Montacute House facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Montacute House |
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The entrance facade
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| Location | Montacute, Somerset |
| Built | c. 1598 |
| Built for | Edward Phelips |
| Architectural style(s) | Elizabethan |
| Owner | National Trust |
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Listed Building – Grade I
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| Designated | 19 April 1961 |
| Reference no. | 1252021 |
| Reference no. | Somerset County No 187 |
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Montacute House is a grand old mansion with beautiful gardens in Montacute, South Somerset, England. It was built a long time ago, around 1598, during the late Elizabethan period.
This house is a great example of English architecture from a time when building styles were changing. It moved from older medieval designs to the more modern Renaissance style. Montacute House is one of the few large, fancy houses from the Elizabethan era that still looks almost the same today. It is considered a very important historic building.
An unknown architect designed the house, but some people think it was William Arnold. The mansion has three floors and is made from local Ham Hill stone. Sir Edward Phelips built it. He was a very important lawyer who helped with the trial of the Gunpowder Plotters.
Sir Edward Phelips' family lived in the house for many years, until the early 1900s. For a short time, other people rented the house. In 1927, the National Trust bought it. The National Trust is a charity that looks after historic places and natural beauty spots.
Today, the National Trust takes care of Montacute House. Its Long Gallery is the longest in England. It is used by the National Portrait Gallery to show many old paintings. Montacute House and its gardens have also been used as a filming location for movies and TV shows.
Contents
History of Montacute House
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Montacute House was built around 1598 by Sir Edward Phelips. His family had lived in the Montacute area since at least 1460. They started as farmers and slowly became more important. Edward Phelips was a lawyer who became a member of Parliament in 1584. He was knighted in 1603. A year later, he became the Speaker of the House of Commons.
King James I made him the Master of the Rolls, a high legal position. Sir Edward Phelips was a key figure in English politics. He used his legal skills as the main prosecutor during the trial of the Gunpowder Plotters.
We don't know for sure who designed Montacute House. Some people believe it was the builder William Arnold. He also designed other famous buildings like Cranborne Manor. The building work likely started around 1598 or 1599. The year 1601, carved above a door, is thought to be when it was finished.
Sir Edward Phelips died in 1614. He left his family rich and with a lot of land. His son, Sir Robert Phelips, took over. Sir Robert was arrested at Montacute House because he disagreed with the King's plans for his son to marry a Spanish princess. He was then sent to the Tower of London.
Over time, the Phelips family became less famous. They lived as country gentry in Somerset. This peaceful life changed when William Phelips (1823–89) inherited the estate. He made many improvements to the house. But later, he lost a lot of the family's money through gambling.
In 1875, his son, also named William Phelips, took control. The family had less money, and the house was expensive to keep. They sold family treasures to help, but in 1911, they had to rent out the house for £650 a year and move out. The Phelips family never lived there again.
By 1915, the house was rented by George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston. Later, an American writer named Henry Lane Eno rented it. The house was never a private home again.
In 1929, Montacute House was put up for sale. Many large country houses were being torn down at that time. The house was empty because its old furniture and art had been sold.
Finally, in 1931, a kind person named Ernest Cook bought the house. He gave it to the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. From there, it went to the National Trust. It was one of the first big houses the Trust took care of. In 1932, it opened to the public for the first time.
During the Second World War, the army used Montacute House. American soldiers stayed in the parkland around it before the Normandy landings.
Montacute House Architecture
Montacute House was built in the English Renaissance style. The east side of the house was meant to be the main entrance. It has special Dutch gables decorated with stone monkeys and other animals.
Early English Renaissance architecture was less formal than in other parts of Europe. It mixed old and new ideas. You can see this at Montacute. It has Gothic-style pointy towers, but also Renaissance gables and classical statues. The windows are very large, like bands of glass. This makes the main front look almost entirely made of glass. Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire has similar windows.
The windows of the second-floor Long Gallery have statues between them. These statues show the Nine Worthies dressed as Roman soldiers. This is an Italian Renaissance idea. The house also has perfect symmetry, meaning both sides are exactly the same. This was a modern idea for house design at the time.
Montacute, like many Elizabethan mansions, is shaped like an 'E'. This was a very popular design back then. On the ground floor, there was the great hall, kitchens, and pantries. Upstairs were private rooms for the family and important guests. Over the years, how the rooms were used changed.
The original way to approach the house was much grander. The east front was the entrance and faced a large courtyard. There were two small buildings called pavilions that stood next to a large gatehouse. This gatehouse is now gone. These courtyards were not for defense, but for decoration. They were a fancy way to remember the fortified castles of earlier times.
Like all houses from the Elizabethan era, Montacute had no corridors at first. Rooms led directly into one another. This changed in 1787. Stone from another house was used to rebuild Montacute's west front. This new part added a corridor. It gave privacy to the ground-floor rooms and bedrooms upstairs. With this new front, the house was almost turned around. The "Clifton Maybank" side became the main entrance. The impressive old front now looked out over a lawn and flower beds.
