Holland House
| Holland House | |
| Middlesex | |
|---|---|
 Holland House in 1896 and its remains in 2014 | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | TQ24877972 |
| Location: | 51°30’9"N, 0°12’9"W |
| Town: | Kensington |
| History | |
| Built 1605 | |
| For: | Sir Walter Cope |
| Country house | |
| Jacobean | |
| Information | |
| Owned by: | Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea |
Holland House, originally known as Cope Castle, was an early Jacobean country house built in Kensington, Middlesex. When built, it was situated in a country estate, but the whole of Kensington has long since been swallowed in the urban swell growing out of London, while the remnant of the estate is now Holland Park.
The house was built in 1605 by the diplomat Sir Walter Cope. The building later passed by marriage to Henry Rich, 1st Baron Kensington, 1st Earl of Holland, from whom it took its name. It descended through the Rich family, then became the property of the Fox family: during their time it became a noted gathering-place for Whigs in the 19th century.
The house was largely destroyed by German firebombing during the Blitz in 1940 and today only the east wing and some ruins of the ground floor and south facade remain, along with various outbuildings and formal gardens. In 1949 the ruin was designated a grade I listed building[1] and it is now owned by the local council.
17th century
Cope commissioned the house in 1604 from the architect John Thorpe, to preside over a 500-acre estate that, in modern terms, stretched from Holland Park Avenue almost to Fulham Road.,[2] and contained exotic trees imported by John Tradescant the Younger.[3] Following its completion, Cope entertained the King and Queen at his house numerous times; in 1608, John Chamberlain, the noted author of letters, complained that he "had the honour to see all, but touch nothing, not so much as a cherry, which are charily preserved for the queen's coming."[4]
Cope was a cousin of Dudley Carleton, the English ambassador in Venice. The Venetian ambassador in London, Antonio Foscarini, cultivated Cope and visited his house in Kensington.[5] In November 1612 King James I & VI, following the death of his eldest son Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, spent the night at Cope Castle. He was joined the following day by his son Prince Charles, later King, and daughter Princess Elizabeth and her fiancé Frederick V, Elector Palatine, whose descendents came to inherit the throne.[6]
Cope died in 1614 without a son and the house was inherited by his daughter Isabel Cope, who in 1616, two years after her father's death, married Henry Rich, 1st Earl of Holland, whose property it then became. Rich was granted the titles of Baron Kensington and Earl of Holland by James I, and upon gaining the latter renamed the building to Holland House.[7] In 1649 Rich was beheaded for his Cavalier activities during the Civil War and the house was then used as an army headquarters, being regularly visited by Oliver Cromwell.
Following the death of Henry Rich, his eldest son Robert Rich, the second Earl of Holland, inherited the house, and in 1673 succeeded his first cousin as fifth Earl of Warwick, which is commemorated locally by Warwick Road and Warwick Gardens to the southwest of Holland House.[8] The house and titles of Rich, Warwick, and Holland passed from him to his son Edward Rich.
William III
King William III (1689–1702) considered moving to Holland House for health reasons. He had been a lifelong sufferer from asthma, which condition was exacerbated by the damp air at the riverside location of the Palace of Whitehall.[9] In 1689, attempting to improve his health, he decided to move his court. After a short time spent at Hampton Court, he decided to find another home that was near enough to the capital to easily carry out royal business, but far enough away from the air of London not to threaten his health. He considered Holland House for the purpose, and stayed there for some weeks. Several of his letters are dated from Holland House.[10] Eventually he purchased nearby Kensington House, the residence of Heneage Finch, 1st Earl of Nottingham, which became Kensington Palace.
