Mereworth Castle
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox building
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| image = Mereworth Castle.jpg
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| image_caption = Mereworth Castle in the 18th century
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| building_type = Country house
| architectural_style = Palladian
| classification = Grade I listed
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| start_date = 1723
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| completion_date = 1725
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| owner = Mahdi Al-Tajir
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| architect = Colen Campbell
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File:Capriccio with a view of Mereworth Castle, Kent.jpg with a view of Mereworth Castle. Francesco Zuccarelli and Antonio Visentini, 1746.]]
Mereworth Castle is a grade I listed Palladian country house in Mereworth, Kent, England.{{NHLE| num= 1070675| desc= Mereworth Castle (main block) with moat walls to north, Maidstone Road (south side), Mereworth, Tonbridge and Malling, Kent| accessdate= 2008-05-20}} This source attributes the plasterwork to Francesco Bagutti, but Giovanni Bagutti would appear to be more likely.
History
File:Mereworth by Paul Amsinck & engraved by Letitia Byrne, 1809.jpg
File:Mereworth Castle, Kent, a Fane & Colen Campbell collaboration, a postcard franked 1911.jpg
Originally the site of a fortified manor house with licence to crenellate in 1332, the manor of Mereworth was inherited by Francis Fane, 1st Earl of Westmorland (1580-1629) (son and heir of Sir Thomas Fane (died 1589) of Badsell in the parish of Tudeley in Kent) from his mother Mary Neville, suo jure Baroness le Despenser (c. 1554–1626),Edward Hasted, 'Parishes: Mereworth', in The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 5 (Canterbury, 1798), pp. 70-90 [http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol5/pp70-90] sole daughter and heiress of Henry Nevill, 6th Baron Bergavenny (died 1587). The present building is not actually a castle, but was built in the 1720s by John Fane, 7th Earl of Westmorland{{cite web|url=http://www.thepeerage.com/p1054.htm |title=The Peerage |publisher=The Peerage |access-date=2012-02-16}} to the 1723 design of the architect Colen Campbell being an almost exact copy of Palladio's Villa Rotunda near Venice.5 houses have been built in Britain based on Palladio's Villa Rotunda (the others being Nuthall Temple, Nottinghamshire [demolished]; Henbury Hall, Cheshire; Chiswick House, Greater London; and Foots Cray Place, Kent [demolished]) The interior features plasterwork by Giovanni Bagutti and fresco painting by Francesco Sleter. The house is situated in a landscaped park and valley with a number of surrounding pavilions and lodges which are also Grade I listed.{{NHLE| num= 1363025| desc = Pavilion to the North East of Mereworth Castle, Maidstone Road (south side), MEREWORTH, Tonbridge and Malling, Kent| accessdate= 2008-05-20}}{{NHLE| num= 1070676| desc = Pavilion to the North West and Stables of Mereworth Castle, Maidstone Road (south side), MEREWORTH, Tonbridge and Malling, Kent| accessdate= 2008-05-20}}
The house passed through descent to Barons Oranmore and Browne (Anglo-Irish Peers, the 3rd Lord Oranmore and Browne became also Baron Mereworth in 1926 and since then the titles are united) whose family seat it became. It was sold in 1930 [https://web.archive.org/web/20021108002743/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/08/10/db1001.xml Lord Oranmore and Browne's obituary] Telegraph and used as a prisoner of war camp during World War II.{{cite web|url=http://www.islandfarm.fsnet.co.uk/LIST%20OF%20UK%20POW%20CAMPS2.htm |title=Island farm |publisher=Islandfarm.fsnet.co.uk |access-date=2012-02-16 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120204082711/http://www.islandfarm.fsnet.co.uk/LIST%20OF%20UK%20POW%20CAMPS2.htm |archive-date=2012-02-04 }} In the 1950s and 1960s it was owned by artist Michael Lambert Tree (1921–1999{{cite ODNB |last=Colpus |first=Eve |title=Tree , Lady Anne Evelyn Beatrice (1927–2010) |edition=online |year=2015 |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/103305 |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/103305 |isbn=9780198614111 |accessdate=21 March 2015}}), a son of Ronald Tree and an heir to the Marshall Field mercantile fortune, and his wife, Lady Anne Cavendish, daughter of the 10th Duke of Devonshire. Tree inherited the house from his uncle, Peter Beatty, who died on 26 October 1949.{{cite news |date=20 June 1952 |url=http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1952/06/20/page/45/article/british-tax-may-topple-castle-of-a-field-heir |title=British tax may topple castle of a Field heir |work=Chicago Tribune}}
The Wateringbury Stream passes through the grounds of the castle. It powered a fulling mill at the eastern end of the castle grounds.Watermills of the East Malling and Wateringbury Streams, Part 2, Chapter 1Watermills (Kent and the Borders of Sussex) p134.
Mereworth Castle is owned by Mahdi Al-Tajir, the former United Arab Emirates ambassador to the United Kingdom and owner of the Highland Spring bottled water company,{{Cite news |date=24 April 2010|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/7624159/Sunday-Times-Rich-List-2010-Britains-richest-see-wealth-rise-by-one-third.html|title=Sunday Times Rich List 2010: Britain's richest see wealth rise by one third|work=The Daily Telegraph}} who purchased it in 1976 for $1.2 million.{{cite web|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,914443-2,00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121024165216/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,914443-2,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=October 24, 2012 |title=BRITAIN: Dinner for 370,000, Please, James |publisher=TIME |date=1976-08-02 |access-date=2012-02-16}} It is not generally accessible to the public, but does open on rare occasions for guided tours.
See also
References
{{Reflist|30em}}
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 Life, XLVII, 808,876,912; XCV, 242; CIV,728; CXVI, 209
- {{cite book | first = Michael| last = Fuller| year = 1980| title = The Watermills of the East Malling and Wateringbury Streams| publisher = Christine Swift.| location = Maidstone}}
- {{cite book | last = Fuller & Spain| year = 1986| title = Watermills (Kent and the Borders of Sussex)| publisher = Kent Archaeological Society| location = Maidstone| isbn = 0-906746-08-6| page = 134 }}
External links
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20061101052817/http://www.dicamillocompanion.com/Houses_hgpm.asp?ID=1370 The DiCamillo Companion to British & Irish Country Houses]
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20070311045409/http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/arch/landscapes/ukpg/sites/merewort.htm York University website entry]
- [http://theweald.org/m13.asp?PicIdto=9901533 1930s photographs]
{{Authority control}}
Category:Buildings by Colen Campbell
Category:Country houses in Kent
Category:Grade I listed buildings in Kent
Category:Grade I listed houses
Category:Houses completed in 1725
Category:Tonbridge and Malling
Category:Neoclassical architecture in England
Category:Rotundas in the United Kingdom
Category:Palladian architecture in England
Category:World War II prisoner-of-war camps in England