Crichel House is a Grade I listed [1] Classical Revival country house near the village of Moor Crichel in Dorset, England. The house has an entrance designed by Thomas Hopper and interiors by James Wyatt. It is surrounded by 400 acres (160 hectares) of parkland, which includes a crescent-shaped lake covering 50 acres (20 hectares). The parkland is Grade II listed in the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. [2]
The original Tudor house, owned by the Napier family, was largely destroyed in an accidental fire in 1742 and was rebuilt in English Baroque style for Sir William Napier by John Bastard of Blandford and Francis Cartwright, probably the contractor. [3] [4] Humphrey Sturt, of Horton, acquired the estate in 1765 on his marriage with Diana, the aunt and heir of Sir Gerard Napier, the 6th and last baronet, and with the collaboration of the Bastard family extensively remodelled the house in 1771-73, extending it and adding an Ionic portico on the south front. The new interiors, including a new double-height entrance hall with an expanded staircase, were designed by James Wyatt (1772–80), with painted decor by Biagio Rebecca, chimneypieces by John Devall, and furniture by John Linnell (1778–79) and Ince and Mayhew (1768–78). [4] [5] The park was landscaped in the style introduced by Capability Brown, with a crescent-shaped lake and belts of trees. [4]
On Humphrey Sturt's death in 1786, his second son, Charles, inherited Crichel and let it. His son Henry Charles Sturt commissioned a new entrance hall on the west side of the house designed by Thomas Hopper in 1831. Thomas Evans of Wimborne had exhibited designs for Crichel at the Royal Academy in 1824, but there is no indication these were used. Major alterations were then made to the house by Henry Charles' son Henry Gerard Sturt, who in 1876 became 1st Baron Alington; to designs by William Burn, [6] the exterior was made neoclassical and a porte-cochère in Roman Doric style added to the entrance on the west façade. New wings for family and servant accommodations were added on the north side. [4]
Beginning in 1905, Crichel was further remodelled by Henry Sturt's son Humphrey Napier Sturt, the second Baron, and his wife Lady Féodorovna, and again in the late 1920s by their son Napier Sturt, 3rd Baron Alington. The facades were returned to a more Georgian appearance, including the restoration of glazing bars in the plate glass windows, and Harold Peto designed an Italian garden. [4]
in 1938, the Crichel estate was requisitioned by the Air Ministry for training, and the furnishings were removed from the house. In 1946 the house was let to Cranborne Chase School, a boarding independent school for girls. [4] On the death of the 3rd Baron during active service in the Second World War, his daughter Mary Anna inherited at the age of 11; following her marriage to Toby Marten, in the Crichel Down Affair, the couple took on the Government and in 1954 won the right to buy back land bought by compulsory purchase. [4]
Mary Anna Marten ended the lease with Cranborne Chase School in 1961 in order to make Crichel House her residence. The school relocated to New Wardour Castle, near Tisbury in Wiltshire; the house was restored under architect E.F. Tew of Bath, with demolition of the Victorian north wings, the family accommodations were placed on the top floor, and almost all the main rooms were redecorated under the supervision of the firm of Mallets. Architectural features from the Italian garden, removed shortly after the war, were used to create a sunken courtyard with balustrades. Further internal modifications were carried out in 1979–80, including the recreation of a long gallery that had been subdivided. [4]
Mary Anna Marten died in 2010; in 2013 her son, Napier Marten, sold Crichel House and a portion of the land to the American billionaire Richard Chilton. [7] [8] Chilton has extensively restored the house, reinstating many elements of James Wyatt's interiors and adding furnishings. [4]
The landscaping of the parkland for Humphrey Sturt involved moving the village of Moor Crichel a mile to the south to create the lake. Many of the villagers were moved to Witchampton. The 1850 former parish church of St Mary's, a Grade II* listed building, remains in place near the lake. [9]
At the death of Mary Anna Marten, the Crichel Down estate comprised 7,932 acres (3,210 hectares), including four villages, St. Mary's church, a school and a cricket club, and was bequeathed to Napier Marten and his five sisters. [7] As of January 2020 [update] the remainder is divided between multiple holding companies, one of which appears to be an agency of the Phillimore family. [10] The gardens have been occasionally opened to the public under the National Garden Scheme. [4]
George IV stayed at Crichel House while Prince Regent. Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales, the only child of his loveless marriage with Caroline of Brunswick, spent time at Crichel House under the care of Lady Rosslyn and Lady Ilchester. [11]
Baron Alington was a title that was created three times in British history. The first creation came in the Peerage of Ireland on 28 July 1642 when William Alington was made Baron Alington, of Killard in the County of Cork. His second son, the third Baron, was a Major-General in the English Army. On 5 December 1682 he was created Baron Alington, of Wymondley in the County of Hertford, in the Peerage of England. The English barony became extinct on the death of his young son Giles, the fourth Baron, in 1691. The late Baron was succeeded in the Irish barony by his uncle, the fifth Baron. He was a captain in the army. On his death, in February 1723, the Irish barony became extinct as well.
