![BramshillHouse(AndrewSmith)Jun2006](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/BramshillHouse%28AndrewSmith%29Jun2006.jpg)
Bramshill House, in
Bramshill
Bramshill is a civil parish in the English county of Hampshire. Its name has become synonymous with the Police Staff College, Bramshill located in Bramshill House. Bramshill forms part of the district of Hart. It is bordered by the Rivers Whit ...
, northeast Hampshire, England, is one of the largest and most important
Jacobean prodigy house
Prodigy houses are large and showy English country houses built by courtiers and other wealthy families, either "noble palaces of an awesome scale" or "proud, ambitious heaps" according to taste. The prodigy houses stretch over the period ...
mansions in England. It was built in the early 17th century by the
11th Baron Zouche of
Harringworth
Harringworth is a village and civil parish in North Northamptonshire, England. It is located close to the border with Rutland, on the southern bank of the River Welland, and around north of Corby. At the 2001 Census, the population of the pa ...
but was partly destroyed by fire a few years later. The design shows the influence of the
Italian Renaissance
The Italian Renaissance ( it, Rinascimento ) was a period in Italian history covering the 15th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Europe and marked the trans ...
, which became popular in England during the late 16th century. The house was designated a Grade I
listed building
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
in 1952.
The mansion's southern façade is notable for its decorative architecture, which includes at its centre a large
oriel window
An oriel window is a form of bay window which protrudes from the main wall of a building but does not reach to the ground. Supported by corbels, bracket (architecture), brackets, or similar cantilevers, an oriel window is most commonly found pro ...
above the principal entrance. Interior features include a great hall displaying 92 coats of arms on a Jacobean screen, an ornate drawing room, and a gallery. Numerous columns and
frieze
In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...
s are found throughout the mansion, while several rooms have large
tapestries
Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven by hand on a loom. Tapestry is weft-faced weaving, in which all the warp threads are hidden in the completed work, unlike most woven textiles, where both the warp and the weft threads may ...
depicting historical figures and events on their panelled walls. The house is set in of grounds containing an lake. The grounds, which received a listing in 1984, are part of a
Registered Historic Park that includes about of early 17th-century formal gardens near the house. The wider medieval park was landscaped from the 17th to the 20th century and contains woodland.
Bramshill appears to have been a local sporting and social venue since the 16th century. The
cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...
ground at the house played host to a
first-class match in 1823 when an early
Hampshire
Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...
team played an
England XI, and it hosted three other matches in 1825–26. During the Second World War, the mansion was used as a Red Cross
maternity home
A maternity home, or maternity housing program, is a form of supportive housing provided to pregnant women. Maternity housing programs support a woman in need of a stable home environment to reach her goals in a variety of areas including educatio ...
, before becoming the residence of the exiled King
Michael
Michael may refer to:
People
* Michael (given name), a given name
* Michael (surname), including a list of people with the surname Michael
Given name "Michael"
* Michael (archangel), ''first'' of God's archangels in the Jewish, Christian an ...
and
Queen Anne of Romania
Princess Anne Antoinette Françoise Charlotte Zita Marguerite of Bourbon-Parma (18 September 1923 – 1 August 2016) was the wife of King Michael I of Romania. Michael abdicated the throne in 1947, and he and Anne married the next year. Nonethel ...
for a number of years. It became the location of the
Police Staff College in 1960, and was later home to the
European Police College
CEPOL, or the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Training, is an agency of the European Union dedicated to training law enforcement officials. The institution was founded in 2000 and adopted its current legal mandate on 1 July 2016. It is ...
. As a result, many campus buildings have been added to the estate. Owing to escalating maintenance costs the property was sold to the heritage property developers City & Country in August 2014. Among the 14 ghosts reputed to
haunt
Haunt is a synonym for ghost.
Haunt may also refer to:
__NOTOC__ Film
* ''Haunt'' (2013 film), an American supernatural horror film
* ''Haunt'' (2019 film), an American slasher film
Music
* Haunt (band), a heavy metal band from Fresno, Califo ...
the house is that of a bride who accidentally locked herself in a chest on her wedding night and was not found until 50 years later.
Location
Bramshill House is at the approximate centre of a triangle formed by
Reading
Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of Letter (alphabet), letters, symbols, etc., especially by Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch.
For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process invo ...
,
Basingstoke
Basingstoke ( ) is the largest town in the county of Hampshire. It is situated in south-central England and lies across a valley at the source of the River Loddon, at the far western edge of The North Downs. It is located north-east of Southa ...
and
Farnborough Farnborough may refer to:
Australia
* Farnborough, Queensland, a locality in the Shire of Livingstone
United Kingdom
* Farnborough, Hampshire, a town in the Rushmoor district of Hampshire, England
** Farnborough (Main) railway station, a railw ...
, about by road southwest of central London.
