Highclere Castle
Encyclopedia
Highclere Castle ˈ is a country house in the Jacobethan
style, with park designed by Capability Brown
. The 1,000 acre estate is in the English
county of Hampshire
, about 1 miles (1.6 km) south of the border with Berkshire
, and 4 miles (6.4 km) south of Newbury
. It is the country seat of the Earls of Carnarvon
, a branch of the Anglo-Welsh Herbert
family.
, who owned this estate from the 8th century. The original site was recorded in the Domesday Book
. Since 1679, the castle has been home to the Carnarvon family.
In 1692, Robert Sawyer
, a lawyer and college friend of Samuel Pepys
, bequeathed a mansion at Highclere to his only daughter, Margaret. Margaret was the first wife of the 8th Earl of Pembroke
. Their second son, Robert Sawyer Herbert, inherited Highclere, began its picture collection and created the garden temples. His nephew and heir Henry Herbert
was made Baron Porchester and 1st Earl of Carnarvon
by King George III
.
In those years, the house was a square, classical mansion, but it was remodelled and largely rebuilt for the third Earl by Sir Charles Barry in the years 1839 to 1842, after he had finished building the Houses of Parliament. It is in the Jacobethan
style and faced in Bath stone
.
The term "Jacobethan" refers to the Victorian revival of the English architecture of the late 16th century and early 17th century when traditional Tudor architecture
was being challenged by newly arrived Renaissance
influences. During the 19th century there was a huge Renaissance revival movement of which Sir Charles Barry was a great exponent. Barry himself described the style of Highclere as "Anglo-Italian".
Barry had been inspired to become an architect by the Renaissance architecture
of Italy and was very proficient at working in the Renaissance based style which in the 19th century became known as Italianate architecture
. At Highclere, however, he worked in the Jacobethan style, but added to it some of the motifs of the Italianate style. This is particularly noticeable in the towers which are slimmer and more refined than those of the other great Jacobethan house Mentmore Towers
built in the same era. Barry produced an alternative design in a more purely Italian Renaissance style which was rejected by Lord Carnarvon . The external walls are decorated with strapwork
designs typical of Northern European Renaissance architecture. The Italian Renaissance theme is more evident in the interiors. In the great hall, in an attempt to resemble a medieval English great hall
, Barry introduced a Gothic influence evident in the points rather than curves of the arches, and the mock-hammerbeam roof
.
Although the exterior of the north, east and south sides were completed by the time the 3rd Earl died in 1849 and Sir Charles Barry died in 1860, the interior and the west wing (designated as servants' quarters) were still far from complete. The 4th Earl turned to the architect Thomas Allom
, who had worked with Barry, to supervise work on the interior of the Castle, which was completed on 1878.
The 1st Earl rebuilt his park according to a design by Capability Brown during 1774 to 1777, relocating the village in the process (the remains of the church of 1689 are at the south west corner of the castle). The famous 18th century seed collector Bishop Stephen Pococke was a friend and brought Lebanon Cedar
seeds from a trip to Lebanon. These beautiful trees can be seen in the garden today. Various follies and eye-catchers exist on the estate. To the east of the house is the Temple, a strange structure erected before 1743 with Corinthian columns from Devonshire House
in Piccadilly
. "Heaven's Gate" is an eye-catcher about 18 m high on Sidown Hill, built in 1731 from a design, it is thought, by the 9th Earl of Pembroke
. It fell shortly afterwards. The event was witnessed and recorded by a Rev. J Milles, who recorded that "we had not been there above half an hour before we saw it cleave from ye foundations and it fell with such a noise yet was heard at three or four miles [5 or 6 km] distant".
The hybrid holly
Ilex x altaclerensis (Highclere Holly) was developed here in about 1835 by hybridising the Madeira
n Ilex perado (grown in a greenhouse
) with the local native Ilex aquifolium.
who, along with his archaeological colleague, Howard Carter
, famously discovered the tomb of the Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamun
in 1922. The 5th Earl was an enthusiastic amateur Egyptologist
, undertaking in 1907 to sponsor the excavation of nobles' tombs in Deir el-Bahari (Thebes
).
Jacobethan
Jacobethan is the style designation coined in 1933 by John Betjeman to describe the mixed national Renaissance revival style that was made popular in England from the late 1820s, which derived most of its inspiration and its repertory from the English Renaissance , with elements of Elizabethan and...
style, with park designed by Capability Brown
Capability Brown
Lancelot Brown , more commonly known as Capability Brown, was an English landscape architect. He is remembered as "the last of the great English eighteenth-century artists to be accorded his due", and "England's greatest gardener". He designed over 170 parks, many of which still endure...
. The 1,000 acre estate is in the English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
county of Hampshire
Hampshire
Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...
