Most everything at Windsor Castle is GREAT. There is one small thing — or lots of small things — that add up to an attraction as great as all of Windsor’s other sights. It’s Queen Mary’s Dollhouse and it’s truly amazing. It is one of those things in England I can’t get enough of. Though I’ve visited many times, I am always eager to see it again.
Queen Mary’s Dollhouse was an inspiration of Princess Marie Louise (1872-1956), a granddaughter of Queen Victoria, who was a friend of renowned architect Sir Edwin Lutyens (1869-1944). She envisioned the dollhouse as a showcase for English craftsmen. Lutyens designed the Edwardian-style London House after 1920 and it was completed in 1924, furnished with exquisite miniatures at a scale of one-to-twelve. To visit the website, click here.
Unpacking the contents
Once completed, the Dollhouse was displayed for several years to the public in various venues with funds raised from admissions used for charitable purposes. Eventually, it was installed permanently at the Castle; currently, part of the fee from admission is still given to charity.
Princess Marie Louise, c. 1910
Princess Marie Louise was a patroness of the arts, devoted to supporting British artists and craftsmen in the difficult days following WWI. With her assistance and that of Lutyens, hundreds of prominent Britons participated in building and furnishing the project. For example, the garden (located in a drawer below the house and seen in the views above) was designed by famed landscaper Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932);
A fairy tale in miniature
The book above was hand written by Cyril Kenneth Bird, aka Fougasse, for the library.
It measures 1/6 x 1.4 inches.
The Library
Among the 200-plus volumes in the library are works by authors Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Edith Wharton.
On the center floor in the picture below, the saloon is shown, with portraits of King George V and Queen Mary. Below is the dining room.
Grand Piano in the Saloon
The Dining Room
The Dollhouse is served with running water, a flushing loo, electric lights, and a working lift.
The Elegant Bathroom
The Crown Jewels are well protected
Actual wine fills the bottles in the Wine Cellar.
from Berry Bros., St. James Street
In the manner of the Edwardian era, the Nursery is on the top floor
The Percy family, now dukes of Northumberland, have lived at Syon House for many years. To follow the fortunes of the Percy family is to travel the twists and turns of British history.From their arrival with William the Conqueror in the 11th century, they held a stronghold at Alnwick Castle in far Northumberland and frequently ran into conflicts with the English kings.Because of their support for Mary Queen of Scots, they were commanded to live in the south, at their property at Petworth in Sussex.There were many periods of imprisonment in the Tower for various earls over the centuries.
In its first few centuries, Syon seemed to exist under a dark cloud. Lord Somerset died on the scaffold before it was finished; Lady Jane Grey resided here; it served as a prison for the children of Charles I for a time.
Syon came to the Percy family through the marriage of Henry Percy (1564- 1632) to Lady Dorothy Devereux (d. 1619), a sister of Robert, Earl of Essex, a favorite of Elizabeth I.From a previous marriage, Lady Dorothy owned the lease to the valuable Syon estate.When James I came to the throne, he gave Syon outright to Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland.In 1605 the 9th earl himself landed in the Tower, where he lived for sixteen years, improving his estates and studying scientific topics from his prison.He was known as the Wizard Earl for his many interests in science and the occult.His wife Dorothy regularly sent him baskets of fruits from the Syon orchards.
Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland
By 1764, Syon was still basically a Tudor mansion, looking much as it had when first built in 1547, a courtyard house that offered many challenges to bring up to current taste. The 3rd duke, who succeeded in 1817, rebuilt the walls of the house in Bath stone, and built the conservatory. He entertained “lavishly” at Syon during the reign of William IV and was succeeded by his brother Algernon in 1847. Their descendants today still live at Syon, the family of the 11th Duke, Henry Alan Walter Richard Percy.
From the website: Robert Adam and ‘Capability’ Brown
“The 7th Duke of Somerset died in 1750, and Hugh and Elizabeth, who were to become the 1st Duke and Duchess of Northumberland, inherited the estates. They were leading figures in contemporary society, and would have inherited a house with dated interiors, surrounded by an unfashionable formal landscape. Gardens and House were both in a poor condition.
“The solution was a complete redesign of Syon. In one of his first major commissions, the landscape architect Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown swept away the formal landscape to the south and west of the House, replacing it with the open views characteristic of the English Landscape movement. Over the course of twenty years he extended this to the north and west, incorporating farmland to the west into the new park, and creating Pleasure Grounds to the north, both centred on large new ornamental lakes. In the House the Scottish architect Robert Adam was commissioned to create a series of striking classical interiors, filled with antiquities shipped from Italy. Adam was not able to change the interior layout of the House, and so used a number of architectural devices to create a suitable impression.”
Following a carefully designed route through Capability Brown’s Park, then through a monumental portico, one enters the Great Hall.
