Farnborough Hall
Encyclopedia
Warwickshire
Warwickshire is a landlocked non-metropolitan county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, although the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
near to the town of Banbury
Banbury
Banbury is a market town and civil parish on the River Cherwell in the Cherwell District of Oxfordshire. It is northwest of London, southeast of Birmingham, south of Coventry and north northwest of the county town of Oxford...
, . The property has been owned by the National Trust
National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty
The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, usually known as the National Trust, is a conservation organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland...
since 1960 when it was bought from the Holbech family, and is still run and occupied by the Holbech family. It is a Grade I listed building.
The Holbech family acquired the Farnborough estate in 1684 and the honey-coloured two-storey stone house was built soon after.
Major changes to the property occurred between 1745 and 1750 when the entrance front was remodelled and the rococo
Rococo
Rococo , also referred to as "Late Baroque", is an 18th-century style which developed as Baroque artists gave up their symmetry and became increasingly ornate, florid, and playful...
plasterwork was added to the interior. This work was carried out by William Holbech who wanted a suitable setting for the sculpture and art he had brought back from his Grand Tour
Grand Tour
The Grand Tour was the traditional trip of Europe undertaken by mainly upper-class European young men of means. The custom flourished from about 1660 until the advent of large-scale rail transit in the 1840s, and was associated with a standard itinerary. It served as an educational rite of passage...
. He most likely used designs by his close friend Sanderson Miller
Sanderson Miller
Sanderson Miller was a pioneer of Gothic revival architecture, and a landscape designer who often added follies or other Picturesque garden buildings and features to the grounds of an estate....
, an architect, who lived a few miles away. Long Palladian
Palladian architecture
Palladian architecture is a European style of architecture derived from the designs of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio . The term "Palladian" normally refers to buildings in a style inspired by Palladio's own work; that which is recognised as Palladian architecture today is an evolution of...
facades with sash window
Sash window
A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels or "sashes" that form a frame to hold panes of glass, which are often separated from other panes by narrow muntins...
s, pedimented doorways and a balustrated roofline were added to the earlier classical
Classical architecture
Classical architecture is a mode of architecture employing vocabulary derived in part from the Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, enriched by classicizing architectural practice in Europe since the Renaissance...
west front.
Unlike many of its contemporaries, Farnborough Hall and its landscaped gardens have experienced little alteration in the last 200 years and they remain largely as William Holbech left them.
The entrance opens straight into the Italianate
Italianate architecture
The Italianate style of architecture was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. In the Italianate style, the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian Renaissance architecture, which had served as inspiration for both Palladianism and...
hall. The walls are adorned with busts of Roman emperors set into oval niches and the panelled ceiling is stuccoed with rococo motifs. The dining room on the south front was especially designed to display works by Canaletto
Canaletto
Giovanni Antonio Canal better known as Canaletto , was a Venetian painter famous for his landscapes, or vedute, of Venice. He was also an important printmaker in etching.- Early career :...
and Giovanni Paolo Panini. The original works are long gone, being replaced by copies. The drawing room has panels of elaborate stucco
Stucco
Stucco or render is a material made of an aggregate, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as decorative coating for walls and ceilings and as a sculptural and artistic material in architecture...
work featuring scrolls, shells, fruit and flowers; these serve as a framework for more Italian works of art. A stucco garland of fruit and flowers encircles the skylight above the staircase hall.
Gardens
In the mid 18th century the gardens were significantly enhanced by Sanderson Miller to dramatic effect. The land at the front of the Hall slopes downward to give a view of lake below. To the left of the house a grassy Terrace WalkTerrace (gardening)
In gardening, a terrace is an element where a raised flat paved or gravelled section overlooks a prospect. A raised terrace keeps a house dry and provides a transition between the hard materials of the architecture and softer ones of the garden.-History:...
is flanked by trees and excellent views of the Warwickshire plain can be had from here. The terrace leads past an Ionic temple
Ionic order
The Ionic order forms one of the three orders or organizational systems of classical architecture, the other two canonic orders being the Doric and the Corinthian...
and an oval pavilion, which has two storeys and elaborate plasterwork, to an obelisk
Obelisk
An obelisk is a tall, four-sided, narrow tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape at the top, and is said to resemble a petrified ray of the sun-disk. A pair of obelisks usually stood in front of a pylon...
at the end of the walk.