Montacute House is a late Elizabethan mansion in Montacute, South Somerset, England. An example of English architecture created during a period that was moving from the medieval Gothic to the more classically-inspired Renaissance style, Montacute is one of the few prodigy houses to have survived almost unchanged from the Elizabethan era. The house has been designated as a Grade I listed building, and its gardens are also listed at the highest grade on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England.
Designed by an unknown architect, possibly the mason William Arnold, the three-storey mansion, constructed of the local Ham Hill stone, was built in about 1598 for Sir Edward Phelips, a lawyer and politician who was Speaker of the House of Commons from 1604 until 1611, and subsequently Master of the Rolls from 1611 until his death in 1614. He was the prosecutor in the trial of the Gunpowder Plotters. Phelips' descendants occupied the house until the early 20th century. For a brief period, the house was let to tenants, one of whom was Lord Curzon, who lived at the house with his mistress, the novelist Elinor Glyn. The house narrowly escaped demolition in the early 20th century, when it was valued for scrap at just under £6,000. In 1931, it was purchased by the philanthropist Ernest Cook, who presented the house to the National Trust. One of the earliest of the Trust's acquisitions, the house came empty of its contents, and without the endowment the Trust subsequently required, its then secretary, James Lees-Milne describing it as an "empty and rather embarrassing white elephant".
The east front of the house, the intended principal façade, is distinguished by its Dutch gables. The original approach would have been far more impressive than is seen today; the east façade faced onto a large entrance court and the two remaining pavilions flanked a large gatehouse which was later demolished. This entrance court and gatehouse were approached through an even larger outer court. The courts were however not fortified, but bordered by ornate balustrading which, with the ogee roofs of the pavilions, are in reality follies, an ornamental and domestic acknowledgement of the fortified courts and approaches found in earlier medieval English manors and castles.
Montacute's Long Gallery, the longest in England, serves as an outpost of the National Portrait Gallery displaying a range of historical portraits. The house and its gardens have been a filming location for several films and a setting for television costume dramas and literary adaptations. It was visited by over 183,000 people in 2019-2020.
History
Montacute House was built in about 1598 by Sir Edward Phelips, whose family had lived in the Montacute area since at least 1460, first as yeomen farmers before rising in status. The site was bought from the Cluniac Montacute Priory by Thomas Phelips and passed to his grandson, also called Thomas, who started planning the house, but died before it was built and left the completion of the work to his son Edward. Edward Phelips was a lawyer who had been in Parliament since 1584. He was knighted in 1603 and a year later became Speaker of the House. James I appointed him Master of the Rolls and Chancellor to his son and heir Henry, Prince of Wales. Phelips remained at the hub of English political life, and his legal skills were employed when he became opening prosecutor during the trial of the Gunpowder Plotters.
Sir Edward's choice of architect is unknown, although it has been attributed to the mason William Arnold, who was responsible for the designs of Cranborne Manor and Wadham College, Oxford, and had worked at Dunster Castle, also in Somerset. Dunster has architectural motifs similar to those found at Montacute. Phelips chose as the site for his new mansion a spot close by the existing house, built by his father. The date work commenced is undocumented, but is generally thought to be c. 1598/9, based on dates on a fireplace and in stained glass within the house. The date 1601, engraved above a doorcase, is considered to be the date of completion.
Sir Edward Phelips died in 1614, leaving his family wealthy and landed; he was succeeded by his son, Sir Robert Phelips, who represented various West Country constituencies in Parliament. Robert Phelips has the distinction of being arrested at Montacute. A staunch Protestant, he was subsequently imprisoned in the Tower of London as a result of his opposition to the "Spanish Match" between the Prince of Wales and a Catholic Spanish Infanta.
The family's fame and notoriety were to be short-lived. Subsequent generations settled down in Somerset to live the lives of county gentry, representing Somerset in Parliament and when necessary following occupations in the army and the church. This peaceful existence was jolted when the estate was inherited by William Phelips (1823–89), who in his early days made many improvements and renovations to Montacute. He was responsible for the Base Court, a low service range adjoining the south side of the mansion. and the restoration of the Great Chamber, which he transformed into a library. Later, he was to become insane; an addicted gambler, he was eventually incarcerated for his own good. Sadly for his family, this was after he had gambled away the family fortune and vast tracts of the Montacute Estate. In 1875, when his son William Phelips (1846–1919) took control of the estate, agricultural rents from what remained of the mortgaged estate were low, and the house was a drain on limited resources. Selling the family silver and artworks delayed the inevitable by a few years, but in 1911 the family were forced to let the house, for an annual sum of £650, and move out. The Phelipses never returned.
By 1915, the original tenant, Robert Davidson, had departed and the house was let to George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston. A later tenant was the American writer Henry Lane Eno, who died at the house in 1928.
