Lanhydrock House - Lostwithiel Cornwall (NT)
The Gatehouse at Lanhydrock is the most complete part of the original house built here by Richard, Lord Robartes and then his son John between 1636-51. It is a two-storey granite building with somewhat old-fashioned for the time Renaissance decoration. Over the archway is a room which may have been used to hold banquets or light refreshments, where the ladies could watch the gentlemen hunting.
The original house was laid out on four sides round an open courtyard, but the east range was demolished in the 1780s. In 1857, the then owner, Thomas Agar-Robartes, later the 1st Baron Robartes of Lanhydrock and Truro, remodelled the old house to accommodate the changed requirements of a fashionable Victorian residence. Unfortunately, in 1881 a terrible fire swept the house, and little but the north wing remained. Lady Robartes, then aged 68, was rescued by ladder from the first floor, but died from shock a few days later. Lord Robartes himself died the following year and it was left to the 2nd Baron Robartes to rebuild in the neo-Jacobean style we see today, keeping the overall shape, incorporating what remained of the old house, but with up to date comfort and technology inside.
The Gatehouse at Lanhydrock
From the Gatehouse, you walk up through the formal gardens of lawn and clipped yew trees to the open courtyard, entering by the original two-storeyed porch which survived the fire. Inside the Outer Hall, the glowing wooden floor and panelling welcome you, with the huge granite fireplace probably another survivor. The plasterwork ceiling is Victorian, but in the Jacobean style. A thoroughly Victorian mixture of decoration meets you in the Inner Hall, with engraved glass doors (as in old pubs!) more plasterwork and panelling and a mosaic tiled floor. The household post was collected from this room , as is shown by the letter-box, scales and stamp machine.
As you wander through the huge house (49 rooms are presently open to the public), the sheer mass of collected objects is staggering. Through the corridors and in the rooms are paintings, ceramics, sculpture and furniture all adding to the sumptuous decoration and display of wealth and taste that made up a Victorian country house.
The rather low-ceilinged Dining-room again echoes the original Jacobean house. Here the family and guests were served huge meals with formal ceremony, and the following suite of kitchen quarters show how much time and effort was used to produce these meals. At Lanhydrock, the house was designed to allow the formal dining required by fashion. In older houses the kitchens were usually well away from the dining-room, but the Victorians preferred the convenience of proximity. The Servery was the essential link between production in the Kitchen and consumption in the Dining-room and it contains a huge steel hot-cupboard, fuelled by the coal-fire central-heating system. The Kitchen itself is a high airy room, with wooden trusses supporting a gabled roof with clerestory windows like a church. All sorts of spits and devices required by the cook (usually female) and her army of up to twenty kitchen staff can be seen here and in the succeeding rooms. There are further rooms each cleverly designed for their specific purpose; the Scullery has slate-lined sinks for preparing vegetables and zinc-lined sinks for washing utensils and kitchen crockery; the Bakehouse has a proving oven for the kneaded dough to rise and a large baking-oven that took four days to heat to a steady temperature as well as flour chests and another slate-lined sink. In succession then are the Dry Larder, the Fish Larder, the Meat Larder, the Dairy Scullery and the Dairy, again, all designed for their specific purpose.
Also on the ground floor are Lady Robartes's Room, were she conducted her household business, planned her charity work and kept up her correspondence. In the Lobby are big game trophies, a Victorian display of masculinity echoed in the Billiard Room and Smoking Room further along. The Steward's Room is also located here - any visiting tenant could enter this room from the nearby stable court, therefore keeping estate business separate from the residential part of the house.
In the angle of the north and west wings is an oak staircase to the Nurseries and guest bedrooms. The Nurseries have a wing of their own, demanded by the growing family of the 2nd Baron - in all there were ten children. In a house of this size, storage space was catered for in its design - the Linen Lobby housed the vast quantity of bed-linen, table-linen and lace and linen runners required at the time. There is also a Luggage room, filled with romantic leather suitcases and hat-boxes, evoking a by-gone age of travel. There is a separate room for the footmen's livery, where it was stored, cleaned and repaired. The servants' rooms are separated male and female, they even had different staircases.
As was usual, the Lord and Lady had separate bedrooms (despite all the children) and Lady Robartes had a separate Boudoir, a semi-private drawing room next to the public Drawing Room where the ladies would retire after dinner while the men went to the Billiard Room downstairs. This large room leads on to the Gallery, the original Jacobean Long Gallery finished just as the Civil War broke out and saved from the fire by the timely intervention of dynamite to create a fire-break. The National Trust, who now run Lanhydrock, have restored this beautiful room to something nearer to its original appearance - the Victorians found it an awkward shape and here as at other old houses, it was broken up by furniture into smaller, more cosy areas. The plasterwork ceiling repays careful study, as the scenes are from the Old Testament. Even those not familiar with the Bible will recognise Noah's Ark and Adam and Eve. Over the south fireplace are further scenes and the Robartes arms are over the window at the far end.
The decorative scheme reflects the taste of the builder, John Robartes, who was a man of strongly held Puritan principles. He was prominent during the Civil War on the Parliamentary side, becoming Lord Lieutenant of Cornwall, and after his performance on the battle fields of Edgehill and Newbury he was promoted to field marshal in the Earl of Essex's army.
Off the Gallery are the Morning Room and the Prayer Room and the Oak Staircase, the main staircase for the family and guests. At the half-landing there is a passage leading to the family pew in the parish church of St Hydrock (after whom the house is named).
The gardens at Lanhydrock are extensive, as you would expect of such a large country house. There are limited views over the River Fowey valley, and the planting of the estate is large-scale Victorian over the original seventeenth century core. In medieval times, the land was farmed by the monks of St Petroc's Priory and some of their hedge-banks remain in the Great Wood to the south-east of the house. In the seventeenth century, a single avenue of sycamore was planted from the house towards the east, and a large deer-park of 377 acres was also established towards the south.