It lies to the northeast of
Hartley Wintney
Hartley Wintney is a large village and civil parish in the Hart (district), Hart district of Hampshire, England. It lies about northwest of Fleet, Hampshire, Fleet and east of Basingstoke. The parish includes the smaller contiguous village of ...
, east of
Hazeley
Hazeley is a village in the Hart District in Hampshire, England. It is 2.5 miles (3 km) away from Hartley Wintney and comes under the parish of Mattingley
Mattingley is a village and large civil parish in Hampshire, England. The village li ...
off the B3349 road, southeast of the village of
Bramshill
Bramshill is a civil parish in the English county of Hampshire. Its name has become synonymous with the Police Staff College, Bramshill located in Bramshill House. Bramshill forms part of the district of Hart. It is bordered by the Rivers Whit ...
, which lies on the B3011 road.
Three main lanes approach the property: Mansion Drive from the B3011 in the southwest, Reading Drive South from the B3011 to the east of Bramshill village from the north, and the shorter Pheasantry Drive which approaches it from the southeast from Chalwin's Copse, just north of the course of the
River Hart
A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wat ...
. Within the grounds is a private lane, Lower Pool Road, which connects Mansion Drive to Reading Drive South, passing the pond and several outer buildings. The latitudinal and longitudinal location is 51°19'57.9"N 0°54'43.2"W or also, 51.332759, −0.911991.
History
Original house
The 1086 ''
Domesday Book
Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...
'' lists one of the two manors of ''Bromeselle'' (the Anglo-Norman spelling of ''Bromshyll'') as held by
Hugh de Port
Hugh de Port (c. 1015 – 1096) was an 11th-century French-English Norman aristocrat. He was believed to have arrived in England from Port-en-Bessin, leaving behind his son who owned land of the bishop of Bayeux in 1133. It is possible that Hugh w ...
.
In the early 14th century, Sir John Foxley ( – c. 1325),
Baron of the Exchequer
The Barons of the Exchequer, or ''barones scaccarii'', were the judges of the English court known as the Exchequer of Pleas. The Barons consisted of a Chief Baron of the Exchequer and several puisne (''inferior'') barons. When Robert Shute was a ...
,
built and endowed a chapel in the village of Bramshill. His first wife, Constance de Bramshill, may have been the heiress of the Bramshill family. Their son,
Thomas Foxley (c. 1305–1360), became MP for Berkshire in 1325, and was appointed constable of
Windsor Castle
Windsor Castle is a royal residence at Windsor in the English county of Berkshire. It is strongly associated with the English and succeeding British royal family, and embodies almost a millennium of architectural history.
The original cast ...
in 1328, soon after the accession of the 14-year-old
Edward III
Edward III (13 November 1312 – 21 June 1377), also known as Edward of Windsor before his accession, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from January 1327 until his death in 1377. He is noted for his military success and for restoring ...
.
In 1347 he obtained a licence to build a
manor house
A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were held the lord's manorial courts, communal meals w ...
or small castle at Bramshill, which included a wooded park. The house, built between 1351 and 1360, had thick walls, vaulted cellars, and an internal courtyard measuring .
Based on the similarity of the surviving vaults under Bramshill House and those under what became the
servants' hall
The servants' hall is a common room for domestic workers in a great house. The term usually refers to the servants' dining room.
If there is no separate sitting room, the servants' hall doubles as the place servants may spend their leisure hours ...
and steward's room at Windsor Castle, it may have been a copy of
William of Wykeham
William of Wykeham (; 1320 or 1324 – 27 September 1404) was Bishop of Winchester and Chancellor of England. He founded New College, Oxford, and New College School in 1379, and founded Winchester College in 1382. He was also the clerk of ...
's work there.
The estate remained in the hands of the Foxley family and their heirs, the Essex family, until 1499, when it was sold to
Giles Daubeney, 1st Baron Daubeney
Giles Daubeney, 1st Baron Daubeney, KG PC (1 June 1451 – 21 May 1508) was an English soldier, diplomat, courtier and politician.
Origins
Giles Daubeney was the eldest son and heir of Sir William Daubeney (1424-1460/1) of South Ingelby ...
. Giles's son
Henry Daubeney (later Earl of Bridgewater) sold the property to
Henry VIII, and in 1547
Edward VI granted the estate to
William Paulet, whose heirs sold it in 1600 to Sir Stephen Thornhurst of
Agnes Court, Kent.
New manor house
![11thLordZouche](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/11thLordZouche.jpg)
In March 1605,
Edward la Zouche, 11th Baron Zouche
Edward la Zouche, 11th Baron Zouche (6 June 1556 – 18 August 1625) was an English diplomat. He is remembered chiefly for his lone vote against the condemnation of Mary, Queen of Scots, and for organising the stag hunt where his guest, the Arc ...
, a favourite of
James I, bought the property from Thornhurst. A house was earlier planned on the site for
Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales
Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales (19 February 1594 – 6 November 1612), was the eldest son and heir apparent of James VI and I, King of England and Scotland; and his wife Anne of Denmark. His name derives from his grandfathers: Henry Stuar ...
