Wollaton Hall in Nottingham

Monday, 20 August 2018 - 11:00 am (CET/MEZ) Berlin | Author/Destination:
Category/Kategorie: General, Museums, Exhibitions, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks
Reading Time:  8 minutes

A view of Wollaton Hall west front and Stable Block from the south-west © Acabashi/cc-by-sa-4.0

A view of Wollaton Hall west front and Stable Block from the south-west © Acabashi/cc-by-sa-4.0

Wollaton Hall is an Elizabethan country house of the 1580s standing on a small but prominent hill in Wollaton Park, Nottingham. The house is now Nottingham Natural History Museum, with Nottingham Industrial Museum in the out-buildings. The surrounding parkland has a herd of deer, and is regularly used for large-scale outdoor events such as rock concerts, sporting events and festivals. Wollaton Hall Park is Grade II* listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.

Wollaton is a classic prodigy house, “the architectural sensation of its age”, though its builder was not a leading courtier and its construction stretched the resources he mainly obtained from coalmining; the original family home was at the bottom of the hill. Though much re-modelled inside, the “startlingly bold” exterior remains largely intact.

Wollaton Hall was built between 1580 and 1588 for Sir Francis Willoughby and is believed to be designed by the Elizabethan architect, Robert Smythson, who had by then completed Longleat, and was to go on to design Hardwick Hall. The general plan of Wollaton is comparable to these, and was widely adopted for other houses, but the exuberant decoration of Wollaton is distinctive, and it is possible that Willoughby played some part in creating it. The style is an advanced Elizabethan with early Jacobean elements. The floor plan has been said to derive from Serlio‘s drawing (in Book III of his Five Books of Architecture) of Giuliano da Majano‘s Villa Poggio Reale near Naples of the late 15th century, with elevations derived from Hans Vredeman de Vries. The architectural historian Mark Girouard has suggested that the design is in fact derived from Nikolaus de Lyra’s reconstruction, and Josephus‘s description, of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem, with a more direct inspiration being the mid-16th century Mount Edgcumbe in Cornwall, which Smythson knew. The building is of Ancaster stone from Lincolnshire, and is said to have been paid for with coal from the Wollaton pits owned by Willoughby; the labourers were also paid this way. Cassandra Willoughby, Duchess of Chandos recorded in 1702 that the master masons, and some of the statuary, were brought from Italy. The decorative gondola mooring rings carved in stone on the exterior walls offer some evidence of this, as do other architectural features. There are also obvious French and Dutch influences. The exterior and hall have extensive and busy carved decoration, featuring strapwork and a profusion of decorative forms. The window tracery of the upper floors in the central block and the general business of the decoration look back to the Middle Ages. The building consists of a central block dominated by a hall three storeys high, with a stone screen at one end and galleries at either end, with the “Prospect Room” above that. From this there are extensive views of the park and surrounding country. There are towers at each corner, projecting out from this top floor. At each corner of the house is a square pavilion of three storeys, with decorative features rising above the roof line. Much of the basement storey is cut from the rock the house sits on.

© mattbuck/cc-by-sa-3.0 Stable Block © geograph.org.uk - Mick Garratt/cc-by-sa-2.0 Stable Block © geograph.org.uk - Alan Murray-Rust/cc-by-sa-2.0 Wollaton Hall © Harry Mitchell/cc-by-sa-3.0 Wollaton Hall © NotFromUtrecht/cc-by-sa-3.0 A view of Wollaton Hall west front and Stable Block from the south-west © Acabashi/cc-by-sa-4.0
<
>
A view of Wollaton Hall west front and Stable Block from the south-west © Acabashi/cc-by-sa-4.0
The house was unused for about four decades before 1687, following a fire in 1642, and then re-occupied and given the first of several campaigns of re-modelling of the interiors. Paintings on the ceilings of the two main staircases and round the walls of one are attributed to Sir James Thornhill and perhaps also Laguerre, carried out around 1700. Re-modelling was carried out by Wyatville in 1801 and continued intermittently until the 1830s. The hall remains essentially in its original Elizabethan state, with a hammerbeam wood ceiling, in fact supported by horizontal beams above, but given large and un-needed hammerbeans for decoration. The gallery of the main hall contains Nottinghamshire’s oldest pipe organ, thought to date from the end of the 17th century, possibly by the builder Gerard Smith. It is still blown by hand. Beneath the hall are many cellars and passages, and a well and associated reservoir tank, in which some accounts report that an admiral of the Willoughby family took a daily bath. The Willoughbys were noted for the number of explorers they produced, most famously Sir Hugh Willoughby who died in the Arctic in 1554 attempting a North East passage to Cathay. Willoughby’s Land is named after him. In 1881, the house was still owned by the head of the Willoughby family, Digby Willoughby, 9th Baron Middleton, but by then it was “too near the smoke and busy activity of a large manufacturing town… now only removed from the borough by a narrow slip of country”, so that the previous head of the family, Henry Willoughby, 8th Baron Middleton, had begun to let the house to tenants and in 1881 it was vacant. The hall was bought by Nottingham Council, and opened as a museum in 1925. It re-opened in April 2007 after being closed for refurbishment. The prospect room at the top of the house, and the kitchens in the basement, were opened up for the public to visit, though this must be done on one of the escorted tours. The latter can be booked on the day, lasts about an hour, and a small charge is made.

