PENSHURST PLACE and LEEDS CASTLE: The Stately Homes of England (7)

This piece describes two lovely medieval houses in Kent, both much restored, but still ravishing. Penshurst Place has long been in the Sidney and Shelley families’ ownership and remains in private hands. Leeds Castle has had a number of owners but was lovingly restored and embellished by the US-born heiress Olive, Lady Baillie, and is now owned by an Anglo-US charitable medical trust. 

Penshurst Place, Tonbridge, Kent

There has been a substantial house at Penshurst since the 11^th century but it was bought by  ex-Lord Mayor of London and wool merchant Sir John de Pulteney in 1338 who built the stone south front and Great Hall, which still stand after 600 years, before expiring of the Black Death in 1349. It became a royal possession and was extended in the 14^th century but in 1552 Edward VI conferred it upon his favourite courtier Sir William Sidney. His son Henry added the north and west fronts of the house after marrying into the Dudley family, then Dukes of Northumberland.

His son, the celebrated Elizabethan poet Sir Philip Sidney (1554-86), was born and did much of his writing at Penshurst. He died of his wounds aged 31 after fighting in the Protestant cause against Spain at the Battle of Zutphen in the Netherlands. He epitomised the heroic Renaissance courtier and the finest kind of English gentleman.

Sir Philip Sidney

Ever since, sons have been named Sidney in his honour (I am a case in point) and in the US there has been a recent vogue to name daughters Sidney – I am sure they too will strive to be a credit to this famous name!

The Great Hall at Penshurst

The Sidney family prospered and Robert Sidney became first Earl of Leicester in 1616, although Republican Algernon Sidney was beheaded for his part in the Rye House Plot of 1683, becoming a Whig martyr. There were 7 Earls, the last one impoverishing the deteriorating estate. A daughter married Bysshe Shelley (grandfather of the great poet Percy Bysshe Shelley) and their son John Shelley inherited Penshurst in 1799 from a Sidney grandmother. When John was 21 he took the name and arms of his Sidney predecessors. John and his son, created Lord De L’Isle and Dudley in 1835 renovated Penshurst Place, work continued by later generations. The 6^th Lord De L’Isle was awarded the VC for bravery at Anzio, later becoming Governor-General of Australia 1961-65 and a founder and prominent speaker for the right-wing Freedom Association. The 7^th Lord succeeded in 1991.

Views of Penshurst's traditional Gardens

Surrounded by a lovely garden, Penshurst, with its distinguished history and unspoilt fabric, incorporates many of the best features of a medieval English Stately Home.

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Leeds Castle, near Maidstone in Kent is externally spectacularly beautiful and is situated in a fairy-tale setting of two islands by the River Len.

Leeds Castle on its Lakes

Leeds Castle frontage

 

The history of Leeds Castle is rather convoluted; suffice it to say that the first baronial stone castle there was built in 1130 and after changing hands several times it was bought in 1278 by Eleanor of Castile, Edward I’s queen. It remained in royal ownership until 1552 being rebuilt by successive monarchs and by William of Wykeham, founder of Winchester College and New College, Oxford. 

In the 17^th century it came into the ownership of John Culpeper, a confidante of Charles II, who also made Culpeper co-proprietor of about 5 million acres of land in Virginia between the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers, part of which is now covered by the southern sector of Washington DC. Culpeper’s son bought out his co-proprietors and the whole estate passed to his daughter Katherine, who married Thomas, Lord Fairfax. The Fairfaxes settled at Belvoir and the extended family became prominent in Virginian society – one of whom, Sally Fairfax, was the love of George Washington’s life.

The Henry VIII Banqueting Hall

The 17th century Thorpe Hall Room

 

Meanwhile Leeds Castle was “improved” in the 18^th century manner until its medieval character was restored during the 100-year ownership of the Wykeham-Martin family. The Castle’s final private owner was Olive, Lady Baillie, who bought it in 1926 and cherished it until her death in 1974.