, about 1 miles (1.6 km) south of the border with Berkshire
Berkshire
Berkshire is a historic county in the South of England. It is also often referred to as the Royal County of Berkshire because of the presence of the royal residence of Windsor Castle in the county; this usage, which dates to the 19th century at least, was recognised by the Queen in 1957, and...
, and 4 miles (6.4 km) south of Newbury
Newbury, Berkshire
Newbury is a civil parish and the principal town in the west of the county of Berkshire in England. It is situated on the River Kennet and the Kennet and Avon Canal, and has a town centre containing many 17th century buildings. Newbury is best known for its racecourse and the adjoining former USAF...
. It is the country seat of the Earls of Carnarvon
Earl of Carnarvon
Earl of Carnarvon is a title that has been created three times in British history. The first creation came in the Peerage of England in 1628 in favour of Robert Dormer, 2nd Baron Dormer. For more information on this creation, which became extinct in 1709, see the Baron Dormer.The title was created...
, a branch of the Anglo-Welsh Herbert
Herbert family
The Herbert family is an Anglo-Welsh dynasty founded by William Herbert, known as "Black William", the son of William ap Thomas, founder of Raglan Castle, a follower of Edward IV of England in the Wars of the Roses...
family.
History
The present castle stands on the site of an earlier house, in turn built on the foundations of the medieval palace of the Bishops of WinchesterBishop of Winchester
The Bishop of Winchester is the head of the Church of England diocese of Winchester, with his cathedra at Winchester Cathedral in Hampshire.The bishop is one of five Church of England bishops to be among the Lords Spiritual regardless of their length of service. His diocese is one of the oldest and...
, who owned this estate from the 8th century. The original site was recorded in the Domesday Book
Domesday Book
Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...
. Since 1679, the castle has been home to the Carnarvon family.
In 1692, Robert Sawyer
Robert Sawyer (Attorney General)
Sir Robert Sawyer, of Highclere was the Attorney General for England and Wales and, briefly, Speaker of the English House of Commons....
, a lawyer and college friend of Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys FRS, MP, JP, was an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament who is now most famous for the diary he kept for a decade while still a relatively young man...
, bequeathed a mansion at Highclere to his only daughter, Margaret. Margaret was the first wife of the 8th Earl of Pembroke
Thomas Herbert, 8th Earl of Pembroke
Thomas Herbert, 8th Earl of Pembroke, 5th Earl of Montgomery, KG, PC, FRS was a British politician during the reigns of William III and Anne....
. Their second son, Robert Sawyer Herbert, inherited Highclere, began its picture collection and created the garden temples. His nephew and heir Henry Herbert
Henry Herbert, 1st Earl of Carnarvon
Henry Herbert, 1st Earl of Carnarvon PC , known as The Lord Porchester from 1780 to 1793, was a British Whig politician. He served as Master of the Horse from 1806 to 1807 in the Ministry of All the Talents headed by Lord Grenville.-Background and education:Herbert was the son of Major-General the...
was made Baron Porchester and 1st Earl of Carnarvon
Earl of Carnarvon
Earl of Carnarvon is a title that has been created three times in British history. The first creation came in the Peerage of England in 1628 in favour of Robert Dormer, 2nd Baron Dormer. For more information on this creation, which became extinct in 1709, see the Baron Dormer.The title was created...
by King George III
George III of the United Kingdom
George III was King of Great Britain and King of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of these two countries on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until his death...
.
In those years, the house was a square, classical mansion, but it was remodelled and largely rebuilt for the third Earl by Sir Charles Barry in the years 1839 to 1842, after he had finished building the Houses of Parliament. It is in the Jacobethan
Jacobethan
Jacobethan is the style designation coined in 1933 by John Betjeman to describe the mixed national Renaissance revival style that was made popular in England from the late 1820s, which derived most of its inspiration and its repertory from the English Renaissance , with elements of Elizabethan and...
style and faced in Bath stone
Bath Stone
Bath Stone is an Oolitic Limestone comprising granular fragments of calcium carbonate. Originally obtained from the Combe Down and Bathampton Down Mines under Combe Down, Somerset, England, its warm, honey colouring gives the World Heritage City of Bath, England its distinctive appearance...
.
The term "Jacobethan" refers to the Victorian revival of the English architecture of the late 16th century and early 17th century when traditional Tudor architecture
Tudor architecture
The Tudor architectural style is the final development of medieval architecture during the Tudor period and even beyond, for conservative college patrons...
was being challenged by newly arrived Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
influences. During the 19th century there was a huge Renaissance revival movement of which Sir Charles Barry was a great exponent. Barry himself described the style of Highclere as "Anglo-Italian".