Long Crichel is a small village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Crichel, in east Dorset, England, situated on Cranborne Chase five miles northeast of Blandford Forum. In 2001 it had a population of 81. The civil parish was abolished on 1 April 2015 and merged with Moor Crichel to form Crichel.
Moor Crichel is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Crichel, in East Dorset, England situated on Cranborne Chase five miles east of Blandford Forum. The civil parish includes the hamlet of Manswood notable for a terrace of twelve thatched cottages. Dorset County Council's 2013 estimate of the parish population is 140. In the 2001 census the parish had a population of 180. In the 2011 census the population of Moor Crichel parish combined with the neighbouring parish of Long Crichel was 246. The civil parish was abolished on 1 April 2015 and merged with Long Crichel to form Crichel.
Horton is a village in East Dorset, England, situated on the boundary between the chalk downland of Cranborne Chase and the Dorset Heaths, and ten miles north of Poole. The village has a population of 515 (2001).
Thomas Lionel Dugdale, 1st Baron Crathorne,, known as Sir Thomas Dugdale, 1st Baronet from 1945 to 1959, was a British Conservative Party politician. He resigned as a government minister over the Crichel Down Affair, often quoted as a classic example of the convention of individual ministerial responsibility.
Humphrey Sturt was a British landowner, architect and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1754 to 1784.
The Crichel Down affair was a British political scandal of 1954, with a subsequent effect and notoriety. The Crichel Down Rules are guidelines applying to compulsory purchase drawn up in the light of the affair.
Captain Napier George Henry Sturt, 3rd Baron Alington was a British peer, the son of Humphrey Sturt, 2nd Baron Alington.
Henry Gerard Sturt, 1st Baron Alington, was a British peer, Conservative Party politician, and notorious slum landlord in the East End of London.
Cranborne Chase School was an independent boarding school for girls, and was located in the English counties of Dorset and (later) Wiltshire, between 1946 and 1990.
Evan Frederick Morgan, 2nd Viscount Tredegar,, FAGS, FIL was a Welsh poet and author. On 3 March 1934, he succeeded to the title of 6th Baronet Morgan, 4th Baron Tredegar, and 2nd Viscount Tredegar, after the death of his father.
John and William Bastard were British surveyor-architects, and civic dignitaries of the town of Blandford Forum in Dorset. John and William generally worked together and are known as the "Bastard brothers". They were builders, furniture makers, ecclesiastical carvers and experts at plasterwork, but are most notable for their rebuilding work at Blandford Forum following a large fire of 1731, and for work in the neighbourhood that Colvin describes as "mostly designed in a vernacular baroque style of considerable merit though of no great sophistication.". Their work was chiefly inspired by the buildings of Wren, Archer and Gibbs. Thus the Bastards' architecture was retrospective and did not follow the ideals of the more austere Palladianism which by the 1730s was highly popular in England.
Ince and Mayhew were a partnership of furniture designers, upholsterers and cabinetmakers, founded and run by William Ince (1737–1804) and John Mayhew (1736–1811) in London, from 1759 to 1803; Mayhew continued alone in business until 1809. Their premises were located in Marshall Street but were listed in London directories in Broad Street, Soho, 1763–83, and in Marshall Street, Carnaby Market, 1783–1809. The partnership's volume of engraved designs, The Universal System of Household Furniture, dedicated to the Duke of Marlborough, was issued in imitative rivalry with Thomas Chippendale; Ince, who was a subscriber to the first edition of Chippendale's Director, was chiefly responsible for the designs, while Mayhew contributed the greater part of the partnership's capital, kept the accounts, and was in closer contact with the firm's clientele among the nobility and gentry. The name of the firm originally appears to have been "Mayhew and Ince", but on the title page of The Universal System the names are reversed, suggesting that Ince was the more extensive contributor.
Henry Charles Sturt, of Crichel House, Dorset, was a British landowner and politician.
Sir Robert Napier (c.1542-1615), was an English-born judge who served in Ireland. He was later to become a long-serving member of Parliament.
Winifred Selina Hardinge, Baroness Hardinge of Penshurst, CI was a British aristocrat, courtier and Vicereine of India.
Mary Anna Sibell Elizabeth Marten OBE was an English aristocrat and landowner who made legal history in the Crichel Down affair.
Sir Nathaniel Napier, 3rd Baronet, of Moor Crichel, Dorset, was an English landowner and politician who sat in the English House of Commons from 1695 to 1708 and in the British House of Commons from 1710 to 1722.
The Honourable Lois Ina Sturt was one of the Bright Young Things of the 1920s. Later the lover of the Earl of Pembroke and the Duke of Kent, she married Evan Morgan, 2nd Viscount Tredegar.
Napier Anthony Sturt Marten is a British aristocrat and former page to Queen Elizabeth II from 1973 to 1975. He is known for his connection to the Sturt-Marten family, a lineage of wealthy landowners with historical ties to the British royal family and his mother's friendship with Queen Elizabeth II.
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