Country houses

NOTES: Commissioned by the 3rd Earl Grosvenor (later the 1st Duke of Westminster from 1874), this lavish mansion was designed to display his enormous wealth. It comprised 150 bedrooms, massive stables, huge kennels and a chapel. Deemed too costly and large to maintain by the trustees of the Westminster estate, the mansion was demolished in 1961, leaving only the chapel and the stable block. A smaller house was built on the edge of the footprint of the old building in 1967.

NOTES: Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington and 4th Earl of Cork, refronted the existing Chiswick House and designed and built the adjoining villa to display his art collection and entertain friends in 1727-1729. He was inspired on his grand tour by Palladio's Villa Capra 'La Rotonda' near Vicenza.

NOTES: Completed at the end of the 13th century by the wool merchant, Lawrence of Ludlow, this is an important example of one of the earliest fortified houses of England. The gatehouse was added in 1640.

NOTES: The architect was Louis Le Vau, the landscape architect was Andre le Notre, and Charles le Brun was responsible for the interiors.

NOTES: This sketch is one of a number from Humphrey Repton's 'Red Book' for Langley Park, Beckenham, London, one of the seats of Sir Peter Burrell (1790). Repton would produce a Red Book for each of his proposed landscape schemes. These bound volumes of essays and watercolours served as persuasive marketing tools for his work and included both 'before' and 'after' views of the development sites utilising overlaid paper flaps to indicate Repton's suggested improvements.