This year (2025), I spent my summer holiday down south. While I was in London, a friend, knowing that my current historical interest is the 18^th century, took me to see two 18^th century houses administered by English Heritage. The one that particularly caught my fancy was Marble Hill House, a small Palladian villa in Twickenham. It’s a little gem. The proportions of the house are so beautiful, that it didn’t really matter that the original contents were sold with the house in 1824, and that most of the furniture, pictures etc. displayed there today have been replaced from other sources. Nor did it matter that the gardens are still in process of restoration, and the lawns at the front and back were burnt brown by the heat wave this year, because the setting on the north bank of the Thames is so lovely.

Marble Hill House* was a villa built on what was then the outskirts of London, so that its owner, attached to the royal court, could enjoy fresh country air and scenery from time to time. Henrietta Howard was a Woman of the Bedchamber to Caroline of Ansbach, wife of George II. Henrietta was also George's mistress, both before and for some time after he succeeded his father as King of England and Elector of Hanover. The villa was in the neo-Palladian style, popular in Britain from the early to the mid-18^th century. This was based on the work of Andrea Palladio, a 16^th century Italian architect. He was inspired by the work of the Roman architect Vitruvius and by the proportion and ornament used in the buildings of ancient Rome. Neo-Palladian buildings were symmetrical, one side being a mirror image of the other. They often had fronts similar to a classical temple, with a triangular pediment over the main entrance, supported by columns or pilasters, and large tripartite Venetian windows (a central large arched window with smaller rectangular windows either side). The principles of Palladianism could be applied to small houses as well as to what were virtually palaces. While the exteriors of the buildings were simple and plain, the interiors, which also contained classical features, might be richly decorated. The houses usually had gardens carefully designed to complement them.

Marble Hill is a small square symmetrical building with four floors. It has five bays across the front and three across the side; the centre three bays on the north front project slightly. The north front faced the road and originally had a forecourt; this was where visitors arrived by carriage. It has a triangular pediment supported by four pilasters with simple Ionic capitals. The south front has no pilasters but is very similar. It faces the river (visitors might arrive by boat) and overlooked the garden. The garden included a flower garden, a greenhouse, a grotto, a bowling alley, and an ice house; also lawns, woods and walks. On the east side there was originally an L-shaped service wing which no longer exists.

The interior had some lovely features. I can't go into detail about all of them, but the ground floor included a hall which opened onto the south front and was based on the Roman atrium. This was the entry to a Roman house, open to the sky in the centre with a square pool for rainwater below the opening. This pool is represented at Marble Hill by four columns surrounding a square marked by floor tiles in the centre of the room. A beautifully-carved mahogany staircase (unfortunately, the mahogany was probably the result of slave-labour) leads up to the first floor where the most important rooms were located. In the ‘Great Room’, music, dancing and other entertainments took place. Henrietta Howard was known to be a very intelligent, well-educated and cultured woman and she had a wide circle of talented friends. The large marble fireplace in the Great Room, with its classical decoration, is really beautiful. Her bedroom, which was also decorated with columns and pilasters, would have been open to visitors when she had guests, although this was where she normally slept and dressed. The second floor, as well as three more bedrooms, contains a non-Palladian feature, the gallery, which stretches from the north to the south sides of the house. Galleries were traditional in English houses, providing display space for paintings and other art objects, and a place to exercise in bad weather.  The final floor was the attics, probably where servants slept. A stone staircase connected all four floors and was used mainly by servants.  The contents of the house, either recorded or on display, illustrate the interests and pursuits of the English aristocracy in the 18^th century – excellent paintings on the walls; tea-drinking and collections of porcelain used for serving it; elaborate dining; chinoiserie – there is a fine lacquer screen in the Great Room.