In 1855, Joseph Paxton designed Mentmore Towers in Buckinghamshire, which borrows many features from Wollaton. Both properties have been used as film locations for Christopher Nolan‘s Batman trilogy of films, featuring as Wayne Manor – the latter in Batman Begins and Wollaton Hall itself in The Dark Knight Rises

Since Wollaton Hall opened to the public in 1926, it has been home to the city’s natural history museum. On display are some of the items from the three quarters of a million specimens that make up its zoology, geology, and botany collections. These are housed in six main galleries:

  • Natural Connections Gallery
  • Bird Gallery
  • Insect Gallery
  • Mineral Gallery
  • Africa Gallery
  • Natural History Matters Gallery

The Museum started life as an interest group at the Nottingham Mechanics’ Institution; it is now owned by the Nottingham City Council.

Read more on Wollaton Hall, Visit-Nottinghamshire.co.uk – Wollaton Hall, VisitEngland.com – Wollaton Hall and Wikipedia Wollaton Hall (Smart Traveler App by U.S. Department of State - Weather report by weather.com - Global Passport Power Rank - Travel Risk Map - Democracy Index - GDP according to IMF, UN, and World Bank - Global Competitiveness Report - Corruption Perceptions Index - Press Freedom Index - World Justice Project - Rule of Law Index - UN Human Development Index - Global Peace Index - Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index). Photos by Wikimedia Commons. If you have a suggestion, critique, review or comment to this blog entry, we are looking forward to receive your e-mail at comment@wingsch.net. Please name the headline of the blog post to which your e-mail refers to in the subject line.




Recommended posts:

Share this post: (Please note data protection regulations before using buttons)

Theme Week Greenland - Sisimiut

Theme Week Greenland - Sisimiut

[caption id="attachment_229836" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Sisimiut and Nasaasaaq mountain © Algkalv/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Sisimiut, formerly known as Holsteinsborg, is the capital and largest city of the Qeqqata municipality, the second-largest city in Greenland, and the largest Arctic city in North America. It is located in central-western Greenland, on the coast of Davis Strait, approximately 320 km (200 mi) north of Nuuk ...

[ read more ]

Theme Week Tunisia

Theme Week Tunisia

[caption id="attachment_168254" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Beach in Hammamet © Faresbenrayana/cc-by-sa-4.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Tunisia is a country in North Africa, covering 165,000 square kilometres (64,000 square miles). Its northernmost point, Cape Angela, is the northernmost point on the African continent, only 140 km south of Sicily. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Tunisia's population is at 11.3 million. Tunisia's nam...

[ read more ]

Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilisations in the Old Port of Marseille

Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilisations in the Old Port of Marseille

[caption id="attachment_24712" align="aligncenter" width="590"] MuCEM © SiefkinDR/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]The Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilisations (MuCEM) (French: Musée des Civilisations de l'Europe et de la Méditerranée) is a national museum located in the Old Port of Marseille, in the South of France. It was inaugurated on the 7th of June 2013 as part of the special year designating Marseille as the European Capital of Culture. The museum is devoted to European and Mediterranean civili...