(1594–1612), whose heraldic
feathers
Feathers are epidermal growths that form a distinctive outer covering, or plumage, on both avian (bird) and some non-avian dinosaurs and other archosaurs. They are the most complex integumentary structures found in vertebrates and a premier e ...
are displayed above the central pediment. Lord Zouche demolished a large part of the building and began to build the Bramshill House of today.
Henry Shaw describes the new house which Zouche built as a "specimen of Elizabethan architecture
hich
Ij ( fa, ايج, also Romanized as Īj; also known as Hich and Īch) is a village in Golabar Rural District, in the Central District of Ijrud County, Zanjan Province, Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also ...
merits particular attention, exhibiting all the stateliness for which the period referred to was remarkable, with a suite of apartments both large and lofty. The amplitude of its dimensions indicate a princely residence."
An inventory taken in 1634 after Zouche's death listed the library as having 250 books and a collection of mathematical instruments, and revealed that the maids' chamber was of a very high standard. James Zouch, grandson of Edward la Zouche, sold the property to the
Earl of Antrim
Earl of Antrim is a title that has been created twice, both times in the Peerage of Ireland and both times for members of the MacDonnell family, originally of Scottish origins.
History
The MacDonells of Antrim descended from Sorley Boy MacDo ...
in 1637, at which time the house's furniture was valued at £2,762. During the reign of
Charles I, the house was partly destroyed by a fire. On 25 June 1640, Lord Antrim sold Bramshill for £9,500 to Sir Robert Henley. In 1673 it was the property of his son,
Sir Andrew Henley, 1st Baronet
Sir Andrew Henley, 1st baronet (1622–75), of Bramshill, Hampshire was an English politician and the first of the Henley baronets. He is best remembered for his celebrated quarrel with the future Duke of Bolton, which is recorded in the Diary ...
.
Sir John Cope purchased the property in 1699, and his descendants occupied the premises until 1935. The Cope family shortened the wings on the south side in 1703, converted most of the chapel to a drawing room and introduced a mezzanine on the west side during the 18th century. They were responsible for much of the interior, with significant renovation work done in the 19th century and in 1920. After his victory over Napoleon, the
Duke of Wellington
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, (1 May 1769 – 14 September 1852) was an Anglo-Irish soldier and Tory statesman who was one of the leading military and political figures of 19th-century Britain, serving twice as prime minister of ...
was offered his choice of house by Parliament; he visited Bramshill but in 1817 chose
Stratfield Saye
Stratfield Saye is a small village and civil parish in the Borough of Basingstoke and Deane and the English county of Hampshire. The parish includes the hamlets of West End Green, Fair Oak Green and Fair Cross.
Etymology
The name means 'Street-F ...
instead.
Sporting events
Numerous paintings and prints depict games and social events taking place on the lawn; one such painting by
Joseph Nash
Joseph Nash (17 December 180919 December 1878) was an English watercolour painter and lithographer, specialising in historical buildings. His major work was the 4-volume ''Mansions of England in the Olden Time'', published from 1839–49.
B ...
, now in the
National Fencing Museum, depicts 17th-century
rapier
A rapier () or is a type of sword with a slender and sharply-pointed two-edged blade that was popular in Western Europe, both for civilian use (dueling and self-defense) and as a military side arm, throughout the 16th and 17th centuries.
Impor ...
practice, with a number of upper-class men, women and children as spectators.
The
cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...
ground at the house first played host to a
first-class match in 1823 when an early
Hampshire
Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...
team played an
England XI. Hampshire won by five wickets. Two further first-class matches were played there in 1825, when Hampshire drew against
Godalming
Godalming is a market town and civil parish in southwest Surrey, England, around southwest of central London. It is in the Borough of Waverley, at the confluence of the Rivers Wey and Ock. The civil parish covers and includes the settleme ...
and defeated
Sussex
Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...
. A final first-class match was held there in 1826 when a combined Hampshire and
Surrey
Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...
team played and lost to Sussex.
Modern times
In 1935, the house was purchased from the Cope family by
Ronald Nall-Cain, 2nd Baron Brocket
Arthur Ronald Nall Nall-Cain, 2nd Baron Brocket KStJ (4 August 1904 – 24 March 1967) was a Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom.
Early life
He was born into a millionaire brewing family on 4 August 1904. His father, Charl ...
, the house's last private owner. It was used by the Red Cross as a maternity home during the Second World War, after which it became the home of the exiled King
Michael
Michael may refer to:
People
* Michael (given name), a given name
* Michael (surname), including a list of people with the surname Michael
Given name "Michael"
* Michael (archangel), ''first'' of God's archangels in the Jewish, Christian an ...
and
Queen Anne of Romania
Princess Anne Antoinette Françoise Charlotte Zita Marguerite of Bourbon-Parma (18 September 1923 – 1 August 2016) was the wife of King Michael I of Romania. Michael abdicated the throne in 1947, and he and Anne married the next year. Nonethel ...
for several years.
