Moor Park is a Neo-Palladian mansion set within several hundred acres of parkland to the south-east of Rickmansworth in Hertfordshire, England. It is called Moor Park Mansion because it is in the old park of the Manor of More. It now serves as the clubhouse of Moor Park Golf Club.
The house is listed Grade I on the National Heritage List for England, and the landscaped park is listed Grade II* on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. [1] [2]
After The More became a ruin, in about 1617 the 3rd Earl of Bedford built a new house on the hill to the southwest of the old palace, within the deer park. [3] [4]
The house was rebuilt in 1678–1679 for James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, and inherited by his wife, Anne Scott, 1st Duchess of Buccleuch, after he was beheaded. She sold it to Benjamin Haskins-Stiles, who had made a fortune in the South Sea Company before the notorious bubble burst; the current appearance of the mansion can be traced to him. [5]
Styles had the house remodelled in the 1720s. The principal architect was Giacomo Leoni, [6] initially assisted by the painter Sir James Thornhill. Leoni refaced the house with Portland stone and added a great Corinthian portico on the south front and Tuscan colonnades (since removed). Inside, Thornhill was commissioned to paint the Great Hall and the Grand Stair, [7] complete with a dome in imitation of St. Peter's, Rome. However, Thornhill quarrelled with Styles and left the project before its completion. The paintings on the Grand Stair date from 1732 and depict the Origin of the Seasons from Ovid’s Metamorphoses by Francesco Sleter, a Venetian artist who studied under Jacopo Amigoni. All that remains of Styles's work on the Grand Stair is a panel over a doorway, uncovered during restoration work in 2002. After Styles's falling-out with Thornhill, Amigoni was commissioned to paint the four pictures in the Great Hall—the story of Jupiter and Io, also from Ovid's Metamorphoses. The wall paintings in the erroneously named Thornhill Room are probably by Sleter and Amigoni, while the ceiling, which depicts Aurora and the Dawn, was painted somewhat earlier, by Antonio Verrio. [8]
In 1752 the house was bought by Admiral Lord Anson, who commissioned Capability Brown to remake the formal gardens in sweeping "landscape style" with a small lake. Horace Walpole was not impressed: "I was not much struck with it, after all the miracles I had heard Brown had performed there. He has undulated the horizon in so many artificial molehills, that it is full as unnatural as if it was drawn with a rule and compasses." [9] In 1785 the house was purchased by Thomas Bates Rous formerly of the East India Company and MP for Worcester. After excessive election expenses he was in need of cash and demolished part of the building for its valuable stone. [10] Further owners succeeded at regular intervals until the enlarged estate was sold to the Robert Grosvenor, 1st Baron Ebury in 1828. Earl Grosvenor, son of the Duke of Westminster, built the gateway at Batchworth Heath and planted the pleasure grounds with trees and ornamental shrubs. It is said that the commercial strawberry, a hybrid of the European strawberry and a Chilean species, was first cultivated in the kitchen gardens of Moor Park, as had been the "Moorpark" fuzzless apricot in an earlier day. [11]
Lord Leverhulme purchased Moor Park and commissioned golf-course designer Harry Colt to lay out the courses that now surround the mansion. These opened in 1923. [4]
During the Second World War, the mansion was requisitioned, becoming the Headquarters of the 1st Airborne Corps, who there planned Operation Market Garden, the abortive mission to capture the bridges of the Lower Rhine in 1944. [4] The operation was planned in a first-floor room, now named "the Arnhem Room". Moor Park Golf Club now has its clubhouse in the building, and since buying the freehold of the mansion in 1994 has completely restored and refurbished the building and paintings. [4]
William Kent was an English architect, landscape architect, painter and furniture designer of the early 18th century. He began his career as a painter, and became Principal Painter in Ordinary or court painter, but his real talent was for design in various media.
Lyme Park is a large estate south of Disley, Cheshire, England, managed by the National Trust and consisting of a mansion house surrounded by formal gardens and a deer park in the Peak District National Park. The house is the largest in Cheshire, and is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building.
Sir James Thornhill was an English painter of historical subjects working in the Italian baroque tradition. He was responsible for some large-scale schemes of murals, including the "Painted Hall" at the Royal Hospital, Greenwich, the paintings on the inside of the dome of St Paul's Cathedral, and works at Chatsworth House and Wimpole Hall.
Antonio Verrio was an Italian painter. He was responsible for introducing Baroque mural painting into England and served the Crown over a thirty-year period.