18th century
In 1697 Edward Rich had married Charlotte Myddelton, the only child of Sir Thomas Myddelton, 2nd Baronet of Chirk Castle, Denbighshire. He died in 1701, the estate being inherited by his son, also Edward, who became the 7th Earl of Warwick and 4th Earl of Holland: the Countess remained at Holland House and in 1716 she remarried, to the celebrated writer Joseph Addison, who lived at Holland House until his death three years later in 1719. The 7th Earl died childless in 1721 aged 23, childless and unmarried, a decade before his mother,[11] and his estates were inherited by his aunt Lady Elizabeth Rich, who was married to Francis Edwardes of Pembrokeshire,[2] whose family owned extensive lands in Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire, and Cardiganshire.[12] On his death in 1725 Holland House passed to his son Edward Henry Edwardes, who in turn at his death in 1737 bequeathed the house to his brother William Edwardes, 1st Baron Kensington,[13] subject to a long entail.[2]
In 1746, William Edwardes let the house and sixty-four acres of land to his parliamentary colleague Henry Fox, a leading Whig politician who would later be created Baron Holland – for 99 years or three lives.[2] Fox later bought the estate.
After he died at Holland House in 1774, his title passed to his son Stephen, who survived his gather by just five weeks and his son Henry became the third Baron.
19th century
Development of estate
Henry Fox, 4th Baron Holland, undertook a series of residential developments on the estate, using them as collateral to raise loans to finance the family's lifestyle, the expenses of which exceeded their income.[2] In a letter dated 13 May 1823, he referred to the marking out of the future Addison Road as an "important profitable but melancholy occupation", and in 1824 he mentioned the "tremendous and I hope... profitable works" then being undertaken. Lady Holland was circumspect of the beneficial prospects, writing to him in the same year that "remote posterity may benefit because for some generations it must be tightly mortgaged... none now alive will be much bettered by the undertaking."[2] In 1849, he mortgaged Holland House and its grounds to pay for the development of roads and sewers.[2] He died in 1859 without issue, causing the title of Baron Holland to expire, and ownership of the estate passed to his wife, Lady Mary Augusta Coventry, a daughter of George Coventry, 8th Earl of Coventry. Facing pressures in her life, Lady Holland sold much of the estate in the years that followed her husband's death,[2] and eventually in 1874 sold Holland House to a distant relative of her husband: Henry Fox-Strangways, 5th Earl of Ilchester, the descendant of the first Earl, Stephen Fox-Strangways, the elder brother of Henry Fox, the first Baron Holland. As part of the terms of sale he allowed Lady Holland to continue living in the house, as well as granting her an annuity for life of £6,000. [2]
Whig social centre
The first Baron Holland's second son Charles James Fox was a Whig statesman. During his life, Holland House became a glittering social, literary and political centre, and the social centre of the Whig party, with his nephew, the third Baron, acting as host for his Whig dinners. Following his death in 1806, a statue of him was placed in the house's hall.[14]
Celebrated visitors to the house included the historian Thomas Babington Macaulay, the poets Lord Byron, Thomas Campbell, and Samuel Rogers, the politicians Lord Melbourne, Lord John Russell, Richard "Conversation" Sharp and Benjamin Disraeli, and the writers Charles Greville, Charles Dickens and Sir Walter Scott, as well as Joseph Blanco White,[15] a Spaniard who moved to Britain. The political and historical writer John Allen was so much associated with the house that he was known as "Holland House Allen", and a room in the house was named after him.[3] Lady Caroline Lamb, who had first met her lover Lord Byron at Holland House, satirised it in her 1816 novel Glenarvon.[14]
...this strange house, which presents an odd mixture of luxury and constraint, of enjoyment both physical and intellectual, with an alloy of small désagréments.... Though everybody who goes there finds something to abuse or ridicule in the mistress of the house, or its ways, all continue to go; all like it more or less; and whenever, by the death of either, it shall come to an end, a vacuum will be made in society which nothing will supply. It is the house of all Europe; the world will suffer by the loss; and it may be said with truth that it will "eclipse the gayety of nations".
— Charles Greville, The Greville Memoirs[16]
The prestige of Holland House during the period extended to British colonies. In 1831 Henry John Boulton, who was born in Holland House, erected a baronial-like home in the city of Toronto. Henry John Boulton had been born in the famous English house, and he commemorated that fact by naming the Toronto home Holland House.[17]
Henry Fox-Strangways
When Henry Fox-Strangways inherited Holland House in 1874, he was living in Melbury House in Melbury Sampford in Dorset, where he owned large estates. It appears that the Earl was "in part motivated by the desire to preserve Holland House and its grounds from speculators", but had taken on financial burdens together with his inheritance which needed to be mitigated. He immediately made plans to develop part of the land to the west of Holland House, which became Melbury Road, named after his Dorset seat. Lady Holland, still living in Holland House, had objected and wrote that "all the building is a very bitter and sad pill to me".[18] After her death in 1889, he moved into Holland House.[18] Most of the already developed land had been let on long leases not expiring until 1904, after which he had scope to effect further development.
