Clandon Park House is an early 18th-century
grade I listed
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 ...
Palladian
Palladian architecture is a European architectural style derived from the work of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580). What is today recognised as Palladian architecture evolved from his concepts of symmetry, perspective and ...
mansion in
West Clandon
West Clandon is a village in Surrey, EnglandOS Explorer map 145:Guildford and Farnham. Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher:Ordnance Survey – Southampton. within 1 mile of the A3. It is situated one mile north west of the much smaller separate villa ...
, near
Guildford
Guildford ()
is a town in west Surrey, around southwest of central London. As of the 2011 census, the town has a population of about 77,000 and is the seat of the wider Borough of Guildford, which had around inhabitants in . The name "Guildf ...
in Surrey.
It stands in the south east corner of Clandon Park, a agricultural parkland estate which has been the seat of the
Earls of Onslow for over two centuries. The house and gardens were given to the
National Trust
The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...
in 1956,
but the park remains in private ownership.
Some of the house's contents have also been acquired by the Trust in lieu of
estate duty
An inheritance tax is a tax paid by a person who inherits money or property of a person who has died, whereas an estate tax is a levy on the estate (money and property) of a person who has died.
International tax law distinguishes between an es ...
.
Construction of the house, designed by Italian architect
Giacomo Leoni
Giacomo Leoni (1686 – 8 June 1746), also known as James Leoni, was an Italian architect, born in Venice. He was a devotee of the work of Florentine Renaissance architect Leon Battista Alberti, who had also been an inspiration for Andrea Pallad ...
, began about 1730, and the interiors were finished by continental sculptors and plasterers in the 1740s. It replaced an
Elizabethan
The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The symbol of Britannia (a female personifi ...
house. The park was landscaped by
Lancelot 'Capability' Brown
Lancelot Brown (born c. 1715–16, baptised 30 August 1716 – 6 February 1783), more commonly known as Capability Brown, was an English gardener and landscape architect, who remains the most famous figure in the history of the English lan ...
in 1781, and there are two formal gardens on either side of the house. On the Epsom Road, leading to the park and house, are the Grade II* 18th century
wrought iron
Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.08%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4%). It is a semi-fused mass of iron with fibrous slag Inclusion (mineral), inclusions (up to 2% by weight), which give it a ...
gates with armorial
overthrow, which Brown installed, and the
gatehouse
A gatehouse is a type of fortified gateway, an entry control point building, enclosing or accompanying a gateway for a town, religious house, castle, manor house, or other fortification building of importance. Gatehouses are typically the mos ...
s (1776), designed by Brown himself.
Near the house is a
Māori
Māori or Maori can refer to:
Relating to the Māori people
* Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group
* Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand
* Māori culture
* Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...
meeting house, one of only four outside New Zealand, that was brought to England in the late 19th century. After being transferred to the National Trust, the house underwent restoration before it was opened to the public, and later became a wedding venue and filming location for period dramas.
Clandon Park House was badly damaged by fire in April 2015, probably caused by an electrical fault in the basement, leaving it "essentially a shell", with only one room, the Speaker's Parlour, intact. Thousands of historic artefacts, paintings, and items of furniture were lost in what has been described as a national tragedy.
In January 2016, the National Trust announced that some of the principal rooms on the ground floor would be fully restored to the original 18th-century designs, and upper floors will be used for exhibitions and events.
History
The estate and
Elizabethan
The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The symbol of Britannia (a female personifi ...
house, together with Temple Court Farm at
Merrow
Merrow (from Irish ', Middle Irish ' or ') is a mermaid or merman in Irish folklore. The term is of Hiberno-English origin.
The merrows supposedly require a magical cap ( ga, cochaillín draíochta; Hiberno-English: cohuleen druith) in order ...
, was purchased in 1641 from Sir
Richard Weston of nearby
Sutton Place, by
Sir Richard Onslow
Sir Richard Onslow (1601 – 19 May 1664) was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons of England, House of Commons at various times between 1628 and 1664. He fought on the Roundhead, Parliamentary side during the English Civil War ...