The visitor experiences a dramatic contrast when stepping into the Ante-Room after the subdued serenity of the Hall.
The floor is scagliola (composition of ground marble, plaster and glue often seen on tabletops) in brilliant colors, perfectly preserved and highly polished.Some of the marble columns were found in the Tiber River in Rome and brought to Syon.Others are copies, also made of scagliola.The columns serve to square off the room size and to provide bases for the gilded statues, all reproductions of ancient figures.It is difficult to underestimate the dazzling effect of standing in this room, which I am tempted to describe as gaudy, though it also has a unity of color and beauty that actually give it a different but equally impressive dignity as the Great Hall.
After the brilliant colors of the ante room, the dining room is almost restrained in its gilded elegance. From the Ante-Room, on the corner of the house, one steps into the ivory and gold magnificence of the Dining Room, a perfect example of classic Adam style.Columns, apses, antique statues, and gilt combine with the rich wooden flooring in a pleasing pattern.Adam rarely used soft materials in his eating rooms because carpets, curtains, tapestries and other hangings could absorb food odors.Cleverly concealed in the doorways are compartments holding the dining tables, which were set up for meals and removed for dancing or other activities, while some of the statue bases conceal chamberpots.
The Red Drawing Room was described by Adam as a buffer to the real Withdrawing Room for the ladies, which was in the next chamber, the Gallery,now the Library.The walls are of red Spitalfields silk, while diamonds and octagons on the ceiling contrast with the painted medallions with gilded banding.
The Long Gallery was intended by Adam for the use of the ladies. The Tudor room is 136 feet long with a width and height of only 14 feet. Adam solved the size and shape problem by softening the colors to pastel mauves and greens, installing shallow bookcases and clustering the tapestry-upholstered furniture in what we would call conversation groups.There is a unity of design elements as well, with decorative swags on the walls, flat pilasters separating the bookshelves, and a pleasing pattern of geometric shapes, as in the ceiling.When I visited this room, I found it astonishingly beautiful, yet comfortable.As I gazed at the titles on the shelves, the Duke himself came by, showing the collection to a visitor.
At the far end of the library, there is a little closet, once the site of the corner spiral staircase, now long gone. In this little room, decorated in delicate pinks and grays, hangs a birdcage holding a mechanical bird which spreads his wings and warbles on the hour. The bottom of the cage is the clock’s face, not a particularly practical place to put it, if you ask me. It is known as one of Adam’s conceits. Nevertheless, the “closet” serves the role of early closets for kings and dukes — a private room holding favorite collections and offering the closest thing to privacy a great personage could experience. Ah, the trials and tribulations of fame and fortune!
Syon Park and House are on the itinerary of Number One London’s Town and Country House Tour in May 2024. You can find further details and the complete itinerary here.
Anyone interested in Regency London will want to know about the work of British photographer Ashley Hicks, the son of Lady Pamela Hicks and the legendary interior designer David Hicks, who was granted ten days to shoot the opulent drawing rooms, halls, and corridors of Buckingham Palace. His photos afterwards appeared in his lavish 2018 book, below.
Hicks also filmed a three part documentary, Buckingham Palace: The Interiors, which likewise features many of his photos. While there have been many documentaries about Buck House, what sets this one apart and above others is Ashley Hicks. You should really watch all three parts of the documentary – Hicks’s insider knowledge and passion for the Palace’s interiors shine through and his narrative is engaging and filled with historical tidbits.
Part III will especially appeal to Regency aficianados (linked below), as it deals with the parts of the Palace interiors that have connections to both the Royal Pavilion at Brighton and to Carlton House. Hicks’s photographs of George IV’s furniture, musical instruments and objet d’art are presented side by side with contemporary drawings of the interiors of both the Pavilion and Carlton House, giving the viewer the opportunity to virtually revisit both buildings, whilst historic anecdotes abound as Hicks provides background to each of the items. Enjoy!
As seen during Number One London’s 2017 Country House Tour –
If you’d like to see a selection of England’s stately homes first-hand, visit the Number One London Tours website for itineraries of our upcoming tours.
For 2021, Number One London is offering an up-close look at six of Britain’s finest stately homes, each one showcasing impressive state rooms, private family rooms and perfectly preserved “downstairs” domestic spaces, all presented within a leisurely itinerary. Once we check-in to our hotel in the historic spa town of Buxton, the rest of the tour will be taken as day trips, via luxury coach.
The itinerary includes visits to magnificent properties, some of which have been named as one of England’s 10 Treasure Houses – Castle Howard (above), Harewood House and Chatsworth House – while Shugborough Hall, Tatton Park and Lyme Park have been chosen for their unique history and architectural significance.
Click link in photo for complete Tour itinerary and links to each property!
Princess Marie Louise, c. 1910
Grand Piano in the Saloon
