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Castle Howard,
Yorkshire, England.
Photo: 21 March 2008.
Source: Own work.
(Wikimedia Commons)
The Castle Howard Web-Site can be found
HERECastle Howard is a
Stately Home in
North Yorkshire, England, fifteen miles (twenty-four km) North of
York. It is a private residence, the home of The
Howard Family for more than 300 years.
Castle Howard is not a true
Castle, but this term is also used for
English Country Houses erected on the site of a former Military Castle.
It is familiar to television and film audiences as the fictional "Brideshead", both in
Granada Television's 1981
adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's
Brideshead Revisited, and a two-hour 2008
remake for cinema. Today, it is part of the
Treasure Houses of England group of heritage houses.
The Chapel,
Castle Howard.
Photo: 31 March 2014.
Source: Own work.
(Wikimedia Commons)
Castle Howard Railway Station.
Photo: 24 June 1988.
Source: From geograph.org.uk
Author: Ben Brooksbank
(Wikimedia Commons)
Castle Howard Railway Station was a minor Railway Station serving the Village of
Welburn and the Stately Home at
Castle Howard, in
North Yorkshire, England.
On the
York to Scarborough Line, it was opened on 5 July 1845 by the
York and North Midland Railway. The architect was
George Townsend Andrews.
It closed to passenger traffic on 22 September 1930, but continued to be Staffed, until the 1950s, for small volumes of freight and parcels.
The Station was often used by the aristocracy, notably
Queen Victoria when she visited
Castle Howard with
Prince Albert, as a guest of the
Earl of Carlisle in August 1850. A road was built from the Station to the
Stately Home. Parts of this road (and the associated columns) can still be seen to the North side of
Whitwell-on-the-Hill. The Station is now a private residence.
Castle Howard
from across the Great Lake.
Photo: 30 July 2007.
Source: From geograph.org.uk
Author: John Nicholson.
(Wikimedia Commons)
Castle Howard was built between 1699 and 1712, to a design by Sir
John Vanbrugh, for the
3rd Earl of Carlisle. The site was that of the ruined Henderskelfe Castle, which had come into the Howard family in 1566 through the marriage to Lord Dacre's widow of Thomas, 4th Duke of Norfolk.
The House is surrounded by a large estate which, at the time of the
7th Earl of Carlisle, covered over 13,000 acres (5,300 ha) and included the villages of
Welburn,
Bulmer,
Slingsby,
Terrington and
Coneysthorpe. The estate was served by its own Railway Station,
Castle Howard, from 1845 to the 1950s.
The Fall of Phaëton (original 1712, destroyed by fire).
Photo: 21 May 2011.
Author: Pauline Eccles
(Wikimedia Commons)
In 1952, the House was opened to the public by then owner,
George Howard, Baron Howard of Henderskelfe. It is currently owned by his son, the Honourable Simon Howard, who grew up at the Castle.
In 2003, the grounds were excavated over three days by Channel 4's Time Team, searching for evidence of a local village lost to allow for the landscaping of the estate.
The South Frontage of Castle Howard.
Photo: 5 June 1991.
Author: Richard Croft
(Wikimedia Commons)
The 3rd Earl of Carlisle first spoke to
William Talman, a leading architect, but commissioned Vanbrugh, a fellow member of the
Kit-Cat Club, to design the building. Castle Howard was that Gentleman-
Dilettante's first foray into architecture, but he was assisted by
Nicholas Hawksmoor.
Vanbrugh's design evolved into a
Baroque 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 1701–1703, the East End of the Garden Front from 1701–1706, the Central Block (including Dome) from 1703–1706, and the West End of the Garden Front from 1707–1709. All are exuberantly decorated in Baroque Style, with coronets, cherubs, urns and cyphers, with Roman
Doric pilasters on the North Front and
Corinthian on the South. Many Interiors were decorated by
Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini.
Photo: 2 June 2010.
Source: Own work.
