Terling Place is the Georgian family seat of

Baron Rayleigh Baron Rayleigh, of Terling Place in the County of Essex is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. The peerage was created on 18 July 1821 for Lady Charlotte Strutt, wife of Colonel Joseph Strutt, Member of Parliament for Maldon. Stru ...

and the largest house in the village of

Terling Terling (pronounced Tar-ling) is a village and civil parish in the county of Essex Essex () is a Ceremonial counties of England, county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, th ...

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and Grea ...

, England. It was built for John Strutt, MP between 1772 and 1777 to the designs of John Johnson. The wings, a new porch, a two-storey saloon (with a gallery, and 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 ...

based on the

Elgin Marbles The Elgin Marbles (), also known as the Parthenon Marbles ( el, Γλυπτά του Παρθενώνα, lit. "sculptures of the Parthenon"), are a collection of Classical Greece, Classical Greek marble sculptures made under the supervision of th ...

) and a library were added between 1818 and 1824. The house was redecorated in 1850, when a conservatory was added. It is a Grade II* listed building. From John Strutt the house passed to his eldest surviving son,

Joseph Joseph is a common male given name, derived from the Hebrew Yosef (יוֹסֵף). "Joseph" is used, along with "Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the mo ...

, whose wife Lady Charlotte FitzGerald was created Baroness Rayleigh in 1821. The 3rd Lord Rayleigh established a laboratory in the west wing, which remains to this day. Indeed, he used apparatus from this laboratory to isolate

argon Argon is a chemical element with the symbol Ar and atomic number 18. It is in group 18 of the periodic table and is a noble gas. Argon is the third-most abundant gas in Earth's atmosphere, at 0.934% (9340 ppmv). It is more than twice as ...

in the cellar of Terling Place in 1894, for which he was awarded the

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

in Physics in 1904.

References

Country houses in Essex Neoclassical architecture in England Grade II* listed houses Grade II* listed buildings in Essex Residential buildings completed in 1772 Houses completed in 1777 Houses completed in 1821 Strutt family Grade II listed parks and gardens in Essex Terling {{Essex-struct-stub