Wentworth Woodhouse from A Complete History of the County of York by Thomas Allen (1828–30).

Wentworth Woodhouse is a Grade I listed country house near the village of Wentworth, in the vicinity of Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England. Its 606 ft. (185 m) long East Front is the longest façade in Europe.^[1] The house includes 240 rooms and covers an area of over 2.5 acres (10,000 m²). It is surrounded by a 150 acre (0.6 km²) estate. It was the family seat of the Earls Fitzwilliam. Wentworth Woodhouse from A Complete History of the County of York by Thomas Allen (1828-30). ... Wentworth Woodhouse from A Complete History of the County of York by Thomas Allen (1828-30). ... Buckingham Palace, a Grade I listed building. ... A country house is a large dwelling, such as a mansion, located on a country estate. ... Wentworth is a village in the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham, South Yorkshire. ... There is also a Rotherham, New Zealand , Rotherham is a town in South Yorkshire, England. ... South Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber Government Office Region of England, in the United Kingdom. ... For other uses, see England (disambiguation). ... West façade of the Notre-Dame de Strasbourg Cathedral A facade (or façade) is the exterior of a building – especially the front, but also sometimes the sides and rear. ... The title of Earl Fitzwilliam was created in the Peerage of Ireland in 1716, and in the Peerage of Great Britain in 1746. ...

Architecture

The Baroque style, brick-built, western part of the house was begun in 1725, replacing an older structure that was once the home of Thomas Wentworth. In c. 1734, before this West Front was finished, Wentworth's grandson Thomas Watson-Wentworth commissioned Henry Flitcroft to build the East Front extension. For other uses, see Baroque (disambiguation). ... Events February 8 - Catherine I became empress of Russia February 20 - The first reported case of white men scalping Native Americans takes place in New Hampshire colony. ... Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford (April 13, 1593 - May 12, 1641) was an English statesman, a major figure in the period leading up to the English Civil War. ... Henry Flitcroft (August 30, 1697 – February 25, 1769) was a major English architect in the second generation of Palladianism. ...

The huge length of the East Front is believed to have been the result of a longstanding feud with the Stainborough branch of the Wentworth family, who lived at the nearby Wentworth Castle. The castle was itself undergoing an extension at the time.

The house was later the home of Watson-Wentworth's grandson Charles Watson-Wentworth, the 11th Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. It subsequently passed to his sister's family, the Fitzwilliams, who in c.1782 added an extra storey to parts of the East Front. Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham (May 13, 1730 - July 1, British politician, most notable for his two terms as Whig Prime Minister of Great Britain. ... The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is, in practice, the political leader of the United Kingdom. ... The title of Earl Fitzwilliam was created in the Peerage of Ireland in 1716, and in the Peerage of Great Britain in 1746. ...

The grounds

Engraving of Wentworth WoodHouse.

The grounds (and surrounding area), which are largely open to the public, contain a number of follies including: Image File history File links Metadata No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links Metadata No higher resolution available. ... For other uses, see Folly (disambiguation). ...

• Hoober stand. A tapering pyramid with a hexagonal lantern. It is 30 m high and was built in 1747–48 to commemorate the defeat of the Jacobite rebellion. It was designed by Henry Flitcroft. The tower is open to the public on Sunday afternoons throughout the summer.
• Keppel's Column. A 115 ft. (35 m) tower built in the late 18th century to commemorate the acquittal of the court-martialled Admiral Keppel. It visibly bulges due to an entasis correction, which was rendered inappropriate when funding problems reduced the height. It was designed by John Carr.
• The Rockingham Mausoleum. A 90 ft. (27 m) high, three-story building situated in woodland. Consequently, only the top level is visible over the treetops. It was commissioned in 1783 as a memorial to Charles Wentworth and was designed by John Carr. The ground floor is an enclosed hall containing a statue of the former prime minister by Joseph Nollekens, plus busts of his eight closest friends. The first floor is an open colonnade with Corinthian columns surrounding the (empty) sarcophagus. The top storey is a Roman-style cupola. Like Hoober Stand, the Mausoleum is open on summer Sunday afternoons.
• The Needle's Eye. A 45 ft. (14 m) high, sandstone block pyramid with an ornamental urn on the top and a tall Gothic ogee arch through the middle, which straddles a disused roadway. It was built in the mid-18th century allegedly to win a bet after Charles Wentworth claimed he could drive a coach and horses through the eye of a needle.
• Bear Pit. Accessible if patronising the nearby Garden centre. Built on two levels with a spiral stair. Outer doorway is part of the architecture of the original house (about 1630). at the end of the garden is a grotto guarded by two life-sized statues of Roman soldiers.

