Wentworth Woodhouse

Wentworth Woodhouse from A Complete History of the County of York by Thomas Allen (1828–30)

Wentworth Woodhouse is a country house near the village of Wentworth, in the vicinity of Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England. Its 606 ft. (185 m) long East Front is the longest façade in Europe . The house includes 240 rooms and covers an area of over 2.5 acres (10,000 m²). It is surrounded by a 150 acre (0.6 km²) estate. It was the family seath of the Earls Fitzwilliam

Architecture

The Baroque style, brick-built western part of the house was begun in 1725, replacing an older structure that was once the home of Thomas Wentworth. In c. 1734, before this West Front was finished, Wentworth's grandson Thomas Watson-Wentworth commissioned Henry Flitcroft to build the East Front extension.

The huge length of the East Front is believed to have been the result of a longstanding feud with the Stainborough branch of the Wentworth family, who lived at the nearby Wentworth Castle. The castle was itself undergoing an extension at the time.

The house was later the home of Watson-Wentworth's grandson Charles Watson-Wentworth, the 11th Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. It subsequently passed to his sister's family, the Fitzwilliams, who in c.1782 added an extra storey to parts of the East Front.

The grounds

The grounds (and surrounding area), which are largely open to the public, contain a number of follies including:

• Hoober stand. A tapering pyramid with a hexagonal lantern. It is 30 m high and was built in 1747–48 to commemorate the defeat of the Jacobite rebellion. It was designed by Henry Flitcroft. The tower is open to the public on Sunday afternoons throughout the summer.
• Keppels Column. A 115 ft. (35 m) tower built in the late 18th century to commemorate the acquittal of the court-martialled Admiral Keppel. It visibly bulges due to an entasis correction, which was rendered inappropriate when funding problems reduced the height. It was designed by John Carr.
• The Rockingham Mausoleum. A 90 ft. (27 m) high, three-story building situated in woodland. Consequently, only the top level is visible over the treetops. It was commissioned in 1783 as a memorial to Charles Wentworth and was designed by John Carr. The ground floor is an enclosed hall containing a statue of the former prime minister by Joseph Nollekens, plus busts of his eight closest friends. The first floor is an open colonnade with Corinthian columns surrounding the (empty) sarcophagus. The top storey is a Roman-style cupola. Like Hoober Stand, the Mausoleum is open on summer Sunday afternoons.
• The Needle's Eye. A 45 ft. (14 m) high, sandstone block pyramid with an ornamental urn on the top and a tall Gothic ogee arch through the middle, which straddles a disused roadway. It was built in the mid-18th century allegedly to win a bet after Charles Wentworth claimed he could drive a coach and horses through the eye of a needle.
• Bear Pit. Accesible if patronising the nearby Garden centre. Built on two levels with a spiral stair. Outer doorway is part of the architecture of the original house (about 1630). at the end of the garden is a grotto guarded by two life-sized statues of Roman soldiers.

Destruction of the estate

In April 1946, on the orders of Manny Shinwell (the then Labour Party's Minister of Fuel and Power) a "column of lorries and heavy plant machinery" arrived at Wentworth. The objective was the mining of 98 acres of woodland for coal - this would be the largest open cast mining site in Britain. Shinwell, intent on the destruction of the Fitzwilliams and "the privileged rich", decreed that the mining would continue to the back door of Wentworth. What followed saw the mining of the renowned formal gardens and 99 acres of lawns. The debris of earth and rubble was piled 50ft. high in front of the family's living quarters. In an attempt to stop the continuance of the mining Peter, the 8th Earl, commissioned a survey by Sheffield University; they found the quality of the coal as "very poor stuff" and "not worth the getting", this contrasted to Shinwell's assertion that it was "exceptionally good-quality."

Joe Hall, Yorkshire branch President of the National Union of Mineworkers said that the "miners in this area will go to almost any length rather than see Wentworth Woodhouse destroyed. To many mining communities it is sacred ground" - the Fitzwilliams were respected employers. The Yorkshire branch later threatened a strike over the plans for Wentworth and Joe Hall wrote personally to Clement Atlee in a futile attempt to stop the mining.

The Lady Mabel College

The Ministry of Health attempted to transform the house into "housing for homeless industrial families". This plan, unlike the mining, failed. From 1949 to 1974, the house was rented to the Lady Mabel College of Physical Education (named after Lady Mabel Fitzwilliam, the sister of the 7th Earl Fitzwilliam - she had brokered the deal preventing Wentworth becoming a shelter for the homeless), which trained female PE teachers. The college later merged with Sheffield City Polytechnic (now Sheffield Hallam University), and the house with 30acres was sold in 1989. The present owner is Clifford Newbold, an architect from Highgate, who bought it for something over £1.5m.

The house is a Grade I listed building. Its size makes it very expensive to maintain, which is perhaps the main reason why the building has never been bought by a charity or the local council as a tourist attraction.

External links

• The Mansion of Mystery and Malice - Times Online. 11. Februar 2007; abgerufen im 1. Januar 1. 
• Wentworth Village — Wentworth Woodhouse
• Wentworth Woodhouse from The University of York
• What fate awaits Wentworth Woodhouse?]. April 1999; abgerufen im 1. Januar 1.