["
Bramshill House became a Grade I listed building on 8 July 1952,] and was acquired by the British government the following year as a dedicated site for police training. It became the location of the National Police College
The Police Staff College, Bramshill, Bramshill House, Bramshill, (near Hook) Hampshire, England, was until 2015 the principal police staff training establishment in England and Wales.
History
The need for a training college for the police wa ...
in 1960. From 2005, two buildings on the site housed the European Police College
CEPOL, or the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Training, is an agency of the European Union dedicated to training law enforcement officials. The institution was founded in 2000 and adopted its current legal mandate on 1 July 2016. It is ...
(CEPOL) until this was moved to Budapest in 2014.
By the late 1980s the estate had become expensive to maintain, and according to John Wheeler, Chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee, by 1989 it was "in a poor state of repair". In July 2013 the Home Office placed the house and estate on the market for £25 million. It was sold to the heritage property developers City & Country in August 2014. In 2018, the house, with a reduced estate of about 90 acres, was put back on the market with a guide price of £10 million.
Architecture
Exterior
The 15-bedroom Bramshill House is one of the largest and most important Jacobean mansions in England, described as one of the "glories of English architecture" by the historians Anthony Blunt
Anthony Frederick Blunt (26 September 1907 – 26 March 1983), styled Sir Anthony Blunt KCVO from 1956 to November 1979, was a leading British art historian and Soviet spy.
Blunt was professor of art history at the University of London, dire ...
and James Lees-Milne
(George) James Henry Lees-Milne (6 August 1908 – 28 December 1997) was an English writer and expert on country houses, who worked for the National Trust from 1936 to 1973. He was an architectural historian, novelist and biographer. His extensi ...
.
The architecture of the three-storey building was inspired by the Italian Renaissance, and was executed mainly by German builders. It is approximately in length. The design is traditionally attributed to the architect John Thorpe
John Thorpe or Thorp (c.1565–1655?; fl.1570–1618) was an English architect.
Life
Little is known of his life, and his work is dubiously inferred, rather than accurately known, from a folio of drawings in the Sir John Soane's Museum, to whic ...
, although no records remain to confirm the attribution. Surviving records do show that the stone mason
In geology, rock (or stone) is any naturally occurring solid mass or aggregate of minerals or mineraloid matter. It is categorized by the minerals included, its chemical composition, and the way in which it is formed. Rocks form the Earth's o ...
Richard Goodridge was working at Bramshill in 1617 and again in 1621 and the authors of the revised ''Hampshire'' volume of Pevsner's ''Buildings of England
The Pevsner Architectural Guides are a series of guide books to the architecture of Great Britain and Ireland. Begun in the 1940s by the art historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, the 46 volumes of the original Buildings of England series were published b ...
'' suggest him as a possible alternative designer.
The building stands on the edge of a plateau, overlooking the park to the south.
The plan of the house is unusual, partly because of its incorporation of the earlier building; it extends at right angles to the primary (southern) façade. The elevations are symmetrical, facing outwards, but the interior court is narrow, and projecting wings lie at either end of the eastern and western sides.
Bramshill House is three storeys high on the southern main entrance side and two storeys high to the north and east. There are three vaulted cellars to the west. The house is built of red brick laid in English bond
Brickwork is masonry produced by a bricklayer, using bricks and mortar. Typically, rows of bricks called '' courses'' are laid on top of one another to build up a structure such as a brick wall.
Bricks may be differentiated from blocks by si ...
dressed with stone, with ashlar
Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...
quoining
Quoins ( or ) are masonry blocks at the corner of a wall. Some are structural, providing strength for a wall made with inferior stone or rubble, while others merely add aesthetic detail to a corner. According to one 19th century encyclopedia, t ...
at the corners of the wings. Stone dressings are featured on numerous large mullion
A mullion is a vertical element that forms a division between units of a window or screen, or is used decoratively. It is also often used as a division between double doors. When dividing adjacent window units its primary purpose is a rigid supp ...
windows. An open carved parapet
A parapet is a barrier that is an extension of the wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/breast'). Whe ...
surmounts the building. The roof consists of red tiles, and there are large gable
A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...
s on the west side. The chimney stack
A chimney is an architectural ventilation structure made of masonry, clay or metal that isolates hot toxic exhaust gases or smoke produced by a boiler, stove, furnace, incinerator, or fireplace from human living areas. Chimneys are typ ...
s are rectangular.
North and south
The north façade has three bays separated by windows and features a loggia
In architecture, a loggia ( , usually , ) is a covered exterior gallery or corridor, usually on an upper level, but sometimes on the ground level of a building. The outer wall is open to the elements, usually supported by a series of columns ...