Hoober Stand is a 30 metre high building situated on a ridge in Wentworth, Rotherham, South Yorkshire in the North of England. ... This article is not about the Jacobite Orthodox Church, nor is it about Jacobinism or the earlier Jacobean period. ... For other uses, see Summer (disambiguation). ... Keppels Column is a 115 ft. ... Augustus Keppel, 1st Viscount Keppel (25 April 1725 - 2 October 1786), was a British admiral who held sea commands during the Seven Years War and the War of American Independence. ... schema of a Corinthian column In architecture, entasis is a design technique used to counteract a certain optical illusion. ... John Carr (1723 -1807) was a prolific English architect. ... Joseph Nollekens (1737-1823) was a sculptor from London generally considered to be the finest British sculptor of the late 18th century. ... The Etruscan Sarcophagus of the Spouses, at the National Etruscan Museum. ... Cupola of St Peters Basilica, Rome In architecture, a cupola consists of a dome-shaped ornamental structure located on top of a larger roof or dome, often used as a lookout or to admit light and provide ventilation. ... For other meanings, see pyramid (disambiguation). ... Interior of Cologne Cathedral Interior of San Zanipolo, Venice, photo Giovanni dallOrto. ... Ogee Arch Ogee is a shape consisting of a concave arc flowing into a convex arc, so forming an S-shaped curve with vertical ends. ... For other uses, see Arch (disambiguation). ...

Destruction of the estate

In April 1946, on the orders of Manny Shinwell (the then Labour Party's Minister of Fuel and Power) a "column of lorries and heavy plant machinery" arrived at Wentworth. The objective was the mining of a large part of the estate close to the house for coal. This was an area where the prolific Barnsley seam was within 100 feet of the surface and would become the largest open cast mining site in Britain at that time. Ostensibly the coal was desperately needed in Britain's austere post-war economy to fuel the railways; it was, however, useful cover for an act of class-war spite against the coal-owning aristocracy. A survey by Sheffield University, commissioned by Peter, the 8th Earl, found the quality of the coal as "very poor stuff" and "not worth the getting"; this contrasted to Shinwell's assertion that it was "exceptionally good-quality." ^[2] Manny Shinwell Emanuel Shinwell, Baron Shinwell CH (October 18, 1884-May 8, 1986) (familiarly known as Manny) was born in London, but moved with his Polish-Jewish family to Scotland. ... The Labour Party is a political party in the United Kingdom. ... The Ministry of Fuel and Power was a central government department in the United Kingdom. ... This article is about the organisation and newspaper Class War. ... University of Sheffield Rerum Cognoscere Causas (To discover the causes of things) Shield image © University of Sheffield The University of Sheffield is a university located in Sheffield, England. ... William Henry Lawrence Peter Wentworth-FitzWilliam, 8th Earl FitzWilliam was a British aristocrat. ...

