Hartwell House
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hartwell House is a country house in the village of Hartwell in the county of Buckinghamshire in southern England.
The house was first mentioned in the Domesday book and belonged to an illegitimate son of William the Conqueror. However, the core of the present house was constructed in the early 17th century for the Hampden family and then the Lee family. The Lees, an old Buckinghamshire family, acquired Hartwell circa 1650 by marriage into the Hampdens. The Confederate General Robert E. Lee was one of their descendants. The Jacobean north front of the house, is constructed of ashlar and has a projecting porch with a bow window above; terminating each end of this facade are two flanking canted bays each with a double height oriel window. Immediately each side of the porch two large windows indicate the hall within. Hiding the roofscape is a parapet with vases erected in 1740. Between 1759 and 1761 the architect Henry Keene substantially enlarged and "Georgianised" the house, and built the east front with its canted bay windows and a central porch in the Tuscan style.
Inside the house has a great hall with stucco panels, and a suite of three splendid reception rooms with rococo chimneypeices. In the 1980s the house was converted from a girl's finishing school to a hotel. The project was overseen by the architect Eric Throssel. He created a new dining room in the manner of Sir John Soane, by enclosing the former 18th century open arcaded porch, thus the former semi-circular galleried entrance vestibule is now an inner hall. Throssel was also responsible for the design and recreation of the cupola crowning the roof.
Between 1809 and 1814 the owner of the house Sir Charles Lee let the mansion to exiled King Louis XVIII of France. The arrival of the impoverished king and his court at Hartwell was not a happy experience for the mansion, with once grand and imperious courtiers farming chickens and assorted small livestock on the lead roofs. The King signed the document accepting (once again) the French crown in the library of the house.
In 1827, Dr John Lee inherited the house from the unmarried Reverend Sir George Lee and during his ownership, the British Meteorological Society (now Royal Meteorological Society) was founded in the library at Hartwell House in 1850.
The Reverend Nicholas Lee inherited Hartwell House when his brother, Dr John Lee died on February 25, 1866 at Hartwell.
The 90 acres (364,000 m²) gardens at Hartwell were laid out by Capability Brown circa 1750. The North Avenue is a grand vista through trees planted in 1830, sadly today terminated by the ever encroaching Aylesbury. The gardens are reminiscent of nearby Stowe, with statues, an obelisk and ornamental bridge.
The house remained a private residence until 1938, when at risk of demolition the estate was acquired by the philanthropist Ernest Cook and the contents sold off by public auction. The Ernest Cook Trust still own the house today, and currently let it to a company who run the house as one of Buckinghamshire's most prestigious hotels and restaurants. In recent years, due to its proximity to Chequers it has frequently been the host of international and Government summits and meetings. Hartwell House is a Grade I listed building.
The Hartwell Estate currently covers 1,800 acres (7.3 km²) of farmland surrounding Hartwell House.
Hartwell's Egyptian Spring is a folly built in 1850 by Joseph Bonomi the Younger, an Egyptologist. It is an alcove seat on the western side of Lower Hartwell opposite a small spring. The stone pylon bears the Greek inscription ΑΡΙΣΤοΝ ΜΕΝ ΥΔΩΡ, translated as "Water is Best"[1] attributed to Thales.