, MP for Surrey in the
Long Parliament
The Long Parliament was an English Parliament which lasted from 1640 until 1660. It followed the fiasco of the Short Parliament, which had convened for only three weeks during the spring of 1640 after an 11-year parliamentary absence. In Septem ...
and great-grandfather of
Thomas Onslow, 2nd Baron Onslow
Thomas Onslow, 2nd Baron Onslow (27 November 1679 – 5 June 1740), of West Clandon, Surrey, was a British landowner and Whig politician who sat in the English and British House of Commons between 1702 and 1717. He commissioned the building of ...
, who rebuilt it. Many members of the Onslow family followed political careers; three of them, including
Arthur Onslow
Arthur Onslow (1 October 169117 February 1768) was an English politician. He set a record for length of service when repeatedly elected to serve as Speaker of the House of Commons, where he was known for his integrity.
Early life and educat ...
, were
Speakers
Speaker may refer to:
Society and politics
* Speaker (politics), the presiding officer in a legislative assembly
* Public speaker, one who gives a speech or lecture
* A person producing speech: the producer of a given utterance, especially:
** In ...
of the
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...
. Their portraits would later hang in the Speaker's Parlour at Clandon House.
![Clandon House 1824 engraving](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/Clandon_House_1824_engraving.jpg)
The house was built, or perhaps thoroughly rebuilt, in about 1730–33 (the latter date is on rainwater heads) by
Thomas Onslow, 2nd Baron Onslow
Thomas Onslow, 2nd Baron Onslow (27 November 1679 – 5 June 1740), of West Clandon, Surrey, was a British landowner and Whig politician who sat in the English and British House of Commons between 1702 and 1717. He commissioned the building of ...
to the design of the Venetian architect
Giacomo Leoni
Giacomo Leoni (1686 – 8 June 1746), also known as James Leoni, was an Italian architect, born in Venice. He was a devotee of the work of Florentine Renaissance architect Leon Battista Alberti, who had also been an inspiration for Andrea Pallad ...
. It is a rectangular building of red brick and stone dressings. Clandon House interiors, completed in the 1740s, featured a two-storey Marble Hall, containing marble chimney pieces by the Flemish sculptor
Michael Rysbrack
Johannes Michel or John Michael Rysbrack, original name Jan Michiel Rijsbrack, often referred to simply as Michael Rysbrack (24 June 1694 – 8 January 1770), was an 18th-century Flemish sculptor, who spent most of his career in England where h ...
, and a
rococo
Rococo (, also ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, ...
plasterwork ceiling by Italian-Swiss artists Giuseppe Artari and Bagutti.
[
Clandon Park was landscaped by ]Lancelot 'Capability' Brown
Lancelot Brown (born c. 1715–16, baptised 30 August 1716 – 6 February 1783), more commonly known as Capability Brown, was an English gardener and landscape architect, who remains the most famous figure in the history of the English lan ...
in 1776–81, replacing a French garden and transforming part of a disused canal into an ornamental lake. A porte-cochère
A porte-cochère (; , late 17th century, literally 'coach gateway'; plural: porte-cochères, portes-cochères) is a doorway to a building or courtyard, "often very grand," through which vehicles can enter from the street or a covered porch-like ...
was added to the principal facade in 1876. A sunken Dutch garden
Dutch garden refers firstly to gardens in the Netherlands, but also, mainly in the English-speaking countries, to various types of gardens traditionally considered to be in a Dutch style, a presumption that has been much disputed by garden historia ...
was created by Frances, Countess of Onslow at the north front of the house in the late 19th century. In 1895, the house was investigated for paranormal activity by the Marquess of Bute and Ada Goodrich Freer
Ada Goodrich Freer (born 15 May 1857 in Uppingham, Rutland, England, died in New York, 24 February 1931), was a medium, clairvoyant, psychical researcher and author. Much of her work was published under the pseudonym Miss X.Brake & Demoor (20 ...
on behalf of the Society for Psychical Research
The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) is a nonprofit organisation in the United Kingdom. Its stated purpose is to understand events and abilities commonly described as psychic or paranormal. It describes itself as the "first society to condu ...
