Wilton House: The Pembroke Earls’ Country Seat in Wiltshire
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- British, English
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Elite Residence
On this page27 sections
History
Wilton House is an English country house in the United Kingdom, at Wilton near Salisbury in Wiltshire, built and enlarged by successive members of the Herbert family from the sixteenth century onward. It has been the country seat of the Earls of Pembroke for more than 400 years and occupies the site of medieval Wilton Abbey.
From Wilton Abbey to a Tudor mansion
Wilton Abbey is traditionally described as a religious house founded by Alfred the Great in the ninth century. By the twelfth century it had become a Benedictine nunnery. The abbey was dissolved during the reign of Henry VIII, and its buildings and attached estates were granted to William Herbert between 1542 and 1544. Herbert was a courtier and soldier who had served Francis I of France before becoming a favourite of Henry VIII. His acquisition of Wilton marked his rise at the Tudor court.
William Herbert demolished the abbey buildings and constructed a Tudor mansion on or near the former abbey site between 1544 and 1563. The house remained the principal residence of the Pembroke family, although the Tudor building itself lasted for about 80 years before major rebuilding began.
Seventeenth-century rebuilding
When Philip Herbert became the 4th Earl of Pembroke in 1630, he demolished the southern wing and commissioned a new group of state rooms. State rooms were formal interiors intended for royal or otherwise distinguished guests. Isaac de Caus carried out much of the work, while Inigo Jones supplied designs or architectural advice. The precise extent of Jones’s involvement remains uncertain.
The new south range formed a major expression of Palladian architecture, a classical style based on symmetry, proportion, columns, and pediments and associated with the Italian architect Andrea Palladio. The intended scheme included a second matching wing and a central portico, but this larger plan was not completed. The change may have followed Philip Herbert’s quarrel with Charles I and the resulting loss of royal favour, the Civil War, or financial difficulties.
A fire in 1647 seriously damaged parts of Wilton House, although the extent of the destruction is disputed. John Webb later worked with Jones on the interiors, and the seven state rooms in the south wing were redesigned after the fire. The Double Cube Room was created around 1653. During this period, Wilton also developed an important literary identity under Mary Sidney, wife of the 2nd Earl of Pembroke. The Wilton Circle of poets included Edmund Spenser, Michael Drayton, John Davies, Abraham Fraunce, and Samuel Daniel. Mary Sidney’s brother, Philip Sidney, is associated with writing Arcadia at Wilton.
Royal, literary, and Shakespearean associations
Wilton House was connected with the royal court in late 1603, when James I, Anne of Denmark, and Prince Henry stayed there because plague was affecting London. The court received the Venetian ambassadors Nicolò Molin and Piero Duodo. On 2 December, the King’s Men performed for the court with John Heminges among the players; the play is traditionally identified as As You Like It.
A Shakespearean tradition also became attached to the house. A statue and later accounts commemorate the belief that Shakespeare visited Wilton and performed a play there, although the visit remains unproved.
Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century changes
After another fire, the 8th Earl of Pembroke rebuilt some of the oldest parts of the house in 1705. He also created rooms for displaying the Arundel marbles, forming the basis of Wilton’s sculpture collection. The gardens changed repeatedly. Isaac de Caus began a formal French-style garden around 1632, with patterned parterres, a grotto, and water features. The parterres were later replaced by lawns, and the grounds became a landscape garden in the eighteenth century before being redesigned partly in an Italian style around 1820.
In 1801, the 11th Earl of Pembroke commissioned James Wyatt to modernise Wilton House and provide more space for paintings and sculpture. The work continued for eleven years and was completed after Wyatt’s death by his nephew, Sir Jeffry Wyatville. Wyatt removed the former entrance porch, demolished the Tudor great hall, chapel, and original state staircase, and introduced a Gothic entrance and staircase. He also built cloisters around the courtyard. Much of the exterior Gothic work was removed in the early twentieth century, giving the outside a more classical appearance again.