, typical of early 17th-century houses, with a central arched entrance to accommodate coaches. The central bay is crowned by an ornamental pierced parapet below a niched Dutch gable
A Dutch gable or Flemish gable is a gable whose sides have a shape made up of one or more curves and has a pediment at the top. The gable may be an entirely decorative projection above a flat section of roof line, or may be the termination of a ...
, which shelters a small statue of Lord Zouche or James I. There are small obelisk
An obelisk (; from grc, ὀβελίσκος ; diminutive of ''obelos'', " spit, nail, pointed pillar") is a tall, four-sided, narrow tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape or pyramidion at the top. Originally constructed by Anc ...
s at either side of the gable. Thorpe originally intended the main entrance of the house to be on this side, building on the gatehouse of the earlier Foxley house.
The southern façade was described by Nikolaus Pevsner
Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (1 ...
as "among the most fanciful pieces of Jacobean design in ngland. It is three storeys high and features three sets of three bays in either wing, with five inner sections.
The outer two of the inner sections feature eight angular windows, aligned in rows of four on the first two floors and then a row of four windows on the top floor. The inner two sections have the same layout on the first and top floors with eight windows aligned in rows of four on the first floor and four windows on the top floor, but the ground floor features two arches, which form part of the central loggia.
The stone central bay, wide, is emphasised by superimposed double decorated pilasters on all floors and the central archway of the loggia in the Doric Doric may refer to:
* Doric, of or relating to the Dorians of ancient Greece
** Doric Greek, the dialects of the Dorians
* Doric order, a style of ancient Greek architecture
* Doric mode, a synonym of Dorian mode
* Doric dialect (Scotland)
* Doric ...
, Ionic, and Corinthian Corinthian or Corinthians may refer to:
*Several Pauline epistles, books of the New Testament of the Bible:
**First Epistle to the Corinthians
**Second Epistle to the Corinthians
**Third Epistle to the Corinthians (Orthodox)
*A demonym relating to ...
orders, surmounted by a florid perforated pediment. In addition there is an oriel window
An oriel window is a form of bay window which protrudes from the main wall of a building but does not reach to the ground. Supported by corbels, bracket (architecture), brackets, or similar cantilevers, an oriel window is most commonly found pro ...
on the first floor above the main entrance.
An important difference from the other sides of this building is a terrace, in width, between the projecting wings, a kind of architectural foreground to the garden. The terrace is bounded by a balustrade
A baluster is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its con ...
. The arcade on the terrace of the southern front is a good example of Italian domestic architecture, used in villas. The triglyph
Triglyph is an architectural term for the vertically channeled tablets of the Doric frieze in classical architecture, so called because of the angular channels in them. The rectangular recessed spaces between the triglyphs on a Doric frieze are ...
s and ornamented metopes, together with the simple capitals of the columns, indicate the Doric order, but are light enough to be Ionic. The south entrance was the model for Darlington,[ the ]Crocker-McMillin Mansion
The Crocker-McMillin Mansion (also known as the Crocker Mansion and Darlington) is a historic house in Mahwah, New Jersey. It was built between 1903 and 1907 on the Darling estate for businessman George Crocker. After Crocker died in 1909, the ...
in New Jersey, US, built between 1901 and 1907.
East and west
The east façade is the longest, about wide, and two storeys high. It features four full-height angular bays with two windows between, while its upper walls have two arches set within a rectangular panel. On this side there is a Troco
Trucco (also called trucks, troco,''Oxford English Dictionary''; see "troco" and "trucks" entries. or lawn billiards) is an Italian and later English lawn game, a form of ground billiards played with heavy balls, large-headed cues sometimes call ...
Terrace with a lawn, as well as two arcaded
An arcade is a succession of contiguous arches, with each arch supported by a colonnade of columns or Pier (architecture), piers. Exterior arcades are designed to provide a sheltered walkway for pedestrians. The walkway may be lined with retail s ...
openings at the side on either wing of the house.
The southernmost arcaded opening contains a bench with eight arches and has three tables, one of which is older and octagonal. Carved in the wall at the side is a frieze
In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...
consisting of four squares, each depicting an animal: a lion, an elephant, a wild boar and a camel.
The west façade dates to the 18th century and is the only one with multiple gables; the windows on the ground floor are sashed.
Interior
Two of the rooms have large tapestries on their walls depicting historical figures and scenes. Those in the drawing room contain scenes from Roman history and were based on designs by Peter Paul Rubens
Sir Peter Paul Rubens (; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat from the Duchy of Brabant in the Southern Netherlands (modern-day Belgium). He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque traditio ...
, who supervised the work in Brussels. These tapestries were initially made for Dudley Carleton, 1st Viscount Dorchester
Dudley Carleton, 1st Viscount Dorchester (10 March 1573 – 15 February 1632) was an English art collector, diplomat and Secretary of State.
