On Thursday 22nd May over 20 people joined our latest ‘Make Your Own Way’ visit to Moor Park Mansion.
Moor Park Mansion is a Neo-Palladian mansion set within several hundred acres of parkland to the south-east of Rickmansworth in Hertfordshire, England. It is called Moor Park Mansion because it is in the old park of the Manor of the More, a 16th-century palace. It now serves as the clubhouse of Moor Park Golf Club.
We divided into two groups and our tour guides, Maria and Susan proceeded to show us the rooms open to the public accompanied by descriptions of the history, decor and pictures displayed.
The house is listed Grade I on the National Heritage List for England, and the landscaped park is listed Grade II* on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.
The Manor of the More had become a ruin by the early 17th century, and Edward Russell, 3rd Earl of Bedford built the original version of this house as a replacement c. 1617. The house was rebuilt by its new owner James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth in the late 1670s, and was inherited by his widow Anne Scott, 1st Duchess of Buccleuch following his beheading in 1685.
She sold the house to the businessman Benjamin Haskins-Stiles, who financed a remodelling of the house and the addition of a portico during the 1720s.
Stiles had the house remodelled in the 1720s. The principal architect was Giacomo Leoni, initially assisted by the painter Sir James Thornhill. Leoni refaced the brick house with Portland stone and added a great Corinthian portico on the south front.
After starting the tour outside, we moved into the Great Hall. Thornhill was commissioned to paint the Great Hall and the Grand Stair, complete with a dome in imitation of St. Peter's, Rome. The Grand Hall, its decoration, ceiling and paintings are magnificent and have been restored since 1994 following the acquisition of the freehold by the Moor Park Golf Club.
However, Thornhill quarrelled with Stiles and left the project before its completion. After Stiles's falling-out with Thornhill, Amigoni was commissioned to paint the four pictures in the Great Hall, the story of Jupiter and Io, from Ovid's Metamorphoses, while the ceiling, which depicts Aurora and the Dawn, was painted somewhat earlier, by Antonio Verrio.
We moved on to the Grand Staircase where the paintings date from 1732 and depict the Origin of the Seasons from Ovid’s Metamorphoses by Francesco Sleter, a Venetian artist who studied under Jacopo Amigoni.
Our next stop was a first-floor room, now named "the Arnhem Room". During the Second World War, the mansion was requisitioned, becoming the Headquarters of the 1st Airborne Corps. It was here they planned Operation Market Garden, the abortive mission to capture the bridges of the Lower Rhine in 1944.
Following our tour of the Mansion we moved outside to the stable buildings, which once housed the servants and gardeners and on into the Gardens. In 1752 the house was bought by Admiral Lord Anson, who commissioned Capability Brown to remake the formal gardens in sweeping "landscape style" with a small lake. We ended by the statue personifying Old Father Thames in the form of a bearded river god. It was sculpted by John Bacon the Elder in 1779 and is made of Coade stone, a mixture of clay, terracotta, silicates and glass. When the gardens fell into disrepair the statue was lost. It was recently found in poor condition and with missing parts. Renovation was completed in 2023.
The excellent tour was completed with Tea, Coffee and biscuits in the Main Hall.
We must thank Michael Mendelblat for organising the visit, as he does all our ‘Make Your Own Way’ visits.
