WILLYBROOK HUNDRED 



APETHORPE 



ever, does not appear to have done anything to his 

 own house, but some years after his death in 1617, 

 when his son-in-law. Sir Francis Fane, had come 

 into possession through marrying his only daughter 

 and heiress, very considerable alterations were made. 



Sir Francis built the east front and part of the 

 south, dating his work 1623-4, and he lavishly em- 

 bellished the rooms on the first floor of the southern 

 range ; he also brought the whole of the first court 

 into harmony with his new work by adding stepped 

 and curved gables and parapets to the older walls, 

 making them of the same pattern as those on his own 

 additions. The rooms added by him were thence- 

 forward the principal apartments of the house. They 

 comprised the long gallery, occupying the greater part 

 of the east front, and several fine rooms on the 

 southern return. The ceilings and chimney-pieces of 

 these rooms are their most remarkable features, the 

 former being among the finest produced in that age of 

 fine plasterwork. The ceiling of the long gallery is 

 of an ordinary type, but those of the two drawing- 

 rooms are considerably richer, and the panels are 

 fitted with the heraldry of the Fanes. Sir Francis's 

 mother was the sole heiress of Lord Neville of Aber- 

 gavenny, and accordingly it is largely Neville and its 

 alliances which furnish the heraldry of the more 

 easterly of the two rooms, while the other displays 

 Neville impaling Manners, Fane impaling Neville, and 

 Fane impaling Mildmay. It is the centre row of 

 panels which contains the shields ; the side rows con- 

 tain the crests and badges of the various families 

 concerned. In the western room two Cavendish 

 badges were added at each end just above the cornice 

 in 17-13 by John, earl of Westmorland, who married 

 a Cavendish. It is this western room which contains 

 the chimney-piece of 1562 erected by Sir Walter 

 Mildmay. The chimney-pieces of Sir Francis Fane, or 

 of the first earl of Westmorland, for he was so created 

 in 1624 while he was engaged upon this work, are of 

 an allegorical type very common in those days ; they 

 are very quaint, but the figure carving was done by 

 an artist who had not thoroughly mastered the model- 

 ling of the human figure. One room, next to the 

 smaller drawing-room, has a coved ceiling ornamented 

 with strap-work and with the royal arms very hand- 

 somely modelled. They are those of James I, who 

 stayed with Sir Anthony Mildmay in 1603 in the 

 course of his journey from Scotland, and again in 

 1 6 14. He subsequently gave the timber for the east 

 and south fronts. The chimney-piece in the long 

 gallery is of considerable interest, inasmuch as the in- 

 scription on it gives one reason for the erection of such 

 rooms : it was to be used as a music room. The 

 bedroom in the south-east corner has a large chimney- 

 piece with a ship in full sail, a hand holding an anchor, 

 a hand supporting a ducal coronet, and the prince's 

 feathers ; all in remembrance, it is said, of the visit of 

 Prince Charles and the duke of Buckingham to Spain : 

 and the charming plaster frieze contains Neville 

 badges. In a room in the extreme diagonal corner, 

 near the kitchen, is another handsome chimney-piece, 

 not allegorical, but of a less ambitious type, the chief 

 feature of it being two shields, one of Fane quartering 

 many Neville coats, the other Mildmay and Sharing- 

 ton quarterly. The arcades shown on the plan as 

 occupying much of the ground floor of the east front 



have since been converted into a large entrance hall, 

 at one end of which stands the statue of James I, 

 which formerly occupied a central position on the 

 south side of the court. 



The remainder of the building operations which the 

 house has undergone are not of such great architec- 

 tural interest, although they have very materially 

 affected its appearance. In 1 65 3 the outer face of 

 the entrance gateway was once more embellished, the 

 archway and window over it being framed with 

 carving, and a niche being introduced on either side, 

 one of which has been removed through subsequent 

 additions. To the same date approximately belong 

 the outer wall and the fireplace of the kitchen, as well 

 as many of the wood windows in different places. 

 The orangery, now a conservatory, which forms the 

 south side of the second court, was built in 1718, and 

 the south side of the first court was refaced and the 

 arcade occupying the whole of its ground storey was 

 formed by the seventh earl between 1736 and 1762,' 

 the domestic chapel being destroyed by the making of 

 the arcade. At the same time the eastern half of the 

 north side, which contains the library, was rebuilt. 

 The intention was to complete the refacing of the 

 court in the same style, but happily the idea was 

 never carried out. The late Lord Westmorland made 

 a few internal alterations, and since the estate changed 

 hands in 1904 a remodelling of the upper part of the 

 south wing has been undertaken, which marks the latest 

 stage in the history of this unusually interesting house. 



Apethorpe has been described once and for all in the 

 well-known lines of Julian Fane, which give with 

 wonderful accuracy the exact feeling of the place : — 



Four-square, and double-courted, and grey-stoned. 

 Two quaint quadrangles of deep-latticed walls 

 Grass-grown, and mourned about by troops of doves. 

 The ancient house. 



The gardens have not retained much of their former 

 character, but two rows of ancient yews leading south- 

 wards from the south front are the remains of the 

 ancient lay-out. The gardens were being laid out in 

 1598 ; and there are also records of the making of a 

 kitchen garden in 1 7 14, and a wilderness in 1713.' 

 From the copy of a plan once ' preserved in the 

 library' it would seem that the space between these 

 yews and the house was occupied by a bowling green, 

 the higher level of the yew trees being bounded on 

 the north by ' a terrace walk ' ; the garden west of 

 the yews was then an orchard, while that to the east 

 occupied a considerable space now thrown into the 

 park. In front of the east fafade was ' the gravel 

 garden,' surrounded by a wall and having a garden 

 house at its two outer angles. This arrangement is 

 shown on a view taken in I 721, now preserved in the 

 British Museum. The main entrance to the house 

 was through the oft-mentioned gateway in the north 

 front ; the porch on the east front, which is now the 

 chief entrance, then led only to the gravel garden, 

 which has been entirely destroyed, and the restoration 

 of which on something like the original model would 

 vastly enhance the beauty and dignity of the house. 



Apethorpe under the Mildmays was a centre from 

 time to time of political influence. Sir Walter Mild- 

 may, although a strong Puritan, was an adroit poli- 

 tician. He served Queen Mary to the time of her 

 death, and became Queen Elizabeth's chancellor of 



^ Tfiese notes of eighteenth-century 

 alterations arc taken from a MS. account 



of Apethorpe by Lady Rose Welgall, most 

 kindly lent for the purposes of the history. 



545 



^ From the MS. account of Apethorpe 

 referred to above. 



69 