Early life
He was the second son of Anthony Carleton of Brightwell Baldwin, Oxfordshire, and of Joyc ...
, Zouche's brother-diplomat, but in the end he rejected them for another set; how the first set came to Bramshill is not known. Rubens's sketches for the first and last tapestries in the series are in Alte Pinakothek
The Alte Pinakothek (, ''Old Pinakothek'') is an art museum located in the Kunstareal area in Munich, Germany. It is one of the oldest galleries in the world and houses a significant collection of Old Master paintings. The name Alte (Old) Pinak ...
(Munich).
The west section of the ground floor contains the former dining room and kitchen. The openings in the wall between the billiard room and the garden room had been blocked up but the rooms were reconnected in the 19th century under Sir William Henry Cope, uncovering an original doorway with a four-centred pointed arch. Cope applied arabesque patterns to the panelling in the garden room, which he had traced when two of the bedrooms were being repainted. The billiard room has a hidden door leading to the original entrance on the north side of the house through the Foxley gatehouse into the interior courtyard, and several doorways remain in the kitchen and housekeeping areas.
The Great Hall, to which an arcaded porch gives direct access, retains the basic design of the original construction. It has a dais
A dais or daïs ( or , American English also but sometimes considered nonstandard)[dais]
in the Random House Dictionary< ...
and a Jacobean stone screen, high, decorated with 92 shields. Resident families emblazoned the shields with the arms
Arms or ARMS may refer to:
*Arm or arms, the upper limbs of the body
Arm, Arms, or ARMS may also refer to:
People
* Ida A. T. Arms (1856–1931), American missionary-educator, temperance leader
Coat of arms or weapons
*Armaments or weapons
**Fi ...
of ancestors and family members. The entablature
An entablature (; nativization of Italian , from "in" and "table") is the superstructure of moldings and bands which lies horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and ...
of the screen has a double row of 40 sculptured shields and has a depth of . Beyond the dais, double doors lead into the Terrace Hall at the foot of the staircase. Across from this is the former dining room, containing a large tapestry, believed to have been made by an English artist, "representing forest scenery in very subdued colours". During the time of the Cope family in the 1880s, the kitchen near the south hall was used as a dairy. The kitchen and the adjoining room had back-to-back fireplaces.
Drawing room and library
The drawing room, containing four bay windows of different sizes, is panelled with oak for its entire height of about . One of the upper panels, surmounted by its Corinthian entablature, is a frieze depicting a fig
The fig is the edible fruit of ''Ficus carica'', a species of small tree in the flowering plant family Moraceae. Native to the Mediterranean and western Asia, it has been cultivated since ancient times and is now widely grown throughout the world ...
, grape
A grape is a fruit, botanically a berry, of the deciduous woody vines of the flowering plant genus ''Vitis''. Grapes are a non- climacteric type of fruit, generally occurring in clusters.
The cultivation of grapes began perhaps 8,000 years ago, ...
, and pomegranate
The pomegranate (''Punica granatum'') is a fruit-bearing deciduous shrub in the family Lythraceae, subfamily Punicoideae, that grows between tall.
The pomegranate was originally described throughout the Mediterranean Basin, Mediterranean re ...
, each with foliage and blossoms. One of the lower panels, part of the dado in the same room, has a section of projecting mouldings. The upper panel is ; the lower, .
The massive chimneypiece
The fireplace mantel or mantelpiece, also known as a chimneypiece, originated in medieval times as a hood that projected over a fire grate to catch the smoke. The term has evolved to include the decorative framework around the fireplace, and ca ...
in the drawing room is classically designed, believed to be inspired by one of the great Italian architects of 16th-century Mannerism
Mannerism, which may also be known as Late Renaissance, is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, spreading by about 1530 and lasting until about the end of the 16th century in Italy, ...
, Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola
Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola ( , , ; 1 October 15077 July 1573), often simply called Vignola, was one of the great Italian architects of 16th century Mannerism. His two great masterpieces are the Villa Farnese at Caprarola and the Jesuits' Churc ...
. It is two storeys in height, the lower being Doric and the upper Ionic. The distribution of the members is regular, and the shafts of the columns are variegated marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or Dolomite (mineral), dolomite. Marble is typically not Foliation (geology), foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the ...
. The upper compartment of the chimneypiece is composed of separate pieces of the same diversified material, and the frieze of the upper order also consists of coloured marble in the centre. The fireplace is wide and high, and retains the ancient andiron
An andiron or firedog, fire-dog or fire dog is a bracket support, normally found in pairs, on which logs are laid for burning in an open fireplace, so that air may circulate under the firewood, allowing better burning and less smoke. They gene ...
s, used for burning wood. These are large and well adorned, particularly in the lower part.
The ceilings of the drawing room and library are the most elaborate in the house. The plaster frieze in the library also displays fine workmanship; wide, it is designed in a striking arabesque pattern, with an evident Florentine influence. In the 1880s the library had a collection of 5,000 volumes, about half the number the Cope family owned at the time.
