The Annual Building History Lecture - Wentworth Woodhouse: A New Life

Sat 6 April 2019

Fitzpatrick Hall, Queens' College

Wentworth Woodhouse needs little introduction. It is sometimes described as two country houses back-to-back. To the west stands the late-Baroque west front built between 1724 and about 1730 for Thomas Watson-Wentworth, later 1st Marquess of Rockingham, but retaining fragments of an older house built circa 1630 by Sir Thomas Wentworth, later 1st Earl of Strafford. To the west spreads the 606-feet long Neo-Palladian east front – the defining image of the house – begun in the early 1730s by the architect Ralph Tunnicliffe and completed following his death by Henry Flitcroft. John Carr of York later contributed various buildings and alterations for the 2nd Marquess and his successor, the 4th Earl Fitzwilliam.

If the scale and opulence of Wentworth Woodhouse continue to impress, it is the story of the house in the twentieth century that evokes the strongest passions. It was requisitioned by Military Intelligence during the Second World War, and its setting was subsequently ravaged by open-cast coal-mining. After the War the east half was leased to the West Riding County Council which established a training college for PE teachers. The contents, including paintings specially commissioned for the house such as George Stubbs’ portrait of the racehorse Whistlejacket, were dispersed progressively from 1948 onwards and the Fitzwilliam title became extinct in 1979. By the 1980s the house was in a poor state and its ultimate fate was rendered increasingly precarious by damage plausibly attributed to deep-mining subsidence. The acquisition of the house by the Wentworth House Preservation Trust in 2017 unlocked a £7.6m Treasury grant, setting in train a major conservation project which will roll out over the coming years.

Cost: Free