Regency Estates: Holkham Hall

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The grounds including gardens and park and forest and mea dows the fields of corn are bounded by a circumference of ten miles Within this circumference is an artificial lake regarded by many as the most superb in England Walks and rides intersect these grounds in every convenient direction Here you move under a triumphal arch before you arises soon a lofty obelisk upon your right spread out five hundred acres of barley and anon you enter Lady Anne Coke's beautiful flower garden planned by the taste Chantrey Sheep whereof here are twenty two hundred of the veritable South Down breed cattle of which there are three hun dred belonging to the stock of Devon milch cows whereof thirty constitute the dairy horses whereof fifty enjoy stalls at Holkham tenantry of whom two hundred are happy to acknowledge this ex cellent landlord and labourers of whom two thousand are said to be continually employed by him meet your eye wherever it is turned and nearly in the centre of this circumference stands the House of Holkham a magnificent pile It was erected about eighty years since by the Earl and Countess of Leicester It consists of a large central building with four wings and you are informed that measuring closely by all the angles it is just one mile in circum ference The house is open for public inspection on two days of each week and well may it be thus opened for it contains treasures in tapestry sculpture and painting that richly repay the visiter for his time and trouble In this respect as a repository of art Holkham is one of the many valuable houses in England There is in England no Louvre England is truly rich in works of art but they are scat tered a Claude here a Titian there and distant a hundred miles or more amidst sculpture both ancient and modern may be found a Sal vator Rosa and a Raphael Of all sight seeing in England that which includes statuary and painting is the least satisfactory If haply you have an acquaint ence with a possessor of worthy products of art and hence enjoy free and frequent admission to his collection it is all very well If how ever like a thousand other travellers you must content yourself with a single visit that visit will afford little pleasure and less instruction You will by pampered servants be hurried hastily through the halls and when at length you leave them the master pieces just seen are scattered here and there through your memory in as much disorder
as they are throughout the kingdom Blenheim House suggests a very apt illustration of this But far better is Hampton Court 66 I should be happy to see the cartoons of Raphael you mildly say to a youthful portress sitting at the door Will you please to wait a moment sir asks the damsel insinuatingly Now you are requested to wait this moment sometimes a rather long one in order that other company arriving the course of the attendant through the rooms may be a profitable one She takes with her a key and so soon as the door leading into one apartment is opened that through which you have passed is closely locked Hence you must keep close at the heels of the inexorable guide This guide walks onwards enumerat ing rapidly This is by Sir Peter Lely this is by Holbein this is a Rubens here is a Weenix It is contrary to all regulations for you to remain behind in admiration of a particular work and you are thus constrained to hurry along with the hurrying attendant and the stran ger party A little surprised to find that you have despatched fifty or more paintings of the masters in less than ten minutes you resolve that the cartoons at least shall be properly seen and enjoyed Vain resolution The party in whose company you unfortunately chance to be a visiter of the rooms caring little perhaps for these productions are now anxious to get out and certainly you cannot be so ungener ous as to detain them all merely for the sake of gratifying your own private curiosity Raphael is of course left behind with the others and you find all at once that you have made the entire circuit of the apartments and moreover that you enjoy therefrom just that degree of satisfaction which one derives from walking through a large library and hearing the title of the books composing it announced You re joice however that you know what pictures may here be seen although that knowledge might be furnished as completely by a cata logue as a visit of thirteen miles from London to Hampton Court As the establishment is hardly a private one if while you are deposit ing the consideration within the damsel's palms you do not pronounce this system of exhibition a disgraceful humbug be assured it is be cause your sensibility to art is for the moment quite overcome by your sensibility to a very good looking countenance before you I could never imagine why these rooms were not left open somewhat like those of the Borghese palace at Rome where the visiter might linger at his pleasure and stand some chance at having his love for art in some degree gratified The stranger who desires to visit merely the apartments at Holk ham House may meet as he enters the magnificent Egyptian Hall a portly dame in most aristocratic turban and white gloves who is no less nor indeed no greater than next to the mistress of the whole establishment She has the true quiet of English good breeding and when you consider that out of the sixty servants belonging to the hall twenty six of the females are subject to her single control you can un derstand why authority sits not merely in her eye but in all her mo tions Nothing however can exceed the civil grace with which she conducts you through thirty one apartments remarkable either for architecture paintings sculpture or tapestry I paused some time in the rooms composing part of the Stranger's Wing There were the red and yellow bed chamber and the blue and yellow bed chamber and the crown bed chamber and appended to them dressing rooms all furnished in most costly style and were 66
