Tours of the house are currently priced (as of September 2019) at £22 per adult (age 16+) and £11 per child. Thete is a lot needing to be done, but it’s good to see action being taken & the public welcomed into the house.

Later, it would be Thomas Watson-Wentworth, 1st Marquess of Rockingham, who would have the original Jacobean house rebuilt and expanded in the 1720’s in the Baroque style (this is the red brick part of the house). You can easily spend a day or two in the area visiting places connected to the Wentworths and Wentworth Woodhouse. There was also a riding school here. One of D’Arcy’s homes in Australia was also called Wentworth Woodhouse in honour of the Yorkshire one. Collections: Wentworth Woodhouse was the repository of one of Britain's great private art collections and included works by Van Dyck, Reynolds, Mytens, Hoppner, Lawrence, Lorraine, and a major collection of Stubbs's work. Our tour focused mainly on the East Wing of the house but parts of the West wing are also open to public tours. Hi Anda, Yes, it is quite impressive but needs a lot of funding for repairs and restoration, but things are definitely looking much more helpful this past year with the trust purchase and funding commitment by the government. In 1841, over 1,000 staff were employed on the estate, working in occupations that included housekeepers, carpenters, gardeners, stablehands, gamekeepers, and even rat catchers. NOTE: The Fitzwilliam Tour is not currently being offered (as of Septemeber 2018) but it was essentially the current Wentworth Tour + The Garden Tour. Date of Birth: 1697 Date of Death: 1769 Nationality: English Notes: Henry Flitcroft was an assistant and protégé of Lord Burlington and was a follower of William Kent, whom he succeeded as Master Mason and Deputy-Surveyor.

It was here in these gardens that the opencast coal mining took place after WWII and the gardens are still recovering from the effects of that mining. Best, Jessica. We only ask for your e-mail so we can verify you are human and if requested notify you of a reply. The Marble Saloon, where Anna Pavlova had danced for King George V, would be used as a gymnasium and the Whistlejacket Room would be used as a dance studio! We haven’t been back to the house for a couple of years now and we’re excited to return again as they start fixing up the interiors and doing more restoration work.

Jan 1999, pgs. Some rooms during our visit had been recently repaired and decorated to be used for TV or movie filming. Thomas Wentworth was an advisor to King Charles I and was famously executed in 1641.

We were excited to actually go inside and see the interiors! Large amounts of scaffolding are now covering a large portion of the exterior of the grand building. Best, Jessica.

This step back in time was a wonderfully surreal experience which reminded me how lucky we are to have such an important part of history on our doorstep. It turns out we could have parked in front of the house and directions about parking direction were included on our tour booking confirmation (check the email confirmation). Until 2018 the Stables were used as a training center for prison guard dogs. With no sons, at the death of the 2nd Marquess in 1782, his estates, but not his marquessate, passed to his nephew, William Fitzwilliam, 4th Earl Fitzwilliam, whose descendants remained seated at Wentworth Woodhouse until 1946.

There is also disabled parking for Blue Badge holders visiting the house. Having discovered whilst researching my family tree that I’m related to the Wentworth family through marriage (my cousin Sarah Cox married William Charles Wentworth – part of the Australian branch of the Wentworth family – and very famous in his own right as an explorer, politician in the early colony – research Vaucluse House for further info) – I have since researched a lot into Wentworth Woodhouse and the family. Yes and no. The two house tours cover different sections of the house and the Gardens Tour covers the gardens. 2-3 Publisher: London: The Georgian Group ISBN: NA Book Type: Magazine, Title: Art Newspaper, The Author: NA Year Published: NA Reference: Jul-Aug 1998, pg. The house has a long road ahead as it is in great need of substantial repairs but it is hard to think that a house as great as this one will not be saved and preserved for future generations of visitors!