Wilton House in the modern period
During the Second World War, the Double Cube Room served as a headquarters for Winston Churchill and Dwight D. Eisenhower during the Allied invasion. Wilton House and its grounds remain a family home. William Herbert, 18th Earl of Pembroke, and his family occupy part of the building, while the estate extends across approximately 14,000 acres, divided into fourteen farms and containing more than 200 residential properties.
The house was listed at Grade I in 1951, and the park and gardens were entered at Grade I on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens in 1987. Part of the house and its grounds have been open to visitors since 1951. In the late twentieth century, the 17th Earl created a memorial garden in Wyatt’s entrance forecourt.
Remains
Wilton House is arranged around an inner courtyard and consists of four wings built mainly from local stone. The building rises two or three storeys, with emphasized projections at the corners. Its surviving fabric brings together a Tudor gate tower, a seventeenth-century Palladian south facade, Wyatt’s nineteenth-century circulation spaces, and a sequence of richly furnished interiors.
Tudor and Palladian exteriors
Tudor gate tower
The east facade, once the principal entrance, retains a four-storey Tudor gate tower built around 1550. Its central arch formerly opened onto the courtyard, and three levels of oriel windows rise above it. The tower is the principal surviving fragment of William Herbert’s mansion. Two medieval-style statues were added at ground level during Wyatt’s alterations.
South facade
The south facade is a major seventeenth-century Palladian composition. Its low ground floor is rusticated, meaning that the masonry is treated with strongly marked joints to create a textured appearance. Three small porches carry balconies, while the principal residential or ceremonial floor, known as the piano nobile, is dominated by a double-height Venetian window. Four tall sash windows stand on each side. A balustrade conceals the roofline, and pavilion-like towers terminate the facade.
The south front was built in local stone as one part of a projected larger design. The plan called for a central portico and a second matching wing. Its associated formal parterre measured approximately 1,000 feet by 400 feet and survived for more than a century before later garden changes altered the grounds.
Courtyard and state rooms
Cloisters and entrance hall
Wyatt’s two-storey cloisters run around all four sides of the inner courtyard. A cloister is a covered passage arranged around an open court. At Wilton, the cloisters provide circulation between rooms and form a gallery for the Pembroke collection of classical sculpture. The front hall, also redesigned by Wyatt, connects with them through two Gothic arches. It contains statuary, including a larger-than-life statue of William Shakespeare designed by William Kent in 1743.
Seven state rooms
Seven state rooms occupy the piano nobile of the south wing. They were planned for royal visitors and arranged around a central principal room with associated anterooms, withdrawing rooms, and state bedrooms. The Single Cube Room measures approximately 30 feet, or 9 metres, in length, width, and height. Gilded white-pine panelling extends from the dado to the cornice, and a white marble chimneypiece is attributed to Inigo Jones. A painted canvas ceiling attributed to Cavalier D’Arpino, also known as Giuseppe Cesari, depicts Daedalus and Icarus. Paintings by Lely and Van Dyck hang in the room.
Double Cube Room
The Double Cube Room, created around 1653 by Inigo Jones and John Webb, measures approximately 60 by 30 by 30 feet, or 18 by 9 by 9 metres. White-painted pine walls carry gilded swags of foliage and fruit. Thomas de Critz painted the ceiling with scenes from the story of Perseus. The room contains portraits by Van Dyck of the family of Charles I and the Pembroke family, mirrors by Chippendale, and console tables by William Kent.
Anterooms and former state bedroom
The Great Anteroom formerly received the grand staircase that led from the courtyard to the state apartments. Its collection includes a portrait of Rembrandt’s mother by Rembrandt, as well as paintings associated with Van Dyck and Willem van de Velde. The Little Anteroom has a white marble fireplace with black marble inserts, probably designed by Inigo Jones. Its ceiling panels, attributed to Lorenzo Sabbatini, predate this part of the house. Paintings by Van Dyck and Teniers are also displayed there.