Lady Baillie was an Anglo-American heiress to part of the huge Whitney fortune through her mother. She married and divorced 3 times and her last husband was baronet Sir Adrian Baillie. She was a socialite entertaining in London and at Leeds Castle, which she embellished greatly. A room was created from the panelling, doors and fire-place acquired from Thorpe Hall near Peterborough. She placed fine works of art in the various rooms including a 16^th century triptych from Bruges, an Annunciation wooden panel from Ulm, sketches by van Dyck, paintings by Pissarro and Fantin-Latour and a splendid Tiepolo.

Pulchinelli's Kitchen by G B Tiepolo

Leeds Castle does not have the family continuity and authenticity of Penshurst, and it is now in part a modern conference centre, especially for medical seminars. Undoubtedly Lady Baillie was a most generous benefactor, creating and preserving an historic and beautiful place.

                                             

A cottage garden Rose at Leeds Castle

                                             

                                               

SMD

28.10.13

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2013

KNOLE and SISSINGHURST CASTLE: The Stately Homes of England (6)

Kent is one of England’s loveliest counties once you escape London’s unremitting urban sprawl, her industrialised North and move on to the famous orchards, hop gardens and great houses. Proximity to London is a powerful attraction and I describe the huge historic house of Knole, near Sevenoaks, and Sissinghurst near Cranbrook, chiefly notable for its garden, both properties being connected by the striking figure of writer Vita Sackville-West.

Knole Frontage

Although there has been a house on the site from time immemorial, the Knole we now see was built by Thomas Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury between 1456 when he bought the estate and his death in 1486. Originally in the Tudor and Elizabethan style, it was remodelled by the first Earl of Dorset 1603-08 and greatly embellished by Charles, the 6^th Earl from 1689 and 1697, who was able to procure important pieces from royal palaces.

The house was gifted by Queen Elizabeth to her cousin Thomas Sackville in 1566, who took full possession in 1603 and it remained in the ownership of the Sackville family until 1946, when it was donated to The National Trust. From 1603 there were 7 Earls of Dorset, 4 Dukes until the title died out, to be followed by 4 Lord Sackvilles owning Knole, using the surname Sackville-West. The Sackvilles still occupied part of the house – we are now on the 7^th Baron.

Charles, 6th Earl of Dorset,lavish patron of Knole

         

Knole is said to have been built as a “calendar house” with 365 rooms, 7 courtyards, 52 staircases and 12 entrances. With its gables, chimneys, battlements and pinnacles it has a decidedly Tudor look but its unique treasure is its collection of rare 17^th century furniture and textiles, from chairs of state and footstools from the time of James I and Charles I to late Stuart or William and Mary masterpieces by the carver, Thomas Roberts, the cabinet maker, Gerrit Jensen, and the upholsterer Francis Lapiere. The celebrated “Knole Settee” with adjustable sides, prototype of many modern sofas, probably dating from Charles II’s reign, was a formal piece used by the monarch or his queen to receive visitors in the state dressing room. It is today in the sumptuous Venetian Ambassador’s Room.

The original 17th century Knole Settee

 

Entering by the Great Hall, mainly used by the servants, you climb the Great Staircase with its allegorical grisailles, on to the Brown Gallery with its fine furniture and English and Dutch paintings.

The Great staircase

Prince Charles visits the Brown Gallery

 

The Ballroom

Bedroom after Gallery follow, impossible for me adequately to cover, until we get to the Ballroom, furnished with 18^th and 19^th century pieces but notable for its magnificent 1607 marble and alabaster chimney-piece and overmantel by Cornelius Cuer, reckoned to be among the finest works of Renaissance sculpture in England. Eventually we get to the Cartoon Gallery with 6 copies of Raphael’s sketches by Mytens presented by Charles I to a relative in the 1620s but brought to Knole in 1701.

The Cartoon Gallery at Knole

With 26 acres of Gardens and 1,000 acres of Park, stocked with deer, it is hardly surprising that passionate Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962) adored Knole where she was born and reared. She was the daughter and only child of the 3^rd Lord Sackville and was eternally indignant that, as a woman, she was then not able to inherit. When her father died in 1928, Knole passed to her uncle, who in turn donated it to the National Trust in 1946. Signing a document relinquishing any claim to Knole she wrote: “the signing... nearly broke my heart, putting my signature to what I regarded as a betrayal of all the tradition of my ancestors and the house I loved."