. During World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, the Onslow family created and managed a hospital in Clandon House for the war injured.
Slavery
The house was built with the profits from slavery
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
. Elizabeth Knight inherited her wealth from Charles Knight, her uncle. Charles was a slave trader and plantation
A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...
owner. Elizabeth inherited a plantation called Whitehall in St Thomas-in-the-East, Jamaica, and the enslaved workers who worked there, producing sugar and rum. Elizabeth's husband Thomas Onslow was the founder of a ship insurance company that dealt with slave ships
Slave ships were large cargo ships specially built or converted from the 17th to the 19th century for transporting slaves. Such ships were also known as "Guineamen" because the trade involved human trafficking to and from the Guinea coast in ...
. The slave plantation was passed down the generations of the Onslow family. At any one time between 87 and 150 enslaved people were captive on the plantation.
Acquisition by the National Trust
In 1945, ownership of Clandon House was passed in trust to William Onslow, 6th Earl of Onslow
William Arthur Bampfylde Onslow, 6th Earl of Onslow, (11 June 1913 – 3 June 1971), known as Viscount Cranley until 1945, was a British peer, politician and army officer.
Onslow was the eldest son of Richard William Alan Onslow, 5th Earl of ...
on the death of his father, who had offered Clandon House to be used by the Public Record Office
The Public Record Office (abbreviated as PRO, pronounced as three letters and referred to as ''the'' PRO), Chancery Lane in the City of London, was the guardian of the national archives of the United Kingdom from 1838 until 2003, when it was m ...
to protect government documents from destruction by bombs in the war. The family moved out to facilitate this. In 1956, the Earl decided that he wished to donate Clandon House to the nation. The house could not be donated directly by the Onslows, so the Earl arranged for his aunt, Gwendolen, Countess Iveagh, the daughter of William Hillier, 4th Earl of Onslow and a former MP herself, to purchase Clandon House from the Onslows for £1. The National Trust would only accept the house if it also received a substantial monetary endowment. This was arranged, and Clandon House with seven acres of land – including Hinemihi – were donated to the National Trust.
Historian 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 ...
described the house in 1942 as "dirty and in decay", and Merlin Waterson, former director of historic properties at the National Trust, said it was "much depleted when it came to the Trust". Its state rooms were almost empty, but as well as many paintings and items of furniture belonging to the Onslow family, the house also contained some 18th-century porcelain, textiles and furniture donated by Hannah Gubbay, a member of the Sassoon family
The Sassoon family, known as "Rothschilds of the East" due to the immense wealth they accumulated in finance and trade, are a family of Baghdadi Jewish descent. Originally based in Baghdad, Iraq, they later moved to Bombay, India, and then emig ...
.
1968 – 2014
It was extensively restored and redecorated between 1968 and 1970 by the interior designer John Fowler, who set out to "capture the spirit of the rooms and its period rather than to replicate exact historical detail". Other pieces were acquired from the National Trust's extensive collections, and notable antiques that had a long-standing association with the property were also bought for display in the house. Many historians have criticised Fowler's design choices at Clandon House. Merlin Waterson admits "he was not given clear enough guidance on what was historically appropriate". However, Neil Cossons
Sir Neil Cossons FMA (born 15 January 1939) is a British historian and museum administrator.
Biography
Cossons was born in Beeston and studied at the University of Liverpool.
He was the first director of the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust fr ...
