Flass

Last updated

Flass
Flass House, Cumbria.jpg
The east side of Flass, pictured in 2011
Flass
General information
StatusGrade II* listed
TypeMansion
Architectural style Neo-Palladian, Italianate
Location Maulds Meaburn, Cumbria, England
Coordinates 54°32.10′N2°34.63′W / 54.53500°N 2.57717°W / 54.53500; -2.57717 Coordinates: 54°32.10′N2°34.63′W / 54.53500°N 2.57717°W / 54.53500; -2.57717

Flass, also called Flass House, is a large Grade II* listed house near the village of Maulds Meaburn, Cumbria, England. It was built in the 19th century in the Neo-Palladian style by the tea and opium traders Lancelot and Wilkinson Dent of Dent & Co. It remained in the hands of the Dent family until 1972, when it was sold to the historian Frank Welsh. It was sold again in 1982 to the solicitor Malcolm Whiteside, who temporarily ran the property as a care home. In 2000, the musician Christine Holmes and her husband Paul Davies bought the property. The pair divorced, and, in 2012, it was discovered that the property had been used by a criminal gang for the cultivation of cannabis. Six men, including Davies, were jailed in 2015. Holmes took control of the property, which was sold at auction in 2019.

Contents

Architecture

Flass is set in a 15-acre estate in the Eden Valley, near the village of Maulds Meaburn. [1] The house is in Palladian, [2] or Italianate style. [3] It is built in limestone that is partly rendered, and all is whitewashed; the roofs are slated. The house has an asymmetrical plan, and is in two storeys with attics. There is a string course between the storeys. The west (garden) front of the main part of the house is symmetrical, and in four bays. The lower storeys of the outer bays project forward, have flat roofs, and contain a three-light window on the front and French windows on the sides. Above each of the projecting bays is another three-light window, over which is a cornice and a small Diocletian window in a pedimented gable, this giving the semblance of a Venetian window. In the central two bays are casement windows. At the top of the house is a dentilled cornice and projecting eaves. The east front contains a Doric porte-cochère, and to the left of this is a three-storey tower. The remainder of the house is two-storey with attics. [2] [3]

On 6 February 1963, the building was designated as a Grade II* listed building. [2]

Construction

Flass was rebuilt in the mid-19th century, apparently incorporating elements of a previous house which likely dated to the 18th century, likely a yeoman farmer's home. [1] It was built for Lancelot and Wilkinson Dent, [2] though construction may have been started by their sister. [1] The Dent brothers were the wealthy owners of Dent & Co., a company trading tea and opium. [4] The process was initially overseen by an architect named Mr Gray, but, around 1854, a Mr G. Mair took over. [2] The Dents' business was based in Hong Kong, and the interiors of the house were originally designed to resemble those of houses at the treaty ports in the East. [5] Luxurious decoration included plasterwork frieze with pearls in the ballroom, [4] marble fireplaces and ivory doorhandles. [1] The house was furnished by the Lancaster-based firm Gillow's, [2] though the Dents also brought furniture from the East. [6]

The name Flass comes from a Middle English word meaning "lake" or "marsh". When the house was originally built, it is likely that the nearby River Lyvennet "took a more aggressive course through the 15-acre grounds". [1]

History

Flass remained in the hands of the Dent family until Sir Robert Dent and Lady Elspeth Dent sold it to the historian Frank Welsh for £17,000 in 1973. [7] [8] Robert Dent, shortly before selling the house, broke into an attic he had not visited. There, he found a number of items, including 16th-century statuettes from the Mughal Empire left behind by his ancestors. These were subsequently sold for £220,000. [9] Welsh attempted to furnish the house in its original style, [8] and many original features, including paintings, remained in the 1990s. Some had been moved, including an antique bed held in the Durham University Museum of Oriental Art. [1]

Flass was purchased from Welsh in 1982 for £115,000 by the retired solicitor Malcolm Whiteside, who ran the property as a care home with his wife, Mary. [1] [8] A change in fire legislation in 1991 meant that this was no longer possible, and the house was put up for sale again; Whiteside still owned the house in the late 1990s, when it was on sale for around £750,000 (1997) [1] or £650,000 (1998). [8] It was sold in 2000 to the musician Christine Holmes and her husband Paul Davies for £490,000. The couple subsequently divorced, with Davies retaining control of Flass. [10]

In the early 2010s, it was available to purchase or rent as "totally private and hidden away, with an unmatched seclusion and charm". [4] However, in 2012, police discovered that a criminal gang had sealed off the rooms of the house to cultivate cannabis. [4] [11] Neighbours became suspicious because of the limited activity in the house and the sound of generators. Police observed and subsequently raided the property, finding equipment, compost, and a large "mother" plant. [4] Six men, including Davies, were jailed for a total of nearly 40 years in 2015. [12]

Holmes took control of the property, spending £200,000 on renovations, but failing to sell the property at £1,500,000 in 2014. [10] The house became popular with urban explorers, leading to widely viewed videos being posted online and prosecutions for burglary. [13] [14] The house, then derelict, was repossessed by the bank and sold at auction in 2019, with a guide price of £460,000. [15] [16] Renovations are ongoing.

