The English Country House and Chilton Lodge - Hungerford Virtual ...

As early as 1945, some owners of large houses (Thynnes at Longleat, the Russells at
Woburn and the Montagus at Beaulieu) had seen that the way ahead was to throw open
the doors of their stately homes and welcome an increasingly interested, educated and
mobile population. A very few families, such as the Cavendishes at Chatsworth, had
always made a virtue of allowing and encouraging access to their houses. However, the
originators of the accessible country house were the exceptions rather than the rule. Not
only were they endowed with plenty of entrepreneurial flair, but also their houses were
also mostly very large and were stuffed with treasures. They also had the resources to
develop other attractions.
The turning point for the ECH probably came in 1974 with the exhibition at the V&A The
Destruction of the Country House'. Penal taxation, rampant inflation and increasingly
bureaucratic intervention had been making life impossible for owners for two generations.
However, prosperity was slowly returning to Britain and with it, the first glimmerings of a
more enlightened attitude to taxation. The old order was well and truly dead, and Britain
was becoming less socially divisive. 'Heritage' became the buzzword, tourism was
increasing, and the owners of ECH's finally started to behave in a cohesive and concerted
manner. Perhaps there was room after all for the country house to survive.
CHILTON LODGE
#2
A few statistics.
• The main accommodation areas in the house cover 1,996 sq.m., with a further 1,358
sq.m. of attics and cellars. The outbuildings that form part of the property extend to a
further 1,320 sq.m. and include three self-contained flats, a total of 4,673 sq.m. of
buildings, all listed Grade 2 or 2*.
• The house has five principal bedroom suites, two dressing rooms and three children's
bedrooms.
• We have a full-time housekeeper and a lady who comes in every weekday and a fulltime
gardener.
• We use about 30,000 litres of heating oil a year.
There was certainly a house called Chilton Park by 1595, when it was owned by Sir
Thomas Hinton, Sheriff of Berkshire and Commissioner of Wool. The original house was
in Wiltshire, just to the east of where Park Farm now stands. I am afraid I have been
unable to locate a picture of the original house.
By the mid-17C, the property was owned by the splendidly named Sir Bulstrode
Whitelocke, a Parliamentarian and diarist. He is notable for having had three wives and
13 children, and for having survived the Restoration, apparently changing sides with the
same ease as he changed wives. However, his management of his personal affairs was
somewhat erratic and Chilton was eventually sold to Mr. Holwell, a nabob who was a
survivor of the Black Hole of Calcutta.
It was later sold to John Pearse, MP, who was making a fortune from gun cotton in the
Napoleonic Wars. It is with him that this story of Chilton really starts. Last week I
discovered (on the Internet!) that a man of the same name was the Governor of the Bank
of England between 1810-12. I wonder if it was our Mr. Pearse.
#3
In any event, he seems to have been a man of considerable means and was already a
client of John Soane when he bought Chilton. Immersed in classicism, but extremely
radical in many ways, Soane was one of the most important architects of his generation.
He had designed a substantial house for Mr. Pearse in Lincoln's Inn Fields, complete with
stables, and was subsequently commissioned to design a new villa at Chilton on the site
of the 16C house. Construction started in 1789 and was still in process in 1793. The