Staircase and first floor
The standards and balusters of the stairs on the north side of the hall came from Eversley Manor House and probably date to the mid-17th century, although the treads are original to the house and possibly mid-16th century. The walls above the stairs and on the first-floor landing contain some very large paintings, including several portraits.[Bramshill House 9331](_blank)
''Country Life'', Retrieved 20 July 2013
Beyond the staircase are the state rooms and what was known as the "Wrought Room". The room has an ornamental ceiling with a Renaissance chimneypiece. Two of the bedrooms, the two "White Rooms", were originally connected to what was called the Flower-de-luce Room, but the doors have been boarded up.
The Long Gallery fills the first floor of the northern range: long and with a richly decorated stucco
Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and a ...
ceiling and a complex wooden chimneypiece, it formerly contained a "very curious collection of portraits of distinguished characters".
Also on the first floor is the "Chapel Drawing Room" in the south wing, connected to the Drawing Room. The Copes created this room by reducing the size of the original chapel, which is entered through it. The current chapel has an altar reredos
A reredos ( , , ) is a large altarpiece, a screen, or decoration placed behind the altar in a church. It often includes religious images.
The term ''reredos'' may also be used for similar structures, if elaborate, in secular architecture, for ex ...
with paintings of the Virgin Mary, St. Stephen, St. Mary Magdalene and St. John the Evangelist, by Alexander Rowan and dated by Pevsner to about 1840. The tapestry in the chapel room is older than the house, and was assessed by an expert as dating to 1450 or earlier; in the early 19th century it had hung in the Red Drawing Room. When the chapel ceiling was restored by Sir William Cope, it was discovered that one section of the plaster work had previously been replaced with carved wood. The large window in the south wall of the courtyard was presumably moved from the original chapel.
Grounds and garden
The house is set in of grounds, which include an lake north of the house. The grounds form part of a Registered Historic Park that received a Grade II* listing in 1984; this was subsequently upgraded to Grade I in September 2017. Under this designation are the of early 17th-century formal gardens near the house, the wider medieval park, landscaped from the 17th to the 20th century, with of woodland and buildings including an icehouse and a folly
In architecture, a folly is a building constructed primarily for decoration, but suggesting through its appearance some other purpose, or of such extravagant appearance that it transcends the range of usual garden buildings.
Eighteenth-cent ...
known as Conduit House. Parts of the park have been used for commercial softwood production since the 19th century.
To the west of the house is Peatmoor Copse and to the east Bramshill Forest, and the grounds contained what was known as the "Green Court" and the "Flower Garden" at the time of William Henry Cope in the 1880s. The Grade I listed gatehouse dates to the time of the Foxleys. The fir trees in the grounds are reputed to have been planted "as a memento of his former home" by James I, who brought them from Scotland. The formal gardens were first laid out by Edward la Zouche, a horticulturist. Sir John Cope redesigned the gardens and continued the planting of trees in the park. At the close of the 18th century the grounds were re-landscaped to be less formal, and some areas in the south were returned to parkland.
Bramshill Park was conceived as a "hunting box" for Henry Frederick and became a popular estate for hunting. On 24 July 1621, while hunting in the park, George Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury
The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. The current archbishop is Justi ...
, accidentally shot and killed one of the gamekeepers with his crossbow. An inquiry cleared him of murder. Another notable clergyman/hunter who frequented Bramshill was Charles Kingsley
Charles Kingsley (12 June 1819 – 23 January 1875) was a broad church priest of the Church of England, a university professor, social reformer, historian, novelist and poet. He is particularly associated with Christian socialism, the working ...
, rector of Eversley, who hunted fox and deer and collected butterflies there and frequently took his family and friends. Kingsley was reportedly especially enamoured of the fir trees, which he considered "a source of constant delight", fondly naming them "James the First's gnarled giants". In the 19th century, Sir John Cope, a friend of Kingsley's, was known as a supporter of the fox hunt and especially as a breeder of fox hounds. The opening of the season at Bramshill in the late 1840s was noted in the British hunting press.
The main avenue approaches from the southwest, through an arched gateway formed by two Grade II listed early 19th-century lodges, before crossing the Broad Water formed by the River Hart by a Grade I listed early 19th-century bridge with two arches. There are separate listings for other structures near the house, including the Grade I listed early 17th-century triple-arched gateway on the route to Reading
Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of Letter (alphabet), letters, symbols, etc., especially by Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch.
For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process invo ...
to the northeast of the house, Grade I listed early 17th-century boundary walls and turrets to the south and west, Grade II listed boundary walls and gate-piers to the west, including the kitchen garden, Grade I listed garden walls and gateways to the north and east, and the Grade II listed late 18th-century stable block to the north.