[ read more ]

Harvard University in Cambridge

Harvard University in Cambridge

[caption id="attachment_186166" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Harvard Law School Library in Langdell Hall at night © Chensiyuan/cc-by-sa-4.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1636 and named for clergyman John Harvard (its first benefactor), its history, influence, and wealth have made it one of the world's most prestigious universities. Harvard is the United States' oldest institution of higher learning, and the Harvard Corpora...

[ read more ]

Canal de la Meuse in France

Canal de la Meuse in France

[caption id="attachment_229129" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Patton © Andre Corso/cc-by-sa-4.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]The Canal de la Meuse is the current name of what used to be the northern branch of the Canal de l'Est (French: "canal of the east"). It is a canal in northeastern France, predominantly made up of the canalised river Meuse. The Canal de l'Est was built from 1874 to 1887 to provide a waterway inside the new border with Prussia after the Franco-Prussian War, Overall, the canal had a total length of 394 kilo...

[ read more ]

Theme Week Burgenland - Neusiedl am See

Theme Week Burgenland - Neusiedl am See

[caption id="attachment_222011" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Kalvarieberg © Peter Szuchomelli/cc-by-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Neusiedl am See is a town with 8,600 inhabitants in Burgenland in the Neusiedl am See district in Austria. The shopping and school town of Neusiedl am See is also a district suburb (Burgenland name for district capital). The only town in the district is Neusiedl am See, which also includes the districts Refugium, Seemuseum and Segelhafen West. Neusiedl am See, located at 133 m above sea level, is...

[ read more ]

Theme Week Dresden - The Frauenkirche

Theme Week Dresden - The Frauenkirche

[caption id="attachment_26689" align="aligncenter" width="590"] © flickr.com - Christian Prade/cc-by-2.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]The Dresden Frauenkirche is a Lutheran church in Dresden, the capital of the German state of Saxony. Although the original church was Roman Catholic until it became Protestant during the Reformation, the current Baroque building was purposely built Protestant. It is considered an outstanding example of Protestant sacred architecture, featuring one of the largest domes in Europe. Built in the 18th ce...

[ read more ]

Royal Theatre of La Monnaie in Brussels

Royal Theatre of La Monnaie in Brussels

[caption id="attachment_233336" align="aligncenter" width="590"] © Sally V/cc-by-4.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]The Royal Theatre of La Monnaie is an opera house in central Brussels, Belgium. The National Opera of Belgium, a federal institution, takes the name of this theatre in which it is housed—La Monnaie in French or De Munt in Dutch—referring both to the building as well as the opera company. As Belgium's leading opera house, it is one of the few cultural institutions to receive financial support from the Federal Govern...

[ read more ]

Alexander Garden in Moscow

Alexander Garden in Moscow

[caption id="attachment_201562" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Fountain 'Four Seasons of the Year' © SiefkinDR/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Alexander Gardens was one of the first urban public parks in Moscow, Russia. The park comprises three separate gardens, which stretch along all the length of the western Kremlin wall for 865 metres (2,838 ft) between the building of the Moscow Manege and the Kremlin. After the Napoleonic Wars, Tsar Alexander I ordered architect Joseph Bové to reconstruct parts of the ci...

[ read more ]

Seligman in Arizona

Seligman in Arizona

[caption id="attachment_185988" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Welcome sign © Vidor[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Seligman is a census-designated place (CDP) on the northern border of Yavapai County, in northwestern Arizona. Seligman is located at 5,240 feet (1,600 m) in elevation, alongside the Big Chino Wash, in a northern section of Chino Valley. The wash is a major tributary of the Verde River. Seligman is a popular stopping point along Historic U.S. Route 66. The region was in the longtime homeland of the Havasupai p...

[ read more ]

Return to TopReturn to Top
© Leonard G.
California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco

The California Academy of Sciences is a research institute and natural history museum in San Francisco, California, that is among...

Großsiedlung Siemensstadt by Hugo Häring © Doris Antony/cc-by-sa-3.0
Berlin Modernism Housing Estates

Berlin Modernism Housing Estates (German: Siedlungen der Berliner Moderne) are an ensemble of six subsidized housing estates from the early...

© Someone35/cc-by-sa-3.0
Acadia National Park in New England

Acadia National Park is a United States national park located in the state of Maine in New England, southwest of...

Schließen