SHELL-ENCRUSTED follies, minstrels’ galleries, observatories and private Victorian art galleries: these days, architects may be more likely to add a cinema room, sauna or living roof, but British country houses are still appreciated for their quirks, generated by fashion, the peculiarities of whimsy, by historic divisions of household labour and even dodgy ‘cures’ for ailments.
In the late 18th century at Wentworth Woodhouse in South Yorkshire, for example —the pile built on the grandest scale that was sold via Savills for £7 million in 2016—there were rooms devoted to keeping candles, for prayers, for visiting sculptors and one for Mr Harper, the family barber. However, not all relics of an earlier age, whether ballrooms or ice houses, suit the modern taste and they could come with important conservation commitments.
This story is from the January 12, 2022 edition of Country Life UK.
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This story is from the January 12, 2022 edition of Country Life UK.
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