Bowood House

Bowood House from Morris'sCounty Seats(1880). The block on the right is the "Big House", which has been demolished. The wing on the left, starting with the short tower, remains.

Bowoodis aGrade I listedGeorgiancountry housein Wiltshire, England, that has been owned for more than 250 years by the Fitzmaurice family. The house, with interiors byRobert Adam,stands on extensive grounds which include a garden designed byLancelot "Capability" Brown.It is adjacent to the village ofDerry Hill,halfway betweenCalneandChippenham.The greater part of the house was demolished in 1956.

Since 1754 the estate has been the seat of the Earls of Shelburne, createdMarquess of Lansdownein 1784. The ninth and present Marquess isCharles Petty-Fitzmaurice.Notable guests have included Founding FatherBenjamin FranklinandMirabeau,an early leader of theFrench Revolution,among others.

History

Italianate terrace gardensat Bowood

The first house at Bowood was built circa 1725 on the site of ahunting lodge,by the former tenantSir Orlando Bridgeman, 2nd Baronet,who had purchased the property fromthe Crown.His grandfather Sir Orlando Bridgeman,Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas,had been granted the lease byCharles II.Bridgeman got into financial strife, and in 1739 under aChancerydecree,the house and park were acquired by his principal creditor, Richard Long. In 1754 Long sold it tothe first Earl of Shelburne,who engaged the architectHenry Keeneto extend the house.

The Doric Temple folly in the landscape gardens designed by Lancelot "Capability" Brown

William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne,who served as Prime Minister from 1782 to 1783, was createdMarquess of Lansdowneto negotiate peace with America after theWar of Independence.He furnished Bowood and his London home,Lansdowne House,with superb collections of paintings and classical sculpture, and commissionedRobert Adamto decorate the grander rooms in Bowood and to add a magnificentorangery,as well as a smallmenageriefor wild animals where a leopard and an orangutan were kept in the 18th century. Adam also built a finemausoleumin the park for the first earl.Adam commissioned Benjamin Carter to sculpt chimney-pieces for the house.

In the 1770s the two parts of the house at Bowood (the "Big House" and the "Little House" ) were joined by the construction of an enormousdrawing room.

The Adam Room, as reinstalled atLloyd's building,London

In World War I, the 5th Marchioness set up an auxiliaryRed Crosshospital in the orangery.DuringWorld War II,the Big House was first occupied by a school, then by theRoyal Air Force.Afterwards it was left empty, and by 1955, it was so dilapidated that the 8th Marquess demolished it, employing architect F. Sortain Samuels to convert the Little House into a more comfortable home. Many country houseswere knocked down at this period.Before it was demolished, the Adam dining room was auctioned and bought by theLloyd's of Londoninsurance market, which dismantled it and re-installed it as the Committee Room inits 1958 building.The room was subsequently moved in 1986 to the 11th floor ofits current building,also onLime Streetin theCity of London.A portico from the house was re-erected atRoath Court,Cardiff.

The mausoleum was designated as Grade I listed in 1960,and the remaining parts of the main house were given the same status in 1972.

21st century

Bowood House, the Little House

The remaining house is still large, and the front wing is open to the public with rooms, paintings and sculpture on display. One of the rooms was the laboratory ofJoseph Priestley,who discoveredoxygenthere on 1 August 1774. In the year 2000, Bowood House was designated anACS National Historic Chemical Landmarkin recognition of the importance of Priestley's discovery.

The lake was formed at the sacrifice of a village called Manning's Hill, which to this day remains submerged. In 2007, divers found the remains of two cottages and stone walls under the water.

On the grounds are an adventure playground for children aged 12 and under, a large waterfall, and many gardens incorporating 2 miles (3.2 km) ofrhododendronwalks in May and June, and carpets ofdaffodils,narcissiandbluebellsin spring.

Park and gardens

Stairway on the Terrace Gardens

Side view of Bowood House

Bowood was laid out over 2,000 acres (8 km²) in the 1760s. It replaced an earlier, more formal garden of avenues andwildernesses.Brown's design encompasses a sinuous lake (almost 1 km long), with lawns sloping gently down from the house, and drifts of mature trees. Submerged in the lake are foundations of cottages forming the Mannings Hill hamlet, rediscovered by divers in 2007 in shallow but heavily sedimented water.

Brown planted anarboretumof rare trees in the Pleasure Grounds behind the walled garden, and these were added to in the mid-19th century when apinetumwas begun. It was at about this time that theDoricTemplefolly,originally situated by Brown in the Pleasure Grounds, was moved to its present position beside the lake.

In 1766, Lady Shelburne visited the landscape garden created byCharles Hamiltonon his Surrey estate,Painshill Park.Hamilton was then asked to improve on Capability Brown's design. Working with Josiah Lane, the artisan stonemason who had built acascadeandgrottoat Painshill Park, in the 1780s Hamilton added a cascade, grottoes and a hermit's cave to the lakeside.

TheItalianate terrace gardenson the south front of the house were commissioned by the 3rd Marquess. The Upper Terrace, bySir Robert Smirke,was completed in 1818, and the Lower, by George Kennedy, was added in 1851.Originally planted with hundreds of thousands of annuals in intricate designs, theparterresare now more simply planted.

In 1987 the formal garden, pleasure ground, park and woodland were listed as Grade I on theRegister of Historic Parks and Gardens of special historic interest in England.A golf course was laid out towards the west of the park in the late 1990sand a hotel was opened nearby on the Home Farm site in 2009.

Lansdowne residents

Bowood House in 1905; today only the orangery wings on the left remain, was part of theDestruction of country houses in 20th-century Britain

Bowood House is thestately homeof the Lansdowne family and has been the residence of:

• John Petty, 1st Earl of Shelburne(1706–1761)
• William Petty Fitzmaurice, 2nd Earl of Shelburn & 1st Marquess of Lansdowne,(1737–1805)
• John Henry Petty Fitzmaurice, 2nd Marquess of Lansdowne(1765–1809)
• Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne,(1780–1863)
• Henry Charles Petty-Fitzmaurice, 4th Marquess of Lansdowne(1816–1866)
• Henry Charles Keith Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne,(1845–1927)
• Henry William Edmund Petty-Fitzmaurice, 6th Marquess of Lansdowne(1872–1936)
• Charles Hope Petty-Fitzmaurice, 7th Marquess of Lansdowne(1917–1944)
• George John Charles Petty-Fitzmaurice, 8th Marquess of Lansdowne(1912–1999)
• Charles Petty-Fitzmaurice, 9th Marquess of Lansdowne(b. 1941)
• Simon Henry George Petty-Fitzmaurice, Earl of Kerry (b. 1970)

Bibliography

• Turner, Roger(1999).Capability Brown and the Eighteenth Century English Landscape,2nd ed. Chichester: Phillimore.

External links

• Official website
• Bowood Estate tourat geograph.org.uk