The house was never to be a private residence again. It was offered for sale in 1929, and at a time when many country houses were being demolished was given a scrap value of £5,882. With the exception of the Phelips family portraits, the historic contents and furnishing were disposed of, and the house, an empty shell, remained on the market for two years.
Finally, in 1931, the house was sold to the philanthropist Ernest Cook, who presented it to the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, and from that Society, it passed to the National Trust. It was one of the Trust's first great houses. The following year, in 1932, it opened to the public for the first time. Bare of furnishing and without sufficient funds to maintain it, James Lees-Milne, the secretary of the Trust's country house committee, described the mansion as an "empty and rather embarrassing white elephant".
During the Second World War, Montacute was requisitioned by the army, and American soldiers were billeted in the surrounding parkland before the Normandy landings.
The house became a Grade I Listed Building on 19 April 1961, and the grounds were entered into the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England on 1 June 1984.
Architecture
Built in what came to be considered the English Renaissance style, the east front, the intended principal façade, is distinguished by its Dutch gables decorated with clambering stone monkeys and other animals.
Architecture during the early English Renaissance was far less formal than that of mainland Europe and drew from a greater selection of motifs both ancient and modern, with less emphasis placed on the strict observance of rules derived from antique architecture. This has led to an argument that the style was an evolution of Gothic rather than an innovation imported from Europe. This argument is evident at Montacute, where Gothic pinnacles, albeit obelisk in form, are combined with Renaissance gables, pediments, classical statuary, ogee roofs and windows appearing as bands of glass. This profusion of large, mullioned windows, an innovation of their day, gives the appearance that the principal façade is built entirely of glass; a similar fenestration was employed at Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire. However, despite the Dutch gables, a feature of the English Renaissance acquired as the style spread from France across the Low Countries to England, and the Gothic elements, much of the architectural influence is Italian.
The windows of the second-floor Long Gallery are divided by niches containing statues, an Italian Renaissance feature exemplified at the Palazzo degli Uffizi in Florence (1560–81), which at Montacute depict the Nine Worthies dressed as Roman soldiers; the bay windows have shallow segmented pediments – a very early and primitive occurrence of this motif in England – while beneath the bay windows are curious circular hollows, probably intended for the reception of terracotta medallions, again emulating the palazzi of Florence. Such medallions were one of the Renaissance motifs introduced to English Gothic architecture when Henry VIII was rebuilding Hampton Court and supporting the claim that the English Renaissance was little more than Gothic architecture with Renaissance ornament. At Montacute, however, the Renaissance style is not confined to ornament, the house also has perfect symmetry. Paired stair towers stand in the angles between the main body of the house and the wings that project forward, a sign of modern symmetry in the plan of the house as well as its elevation, and a symptom of the times, in that the hall no longer had a "high end" of greater state.Montacute's paired stairs are noted in Nicholas Cooper, Houses of the Gentry 1480–1680, 1999:313.
Montacute, like many Elizabethan mansions, is built in an 'E' shape, a much-used plan in this era. On the ground floor was the great hall, kitchens and pantries, on the upper floors, retiring rooms for the family and honoured guests.Girouard (1978), p. 88, explains how the importance of the hall had given way to that of the Great Chamber above. Over the centuries, the layout and use of rooms changed: drawing and dining rooms evolved on the ground floor.
The original approach to the house would have been far more impressive than the picturesque approach today. The east front was then the entrance façade and faced onto a large entrance court. The two remaining pavilions flanked a large gatehouse; this long-demolished structure contained secondary lodgings. In turn, the entrance court and gatehouse were approached through a larger outer court. The courts were however not fortified, but bordered by ornate balustrading, which with the ogee roofs of the pavilions, which in reality were follies, were a purely ornamental and domestic acknowledgement of the fortified courts and approaches found in earlier medieval English manors and castles.Nicolson (1965), p. 78. Describes the pavilions as follies which have always been empty follies and architectural dolls' houses
As in all houses of the Elizabethan era, Montacute had no corridors: the rooms led directly from one to another. This changed in 1787 when stonework from a nearby mansion at Clifton Maybank (which was being partly demolished) was purchased by Edward Phelips (1725–97) and used to rebuild Montacute's west front. This provided a corridor giving privacy to the ground-floor rooms and first-floor bedrooms. Now, with the new frontage in place, the house was virtually turned around: the "Clifton Maybank" façade became the front entrance, and the impressive former front elevation now overlooked a lawn surrounded by flower borders, rather than the original entrance courtyard. The small pavilions with ogee domed roofs that flanked the demolished gatehouse remain. They may have been intended as banqueting houses, but by the 1630s were used as bedrooms.
Interior
Ground floor