Mereworth Castle
Encyclopedia
English country house
The English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a London house. This allowed to them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these people, the term distinguished between town and country...
in Mereworth
Mereworth
Mereworth is a village near the town of Maidstone in Kent, England. The Wateringbury Stream flows through the village and powered a watermill, the site of which now lies within the grounds of Mereworth Castle.-History:...
, Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
, England.
Originally the site of a fortified manor licensed in 1332, the present building is not actually a castle, but was built in the 1720s as an almost exact copy of Palladio's Villa Rotunda. It was designed in 1723 by Colen Campbell
Colen Campbell
Colen Campbell was a pioneering Scottish architect who spent most of his career in England, and is credited as a founder of the Georgian style...
who had been commissioned by John Fane, 7th Earl of Westmorland
John Fane, 7th Earl of Westmorland
John Fane, 7th Earl of Westmorland was an English nobleman, styled The Honourable John Fane from 1691 to 1736....
. The interior features plasterwork by Giovanni Bagutti and fresco
Fresco
Fresco is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Greek word affresca which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance...
painting by Francesco Sleter
Francesco Sleter
Franceso Sleter was an Italian painter, active in England.He was born in Venice. He is believed to have studied under Gregorio Lazzarini. He was in England by 1719 when he designed the stained glass windows for James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos in the chapel at Cannons, these are now in the...
. The house is situated in a landscaped park and valley with a number of surrounding pavilions and lodges which are also Grade I listed.
The house passed through descent to Barons Oranmore and Browne
Baron Oranmore and Browne
Baron Oranmore and Browne, of Carrabrowne Castle in the County of Galway and of Castle Macgarrett in the County of Mayo, is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1836 for Dominick Browne, who had earlier represented County Mayo in the House of Commons. His son, the second Baron, sat...
whose family seat it became. It was sold in 1930 and used as a prisoner of war
Prisoner of war
A prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
camp during World War II. In the 1950s and 1960s it was owned by Michael Lambert Tree, a son of Ronald Tree
Ronald Tree
Arthur Ronald Lambert Field Tree , was an American-born British journalist, investor and Conservative Member of Parliament for the Harborough constituency in Leicestershire.-Biography:...
and an heir to the Marshall Field mercantile fortune, and his wife, the former Lady Anne Cavendish, a daughter of the 10th Duke of Devonshire
Edward Cavendish, 10th Duke of Devonshire
Edward William Spencer Cavendish, 10th Duke of Devonshire, KG, MBE, TD , known as Marquess of Hartington , was the head of the Devonshire branch of the Cavendish family...
.
The Wateringbury Stream
Wateringbury Stream
The Wateringbury stream rises at Swanton, West Peckham parish, flows south east towards Mereworth and then flows in a generally easterly direction to join the River Medway at Wateringbury. It is some four miles long and powered a number of watermills....
passes through the grounds of the castle. It powered a fulling
Fulling
Fulling or tucking or walking is a step in woolen clothmaking which involves the cleansing of cloth to eliminate oils, dirt, and other impurities, and making it thicker. The worker who does the job is a fuller, tucker, or walker...
mill
Watermill
A watermill is a structure that uses a water wheel or turbine to drive a mechanical process such as flour, lumber or textile production, or metal shaping .- History :...
at the eastern end of the castle grounds.
Mereworth Castle is owned by Mahdi Al-Tajir, the former United Arab Emirates
United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates, abbreviated as the UAE, or shortened to "the Emirates", is a state situated in the southeast of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia on the Persian Gulf, bordering Oman, and Saudi Arabia, and sharing sea borders with Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Iran.The UAE is a...
ambassador to the United Kingdom, who purchased it in 1976 for $1.2 million.http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,914443-2,00.html It is not generally accessible to the public, but does open on rare occasions for guided tours.
Sources
- Stutchbury, Howard, The Architecture of Colin Campbell, Harvard University Press, 1967, 54-58. ISBN 0-674-04400-2
- Harris, John, The Palladians, Trefoil Publications Ltd, 1981, 66-67. ISBN 0-86294-000-1
- Country LifeCountry Life (magazine)Country Life is a British weekly magazine, based in London at 110 Southwark Street, and owned by IPC Media, a Time Warner subsidiary.- Topics :The magazine covers the pleasures and joys of rural life, as well as the concerns of rural people...
, XLVII, 808,876,912; XCV, 242; CIV,728; CXVI, 209