See also

Related Research Articles

Cumbria Ceremonial county of England

Cumbria is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumbria's county town is Carlisle, in the north of the county. The only other major urban area is Barrow-in-Furness on the south-western tip of the county.

Lancelot Dent

Lancelot Dent was a 19th-century British merchant resident for a period in Canton, China who dealt primarily in opium.

Appleby-in-Westmorland Market town in Cumbria, England

Appleby-in-Westmorland is a market town and civil parish in the Eden District of Cumbria, England, with a population of 3,048 at the 2011 Census. Crossed by the River Eden, Appleby was the county town of the historic county of Westmorland. It was known just as Appleby until 1974–1976, when the council of the successor parish to the borough changed it to retain the name Westmorland, which was abolished as an administrative area under the Local Government Act 1972. It lies 14 miles (23 km) south-east of Penrith, 32 miles (51 km) south-east of Carlisle, 27 miles (43 km) north-east of Kendal and 45 miles (72 km) west of Darlington.

South Lakeland District in England

South Lakeland is a local government district in Cumbria, England. The population of the non-metropolitan district was 102,301 according to the 2001 census, increasing to 103,658 at the 2011 Census. Its council is based in Kendal. It includes much of the Lake District as well as northwestern parts of the Yorkshire Dales.

Prior Park Grade I listed Palladian building in south west England

Prior Park is a Neo-Palladian house that was designed by John Wood, the Elder, and built in the 1730s and 1740s for Ralph Allen on a hill overlooking Bath, Somerset, England. It has been designated as a Grade I listed building.

Cumbrian toponymy

Cumbrian toponymy refers to the study of place names in Cumbria, a county in North West England, and as a result of the spread of the ancient Cumbric language, further parts of northern England and the Southern Uplands of Scotland.

Appleby Castle Castle in Cumbria, England

Appleby Castle is in the town of Appleby-in-Westmorland overlooking the River Eden. It consists of a 12th-century castle keep which is known as Caesar's Tower, and a mansion house. These, together with their associated buildings, are set in a courtyard surrounded by curtain walls. Caesar's Tower and the mansion house are each recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building. The uninhabited parts of the castle are a scheduled ancient monument.

Armathwaite Castle Castle in Cumbria, England

Armathwaite Castle is in the village of Armathwaite, Cumbria, England, by the River Eden. Originally built to defend against Scottish raiders in the 15th century, it was converted into a mansion and today is a Grade II* listed building.

Pendragon Castle

Pendragon Castle is a ruin located in Mallerstang Dale, Cumbria, south of Kirkby Stephen, and close to the hamlet of Outhgill, at grid reference NY781025. It stands above a bend in the River Eden, overlooked by Wild Boar Fell to the south-west and Mallerstang Edge to the east. It is a grade I listed building.

Westmorland in North West England no longer exists as a county, the original core of it having merged into the modern district of Eden within the county of Cumbria.

Kinmel Hall

Kinmel Hall is a mansion near the village of St. George, close to the coastal town of Abergele, in Conwy county borough, Wales.

Maulds Meaburn Human settlement in England

Maulds Meaburn is a village in Cumbria, England. It is located in the Lyvennet Valley and Yorkshire Dales National Park and is 13 miles from Penrith. Its origins are connected with the nearby village King's Meaburn.

The Castle, Castle Eden Historic building in England

The Castle at Castle Eden, County Durham, England, is an 18th-century, Palladian style, mansion house and a Grade II* listed building. No trace remains of the medieval castle of Robert the Bruce.

Sedgwick House, Cumbria

Sedgwick House is located to the west of the village of Sedgwick, Cumbria, England. It was built as a country house, was later used as a school, and then converted into apartments. The house is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building.