, a historian and museum director, has noted "owler
Owler is an American Internet company headquartered in San Mateo, California. It crowdsources competitive insights by providing news alerts, company profiles, and polls and allows members to follow, track, and research companies in real time. The ...
was ever anxious to avoid the "dead hand of the restorer". In these interiors nothing jarred and they were completely in keeping with the romantc taste of the period". In 1978, a parterre
A ''parterre'' is a part of a formal garden constructed on a level substrate, consisting of symmetrical patterns, made up by plant beds, low hedges or coloured gravels, which are separated and connected by paths. Typically it was the part of ...
designed by John Fowler and Paul Miles was laid out on the south front, replacing early 20th-century flower beds.
By the 2000s, the house contained, among other things, the Ivo Forde Meissen
Meissen (in German orthography: ''Meißen'', ) is a town of approximately 30,000 about northwest of Dresden on both banks of the Elbe river in the Free State of Saxony, in eastern Germany. Meissen is the home of Meissen porcelain, the Albrecht ...
collection of Italian comedy figures, Mortlake tapestries, and other rich textiles and carpets. Due to its extensive costs of upkeep, the National Trust gained a marriage licence
A marriage license (or marriage licence in Commonwealth spelling) is a document issued, either by a religious organization or state authority, authorizing a couple to marry. The procedure for obtaining a license varies between jurisdiction ...
for the property, and it had become a popular local wedding venue. It was also in part or whole rented out occasionally to the media for various productions, including 2008's '' The Duchess'' starring Keira Knightley
Keira Christina Righton (; née Knightley, born 26 March 1985) is an English actress. Known for her work in both independent films and blockbusters, particularly period dramas, she has received several accolades, including nominations for ...
.
In their 2012 At Risk Register, English Heritage
English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses.
The charity states that i ...
described the park still owned by the Earl of Onslow as highly vulnerable, with extensive significant problems, and "unsympathetically managed thus affecting the overall integrity of the design and the setting of the house". Discussions about the development of a proposed business park
A business park or office park is a designated area of land in which many office buildings are grouped together. These types of developments are often located in suburban areas where land and building costs are more affordable, and are typicall ...
were ongoing.
2015 fire
On the afternoon of 29 April 2015, a fire started in the house's basement and quickly spread to the roof.[ At 16:09, ]Surrey Fire and Rescue Service
The Surrey Fire and Rescue Service is the statutory fire and rescue service for the County of Surrey, England, with 25 fire stations. It comes under the administrative and legislative control of Surrey County Council, acting as the Fire Author ...
received an emergency call, and the fire was subsequently attended by a total of 16 fire engines and more than 80 personnel.[ While fire fighters tackled the blaze, National Trust volunteers were joined by conservators in salvaging furniture and works of art.][ Items were first stored on the lawns then placed in bubble wrap and sent to a local storage unit.][ After the fire around 600 "significant items" were rescued.][Beer, H. (2018). Rising from the ashes. ''National Trust Magazine'', ''145''(Autumn), 29-32.] The fire and rescue service remained at the property for a further ten days until the fire had been fully extinguished and then began an investigation into the cause of the fire.
A significant number of items were salvaged, but the house was left "essentially a shell" according to Dame Helen Ghosh, director general of the National Trust, with the roof, ceilings and floors having fallen into the basement, leaving just one room intact. One of the footballs kicked across no-man's land on the first day of the Battle of the Somme
The Battle of the Somme ( French: Bataille de la Somme), also known as the Somme offensive, was a battle of the First World War fought by the armies of the British Empire and French Third Republic against the German Empire. It took place bet ...
in 1916 was among the thousands of historic items destroyed, but the six Victoria Cross
The Victoria Cross (VC) is the highest and most prestigious award of the British honours system. It is awarded for valour "in the presence of the enemy" to members of the British Armed Forces and may be awarded posthumously. It was previously ...
es thought to have been destroyed were replicas – the originals were held in a bank vault. Although some paintings and furniture were rescued by staff, many tapestries and some items of porcelain were heavily damaged. A large portrait of Richard Onslow, 1st Baron Onslow
Richard Onslow, 1st Baron Onslow PC (23 June 1654 – 5 December 1717), known as Sir Richard Onslow, 2nd Baronet from 1688 until 1716, was a British Whig politician who sat in the English and British House of Commons from 1679 to 1715. He was ...
who was Speaker of the House of Commons Speaker of the House of Commons is a political leadership position found in countries that have a House of Commons, where the membership of the body elects a speaker to lead its proceedings.