(Wikimedia Commons)
The Earl then turned his energies to the surrounding garden and grounds. Although the complete design is shown in the third volume of
Colen Campbell's
Vitruvius Britannicus, published in 1725, the West Wing was not 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 construction finally started at the direction of the 4th Earl. However, 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 complete until 1811.
The Turquoise Drawing Room,
Castle Howard, Yorkshire, England.
Photo: 31 March 2014.
Source: Own work.
(Wikimedia Commons)
A large part of the house was destroyed by a fire which broke out on 9 November 1940. The Dome, the Central Hall, the Dining Room, and the State Rooms on the East Side, were entirely destroyed. Paintings depicting the Fall of Phaeton by
Antonio Pellegrini were also damaged. In total, twenty pictures (including two
Tintorettos and several valuable mirrors) were lost. The fire took the Malton and York Fire Brigades eight hours to bring under control.
Castle Howard,
Yorkshire.
Photo: 16 August 2010.
Source: Own work.
(Wikimedia Commons)
Some of the devastated rooms have been restored over the following decades. In 1960–1961, the Dome was rebuilt and, in the following couple of years, Pellegrini's Fall of Phæton was recreated on the underside of the Dome.
Some were superficially restored for the 2008 filming, and now house an exhibition. The East Wing remains a shell, although it has been restored externally. Castle Howard is one of the largest Country Houses in England, with a total of 145 rooms.
The Great Hall,
Castle Howard.
Photo: 31 March 2014.
Source: Own work.
(Wikimedia Commons)
According to figures released by the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions, nearly 220,000 people visited Castle Howard in 2010.
Castle Howard has extensive and diverse gardens. There is a large formal garden immediately behind the house. The house is prominently situated on a ridge and this was exploited to create an
English landscape park, which opens out from the formal garden and merges with the park.
Two major garden buildings are set into this landscape: the Temple of the Four Winds at the end of the garden, and the
Mausoleum in the park. There is also a lake on either side of the house. There is an
arboretum, called Ray Wood, and the
walled garden contains decorative
rose and flower gardens.
Lady Georgiana's Dressing Room,
Castle Howard.
Photo: 31 March 2014.
Source: Own work.
(Wikimedia Commons)
Further buildings, outside the preserved gardens, include the ruined
Pyramid, currently undergoing restoration, an
Obelisk and several
Follies and Eye-Catchers, in the form of fortifications. A John Vanbrugh ornamental Pillar, known as the
Quatre Faces (marked as 'Four Faces' on Ordnance Survey Maps), stands in nearby
Pretty Wood.
The grounds of Castle Howard are also used as part of at least two charity running races during the year.There is also a separate 127 acre (514,000 m²) arboretum, called Kew at Castle Howard, which is close to the house and garden, but has separate entrance arrangements. Planting began in 1975, with the intention of creating one of the most important collections of specimen trees in the United Kingdom.
The landscape is more open than that of Ray Wood, and the planting remains immature. It is now a joint venture between Castle Howard and
Kew Gardens and is managed by a charity called the Castle Howard Arboretum Trust, which was established in 1997. It was opened to the public for the first time in 1999. A new visitor centre opened in 2006.
The Crimson Dining Room,
Castle Howard.
Photo: 31 March 2014.
Source: Own work.
(Wikimedia Commons)
The house is
Grade I Listed and there are many other Listed structures on the estate, several of which are on the
Heritage at Risk Register.
In addition to its most famous appearance in film, as Brideshead, in both the
1981 television serial and
2008 film adaptations of
Evelyn Waugh's novel
Brideshead Revisited, Castle Howard has been used as a backdrop for a number of other cinematic and television settings.
In recent years, the Castle has featured in the 1995 film
The Buccaneers and
Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties, released in 2006. In the past, it was notable in
Peter Ustinov's 1965 film Lady L and as the exterior set for Lady Lyndon's estate in
Stanley Kubrick's 1975 film
Barry Lyndon. It has even featured as the Kremlin, in
Galton and Simpson's 1966 film
The Spy with a Cold Nose.
