Apethorpe Hall: The Palladian Palace That Never Was

English Heritage Experts Reveal Extravagant 18th Century Plans for the Remodelling of Grade I listed Country House.

The exterior of the Hall as it looks today As part of its second annual Historical Review, English Heritage has this month published previously unseen graphics and drawings which illustrate a highly ambitious but uncompleted mid-18th century attempt to rebuild Apethorpe Hall in Northamptonshire in the Palladian style.

Apethorpe Hall is one of the country’s most high-profile Buildings at Risk and is currently undergoing a large-scale restoration by English Heritage after a turbulent recent history in which it was pushed to the brink of dereliction by a negligent owner. A large amount of research into the architectural and social history of the house has been undertaken to complement the repair work that is currently underway.

The building of Apethorpe Hall was begun in the 1480s, with a fine state apartment added between 1622 and 1624 on the orders of King James I. In the 1740s, however, John Fane, seventh Earl of Westmorland, had inherited Apethorpe, and he was keen to reinforce his credentials as an important patron of the newly emerging Palladian style and create a palace to rival those of his peers at Stowe and Grimsthorpe. Westmorland was an enthusiastic builder and had already commissioned the architect Colen Campbell to rebuild another of his family seats, Mereworth Castle in Kent, in imitation of Andrea Palladio’s Villa Rotonda near Vicenza. 

Pete Smith, the English Heritage historian who wrote the article The Palladian Palace at Apethorpe, sets out the extent of the plans commissioned by Lord Westmorland for Apethorpe, and demonstrates that the designs should be attributed to the architect Roger Morris. Smith concludes by suggesting that with more research, Westmorland may one day be ranked alongside better-known architect-patrons such as Lord Burlington, the creator of Chiswick House.

Today, the main courtyard at Apethorpe Hall is an amalgam of architectural styles, from the medieval west side to the Palladian south and north sides, which are the only elements of the seventh Earl’s grand vision to have been executed. Roger Morris’s drawings, which were copied in the 19th century by the Reverend Henry Kaye Bonney, Rector of King’s Cliffe nearby, show that the original intention was to substantially rebuild all the wings of the main courtyard with three tall corner towers and two Roman-style domes, while the garden front of the south range was to have a Doric colonnade thirteen bays long. From Bonney’s drawings it has been possible to create a reconstruction of the Hall’s appearance had the plans been fully achieved.

A reconstruction of how the Hall would have looked had Lord Westmorland’s plans been fully realised Perhaps the most unusual feature of the seventh Earl’s alterations was the retention of the Jacobean state apartment within his new Palladian palace. He and his architect went to extraordinary lengths to re-front part of the courtyard while retaining the Jacobean state apartment behind it with its decorative plasterwork ceilings and stone chimneypieces intact.  Presumably his intention was to use this part of the building, which had been visited so often by James I and Charles I, to demonstrate the connections of his ancestors with the royal house of Stuart.

Pete Smith said: “Exciting though these plans from the 1740s are, it is possible to argue that architectural history would have been poorer had they succeeded. The demolition of both medieval and 17th century fabric which would have resulted would have been a huge loss.  Standing in Apethorpe’s main courtyard today one can study the development of the country house from the 15th to the 20th centuries.”

So why was the grand vision only part-realised? One reason may well have been the economic down-turn of the 1740s, though a more prosaic reason for the abrupt end to the rebuilding of Apethorpe may be that Westmorland had simply run out of money after spending in excess of £100,000 on the remodelling of Mereworth Castle and church. 

Whatever the reason, these drawings and the reconstruction which they have allowed experts to create, shed new light on the architectural history of one of England’s most important country houses.

Containing previously unpublished information and lavishly illustrated throughout, the English Heritage Historical Review is an anthology of research articles written by English Heritage and other experts to understand more about the architecture, archaeology and the fine and decorative art collections associated with its properties. A broad range of topics is covered in this second edition, from the household inventory at Kenilworth Castle at the time of Queen Elizabeth I’s visits and Roman lighthouses at Dover Castle to the Duke of Wellington’s art collection and the statues of Inigo Jones and Palladio at Chiswick House.

For more information and images, please contact Anya Matthews, English Heritage Corporate Communications, on 020 7973 3372 or anya.matthews@english-heritage.org.uk

NOTES FOR EDITORS

The Historical Review costs £25 a copy (plus postage) from English Heritage mail order sales, tel: 01761 452966.

Pete Smith is a Senior Architectural Investigator at English Heritage and has written and lectured extensively on all aspects of the English country house.

For more information on the Apethorpe project please visit
www.english-heritage.org.uk/apethorpehall

Please see the following link for more information about English Heritage Historical Review.