Systems that have such a position include:
* Speaker of ...
in the early 18th century, was saved after being cut from its frame. An official investigation concluded that the fire was probably caused by a fault on an electrical distribution board in the basement.
Restoration project
In January 2016, the National Trust announced that a number of the principal rooms were going to be restored to the original 18th-century designs, and the "less architecturally significant" upper floors were to be fully modernised for holding exhibitions, events and performances. The cost of the restoration work is being funded by an insurance payout estimated at £65 million. A spokesman for the trust said it would also be asking supporters for donations to cover any shortfall in the budget.
Rupert Onslow, the 8th Earl of Onslow who owns and manages Clandon Park (Seat of the Earls of Onslow), whose family were the last private owners of Clandon House, criticised the decision to build "a replica" of the house, saying the money might be better spent on adding properties in need of genuine conservation to the National Trust's collection as opposed to creating a replica of Clandon House. The Earl said, "Clandon is lost. It's a ruin now. It decayed instantly. If the National Trust wants a replica, let them build it somewhere else." He also said that the last thing he wanted was a "Vulgar mock-Georgian
Georgian architecture is the name given in most English-speaking countries to the set of architectural styles current between 1714 and 1830. It is named after the first four Monarchy of the United Kingdom, British monarchs of the House of Hano ...
footballers' wives house." However, the trust said the insurance policy did not allow it to spend the money elsewhere, and it could only be spent at Clandon. The Georgian Group
The Georgian Group is a British charity, and the national authority on Georgian architecture built between 1700 and 1837 in England and Wales. As one of the National Amenity Societies, The Georgian Group is a statutory consultee on alterat ...
welcomed the decision, calling the fire a national tragedy, and lending support for the restoration project, but reversed its position in September 2017 when the shortlist of design teams being considered for the restoration, and their initial proposals, were revealed.
In December 2017, architects Allies and Morrison
Allies and Morrison LLP is an architecture and urban planning practice based in London and Cambridge. Founded in 1984, the practice is now one of Britain's largest architectural firms. The practice's work ranges from architecture and interio ...
were unanimously chosen as the winner of an international design competition to restore Clandon Park House.
Maori meeting house
A Māori
Māori or Maori can refer to:
Relating to the Māori people
* Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group
* Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand
* Māori culture
* Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...
meeting house or wharenui
A wharenui (; literally "large house") is a communal house of the Māori people of New Zealand, generally situated as the focal point of a ''marae''. Wharenui are usually called meeting houses in New Zealand English, or simply called ''whare'' ( ...
named ''Hinemihi'' stands in the gardens. It was originally situated near Lake Tarawera
Lake Tarawera is the largest of a series of lakes which surround the volcano Mount Tarawera in the North Island of New Zealand. Like the mountain, it lies within the Okataina caldera. It is located to the east of Rotorua, and beneath the pea ...
in New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
and provided shelter to the people of Te Wairoa village during the eruption of Mount Tarawera
Mount Tarawera is a volcano on the North Island of New Zealand within the older but volcanically productive Ōkataina Caldera. Located 24 kilometres southeast of Rotorua, it consists of a series of rhyolitic lava domes that were fissu ...
in 1886. The building was covered in ash and surrounded by volcanic debris, but its occupants survived. It remained half buried until 1892 when William Onslow, 4th Earl of Onslow
William Hillier Onslow, 4th Earl of Onslow, (7 March 1853 – 23 October 1911), was a British Conservative politician. He held several governmental positions between 1880 and 1905 and was also Governor of New Zealand between 1889 and 1892.
