Visitors to Clumber Park may be forgiven for wondering where the house is. Most National Trust country estates have a home at their heart, but of the mansions that once stood here, little now remains.
Clumber Park was once the country estate of the Dukes of Newcastle. Although Clumber House was taken down in 1938, there are many glimpses of its grand past to explore, including the Duke’s Study (the last remaining room of the house), the Laundry Yard, Turning Yard, the Lincoln Stables, the Chapel of St Mary the Virgin and the walled kitchen garden.
How Clumber Park began
The story of Clumber Park begins in 1709 when John Holles, the 3rd Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, was granted a licence to enclose 3,000 acres of Sherwood Forest and turn it into a deer park for Queen Anne. When he died, his nephew, Thomas Pelham-Holles, the 4th Duke, took on the estate. He died childless but had thankfully made himself the 1st Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne, a new title which could be handed down to his sister’s son. This meant Henry Fiennes Pelham-Clinton became the 2nd Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne in 1768, promptly inheriting Clumber Park.
Clumber House
The 2nd Duke was the first to make Clumber Park a home, turning it into an estate dedicated to pleasure on a grand, almost unimaginable scale. He had a mansion built in the early 1760s, designed by Stephen Wright, which was regarded as one of the finest non-Royal houses in the country. A classical building of white freestone (brought from the Duke's own quarry), flanked by a square wing at each corner, with the central portion, which faced the lake, containing a light Ionic colonnade.
The core of the house was the original ducal hunting lodge which had previously existed on the site. This meant that rooms in the centre of the house were not particularly grand, however, those in the new flanking wings more than compensated. The State Dining Room was 60ft long and 34ft wide and designed to accommodate 150 guests seated at one table. The 4th Duke was a renowned collector and filled Clumber House with many paintings by Gainsborough, Van Dyke, Poussin and Rembrandt to name a few. There were also various treasures, including busts, statues, china and an extensive collection of rare books including a Book of Hours, a first folio Shakespeare, and three Caxtons.
The gardens and parkland of the estate were particularly impressive, both in scale and the care and money that had been lavished upon them. Writing in 1896, Cornelius Brown stated that "The lawns and terraces are laid out with much skill and tastefully adorned with lofty vases and graceful statuary" and Leonard Jacks, in 1881, described the lawns as "...very fine, smooth, velvety".
The double avenue of lime trees, created for the 5th Duke, was planted with 1,296 trees and stood at three miles long. Today, it still is the longest in Europe.
The lake, added by the 2nd Duke, took 15 years to create by damming the River Poulter and excavating the riverbed. It was further enlarged and extended in 1817 and 1885 until it covered 87 acres and was almost two miles long.
Fire devastation and demolition
The fire on 28 March 1879 was devastating. Not only for the extensive damage to the house, gutting 20 of the 105 rooms, but also the loss of fine artworks, although many were rescued. The fire destroyed the central core of the house, leaving the wings standing round a hollow shell.
The trustees of the 7th Duke, who was just 15 years old and had inherited Clumber only a few months before, were faced with the quandary as to whether to rebuild. The 6th Duke had been an extravagant spender who had significantly reduced the family fortune. However, as Leonard Jacks stated, the Dukes of Newcastle's rent roll was vast and although they could not replace the artworks, they could rebuild the house.
Charles Barry, whose father was the famous Sir Charles responsible for the Palace of Westminster, was put in charge of the work. He replaced the lost rooms in the centre of the house with an enormous entrance hall, which featured balustraded galleries, tessellated pavements and various niches for the surviving statuary.
The demolition
Another fire in April 1912 ravaged the upper two floors, and whilst not as serious as the previous fire, added to the burden. When the decision to demolish the house, taken by the 9th Duke who had inherited it, was announced in the local paper, it stated that ‘the decision to completely demolish the mansion has been taken with great reluctance by the present owner, but it has been necessitated by heavy taxation’. Though it played a part, a more significant factor was that Clumber House had been built for a different age, an age of huge, lavish house parties and vast wealth. With the passing of the former and major pressures on the latter, houses on this scale were just no longer sustainable.
The demolition of Clumber House was contracted out to Henry Boot Construction in 1938, with the sale of most of the contents the year before. Thornbridge in Derbyshire, Henry Charles Boot’s home since 1929, was one estate to benefit from much of the statuary and facades from Clumber, along with Newstead Abbey, home to Lord Byron, whose Clumber Lodge is built entirely from materials from Clumber House.
Find out more
Within the Lincoln Stables at Clumber Park, visitors will find the Heritage Hub which displays a model of Clumber House and reveals more about the Dukes & Duchesses of Newcastle. Work is also taking place on the site of the house, to outline rooms and highlight its key features. More information can also be found on the website at www.nationaltrust.org.uk/clumberpark
Images:
The front elevation of Clumber House.
The House and Chapel behind.
South view of the House, Chapel and lake and man in rowing boat, circa 1900. John Alcock.
All imagery courtesy of National Trust archive.