Inside Montacute House
Ground floor
The Clifton Maybank corridor was added in the 1700s. It connected the two staircases and gave privacy to the main rooms. It also allowed the house to have a new main entrance facing west.
The Great Hall was the most important shared room for eating and living. But by the time Montacute was finished, these halls were becoming less common. For a few years, servants still ate in the hall. But the family and guests ate in the Great Chamber upstairs. The hall then became a place to welcome visitors.
Next to the Great Hall are the family's private Drawing Room and Parlour. In the 1500s and early 1600s, the Parlour was where the family would eat. This gave them privacy from eating in the Great Hall. The Parlour also had a main bedroom next to it, which is now the Drawing Room. As styles changed, these ground-floor rooms became more like drawing rooms.
The room on the other side of the Clifton Maybank corridor was originally two rooms: the "pannetry" and the "buttery." These rooms were part of the kitchen area. The buttery was where beer and candles were given out. Montacute's buttery had stairs to the beer cellar. The pannetry was where bread was given out. Later, these rooms were used by the family as dining rooms. In the early 1900s, Lord Curzon combined them to create a large dining room.
The Servant's Hall became the servants' dining room in the early 1700s. Outside, the East Terrace has six columns that once had decorations.
First floor
The first floor has one of the grandest rooms, the Library. This room was once called the Great Chamber. In a 1500s mansion, this room was very important for ceremonies. Important guests would be welcomed here. The Phelips family would eat formally with their guests, and there would be music and dancing. The Great Chamber at Montacute has the finest fireplace in the house. In the 1700s, the room was closed up and used for storage. It was later fully restored in the 1800s. The only original parts are the stained glass windows and the fireplace.
At the top of the main staircase, an Anteroom separates the Great Chamber from what would have been the main bedroom. This bedroom, the Garden Chamber, was used by Lord Curzon in the early 1900s. It even had a hidden bath!
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Other rooms on this floor include the Crimson Chamber. This room was used by the family to relax away from the more public events in the Great Chamber. It could also be combined with the next bedroom, the Hall Chamber, for very important guests.
The Hall Chamber was another main bedroom. The Crimson Chamber was originally its "withdrawing room." These rooms were designed so that a very important guest could have a whole suite of rooms, including the Great Chamber.
This floor has many other smaller rooms. Their use often changed depending on what the family needed. So, the room names also changed over time.
Second floor
A special part of the house is the 172-foot (52 m) Long Gallery on the second floor. It runs across the entire top floor and is the longest surviving long gallery in England. The gallery gets light from a long wall of windows on its eastern side. Its length is made even longer by bay windows at each end.
Long galleries were common in large houses in the 1500s and 1600s. They were used for many things, like entertaining guests or exercising when the weather was bad. The Phelips children would even bring their ponies up the stairs to ride them in the gallery! Today, the National Portrait Gallery uses it to show some of its paintings.
Several former bedrooms lead off from the Long Gallery. Like the gallery, these rooms now display paintings from the National Portrait Gallery.
The attic floor above the second floor is not open to the public. It has some smaller bedrooms that would have been used by senior servants. Lower servants would have slept in any available space on the ground or basement floors.
Gardens
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The gardens were well-established by 1633. By 1667, several walled gardens and orchards had been added. Stone gate lodges were also built, but these were removed in the 1700s.
The garden's design, especially the sunken grassed area, was created by Mrs. Ellen Phelips. She lived at Montacute from the 1840s until 1911. The rows of trimmed yew trees that stretch away from the house date from her time. The famous "melted" shape of the giant hedge was inspired by a heavy snowfall in 1947. The sunken garden, with its fountain, was designed in 1894.
Today, there are about 106 hectares (260 acres) of parkland and 4 hectares (9.9 acres) of more formal gardens. These are what remain of the 121 hectares (300 acres) of parkland that once surrounded the house. The gardens and parkland are listed as Grade I on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England.
Montacute House Today
In the late 1900s, the gardens and grounds were restored and replanted. Montacute House and the village have often been used as locations for films. Parts of the 1995 movie Sense and Sensibility were filmed there. The house was also used as Baskerville Hall for a 2000 TV version of The Hound of the Baskervilles. In 2014, it was one of the places used for the BBC TV show Wolf Hall.
In 1975, London's National Portrait Gallery started working with regional partners. This allowed them to display many paintings that they didn't have space for in London. Because of this, Montacute's Long Gallery was redecorated. It now shows an important collection of portraits from the 1500s and 1600s.
The Wallace and Gromit short film from 2012 seems to be based on Montacute House. The short film was made to celebrate the National Trust. The fictional house in the earlier Wallace and Gromit film The Curse of the Were-Rabbit was also based on Montacute House.
Montacute House and its grounds are open to the public from March to October each year.
See also
In Spanish: Montacute House para niños