London was by far the largest city in Britain during the 18^th century, the location of Parliament and the royal court. So what was going on in the rest of the country, while royal courtiers built Palladian retreats along the Thames and collected Chinese porcelain? What about Scotland, united with England since 1707? Just over 500 miles to the north of London, Orkney and Shetland did not host a royal court, none of the 18^th century monarchs ever paid a visit, and there was no resident aristocracy. George Douglas, 13^th earl of Morton, who was earl of Orkney and Lord of Zetland, did not live there. But the much smaller houses built by the local gentry (lairds) in the 18^th century often had Palladian features and were expensively furnished. Unfortunately it isn't possible for the public to visit either of the following two examples at the moment, but they are well-documented.

The Hall of Clestrain in Orphir, Orkney, was built in 1768 by Patrick Honeyman, the laird of Graemsay. This estate was the largest in Orkney after the bishopric and earldom estates. Although small, the house is in the Palladian style and said to be ‘of exceptional quality’.  It was a square stone building, symmetrical in design, linked to low pavilions at each side by connecting walls (only one survives).These pavilions are usually drawn in two-dimensional reconstructions as if they were level with the front elevation of the house, but in fact they were level with the back and formed two sides of a courtyard of which the rear, north wall of the house formed the third. There are three bays to each elevation and three floors, if you include the attic and basement floors. Probably the reception rooms were on the middle floor, with bedrooms above and service/family rooms in the basement, reached via an internal stone staircase. Entrance to the house was by a graceful stair into the middle floor through the projecting central bay, which was probably topped by a pediment. It faces south, and had a walled garden, like most gentry houses in the Northern Isles. The laird’s family later moved to the mainland of Scotland and left the Hall of Clestrain to their factor or agent. This was John Rae, whose son, also John Rae, was the famous Arctic explorer. The house is a category A listed building. It had become derelict, although many important Georgian interior details apparently survive.  The building is now in process of restoration with a view to opening it to the public.

The 18^th century lairds** of Orkney were known as the ‘Merchant Lairds’ since they used  the goods such as grain, butter and kelp, which were paid to them as rent by their tenants, for trading purposes and became wealthy on the profits. They also benefited from rent paid in the form of free labour, useful in the kelp industry. Kelp was one of the most profitable commodities in the 18^th century. It was an alkaline product made by burning seaweed in pits on the beaches, and Patrick Honeyman was engaged in the kelp trade. A 1764 inventory made when another wealthy laird, James Baikie, 6^th Laird of Tankerness, died, listed expensive household goods: walnut and mahogany furniture, gilded mirrors, brass candlesticks, clocks, writing desks, and easy chairs. There was table ware of silver, pewter, delftware and stoneware, and large stores of linen napkins and tablecloths. The cellars held 10 gross of wine bottles and 14 ale casks. Robert Baikie, the 7^th laird, owned a fine library, paid for out of his kelp profits. It is reasonable to suppose that the Hall of Clestrain was furnished in similar style.

And at the farthest northern point of the British Isles, the island of Unst in Shetland, a small Palladian house was built in 1775 by Thomas Mouat of Garth, the son of a laird. Belmont House, now a Category A listed building with an important garden, was occupied until the mid-20^th century, when the family sold it and it fell into serious disrepair. It was restored over the years between 1996 and 2010 by local groups, and is now in private ownership. Like Marble Hill, it has a lovely view, facing south over an inlet of the sea dividing Unst from Yell.  It is two storeys high, with attics and basements, and two pavilions at the sides linked to it by connecting walls which surrounded the forecourt. To the north at the back of the house was a farmhouse. To the south were three walled gardens and a park, and an avenue leading down to the shore. Many of the garden features such as walls, remains of a summerhouse, footpaths etc. are still visible. It sounds absolutely lovely.

Perhaps Hall of Clestrain and Belmont House are not large enough to count as ‘stately homes’, but they are beautiful examples of a particularly graceful style of architecture which spread from south to north of the British Isles in the 18th century.

*Marble Hill English Heritage Guidebook 2023 Dr Megan Leyland & Emily Parker;

** Profit Not Loss The Story of the Baikies of Tankerness 2003 Bryce Wilson