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Above: Heveningham Hall as seen from the road (Rod Sugden)
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Heveningham Hall Heveningham Hall is widely regarded as one of Britain's finest Georgian mansions. The powerful centrepiece and end pavilions are believed to have been a model for Nash's great stucco palaces in Regents Park in London, and with its splendid Taylor facade, Wyatt interior and Capability Brown park, Heveningham is one of the most important Neo-classical buildings in Europe. The Hall was begun in the early 1700s with the construction of the centrepiece: designed to stand alone as a three storey rectangle in the Queen Anne style. Seventy years later Sir Gerard Vanneck, who inherited the house from his father, ordered a major reconstruction under architect Sir Robert Taylor who had designed the Bank of England. This involved almost tripling the length of the house by adding a pavilion to each end. Building began in 1778 and by the time Taylor died 10 years later, the exterior of the Hall was almost complete. His successor, James Wyatt, was responsible for the east end library windows, as well as most of the interior. Heveningham Hall remained in the Vanneck family for nearly 200 years until soaring costs left them with no option but to sell. It was sold to the government in 1970 in lieu of death duties, and in1981 was sold to an Iragi businessman. Repair and conversion work were underway when - in 1984 - an extensive fire damaged with east wing. Restoration of this damage was incomplete in 1981 when the owner died. Three years later the house and park were bought for family use by the present owners, whose intention is to allow the house to evolve to suit contemporary living while preserving the architectural vision of the original designers. |
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The Gardens Capability Brown came to Heveningham in 1781 to design the layout of the park, gardens and outbuildings. He prepared two plans: one for the gardens immediately surrounding the house and one for the parkland and lake. The latter was an ambitious project, envisaging a chain of lakes in the valley beneath the front of the house, and the little stream becoming a broad, winding river. At the time, this was rejected in favour of a more modest layout. However, Brown's drawings survive to this day, and the present owners of the Hall have now recreated his original intentions. For the gardens themselves, Brown's vision was a pastoral one, bringing the parkland almost up to the house, though a century later the area immediately behind the Hall was laid out as a parterre. Now, under the direction of the designer Kim Wilkie, this has been replaced by a contemporary formal garden. It comprises a pleached holm oak walk enclosing a fan of grass terraces, based on the Golden Section: a timeless formula for proportion found within art and architecture from the ancient world through to the present. The same mathematical principle occurs in the living world in many natural forms, displaying harmony and balance. In the Walled Garden (pictured below; approached from the courtyard) there is a fascinating example of a 'ribbon' or 'crinkle-crankle' wall designed by Capability Brown and considered to be one of the finest examples of its type in East Anglia, where the majority of such walls are found. Outside the garden, Brown created a landscape with a ha-ha that enclosed some ten acres, including undulating lawns with cedar trees and sufficient space to site an Orangery. The Orangery itself was not erected until James Wyatt arrived: this, the temple which faces it access the park, and the two lodges at the main entrance, are the only exterior buildings on the estate to Wyatt's design.
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