B ...
, then Governor General of New Zealand
The governor-general of New Zealand ( mi, te kāwana tianara o Aotearoa) is the viceregal representative of the monarch of New Zealand, currently King Charles III. As the King is concurrently the monarch of 14 other Commonwealth realms and li ...
, bought it and had it fully restored and shipped to England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
. There are only three other Māori meeting houses outside New Zealand.
The National Trust has refurbished the Maori meeting house, replacing the roof, cleaning and repainting carvings, and replacing carvings that were lost. The roof is thatched, based on a misinterpretation of a photograph of the house covered in ash. Its original roof was of shingles. The New Zealand Historic Places Trust
Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga (initially the National Historic Places Trust and then, from 1963 to 2014, the New Zealand Historic Places Trust) ( mi, Pouhere Taonga) is a Crown entity with a membership of around 20,000 people that advocate ...
and the British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
were consulted over this work. The meeting house is still important for cultural activities among the Maori. The nature of Hinemihi and its meaning for the local and expatriate Maori community in London was explored by Cecilie Gravesen in her experimental film ''Between Humans and Other Things'' (2010). During the 2012 Summer Olympics
The 2012 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012) was an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...
, the New Zealand team visited Hinemihi.
Surrey Infantry Museum
Colonel JW Sewell reached agreement with the National Trust to re-establish the Surrey Infantry Museum at Clandon House. The museum opened in 1981 with exhibits including uniforms, medals, weapons, regalia, photographs and memorabilia. The regiment's archives and library are located at the Surrey History Centre in Woking
Woking ( ) is a town and borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in northwest Surrey, England, around from central London. It appears in Domesday Book as ''Wochinges'' and its name probably derives from that of a Anglo-Saxon settlement o ...
. After being upgraded in 2001, in July 2011 with part funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund
The National Lottery Heritage Fund, formerly the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), distributes a share of National Lottery funding, supporting a wide range of heritage projects across the United Kingdom.
History
The fund's predecessor bodies were ...
the museum merged with those of the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment
The Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment (or PWRR, also known as 'The Tigers') is the senior English line infantry regiment of the British Army, second in the line infantry order of precedence to the Royal Regiment of Scotland and part of the Qu ...
and the Queen's Royal Surrey Regiment
The Queen's Royal Surrey Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army which existed from 1959 to 1966. In 1966, it was amalgamated with the Queen's Own Buffs, The Royal Kent Regiment, the Royal Sussex Regiment and the Middlesex Regim ...
to become ''The Surrey Infantry Museum''. The museum's displayed medal collection included six Victoria Cross
The Victoria Cross (VC) is the highest and most prestigious award of the British honours system. It is awarded for valour "in the presence of the enemy" to members of the British Armed Forces and may be awarded posthumously. It was previously ...
es, including those awarded to: Lieutenant Wallace Duffield Wright; Lance Corporal Leonard James Keyworth; Corporal John McNamara; Second Lieutenant Arthur James Terence Fleming-Sandes
Major Arthur James Terence Fleming-Sandes (24 June 1894 – 24 May 1961) was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Common ...
. The museum, housed in the basement, was totally destroyed in the fire.
References
Bibliography
* Harrison, Frederic. Annals of an Old Manor House: Sutton Place, Guildford. London, 1899
archive.org on-line text
* Howard Colvin, ''Biographical Dictionary of British Architects''
External links
*
Clandon Park House
at the National Trust
Clandon Park
website
Shortlist of designs for the restoration
at Malcolm Reading Consultants
*
{{Authority control
2015 fires in the United Kingdom
Country houses in Surrey
Fires in England
Grade I listed buildings in Surrey
Grade I listed houses
Grade II* listed gates
Historic house museums in Surrey
National Trust properties in Surrey
Palladian architecture
Regimental museums in England
Burned buildings and structures in the United Kingdom