20th century
Ilchester Estate
Giles Fox-Strangways, 6th Earl of Ilchester inherited the house in 1905. During his ownership much of the land to its west was developed for housing as the Ilchester Estate, including Ilchester Place, completed in 1928,[18] Abbotsbury Road (now forming the western boundary of Holland Park), named after Abbotsbury Abbey in Dorset, acquired in 1543 by Sir Giles Strangways[19] at the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and several roads named after Joseph Addison.
Partial destruction in the Blitz
In 1939, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth attended the debutante ball of Rosalind Cubitt, which was to be the last great ball held at the house.[20][21] The following year, on 7 September, the German bombing raids on London, the Blitz, began. During the night of 27 September, Holland House was hit by twenty-two incendiary bombs during a ten-hour raid. The house was largely destroyed, with only the east wing, and, miraculously, almost all of the library remaining undamaged. Surviving volumes included the sixteenth-century Boxer Codex.
Post-war preservation
Holland House was designated Grade I listed building status in 1949[22] under the auspices of the Town and Country Planning Act 1947; the Act sought to identify and preserve buildings of special historic importance, prompted by the damage caused by wartime bombing.[23] The building remained a burned-out ruin until 1952, at which point the 6th Earl sold the house and fifty-two acres to London County Council (LCC) for £250,000.[18] In 1986 the land passed to the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
The 6th Earl died in 1959, and his remaining interest in the estate passed to his son Edward Henry Charles James Fox-Strangways, 7th Earl of Ilchester who in 1962 sold a piece of land immediately to the south of what is now the sports field for the construction of the Commonwealth Institute. Following the 7th Earl's death in 1964 the estate passed to his only daughter, Lady Theresa Jane Fox-Strangways. The family retains the developed land adjoining the west side of Holland Park.
Today, the remains of Holland House form a backdrop for the open air Holland Park Theatre, home of Opera Holland Park. The YHA (England and Wales) "London Holland Park" youth hostel was located in the house but has now closed. The Orangery is now an exhibition and function space, with the adjoining former Summer Ballroom now a restaurant, The Belvedere. The former ice house is now a gallery space. The grounds provide sporting facilities, including a cricket pitch, football pitch, and six tennis courts.
Pictures
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Holland House) |
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Holland House in 1815 -
Holland House in 1847 -
Holland House in the 1880s -
Holland House in 1896 -
The Gilt Chamber illustrated in 1877 -
The Gilt Chamber c. 1897-99 -
The south frontage of Holland House -
The China Room -
The Dutch Garden -
A garden with a fountain on the house's west side -
The north side of the house viewed from its lawn -
Steps to a garden -
The Gilded Room, or Gilt Chamber -
The library -
The arcade, originally part of the old stables -
An arcade of roses -
The main staircase -
The Swaneries Drawing Room -
A garden terrace with steps on the house's east side
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References
- ↑ National Heritage List 1267135: Holland House (Grade I listing)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 Sheppard 1973, p. 101.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 ODNB 2004.
- ↑ Birch 1848, p. 75.
- ↑ Birch 1848, p. 187.
- ↑ Birch 1848, p. 205.
- ↑ Webb 1921, pp. 292-296.
- ↑ Thornbury 1874.
- ↑ Historic Royal Palaces 2012.
- ↑ Macaulay 1848, p. 63.
- ↑ National Trust 2019.
- ↑ History of Parliament 1970.
- ↑ History of Parliament 1964.
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 Ridley 2013.
- ↑ Liechtenstein 1875, p. 91.
- ↑ Greville 1887, p. 126.
- ↑ Robertson 1894.
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 18.3 Sheppard 1973, p. 126.
- ↑ Page 1908.
- ↑ MacCarthy 2006, pp. 143-144.
- ↑ Mitford 2010, p. 97.
- ↑ Historic England 2015.
- ↑ Victorian Society 2013.