Legends
Bramshill has been cited as one of the most haunted
Haunted or The Haunted may refer to:
Books
* ''Haunted'' (Armstrong novel), by Kelley Armstrong, 2005
* ''Haunted'' (Cabot novel), by Meg Cabot, 2004
* ''Haunted'' (Palahniuk novel), by Chuck Palahniuk, 2005
* ''Haunted'' (Angel novel), a 200 ...
houses in England. According to one UK police officer who worked at the college, 14 ghosts have purportedly been identified, although another officer at the college did not take these suggestions seriously.[ They include a Grey Lady (one story suggests that her husband, a religious dissenter, was beheaded in the 17th century) and a Green Man (a Cope family member who either drowned in the lake in 1806, according to the journalist P. Lal, or threw himself off a cliff near ]Brighton
Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London.
Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...
, according to the author Penny Legg).
The Green Man, dressed as his name suggests, reportedly manifests near the lake, as does the ghost supposed to be that of a gardener who drowned there.
The Grey Lady allegedly haunts the terrace, the library, and the chapel. Legg suggests that she has a young and beautiful appearance, with a sad, tear-stained face and golden hair, and smelling of the lilies of the valley
Lily of the valley (''Convallaria majalis'' (), sometimes written lily-of-the-valley, is a woodland flowering plant with sweetly scented, pendent, bell-shaped white flowers borne in sprays in spring. It is native throughout the cool temperate No ...
; Lal argues that she has reddish-brown hair and wears a grey, sleeveless robe. The Grey Lady's husband has been reported to haunt the stables and the chapel drawing room.
The ghost of a young child allegedly haunts the library and the Fleur de Lys room; the child has supposedly been heard crying, and attempts to hold visitors' hands. Folklore holds that the Grey Lady was the child's mother.
A lady dressed in the style of Queen Anne, and a knight in armour, are reported to have been seen in the chapel drawing room. The chapel itself is purportedly frequented by the ghost of a lady in 17th-century dress, and by that of a nun.
A young man dressed in 1920s tennis garb, reputed to be a Cope family member who fell from a train, has supposedly been seen in the reception area of the house. A small boy documented to haunt the terrace is said to have fallen from the roof sometime in the 18th century.
In addition, Bramshill House was cited by the historian William Page as a possible location for the Legend of the Mistletoe Bough
The Legend of the Mistletoe Bough is a horror story which has been associated with many mansions and stately homes in England.
A new bride, playing a game of hide-and-seek or trying to get away from the crowd during her wedding breakfast, hides ...
, a ghost story associated with several English country mansions. This legend tells of a bride who supposedly hid in a wooden chest during a game of hide and seek
Hide-and-seek (sometimes known as hide-and-go-seek) is a popular children's game in which at least two players (usually at least three) conceal themselves in a set environment, to be found by one or more seekers. The game is played by one chose ...
on her wedding night. In the case of Bramshill House, the story has it that this happened at Christmas time, and that the bride was found fifty years later still wearing her wedding dress and with a sprig of mistletoe in her hand; the chest is on display in the entrance hall.
The woman is sometimes identified as John Cope's daughter Anne, who married Hugh Bethell of Yorkshire. An alternative claim is that she was Genevre Orsini, who was married in 1727, and that her ghost came to Bramshill from Italy together with the chest. In his monograph on the house, the Victorian writer Sir William Cope preferred this theory and added that the chest on display was not the original, which had been proved large enough by "a woman of comely proportions" who had tested it by lying down in it, but which had been taken away by Sir Denzil Cope's widow in 1812.
The ghost of the bride is referred to as the White Lady, and she is said by Legg to haunt the Fleur de Lys room. According to Legg, Michael I of Romania asked to be moved to another room during a stay there, in order to not be disturbed by the young woman in white who passed through his bedroom every night.
An old man with a grey beard, thought by Legg to be the father or husband of the White Lady, is reported to stare through windows and at the Mistletoe Chest.
References
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This article incorporates text from publications now in the public domain
The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work
A creative work is a manifestation of creative effort including fine artwork (sculpture, paintings, drawing, sketching, performance art), dance, writing (literature), filmmaking, ...
: Henry Shaw's ''Details of Elizabethan Architecture'' (1839), and Sir William Henry Cope's ''Bramshill: Its History & Architecture'' (1883).
Notes
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External links
Historical detail concerning Bramshill House
Bramshill House Photographs courtesy of Geoff Cheshire – Pbase
Bramshill House, Bramshill, Hook, Hampshire
at KnightFrank website
Properties at Bramshill House
at City & Country website
{{Coord, 51, 19, 51, N, 0, 54, 44, W, display=title, type:landmark_region:GB
Country houses in Hampshire
Grade I listed buildings in Hampshire
Grade I listed houses
Houses completed in 1612
Cricket grounds in Hampshire
Reportedly haunted locations in South East England
1612 establishments in England
Grade I listed parks and gardens in Hampshire
Jacobean architecture in the United Kingdom
Hart District