The Colonnade Room was formerly a state bedroom. Four gilded columns indicate the position of the lost state bed. Eighteenth-century furniture by William Kent stands with paintings by Reynolds, while the ceiling is decorated with flowers, monkeys, urns, and cobwebs.
Corner and hunting rooms
The Corner Room has a ceiling painting by Luca Giordano, red-damask wall coverings, and paintings associated with Rubens, Andrea del Sarto, and Frans II Francken. The Hunting Room is a square private drawing room used by the Herbert family. Its white panelling and gilded mouldings incorporate hunting-scene panels painted by Edward Pierce around 1653 directly into the woodwork.
Wyatt’s interiors and collections
Upper cloisters and staircase
The upper cloisters, designed by Wyatt and completed around 1824 by Wyatville, contain neoclassical sculpture and paintings by the Brueghel brothers. They also display a lock of Elizabeth I’s hair and Napoleon I’s dispatch box. Wyatt’s staircase replaced the demolished muralled state staircase and is lined with family portraits by Lely. A portrait of Catherine Woronzow, wife of the 11th Earl, is displayed with her Russian sleigh in the cloisters.
Smoking rooms
The smoking rooms occupy the wing attributed to Inigo Jones and John Webb. Their cornices and doors are attributed to Jones. The larger room contains fifty-five equestrian gouache paintings made in 1755 and furniture made for the room by Thomas Chippendale.
Private rooms
The library is a private, book-lined room more than 20 yards long, with views towards a formal garden and a vista leading to the former Holbein Porch. The breakfast room is a small, low-ceilinged room in the rustic ground floor of the south front. It was formerly an eighteenth-century heated plunge pool and became a breakfast room around 1815. Its Chinese-style wallpaper reproduces the earlier decoration.
Entrances and estate buildings
North entrance
Wyatt created the north entrance and forecourt around 1801. Their centrepiece is an ashlar arch designed by Sir William Chambers around 1758 to 1762. It has Corinthian columns, a dentil cornice, an inner arch on Doric columns, and eighteenth-century wrought-iron gates. A lead equestrian statue, probably older than the arch, represents Marcus Aurelius. Wyatt added a single-storey ashlar lodge on each side, each with a balustraded parapet.
Holbein Porch
The former entrance porch, traditionally called the Holbein Porch, was removed from the house around 1800 and converted into a garden pavilion. It survives as a relocated garden feature.
Washern Grange
Washern Grange lies south of the house across the River Nadder. It is a former stable complex, probably rebuilt in the 1630s around a fourteenth-century barn that presumably belonged to the abbey. Built of brick with stone dressings, it has since been divided into several dwellings.
Gardens, bridge, and wider grounds
Gardens and park
The gardens developed through several distinct designs. Their early formal arrangement included one of the earliest French parterres in England, together with a grotto and water features. Later lawns replaced the patterned beds, the grounds became a landscape garden, and part of the layout was treated in an Italian manner. Lebanon cedars in the grounds are described as among the first planted in England.
The park includes land formerly occupied by much of Fugglestone village. The settlement was cleared, including the site of the medieval Hospital of St Giles, a leper hospital. The wider estate also includes Salisbury Racecourse and South Wilts Golf Course.
Palladian Bridge
The Palladian Bridge crosses the River Nadder approximately 90 metres south of the house. Built in 1736 and 1737 for the 9th Earl of Pembroke, Henry Herbert, in collaboration with Roger Morris, it has balustraded stairs, a pedimented arch, an open pavilion, and a central balustraded span beneath a high roof. A five-bay Ionic colonnade supports the roof, and the design was partly based on an unbuilt proposal by Palladio for the Rialto Bridge in Venice.
Copies of the bridge were built at Stowe, Prior Park, Hagley, and Tsarskoye Selo, where the Russian version is known as the Marble Bridge.
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