Barry had been inspired to become an architect by the Renaissance architecture
Renaissance architecture
Renaissance architecture is the architecture of the period between the early 15th and early 17th centuries in different regions of Europe, demonstrating a conscious revival and development of certain elements of ancient Greek and Roman thought and material culture. Stylistically, Renaissance...
of Italy and was very proficient at working in the Renaissance based style which in the 19th century became known as Italianate architecture
Italianate architecture
The Italianate style of architecture was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. In the Italianate style, the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian Renaissance architecture, which had served as inspiration for both Palladianism and...
. At Highclere, however, he worked in the Jacobethan style, but added to it some of the motifs of the Italianate style. This is particularly noticeable in the towers which are slimmer and more refined than those of the other great Jacobethan house Mentmore Towers
Mentmore Towers
Mentmore Towers is a 19th century English country house in the village of Mentmore in Buckinghamshire. The house was designed by Joseph Paxton and his son-in-law, George Henry Stokes, in the revival Elizabethan and Jacobean style of the late 16th century called Jacobethan, for the banker and...
built in the same era. Barry produced an alternative design in a more purely Italian Renaissance style which was rejected by Lord Carnarvon . The external walls are decorated with strapwork
Strapwork
In the history of art and design, the term strapwork refers to a stylised representation in ornament of strips or bands of curling leather, parchment or metal cut into elaborate shapes, with piercings and often interwoven...
designs typical of Northern European Renaissance architecture. The Italian Renaissance theme is more evident in the interiors. In the great hall, in an attempt to resemble a medieval English great hall
Great hall
A great hall is the main room of a royal palace, nobleman's castle or a large manor house in the Middle Ages, and in the country houses of the 16th and early 17th centuries. At that time the word great simply meant big, and had not acquired its modern connotations of excellence...
, Barry introduced a Gothic influence evident in the points rather than curves of the arches, and the mock-hammerbeam roof
Hammerbeam roof
Hammerbeam roof, in architecture, is the name given to an open timber roof, typical of English Gothic architecture, using short beams projecting from the wall.- Design :...
.
Although the exterior of the north, east and south sides were completed by the time the 3rd Earl died in 1849 and Sir Charles Barry died in 1860, the interior and the west wing (designated as servants' quarters) were still far from complete. The 4th Earl turned to the architect Thomas Allom
Thomas Allom
Thomas Allom was an English architect, artist, and topographical illustrator. He was a founding member of what became the Royal Institute of British Architects . He designed many buildings in London, including the Church of St Peter's and parts of the elegant Ladbroke Estate in Notting Hill...
, who had worked with Barry, to supervise work on the interior of the Castle, which was completed on 1878.
The 1st Earl rebuilt his park according to a design by Capability Brown during 1774 to 1777, relocating the village in the process (the remains of the church of 1689 are at the south west corner of the castle). The famous 18th century seed collector Bishop Stephen Pococke was a friend and brought Lebanon Cedar
Lebanon Cedar
Cedrus libani is a species of cedar native to the mountains of the Mediterranean region.There are two distinct types that are considered to be different subspecies or varieties. Lebanon cedar or Cedar of Lebanon Cedrus libani is a species of cedar native to the mountains of the Mediterranean...
seeds from a trip to Lebanon. These beautiful trees can be seen in the garden today. Various follies and eye-catchers exist on the estate. To the east of the house is the Temple, a strange structure erected before 1743 with Corinthian columns from Devonshire House
Devonshire House
Devonshire House in Piccadilly was the London residence of the Dukes of Devonshire in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was built for William Cavendish, 3rd Duke of Devonshire in the Palladian style, to designs by William Kent...
in Piccadilly
Piccadilly
Piccadilly is a major street in central London, running from Hyde Park Corner in the west to Piccadilly Circus in the east. It is completely within the city of Westminster. The street is part of the A4 road, London's second most important western artery. St...
. "Heaven's Gate" is an eye-catcher about 18 m high on Sidown Hill, built in 1731 from a design, it is thought, by the 9th Earl of Pembroke
Earl of Pembroke
Earl of Pembroke is a title created ten times, all in the Peerage of England. It was first created in the 12th century by King Stephen of England. The title is associated with Pembroke, Pembrokeshire in West Wales, which is the site of Earldom's original seat Pembroke Castle...
. It fell shortly afterwards. The event was witnessed and recorded by a Rev. J Milles, who recorded that "we had not been there above half an hour before we saw it cleave from ye foundations and it fell with such a noise yet was heard at three or four miles [5 or 6 km] distant".
The hybrid holly
Holly
Ilex) is a genus of 400 to 600 species of flowering plants in the family Aquifoliaceae, and the only living genus in that family. The species are evergreen and deciduous trees, shrubs, and climbers from tropics to temperate zones world wide....