~ Jessica. If you make a purchase using one of these links it means we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. This room required a more dramatic outfit, so Nick helped me up my game with a formal Georgian costume, complete with two underskirts and panniers, which widened the dress over my hips. Hi Stephen, So interesting, sounds like you have uncovered quite a bit of information in your genealogy research! Stilettos aren’t permitted on the Marble Saloon’s delicate floor, where dancing will be encouraged as musicians will be playing period tunes and a professional dance toupe will be inviting guests to learn Georgian and Regency-era dances. Architect: Hi Jim, haha, yes the princess did not always have the best words for describing places did she, but she was brief Glad you enjoyed our description of Wentworth Woodhouse! We parked in a parking lot in Wentworth as we were not sure if we could drive down the private lane and park in front of the house. Best, Jessica. The house tour focuses primarily on the time it was occupied by the Watson, Wentworth, and Fitzwilliam family members, but information was also included about the time the house was used by the Intelligence Corps during the war, its time as an educational institution, and most recently as a private residence for Wensley Haydon-Baillie and the Newbold family. In 1949 following the death of the 8th Earl Fitzwilliam, the family sold a significant amount of the contents from Wentworth Woodhouse, including a large amount of art and furniture. An iron railing encloses the base with four 50-foot-tall obelisks at each corner crowned with urns. The last Earl Fitzwilliam, the 10th Earl, would die at Wentworth Woodhouse in 1979 without an heir. Wentworth Woodhouse is a Grade I listed country house in the village of Wentworth, in the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham in South Yorkshire, England.It is currently owned by the Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust. Stuart also designed some interiors at Wentworth Woodhouse. However, I have not heard anything since but hopefully they will eventually still make the show as I think it would not only make for a good series (especially in the hands of BBC) but would also help generate interest and hopefully financial support in terms of donations and tourism dollars for maintaining and improving Wentworth Woodhouse. The original house was built here for Thomas Wentworth, the 1st Earl of Stafford, in the 1630s. Dogs are allowed on the estate (but not in the house) as long as they are kept on a lead. I am not saying there are no evidence of links between that branch of the Wentworth family and Jane Austen, but just with Wentworth Woodhouse itself as there is no evidence (that I am aware of) that she visited the house or the area. The earls Fitzwilliam added to the collection and maintained some of it at Wentworth Woodhouse until the death in 1979 of the 10th Earl Fitzwilliam. The enormous house was filled with great treasures: one magnificent room after another overflowed with art, capped off by the amazing two-story Great Hall, inspired by Inigo Jones's Queen's House in Greenwich: yellow scagliola columns ring the room, which measures 60 by 60 feet with a 40-foot ceiling and an inlaid floor of colored marble. Tour guide Mark Barthrop swapped his fleece for a tailcoat and accompanied me around the house — and I have to say I felt “reyt posh”. A group of four statues making up "The Judgment of Paris" was sold to the Getty Museum in May of 1987 for a total of £1.35 million. National Trust Members (England and Wales) save 50% on admission prices.

I am a trainee tour guide there, so I know that this is correct. Instead of leaving it to the expected Thomas Wentworth, it went to a cousin Thomas Watson.

Carr's only major work in the south was Basildon Park in Berkshire. Want to keep up to date with us and our latest travel tips? During this period, the Fitzwilliam family would still retain a suite of rooms and staff for private living use. Such a shame that these family homes were lost to the families as the decline of aristocracy became more predominant.

Our guide Bob explained to us that at the current time, given the need for house repairs and the money need to insure and preserve the artwork, it is not feasible for the art to be maintained at the house, but it is hoped in the future that some of the original pieces could be loaned or donated back to the house. Some rooms were furnished, some rooms were not furnished. The house would be sold by the family in 1989. (The main filming location for the show and film is Highclere Castle.). On the evening, footmen will greet each guest at the mansion’s Baroque-style west front entrance after a horse-drawn carriage ride through the gardens. On July 15, 1986 Christie's sold Joseph Nollekens's "Diana" (1778) to the Victoria & Albert Museum.

An unfinished oil by Reynolds of the 2nd Marquess of Rockingham and Edmund Burke, today in the collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (see photo in "Images" section), was probably intended for the collection at Wentworth Woodhouse. The village of Wentworth is also an easy place to explore on foot before or after a visit to Wentworth Woodhouse and the parkland. Volunteer researcher Jonathan Addy also stepped back in time to enjoy wandering through the house grounds in costume — and even customised his own shoes with a buckle to give a period effect! Vitruvius Britannicus: C. IVth. Best, Jessica, Indeed Jessica. Hi Clare, It is great that you stayed with relatives of the Fitzwilliam Wentworth family in Wortley in the 1970’s, and then got to do a tour of Wentworth Woodhouse a few months ago! Check online for more information about visiting the Wentworth Estate, which is still overseen by Fitzwilliam descendants.

While the Fitzwilliams were generally seen as responsible and respected owners for the time, the terrible conditions of collieries and pit villages in general would lead to intense criticism and a perceived need for nationalization. Thomas Wentworth came to the U.S. sometime in the 1600’s. It would be leased by the Lady Mabel College of Further Education and then Sheffield City Polytechnic until 1988. They occupied the stable block and parts of the main house.

In 1746 Henry Flitcroft designed for Thomas Watson-Wentworth, Earl of Malton and lord lieutenant of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Hoober Stand, a 98-foot-tall tower with a viewing platform to commemorate the Scottish Jacobite defeat of 1746 at Culloden Moor. There is definitely damage from its time as a gymnasium, but not nearly as much as we would have imagined. This place may be private and considered a house but it surely looks like a palace to me. Writing of the Great Hall in 1768, Arthur Young leaves us with this description: "Beyond all comparison, the finest room in England." This railway station was modeled on Wentworth Woodhouse. We think once you know the story of this house, you’ll be intrigued to visit it too! Also the estimated cost of restoring the house to it’s former glory is now 200 million pounds !!!!! There are also several monuments and follies in the parkland that can be seen and some of the interiors can be visited on certain days. During our tour, we were able to see both the grand scale of the house and imagine its past grandeur as well as get a sense of the need for restoration.