Category: Tours

THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON TOUR: THE WATERLOO CHAMBER AT WINDSOR CASTLE

To commemorate the victory of the British, Austrian, Prussian, Russian forces and their allies over Napoleon, George IV envisioned a splendid banquet hall. The large hall replaced several rooms in the castle and includes many limewood carvings by Grinling Gibbons and his assistants in the 1680’s,salvaged from a former chapel. Most of the paintings were executed by Sir Thomas Lawrence, (1769-1830) as commissioned for the Room in Windsor Castle designed by Sir Jeffry Wyatville and completed in the reign of William IV. Unless otherwise indicated, all paintings done by Lawrence or his studio.


Watercolour by  Joseph Nash of the Waterloo Chamber, 1844
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

North Wall, Upper Level

Louis-Antoine, Duke of Angouleme, 1825

Frederick William, Duke of Brunswick, 1848 by William Corden

Prince Leopold of Saxe Coburg, later King of the Belgians, 1821
North Wall, Lower Level
Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge, 1818


Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool, c. 1820
William IV, 1832, by Sir David Wilkie

George III, 1820
This portrait is a copy Lawrence and his studio made based on his painting of George III commissioned by the MPs of the City of Coventry in 1792.

George IV c. 1820

Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, c. 1817

Frederick Duke of York, 1816

East Wall, Upper Level

General Sir James Kempt, 1835 by Robert McInnes

Matvei Ivanovich, Count Platov, 1814

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington 1814-15


Field Marshal Gebhardt von Blucher, 1814


Sir William Congreve, c. 1805-10 by James Lonsdale

East Wall, Lower Level

Charles William, Baron von Humboldt, 1828


George Canning, c. 1830


Henry, 3rd Earl Bathurst, c. 1820


Ernest Frederick, Count Munster, 1820

South Wall, Upper Level

Henry Paget, 2nd Earl of  Uxbridge and 1st Marquess of Anglesey, 1836 by Sir Martin Archer Shee

Alexander Ivanovitch Prince Chernichev, 1818


William II, King of the Netherlands, when Prince of Orange, 1846 by Nicaise de Keyser

South Wall, Lower Level

Ercole, Cardinal Consalvi, 1819

Charles Augustus, Prince Hardenberg, 1818
Tsar Alexander I, 1814-18
Emperor Francis I of Austria, 1818-19 

Frederick William of Prussia, 1814-18

Charles Robert, Count Nesselrode, 1818


Pope Pius VII, 1819

West Wall, Upper Level

General Viscount Hill, c. 1820 by Henry William Pickersgill
Charles X of France, 1825


Charles Philip, Prince Schwartzenberg, 1819

Charles, Archduke of Austria, 1819


Sir Thomas Picton, 1836 by Sir Martin Archer Shee

West Wall, Lower Level

John, Count Capo D’Istria 1818-19
Clemens Lothar Wenzel, Prince Metternich, 1819

Armand Emmanuel, Duke of Richlelieu, 1818

General Theodore Petrovich Uvarov, 1818
Views of the Waterloo Chamber, above and below

Waterloo Chamber, as concert venue


For a virtual tour of the Waterloo Chamber, click here.

THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON TOUR VISITS BASILDON PARK

THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON TOUR

 VISITS BASILDON PARK

We have written about Basildon here in the past.  Click here to see our previous post.

Victoria here. This trip in September 2014, my second visit to Basildon, was indeed a delight. Not only was I with a wonderful group on the Duke of Wellington Tour; the National Trust now allows non-flash photographs and I went wild with snapping with both my camera and my phone.

Susan dashed ahead to welcome us from the Piano Nobile Balcony
The East Front
Copper Beech, I assume

Basildon Park was built between 1776 and 1782 by Sir Francis Sykes, created a baronet in 1781. His roots were in Yorkshireand he chose architect John Carr of York (1723–1807) to build his house, a classical Palladian villa with a main block of rooms joined to pavilions on either side. The Sykes fortune was made during his service in India.
Carr had previously worked with Robert Adam, and Adam’s style clearly influenced the Palladian exterior as well as the decor of many rooms in the interior. The house as it stands today is the survivor of multiple owners, periods of abandonment, and occupation by soldiers and war prisoners in World Wars I and II. So it combines dazzling restorations of original features with comfortable furnishings and artwork from the 1950’s when the house was acquired and restored by Lord and Lady Iliffe.

Etruscan panels in the Hall

Above the fireplace

Ceiling

The library opens off the hall, magnificent yet cozy with its scarlet walls and huge book case. Who among us could resist sinking into the sofa with some selections from the shelves?

My corner?

The chimneypiece and other architectural features came from Panton Hall in the 1950’s
 to replace the originals which were lost in a fire in 1946. Panton Hall in Lincolnshire had been remodeled by Carr of York; it was demolished in 1964

Library Mirror

In the center of the house is the grand staircase, and Donna is shown admiring the piano and pianist who entertained us as we roamed the rooms.

Marilyn and others admire the furnishings

Dining Room

In the dining room, more influences of the Adam Brothers are found in the wall decoration.  

The ceiling lunettes and medallions show Roman scenes.
A screen of scagliola columns at one end of the dining room.