Ilex x altaclerensis (Highclere Holly) was developed here in about 1835 by hybridising the Madeira
Madeira
Madeira is a Portuguese archipelago that lies between and , just under 400 km north of Tenerife, Canary Islands, in the north Atlantic Ocean and an outermost region of the European Union...
n Ilex perado (grown in a greenhouse
Greenhouse
A greenhouse is a building in which plants are grown. These structures range in size from small sheds to very large buildings...
) with the local native Ilex aquifolium.
Exhibition
The castle is home to an Egyptian Exhibition, which was founded by the 5th EarlGeorge Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon
George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon was an English aristocrat best known as the financial backer of the search for and the excavation of Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings.-Biography:...
who, along with his archaeological colleague, Howard Carter
Howard Carter
Howard Carter may refer to:* Howard Carter , English archaeologist who discovered Tutankhamun's tomb* Howard Carter , American basketball player...
, famously discovered the tomb of the Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamun
Tutankhamun
Tutankhamun , Egyptian , ; approx. 1341 BC – 1323 BC) was an Egyptian pharaoh of the 18th dynasty , during the period of Egyptian history known as the New Kingdom...
in 1922. The 5th Earl was an enthusiastic amateur Egyptologist
Egyptology
Egyptology is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religious practices in the AD 4th century. A practitioner of the discipline is an “Egyptologist”...
, undertaking in 1907 to sponsor the excavation of nobles' tombs in Deir el-Bahari (Thebes
Thebes, Egypt
Thebes is the Greek name for a city in Ancient Egypt located about 800 km south of the Mediterranean, on the east bank of the river Nile within the modern city of Luxor. The Theban Necropolis is situated nearby on the west bank of the Nile.-History:...
).
Visiting the castle
The castle is in-residence, meaning that it is only open on certain dates. Highclere, the Gardens, and the Egyptology Exhibition are closed until Easter Opening, which runs from Sunday, 17 April, to Tuesday, 3 May, seven days a week. It then reopens with a Summer Opening from Sunday, 3 July, to Thursday, 1 September, open only Sunday to Thursday.Film and television
- The saloon appeared in the film The Four FeathersThe Four Feathers (2002 film)The Four Feathers is a 2002 action drama film directed by Shekhar Kapur, starring Heath Ledger, Wes Bentley, Djimon Hounsou and Kate Hudson...
starring Heath LedgerHeath LedgerHeath Andrew Ledger was an Australian television and film actor. After performing roles in Australian television and film during the 1990s, Ledger moved to the United States in 1998 to develop his film career...
.
- The exterior appeared as Lord Graves's house in the film King RalphKing RalphKing Ralph is a 1991 American comedy film starring John Goodman in the title role of Ralph Jones. The movie also stars Peter O'Toole as the King's private secretary, Sir Cedric Willingham, Camille Coduri as Ralph's girlfriend Miranda Greene, and John Hurt as the British peer Percival Graves, who...
.
- Totleigh TowersTotleigh TowersTotleigh Towers is a recurring fictional location in the stories of English humorist P. G. Wodehouse. A country house, it is the home of widower Sir Watkyn Bassett, his ward Stephanie Byng, and his daughter Madeline Bassett...
, in the TV version of Jeeves and WoosterJeeves and Wooster-External links:*—An episode guide to the series, including information about which episodes were adapted from which Wodehouse stories.*—Episode guides, screenshots and quotes from the four series....
, was represented by Highclere Castle.
- Shots from both the interior and exterior are used as the imposing Mistlethwaite Manor in the Hallmark Hall of FameHallmark Hall of FameHallmark Hall of Fame is an anthology program on American television, sponsored by Hallmark Cards, a Kansas City based greeting card company. The second longest-running television program in the history of television, it has a historically long run, beginning in 1951 and continuing into 2011...
's 1987 version of The Secret GardenThe Secret GardenThe Secret Garden is a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It was initially published in serial format starting in the autumn of 1910, and was first published in its entirety in 1911. It is now one of Burnett's most popular novels, and is considered to be a classic of English children's...
.
- It is the main setting for the British television period drama Downton AbbeyDownton AbbeyDownton Abbey is a British television period drama series, produced by NBC Universal-owned British media company Carnival Films for the ITV network. The series is set during the late Edwardian era and the First World War on the fictional estate of Downton Abbey in Yorkshire, and features an...
, as a result of which The TatlerTatlerTatler has been the name of several British journals and magazines, each of which has viewed itself as the successor of the original literary and society journal founded by Richard Steele in 1709. The current incarnation, founded in 1901, is a glossy magazine published by Condé Nast Publications...
referred to the area around Highclere as "Downtonia".
External links
- Official website
- Highclere Castle entry from The DiCamillo Companion to British & Irish Country Houses
- Highclere Castle on The Internet Movie Database