Houghton Hall With Courtyard Walls Attached To North And South

Houghton Hall with Courtyard Walls

Country house built 1722–1735 for Sir Robert Walpole, first Prime Minister of Great Britain (1717–1742), in rivalry with his brother-in-law's Raynham Hall. Reputed to have been built largely from public funds as a "house of State and Convenience" (Colen Campbell) for the "Houghton meeting" house-parties and to display Walpole's picture collection, which remained here from 1742 to 1779. The design was published by Colen Campbell in Vitruvius Britannicus III (1725), discussed from 1721, and executed by Thomas Ripley, Walpole's protégé in the King's Works, modified by James Gibbs and decorated by William Kent. The building combines Palladian principles with Baroque references, constructed in fine Whitby stone ashlar with pantiled roofs.

The main structure comprises a three-storey nine-by-five-bay centre block with four advanced angle towers, single-storey colonnaded wings (quadrant to the west, dog-leg to the east), and two-storey seven-by-seven-bay service wings with courtyards beyond. The east front displays a rusticated basement with plinth and first-floor platband. Three ground-floor centre bays contain two arched-headed sash windows and a fanlight door, the latter representing a 1793 refacing of a removed external staircase. Four outer and two tower sashes feature keystone heads. The piano nobile sashes have Gibbsian surrounds with balustrade dados, while Venetian windows with keystone heads occupy the angles. The centre features alternate segmental and triangular pediment heads; the central window displays Ionic order with interrupting rustication blocks, crowned by a segmental pediment bearing a coat of arms with reclining supporters—Neptune and Britannia—sculpted by Rysbrack. Nine second-floor sashes have architrave surrounds. A rich Ionic entablature with pulvinated frieze, cornice, balustrade, parapet and coping urns runs across. The four angle towers are topped with stone domes by Gibbs, which replaced Campbell's originally intended pedimented towers (one tower actually built with pediment circa 1725–1727). The ribbed stone roofs feature octagonal lanterns pierced by arches and domes above. Solid parapet bases have single arched windows. Weather vanes are dated 1725 (south-west) and 1727 (south-east).

The five-bay returned north and south facades bear an inscription above the south door: "Has aedes Robert Walpole MDCCXXVII incoahavit MDCCXXXIV perfecit". The west front has a central three-bay attached giant Ionic portico (originally designed as detached) with rich pediment armorial sculpture. Three attic figures by Rysbrack occupy the pediment—a central Emperor or law-giver in toga flanked by Justice with sword and Minerva with spear, typifying aspects of Walpole's career. A central pedimented sash and tower Venetian windows with simpler architraves complete the composition. An external ground-floor staircase designed by Marshall Sisson in 1973 replaced the staircase removed in 1793. Each ridge carries two massive chimney stacks with moulded cornices.

Colonnade wings to north and south feature paired Tuscan Doric columns to the east and single columns to the west, both forming open colonnades with insistent internal trabiation, pilasters and ceiling panels divided by entablatures. Flat-roofed balustrade parapets with one roundel to each column complete these elements. The service wings attached at north and south display, to the east, a pedimented three-bay centre advanced between two flanking bays on each side, with architrave-surround sashes and rusticated angles. Cornice eaves and octagonal clock towers with bulbous profile stone roofs mark the service wings. To the west, a single-storey seven-bay elevation has five central open arches with outer arched-headed sashes framed north and south with paired Ionic half-columns interrupted by rustication blocks. An Ionic entablature, cornice and roundels to each column follow. Returns to the garden feature two outer and three inner paired blocked Ionic half-columns with three arched sashes with glazing bars and internal courtyards.

Attached screen walls to north and south contain two east-side pedimented doors with north and south returns featuring angle pedimented aedicules with rusticated angles. Central rusticated piers mark courtyard entrances.

The interior is planned on a functional hierarchy. The ground floor, described as the "base or rustic storey (for) hunters and hospitality, dirt and business" (Lord Harvey), contains a central stone-flagged aisled hall with piers supporting vaults. The piano nobile above, intended "for taste, expense, state and parade" (Hervey) and little used in the 18th century, divides into State rooms to the north and private rooms to the south. Superb mahogany woodwork runs throughout, richest in the south-west. A three-storey Kent-style staircase with massive balusters and garlanded string and dado rises through the building. Kent grisailles extend through three storeys to a roof light. A Tuscan Doric columnar base in the open well supports Le Sueur's Gladiator. A balancing three-storey top-lit stone staircase with fine wrought-iron balustrade serves the north side. The south-east tower contains a mahogany library. The Common Parlour on the east front retains re-used Grinling Gibbons carving.

The central single-cube two-storey Stone Hall features superbly detailed Whitby ashlar, stone and stucco carving. Architraved doors and aedicules frame the space, with antique busts on brackets, bas-reliefs and swags throughout. A Rysbrack chimney piece with caryatids is set below a bas-relief bearing a bust of Walpole. Amorini by Arturi adorn door pediments. A first-floor balcony on massive brackets carries an Ionic cornice with Greek Key fret and coving with stucco swags and amorini. Four family portrait reliefs and a ceiling compartment with the Garter emblem complete the decoration. A mahogany pedimented door with Ionic half-columns at the west mirrors a door architrave in the Saloon on the central axis, balanced by a similar central window architrave opposite. An Ionic marble chimney piece with bust faces an Ionic entablature with relief frieze of hunting devices, Kent-painted coving and a Phaeton's Chariot centrepiece.

The east front State Dining Room or Marble Parlour features three groin-vaulted recesses faced with Carrara and Plymouth marble. A Rysbrack chimney piece depicts the Sacrifice of Bacchus. An Ionic entablature enriches the frieze with grape motifs; a Kent compartment ceiling tops the room. The north-east tower Cabinet Room contains a Kent fireplace and ceiling with 1797 Chinese wallpaper. The north front houses the Embroidered Bedroom with Kent ceiling depicting Diana and a Tapestry Room also with Kent ceiling. The north-west Green Velvet Bedroom has a Kent ceiling. The west front White Drawing Room displays an Aurora mask chimney piece with profile caryatids and a Kent ceiling. Private apartments to the south (not fully recorded in the listing) include a Yellow Silk Drawing Room with ceiling reproducing a late 17th-century compartment type from a previous house.

The north wing beyond the quadrant housed Walpole's pictures, sold in 1779 to the Hermitage. The chapel here was later converted into a gymnasium by Lord Cholmondeley in the 1930s. In the south service wing, the Duke of Lorraine, later Holy Roman Emperor Charles VII, slept circa 1735. The hall passed to Horace Walpole as the 4th and last Earl of Orford in 1791, then to the Cholmondeleys in 1797. The original grounds were laid out by Bridgeman.