Hazelwood House, Sligo Palladian house in Sligo, Ireland

Hazelwood House is an 18th-century Palladian style country house located in a 70-acre (28 ha) demesne in the parish of Calry, approximately 2 miles (3 km) south-east of the town of Sligo in north-west Ireland. The building's entry in the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage database describes it as one of County Sligo's "most neglected treasures", and of architectural, social and historical value. It is listed on the Record of Protected Structures for the Sligo County Council administrative area.

Crosby Ravensworth is a civil parish in the Eden District, Cumbria, England. It contains 53 buildings that are recorded in the National Heritage List for England. Of these, one is listed at Grade I, the highest of the three grades, six are at Grade II*, the middle grade, and the others are at Grade II, the lowest grade. The parish contains the villages of Crosby Ravensworth, Maulds Meaburn, Reagill, the small settlement of Oddendale, and the surrounding countryside. Most of the listed buildings are country houses, smaller houses, and associated structures, farmhouses and farm buildings. The other listed buildings include a church and items in the churchyard, bridges, monuments, a village hall, and a parish boundary stone.

Orton Fells

The Orton Fells is an upland area in Northern England, mostly consisting of limestone hills, plateaus and moorlands. Historically in Westmorland, the area lies within the modern county of Cumbria and is bounded by the Lake District to the west, the Eden Valley to the north and east, and the Yorkshire Dales and Howgill Fells to the south. The area mostly falls within the boundaries of the Yorkshire Dales National Park while a small part of the western fells is in the Lake District National Park. The fells are one of 159 National Character Areas defined by Natural England.

Putting Cumbria First, also known as CumbriaFirst, is a minor political party based in Penrith, Cumbria. It was founded in January 2019 by local businessman Jonathan Davies, with a vision of putting Cumbria's interests first. It has one local councillor on Allerdale Borough Council.

Bellamont House Georgian Palladian style villa in County Cavan

Bellamont House is a Georgian Palladian-style house set amongst 1,000 acres of grounds in Cootehill, County Cavan, Ireland. The house was completed in 1730 for Judge Thomas Coote and likely designed by his nephew, the esteemed architect Edward Lovett Pearce.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Faux, Ronald (15 February 1997). "The mansion of mystery". The Times .
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Historic England. "Flass House (1145414)". National Heritage List for England . Retrieved 24 March 2015.
  3. 1 2 Hyde, Matthew; Pevsner, Nikolaus (2010) [1967]. Cumbria. The Buildings of England. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. p. 518. ISBN   978-0-300-12663-1.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Wainwright, Martin (25 May 2012). "Police find massive cannabis farm in isolated Cumbrian mansion". The Guardian . Retrieved 11 July 2014.
  5. ↑ Baird, Christina. Liverpool China Traders. Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang. pp. 48–9. ISBN   9783039109265.
  6. ↑ Baird, Liverpool China Traders, p. 129.
  7. ↑ Welsh, Frank (1993). A Borrowed Place: The History of Hong Kong . New York, New York: Kodansha America. p. xi. ISBN   1-56836-002-9.
  8. 1 2 3 4 "£650,000 wanted for Eden Valley mansion which still displays signs of grandeur". Cumberland and Westmorland Herald . 18 July 1998. Retrieved 11 July 2014.
  9. ↑ Clark, Ross (8 July 2000). "Look what they left behind". Daily Telegraph . Archived from the original on 3 July 2011. Retrieved 11 July 2014.
  10. 1 2 "Falling Down Flass". The Steeple Times. 23 January 2019. Retrieved 23 November 2019.
  11. ↑ Shute, Joe (5 August 2013). "Cannabis farms: a growing blight on village life". Daily Telegraph . Archived from the original on 6 August 2013. Retrieved 11 July 2014.
  12. ↑ Gibbons, Brett (30 September 2015). "Stately home raided in £5.2 million drugs bust". Birmingham Mail . Retrieved 25 July 2018.
  13. ↑ "Burglars sentenced for crime at Eden Valley "drug lords' mansion"". ITV News. 2 February 2018. Retrieved 25 July 2018.
  14. ↑ Addison, Mike (3 February 2018). "'Urban explorers' broke into mansion used to grow £5m worth of cannabis and stole 'trophies' - court hears". Westmorland Gazette . Retrieved 25 July 2018.
  15. ↑ Nsubuga, Jimmy (25 January 2019). "Mansion that was turned into the 'mother of cannabis farms' put up for sale". Metro . Retrieved 21 November 2019.
  16. ↑ "Flass mansion sold". Cumberland & Westmorland Herald . 1 February 2019. Retrieved 23 November 2019.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.