Vita Sackville-West

Vita was a flamboyant lady, who had married in 1913 the aristocratic diplomat, and later writer and politician, Harold Nicolson. Their marriage was a remarkably happy one (they wrote to each other every day) but it was peculiar as both partners were bisexual. Vita and Harold had two talented sons but Vita much preferred the ladies and Harold struggled to suppress his strong preference for young men. Both were mutually tolerant and they had an “open” marriage, well described by their son Nigel in his perhaps unfilial 1973 biography Portrait of a Marriage. Vita was free to indulge her preferences but male homosexual activity (termed “gross indecency”) had been criminalised by the notorious Labouchère’s Amendment of 1886, so Harold had to be discreet; this law was only repealed in 1967.

Vita was a prolific poet and novelist, though of only moderate talent, inhabiting the fringes of the Bloomsbury Group of intellectuals. She had an affair with Virginia Woolf in the late 1920s, but the passion of her life was Violet Trefusis, daughter of Alice Keppel, mistress of Edward VII. Violet could be tiresomely demanding and Vita had many other liaisons, including a fling with gardening expert Alvide Lees-Milne, wife of James.

Harold Nicolson (1886-1968) was a busy diplomat, attending Versailles in 1919 in a junior capacity and then being posted to Persia, Geneva and elsewhere. He became a journalist, briefly followed Oswald Mosley when he formed the New Party in 1931, though he immediately broke from Mosley when he embraced Fascism. Nicolson entered parliament in 1935 as a National Labour member, supported Churchill against appeasement, was a censor during the War and lost his seat in 1945. He had a very wide acquaintance in the higher reaches of politics and society, making his Diaries a fascinating read. He wrote a dutiful biography of George V and many other books on literature and on the issues of the day. His male lovers included critic Raymond Mortimer, with whom he had a long relationship, and James Lees-Milne, who ran the National Trust Country Houses scheme in the 1940s and whose Diaries also attracted a cult following.

Vita and Harold, this unconventional but loving couple, were looking for a new home in 1930 and came upon the ruined remains of Sissinghurst Castle in the Weald of Kent, near Cranbrook. A house had occupied the site since the 12^th century but the Baker family built a large Elizabethan mansion there in about 1560. Backing the wrong side during the Civil War, the Bakers lost their fortune and the castle fell into steady disrepair. It was leased to the government as a prison for French captives during the 7 Years’ War until 1763 (historian Edward Gibbon was one of the officers in charge). The greater part of the Elizabethan mansion was pulled down in about 1800, it became the parish workhouse and went through a succession of owners until it was rescued by Harold and Vita in 1930.

Sissinghurst: The Tower and Gardens

Restoring Sissinghurst and creating a Garden was a challenging task but Harold and Vita threw themselves into the project with energy and intelligence. The general plan was for “the strictest formality of design” (Harold’s forte) with “the maximum informality in planting” (Vita’s department). Vita wrote: “It was a romantic place, and it must be romantically treated, very English, very Kentish yet something foreign about it……that was why figs and vines and roses looked so right, so inevitable. I planted them recklessly”. Harold devised “rooms” where certain colours predominated; he had a natural taste for symmetry and a talent for creating an arresting vista.  Vita insisted on seasonal features, a spring garden, an early summer garden, a late summer garden and an autumn garden. In all events they succeeded in creating one of the loveliest gardens in England.

The Formal Garden

The Lime Walk

            

A corner of the Garden

                                                               

 

         

Harold and Vita in 1955

Vita lived in the Tower, while Harold wrote in the surviving South Cottage. The children were first in the Priest’s house then moved to the Entrance range – all in all an inconvenient and rather chilly house. But the family loved it and Vita became very well known for her gardening column in The Observer. Sissinghurst was donated to The National Trust in 1968 together with 270 acres of surrounding farmland.

In their unusually varied lives, Vita and Harold created at Sissinghurst a remarkable Garden, by any standard a highly civilised Legacy.

SMD

26.10.13

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2013