At the center back of the house is the Octagon Drawing Room. Venetian windows overlook the park and beyond to the Thames.  

Pier Glass and table
Display of shots from filming of Downton Abbey which used the Octagon Drawing Room to serve as the drawing room of the Grantham House, the family’s London residence. The dining room was also used in DA for ballroom scenes.
Perfect for the center, and quite clearly 20th century.
Kristine and Nancy have been peeking out the windows.

So I had to have a peek too!

Pier glass and table

Adjacent to the Octagon Room is the Green Drawing Room, originally the breakfast room. 

Ceiling medallion in the Green Drawing Room.

A serpentine marquetry commode with marble top shows photos from the Iliffe days.

One of the collection of landscapes in the room

The chimneypiece is original to the house and
 may be the work of sculptor Richard Westmacott the elder

Dried thistles reminded us not to sit on the damask sofa

Cupids play on the panels of this commode

Diagram of the Piano Nobile (1st floor) from Wikipedia

The first floor. 1: The four service courts; 2: Portico and West front; 3: North Pavilion; 4: South Pavilion; 5: Entrance Hall; 6: Staircase Hall; 7: Octagon Drawing Room; 8: Dining Room; 9: Study; 10: Library; 11: Sutherland Room (formerly lady Iliffe’s sitting room); 12: Kitchen (since 1952); 13: larder (?); 14: Green Drawing Room (formerly Breakfast or Small Dining Room).

The balcony above the staircase

The Crimson Bedroom
Lord and Lady Iliffe acquired this state bed form the sale at Ashburnham Place in 1953.
The Spode service on the washstand also comes from Ashburnham

Mahogany Cheval Glass

The Shell Room was probably an upstairs sitting room, now the home of a collection of shells collected by Lord Iliffe’s mother.

Ki admires another tempting bookcase

As befits a grand house of the 1950’s Basildon was equipped with luxurious bathrooms,
 definitely not in the 18th century style.

Wonderful 1950’s kitchen…added by the Iliffes and bringing back childhood memories for many of us;

Susan lags behind as we say farewell to Basildon…but wait! There’s more!

Outside the shop, we found this display of garden ornaments and we all wanted one!  or two!

Not even Susan could figure out a way to get a magical mushroom home for her garden.
This was our bus with out esteemed driver Graham.
Though we were all tired, we had to agree that our day at two excellent houses — Highclere Castle and Basildon — had been worth every ounce of energy!
Onward to Windsor!

THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON TOUR: BETH ELLIOTT AND READING ABBEY

 After leaving Stratfield Saye, our coach made a pit stop at the Wellington Farm Shop

As you can see, the market had many enticing items, but as none of us were going to be cooking any time soon, the majority of our group settled for homemade fudge.

Back at our “atmospheric” coaching inn in Reading, we looked forward to meeting Regency author Beth Elliott, who very kindly agreed to take us on a walking tour of the ruins of the Reading Abbey, including the Abbey Gateway, where Jane Austen attended Madame La Tournelle’s school in 1784-85.

Above, the Mercure George Hotel, Reading
Said to be from the 15th Century

Beth Elliott’s Websites are here and here.

As we walked toward the Abbey Ruins, now largely blocked off, we saw many structures probably constructed with materials from the Abbey Ruins.

Below Diane Gaston. Beth Elliott, and Victoria in front of the Abbey Gateway.

The painting below, by artist Paul Sandby, shows the Abbey Gateway in 1808, a few years after Austen and her sister Cassandra attended school there.

The Abbey Gateway Building is obviously waiting for a restoration project being sought by the city of Reading, as are the remaining ruins, now apparently considered unsafe and fenced off. 
But a few of the details on the Gateway can be seen below, though who these royal heads belong to, we cannot tell.

The Abbey was founded in 1121 by King Henry I, youngest son of William the Conqueror.  During the time of Henry VIII, the Dissolution of the Monasteries brought the destruction of the Abbey buildings in 1539, though ruins remain widespread along the river and elsewhere in Forbury Gardens.

Forbury Gardens is a lovely public park established  in the area long ago known as the forbury, meaning “the borough in front” occupying the hill between the Abbey and the town of Reading. Markets, fairs, and other events were held in the area.
The center of the park is dominated by the 1888 noble statue of the Maiwand Lion which memorializes the hundreds of Berkshire soldiers who perished in the Battle of Maiwand in Afganistan in 1880. Over thirty feet high, the lion was sculpted by George Blackall Simonds.

a recent memorial

The gardens  bloomed with late summer intensity.

After the Abbey Ruins and the Gardens, Beth took us to a pub, where her lucky critique group has their meetings in a private room.  We walked across the Kennet River

Oh!  Our very own sign, along the way!

Great Expectations is a hotel and pub, named after a series of readings given here by Charles Dickens. Beth’s critique group meets in a book-lined room which must offer its own Great Expectations for her lucky critique group.

Reading offers many more possibilities for exploration as well.  Someday we will return and pursue them!  For now, we enjoyed a dinner with the group and prepared for a busy day coming up.  Join us next time for a visit to Highclere Castle, aka Downton Abbey.