with the visitor giving delighted cries of surprise as each door is flung open".Template:Sfn
In the early 19th century, Gregory is believed to have held a post at the British Embassy in Paris. While there, and taking advantage of the cheap prices occasioned by the end of the Napoleonic Wars, he embarked on a spending spree purchasing, "panelling, chimneypieces, furniture and tapestries in great quantity".Template:Sfn He also travelled extensively, "as far as Constantinople and the Crimea", taking particular interest in the Baroque design of Germany and Austria.Template:Sfn The wood carver William Gibbs Rogers, who visited the house in the 1860s when Gregory's collection was still intact, recorded his impressions; "marbles, jaspers, cabinets, porcelain of fabulous value, Buhl, rare sculptures, delicate carvings, furniture, tapestries, all in glorious and unreadable confusion".Template:EfnTemplate:EfnTemplate:Sfn
The house was technologically advanced; a miniature railway, originally used to transport brick from Gregory's kilns to the house, and subsequently used to move coal, was run into the house on a viaduct and continued into the roof spaces to supply the internal coal bunkers.Template:Efn<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Great HallEdit
Entry to the house is through Salvin's entrance hall, set at basement level. Stairs rise to the first floor where the Great Hall is entered through a stone screens passage. The main inspiration for what Gregory called The Barons' Hall, is that at Audley End House in Essex, but the design and decoration has decidedly Baroque elements such as the "muscular atlantes" supporting the roof trusses.Template:Sfn Other decorative elements are more traditional, the stained glass in the window is by Thomas Willement and depicts Gregory's heraldry and ancestry.Template:EfnTemplate:Sfn The chandelier is a later introduction, bought by Mrs Van Elst, when its transportation to the intended destination, a palace in Madrid, was interrupted by the Spanish Civil War.Template:Sfn
Gold Drawing RoomEdit
Louis XV style in decoration, as are most of the state rooms, this drawing room may have been created to emulate the Elizabeth Saloon at nearby Belvoir Castle.Template:Sfn The decoration may be by John Crace.Template:Sfn
Cedar StaircaseEdit
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The Cedar Staircase is placed within a tower that is invisible externally.Template:Sfn It appears to rise three full storeys in what Michael Hall, in his 2009 study, The Victorian Country House calls an, "astonishingly theatrical tour de force".Template:Sfn This is in fact a trompe-l'œil illusion, as the upper storey is merely a decorative device and leads nowhere, culminating in a fake sky. The decoration is entirely Baroque; "swagged curtains interlaced with thriving putti blowing trumpets and supporting huge scallop shells".Template:Sfn Franklin notes that the style would amaze in a German church but is extraordinary in an English country house.Template:Sfn The plasterwork, here and elsewhere in the house, is possibly by the firm of Bernasconi, a London-based firm of Italian origin.Template:Sfn An alternative theory is that Salvin, who is known to have visited Bavaria in 1835, brought back local German craftsmen to undertake the work,Template:Sfn but architectural historians favour the former suggestion. The Bernasconi Company certainly had the necessary experience, having been employed at both Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle.Template:Sfn
Listing designationsEdit
The manor is listed at Grade I<ref name="NHLEHouse"/> while the gardens and park are listed at Grade II* on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.<ref name=NHLEGarden>Template:NHLE</ref> To the north-west of Harlaxton Manor, the bridge 800 metres from the house is listed Grade II*, as is the gatehouse 400 metres away and its attached boundary walls.<ref name="NHLEBridge"/><ref name="NHLEFormerStablesGatehouseNW"/> The kitchen's garden walls and the gardener's house 500 metres to the north-west are listed Grade II* and the stables 70 metres from the house with their adjoining screen wall are listed Grade II.<ref name="NHLEKitchenWalls"/><ref name=NHLEFormerStables>Template:NHLE</ref> The gateway and screen wall 1,200 metres north-west of the manor are listed Grade II.<ref name="NHLEGatewayScreen"/>
The walls, steps, and gazebos to the south-west of the forecourt are listed Grade I.<ref name=NHLEWallsSW>Template:NHLE</ref> The statue at the head of the ornamental garden steps 50 metres south-west of the manor and the twelve stone benches in the garden to the south-west of the forecourt are both listed Grade II.<ref name=NHLEStatue>Template:NHLE</ref><ref name=NHLEBenches>Template:NHLE</ref> The ornamental garden steps 50 metres south-west of the manor are listed Grade II*.<ref name=NHLEStepsSW>Template:NHLE</ref>
To the south of Harlaxton Manor, the garden loggia and the loggia's steps and trough 90 metres to the south of the house are listed Grade II.<ref name=NHLELoggia>Template:NHLE</ref><ref name=NHLELoggiaSouth>Template:NHLE</ref> The gazebo 80 metres south of the manor is listed Grade II*.<ref name=NHLEGazeboSouth>Template:NHLE</ref> The steps to the east and the west of the gazebo 80 metres south of the manor are listed Grade II.<ref name=NHLEStepsEast>Template:NHLE</ref><ref name=NHLEStepsWest>Template:NHLE</ref> The Baroque terrace fountain and statues 25 metres south-east of the manor are listed Grade II*.<ref name=NHLEFountain>Template:NHLE</ref>
GalleryEdit
- ExpoLight-Harlaxton-Manor-0009C (Sample Proof-Photography.jpg
Entrance gate, frontage
- Harlaxton Manor Forecourt (geograph 4596122).jpg
The inner gates onto the forecourt
- Gateway lodge on road to Harlaxton College (geograph 6279044).jpg
Salvin's Tudor outer gatehouse
- Harlaxton Manor, The Cedar Staircase (26061813217).jpg
The Cedar Staircase
- Harlaxton Manor, Father Time (27063837848).jpg
Father Time, at the top of the Cedar Stair, holding a plan of Harlaxton
- Harlaxton Manor ceiling (27064127588).jpg
Ceiling to the Gold Drawing Room
- Harlaxton Manor, Ceiling of Ante Room (26061801407).jpg
Ceiling to the Ante Room
- Harlaxton Manor, south west panorama (26062059087).jpg
The garden front
- Conservatory from the south west (geograph 3595801).jpg
Burn's conservatory
- Service viaduct - geograph.org.uk - 2005453.jpg
The service viaduct which carries the miniature railway into the house
- Lion portrait - 3 (geograph 3595793).jpg
One of the "Harlaxton lions" - introduced by Violet Van der Elst
- Harlaxton Manor at sunset.jpg
Harlaxton Manor at sunset
NotesEdit
ReferencesEdit
SourcesEdit
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External linksEdit
- Template:Official
- Harlaxton College website
- Archive newsreel of Harlaxton Manor interior and exterior – 1939
- Flickr photos tagged Harlaxton Manor
- Photos of Harlaxton Manor and surrounding area on geograph
- History and Heritage
- Harlaxton Medieval Symposium
Template:University of Evansville Template:Former Jesuit Places in Britain