adorned with numerous paintings while in the story above many similar rooms designed for a similar purpose to which the mere visiter has not access That purpose as the name indicates is the accommodation of numerous strangers who at any season of year may sojourn beneath the hospitable roof of Holkham Hall of the private and noble friends of its proprietor who in the months of October and November throng hither from many parts enjoy their favourite sport The brown dressing room is curious as containing a goodly number of original sketches with the pen and in white black and red chalk by such masters as Michael Angelo Raphael Perugino Carlo Maratti the Caracci Lanfranco and others statues I was next extremely interested in the statue gallery its tribune and vestibule This gallery is more than one hundred feet in length and contains twenty eight antiques of which many are full sized I was pleased with one of Diana It is conjectured to been the property of Cicero It was purchased by the Earl of Leices ter at a great price and secretly sent out of Rome For this the Earl was arrested but soon released at the solicitation of Grand Duke of Tuscany It is of Parian marble in excellent pre servation and is infolded in that drapery that glorious drapery which could have come from none other than the Grecian chisel There is likewise here a very pretty specimen of art by Chantrey the model of which I had seen in the artist's studio in London Sir Francis whose shooting feats have given the name of Chantrey hills to cer tain rising grounds near the triumphal arch happening on one occasion to bring down two woodcocks at a shot in commemoration the event transferred them into marble and presented them to Mr Coke Nothing can exceed the sweet delicacy of this composition And then so natural The birds are done not indeed to the life but truly to the death The landscape room as it is called gave me much pleasure The ceiling and chimney piece are exquisitely wrought and the walls are hung about with richest crimson embossed Genoa velvet It contains among others a landscape by Salvator Rosa another by Domeni chino three by Caspar Poussin and seven by Claude Lorraine this last master there are thirteen productions at Holkham a number altogether extraordinary for a private collection and most of them possess extraordinary merit Having fully enjoyed these admirable landscapes and caught a glimpse through the window of one still fairer without we walked into the manuscript library Here is a full length portrait of the celebrated Roscoe To this gentleman's taste and zeal are the eight hundred volumes of manu scripts in this library indebted for many excellent literary notes and for numerous facts respecting their age and value This collection is extremely curious and such as I hardly expected to find in the possession of one who while he has served fifty years in Parliament has never been particularly devoted to literature What particularly excites attention and admiration is the marvellous beauty with which some of these manuscripts are executed Here are Latin copies of the four Evangelists on vellum preserved in covers of gold and silver adorned with coloured stones and richly illuminated These are more than six hundred years old And yet what clear and polished beauty is in the material how distinct is the hand how surprisingly brilliant are the illuminations I was likewise attracted
by a miniature missal of the fifteenth century supposed to have been the work of the skilful Julio Clovio whose caligraphy and poetical illustration seemed to me to surpass the finest achievements of the press at the present day Then was shown a copy of the Pentateuch three hundred years old written on deerskin extending its single leaf one hundred and six feet in a width of twenty five inches There are many other curious compositions similar to these within this library which is moreover very rich in the Greek Fathers and the Latin Classics In this mansion are two other libraries one of which is scrupulously classical and the other miscellaneous The literary part of the establishment seems to be indeed princely and in harmonious keeping with that magnificence which an immense in come enables its roprietor to sustain That proprietor as already stated is eighty three years of age He receives you with extreme cheerfulness and even vivacity as if he had a great deal to expect from your friendship Hospitality seems to shine forth in every expression He completely embodies your idea of the real old English gentleman The character of the landlord pervades all around him no one can fail to be impressed by the mild and hospitable deportment which marks his numerous tenantry and then with what enthusiastic love do they all speak of him My experience extended beyond that tenantry to the inha bitants of the little town of Wells three or four miles distant There is among them but one accordant voice respecting the good heart and condescending bearing of the venerable man Every one speaks of the hall as of some central source of enjoyment None pass near it without calling to shake the porter by the hand and look into the ever open treasures of the larder The feeling of good will is common to old and young and while the proprietor takes his even ing drive among his extensive grounds you are pleased to see the laughing children of his tenantry running before his carriage with rival steps to open the various gates through which it is about to pass Bentley’s Miscellany (1839)

This neo-Palladian mansion in Norfolk was designed by William Kent for the 1st Earl of Leicester. Its sits on extensive grounds that include a lake, obelisk, large monument, doric temple, and Triumphal arch.  It remains largely unchanged today and is open to the public a few days a week, despite still being home to the Earls of Leicester.

Copper engraving, Holkham Hall, Norfolk, South elevation. The Seat of Thomas William Coke, Esq, MP. Laid paper. Published Aug 12 1781 by M. Booth, Norwich. F82.21.

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