The Stately Homes of Norfolk: Holkham Hall

the unspoiled North Norfolk coastline the beautiful countryside and a fine Palladian style house designed by renowned architect William Kent this is a place rich in history architecture and wildlife welcome to Holcomb [Music] call any good morning that was there to see you for working of us here to Holcomb this is quite some marble hall isn't it well it's absolutely spectacular isn't it yeah it's been described as the grandest entrance hall in an English country house and I think you can see why the outside of the house itself is quite austere but the idea is you get that wow factor as you come through into this well she's known as the marble hall mmm of course it's not really marble is that she English alabaster it was the vision of Thomas Cook a young man that was born here on the estate he was orphaned at the age of 10 and went to live at the different estate in Derbyshire at Longford where he stayed until the age of 15 at that point the Guardians decided to send him off on the grand tour which he goes away from 1712 to 1718 and whilst his away acquires this fantastic collection of paintings sculptures that we're going to see today as we walk around the house and it was already I think in his mind that he needed to build a treasure house to house that collection he was going to it was he had acquired whilst he's on the grab tool obviously what we see here is Cook's influences from his Grand Tour so you got she goes off to France Germany and Italy spends at least three years in Italy itself and the ceiling itself is taken from the design to the Pantheon in Rome what we have is in the house itself while the Grand Tour acquisitions that cook himself made and then as the house itself is being built he sends back over to Italy the son of the clerk of Works betting and junior and asked him to purchase pieces for him to come in to fill the space and this is one great example of that the statues here are actually plaster they're plastic copies or plastic casts or Malta they say of really good quality marbles so by the stage that reticle junior's on his acquiring these pieces for the house the great piece they've already been sold or they no longer available so it's better to have a really good plastic copy of a great marble than to have an inferior marble in the collection and that's what we see here now this certainly has the wow factor and it's great to be here as people coming through that entrances you have 'kiss and just stop in their tracks and look up and just say that word Wow and I think that's exactly the thing that Thomas himself is looking for when you when you built this space this is quite some room Colin magnificent paintings extraordinary ceiling again what this is the saloon what would this room have been used for by the by the cookhouse well we mentioned the wow factor in the hall and just carries on into this room itself and I think that was the idea it's really a grand reception room although it's used for many different things you know there have been a ball held here during the time of Queen Victoria but it's the rich opulence of the room itself which is it which is striking here that the fabric on the wall for instance is still the original wall fabric so over 300 years old my eye has also taken by these magnificent tables you've got here one on each side of the room and in particular these birds on the legs they're quite extraordinary what do we know about these well we know that the table itself or the supports were designed by William Kent and they are cranes and they support this really fantastic mosaic tabletop the mosaic is just stunning it was one of those things that the Englishman Lord expected if he was going to invest in an excavation then perhaps they wanted to see something about from it and it's great we've got these two pieces here at Holcomb so Colin this is a room again with a great wow factor and there's so many here at Hulk and we can't possibly see them all but I'd be really interested in seeing the statue gallery could you take me there yes of course please if you'd like to follow me thank you Thanks well Chris welcome to the statue gallery so quite a unique space during its time because William Kent it was also a bit of a landscape designer and his idea was to try and bring the outside into the house and she's one of the very first examples of things that usually stay out in the garden the statue for instance being brought into the house for display and there's a story behind the purchase of Diana is there not that's right is a great story here indeed the story goes that they first oath himself was spent a night in jail for taking that statue itself away from from Italy in fact he came back to England on board HMS superb and he paid around a thousand pounds for the statue which is an incredible amount of italics for me let's set let's have a look at the chapel I know that's another so this is the chapel a date rescind I think you see the complete change of food image to come away from those ground state apartments into the wings of the house but certainly this more peaceful space as you would expect from the family chapel and like all of the other rooms paintings there are so many paintings in this house again it is I think it's got to be one of the most incredible art collections in the country house in England and this Chapel is still used by the family part of the year is that indeed that's right so the local church is at with burgers which is within the estate itself but during the winter there's no heating there so the congregation come here to the chapel at Holcomb from remembrance sunday onwards around to Easter it is a wonderful Robin thank you very much for bringing us here and thank you indeed for showing us around all of these rooms today it's been marvelous in the Deerpark here at Holcomb is 660 acre and that's set within the 30,000 acre park which is all in course by 9 mile wall the deer we got here the men at the Red Deer originated from war bomb but come in here about ten year ago we've also got held a file idea where spring county but 400 again good your production in summertime then we'll do what Colin through the wintertime so and have you developed a relationship with the measles they associate your vehicle with food yeah they go to all this sort it and I'll have them source it for food I feed them we try to get them in so I can feed them probably 2030 meters off the nature is over and the state in general is is phenomenal for wildlife probably be easier to say what we haven't got them than what we have got but we've got a lot of extremely rare wildlife here we've got a lot of rare wildlife that's here in abundance as well which reflects the good habitat and the sort of land management that's behind that that goes in to maintain high numbers throughout the year it's it's pretty good for birds down on the reserve in the winter we have flocks of sort of 50,000 pink-footed goose that come through there quite a spectacle to see as the Sun sets here at Holcomb Lord cooks very green and always searching to be more green and one way is biomass boilers we have these fantastic woods which means we can sustainably produce enough wood chip for our boiler here we chip normally about a thousand cubic meters a year which is a an awful lot of wood chip and that goes into heat in the big hall and also goes into heat in the hotel here the Victoria and the pub the estate works with the local community in many ways and they've been working with the burner market primary school to design the beautiful flower beds in this part of the walled gardens so whilst you're having a look at some of the wonderful work that the pupils did from that primary school I'm just going to take five [Music] there's no doubt we are and I am incredibly fortunate to live and work in such a beautiful place I mean it is a very very very great privilege and we're very very fortunate we've got a fantastic team I mean really wonderful people I mean I see myself simply as the manager of the Ministry of talent that's my job really to to help and support people to be brilliant of what they do because welcome is an incredibly diverse estate even by modern estate standards so I once counted up 32 different businesses I mean we do the Lord somebody asked if they could do a bit of sailing on the lake showing people how to sail and then we suddenly realized the lake was a resource that we weren't using and as a result of that we've now got kayaks and some zorbing that's quite something people wandering around in these great big translucent balls and wandering across the lake farming is in our DNA as children watching this we'll know the four course rotation was invented by cook of Norfolk together with a number of other notable farmers so Holcomb is one of England's greater States it's got land sea and heritage it has everything and there was a time in the 19th century when people used to travel from all over Europe to see what cook of Norfolk was doing with the full course rotation and my vision for Holcomb is that people will again come to Holcomb to see exactly what we're doing to set benchmarks for other estates a trip to this estate is not just a visit around the Magnificent eighteenth-century house it's the sweeping coastal landscapes the precious woodland for the wildlife it's the fallow and red deer that roamed free the walled garden the fetched Ice House the museum the activities for all the families it is that and so much more this is Holcomb truly one of the stately homes of love you

Channel: Chris Bailey Presents

Views: 24,349

Rating: 4.9316239 out of 5

Keywords: Norfolk, Stately Homes, Earl of Leicester, William Kent, 18th century, Architecture

Id: k-YM8txD4LM

Length: 11min 30sec (690 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 30 2019