Rickmansworth, is a town in south-west Hertfordshire, England; it is located about 17 miles (27 km) north-west of central London, 5 miles (8 km) south-west of Watford and is inside the perimeter of the M25 motorway. The town is mainly to the north of the Grand Union Canal and the River Colne.
Giacomo Leoni, also known as James Leoni, was an Italian architect, born in Venice. He was a devotee of the work of Florentine Renaissance architect Leon Battista Alberti, who had also been an inspiration for Andrea Palladio. Leoni thus served as a prominent exponent of Palladianism in English architecture, beginning in earnest around 1720. Also loosely referred to as Georgian, this style is rooted in Italian Renaissance architecture.
Eaton Hall is the country house of the Duke of Westminster. It is 1 mile (2 km) south of the village of Eccleston, in Cheshire, England. The house is surrounded by its own formal gardens, parkland, farmland and woodland. The estate covers about 10,872 acres (4,400 ha).
Burghley House is a grand sixteenth-century English country house near Stamford, Lincolnshire. It is a leading example of the Elizabethan prodigy house, built and still lived in by the Cecil family and is Grade I listed.
Moor Park is a private residential estate in the Three Rivers District of Hertfordshire, England. Located approximately 16 miles (26 km) northwest of central London and adjacent to the Greater London boundary.
Woodhall Spa is a former spa town and civil parish in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England, on the southern edge of the Lincolnshire Wolds, 6 miles (10 km) south-west of Horncastle, 23 miles (37 km) west of Skegness, 15 miles (24 km) east-south-east of Lincoln and 17 miles (27 km) north-west of Boston. It is noted for its mineral springs, historic cinema and its Second World War association with the RAF 617 Squadron, commonly referred to as 'The Dambusters'.
Matthew Brettingham, sometimes called Matthew Brettingham the Elder, was an 18th-century Englishman who rose from modest origins to supervise the construction of Holkham Hall, and become one of the best-known architects of his generation. Much of his principal work has since been demolished, particularly his work in London, where he revolutionised the design of the grand townhouse. As a result, he is often overlooked today, remembered principally for his Palladian remodelling of numerous country houses, many of them situated in the East Anglia area of Britain. As Brettingham neared the pinnacle of his career, Palladianism began to fall out of fashion and neoclassicism was introduced, championed by the young Robert Adam.
Armley Park is a large public park located next to Stanningley Road in Armley, on the outskirts of Leeds, in West Yorkshire, Northern England.
Bramham Park is a Grade I listed 18th-century country house in Bramham, between Leeds and Wetherby, in West Yorkshire, England.
Belhus is a golf course, country park, former stately home and manor in the parish of Aveley in Essex, England. The historic manor was known in medieval times variously as "Bellhouse, Belhouse, Bell House", etc. It is now part of the Thames Chase woodland planned for the area.
Thorndon Hall is a Georgian Palladian country house within Thorndon Park, Ingrave, Essex, England, approximately two miles south of Brentwood and 25 miles (40 km) from central London.
Francesco Sleter was an Italian painter, active in England.
Woodcote Park is a Grade II* listed stately home and estate of about 350 acres near Epsom, Surrey, England, currently owned by the Royal Automobile Club. It was formerly the seat of a number of prominent English families, including the Calvert family, Barons Baltimore and Lords Proprietor of the colony of Maryland. The interior of the house once boasted a gilded library and number of fine murals by notable Italian artists including Antonio Verrio, but most of the historic rooms were removed by the RAC, which had purchased the estate in 1913, and what remained was destroyed by fire in 1934. The present appearance of the house dates from its restoration in 1936. However, the interior of one of the original drawing rooms still survives in the Museum of Fine Arts at Boston, Massachusetts. The estate was used by the military as a convalescent hospital in the First World War and as a training camp in both world wars.
Benjamin Haskins-Stiles, of Bowden Park, near Chippenham, Wiltshire and Moor Park, Hertfordshire, was an English landowner and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1721 to 1734.
Wall Hall, originally known as Aldenham Abbey, is a country house at Aldenham in Hertfordshire, England. The main house and several ancillary buildings are Grade II listed. The gardens and parkland are also on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England.
Burton Park is a 19th-century country house in the civil parish of Duncton in West Sussex, and is situated 1/2 a mile to the east of the village of Duncton, within its own estate. It is a Grade I listed building, now converted into multiple occupation.