Shinwell, intent on the destruction of the Fitzwilliams and "the privileged rich", decreed that the mining would continue to the back door of Wentworth. What followed saw the mining of 99 acres of lawns and woods, the renowned formal gardens and the show-piece pink shale driveway (a by-product of the family's collieries). Ancient trees were uprooted and the debris of earth and rubble was piled 50ft. high in front of the family's living quarters.^[3]

Local opinion supported the Earl. Joe Hall, Yorkshire branch President of the National Union of Mineworkers said that the "miners in this area will go to almost any length rather than see Wentworth Woodhouse destroyed. To many mining communities it is sacred ground" - the Fitzwilliams were respected employers known for treating their employees well. The Yorkshire branch later threatened a strike over the Government's plans for Wentworth and Joe Hall wrote personally to Clement Atlee in a futile attempt to stop the mining.^[4] This spontaneous local activism, founded on the genuine popularity of the FitzWilliam family amongst locals, was dismissed in Whitehall as "intrigue" sponsored by the Earl. ^[5]. The National Union of Mineworkers is a trade union for coal miners in the United Kingdom. ... Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, FRS (January 3, 1883 - October 8, 1967) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951. ...

The mined area took many years to return to a natural state; the woodland and formal gardens were not replaced and today the mined area remains an area of open fields to the south of the house and Wentworth parish church.

The Lady Mabel College

The Ministry of Health attempted to requisition the house as "housing for homeless industrial families". To prevent this, the Earl attempted to donate the house to the National Trust, but political pressure from Whitehall was brought to bear on the Trust not to accept the house: once again the government's actions were motivated by anti-aristocrat spite bordering on the irrational. In the end, Lady Mabel Fitzwilliam, sister of the 7th Earl and local Alderman, brokered a deal whereby the West Riding County Council leased the majority of house from the estate to be an educational establishment, leaving a small portion of forty rooms as a family apartment.^[6] Thus from 1949 to 1979, the house was home to the Lady Mabel College of Physical Education, which trained female PE teachers. This college later merged with Sheffield City Polytechnic (now Sheffield Hallam University), which eventually gave up the lease in 1988 due to the prohibitive cost of maintenance.^[7] Many governments, both national and more local, have a Department of Health. This article is about the British one. ... The standard of the National Trust The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, usually known as The National Trust, is a British preservation organization. ... Lady Mabel Florence Harriet Wentworth-Fitzwilliam (14 July 1870 – 26 September 1951) was an English socialist politician, later known as Lady Mabel Smith. ... An alderman is a member of a municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions. ... The West Riding of Yorkshire is one of the three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. ... Physical education (PE) is the interdisciplinary study of all area of science relating to the transmission of physical knowledge and skills to an individual or a group, the application of these skills, and their results. ... Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) is a university in Sheffield, England. ...

Private residence

By 1989 the house was in a poor state of repair. With the Polytechnic no longer a tenant, and with the family no longer requiring the house, the family trustees decided to sell the house and the 30 acres surrounding it (but retaining the Wentworth Estate's 89,000 productive acres). The house was bought by locally-born businessman Wensley Grosvenor Haydon-Baillie, who started a programme of restoration; however a business failure caused it to be repossessed by a Swiss bank and put back on the market in 1998.^[8] The present owner is Clifford Newbold, an architect from Highgate, who bought it for something over £1.5m.^[9]

The house is a Grade I listed building. Its size makes it very expensive to maintain, which is perhaps the main reason why the building has never been bought by a charity or the local council as a tourist attraction. Buckingham Palace, a Grade I listed building. ...

References

1. ^ The Sunday Times Magazine, 11 February 2007, p19
2. ^ ibid., p23
3. ^ ibid.
4. ^ ibid.
5. ^ Bailey, C (2007). Black Diamonds: The Rise and Fall of an English Dynasty, p393. London: Penguin. ISBN 0-670-91542-2
6. ^ ibid., pp397-402
7. ^ ibid., p449
8. ^ ibid., p451
9. ^ http://www.britannia.com/history/wwwood.html

External links

• The Mansion of Mystery and Malice - Times Online (11 Feb 2007).
• Wentworth Village — Wentworth Woodhouse
• Wentworth Woodhouse from The University of York
• What fate awaits Wentworth Woodhouse? (April 1999).

this house is a great loking houuse!!<3 This article is about the British university. ...