Houghton Hall

Today we were on a U3A Bury St Edmunds trip to Houghton Hall in Norfolk.

As it said in the leaflet for the outing...

"After a cup of tea or coffee, we will be given a 60 minute guided tour of the House before it opens to the public at 12 noon.  Your ticket gives you unlimited access to the house, walled garden, sculpture park, exhibitions, deer park and church, old stables and Soldier Museum as well as the café and gift shop.

Built in the 1720s for Sir Robert Walpole, Britain’s First Prime Minister, Houghton Hall is one of the finest Palladian Houses in England.  It is a showcase of the work of architects James Gibbs and Colen Campbell, complimented by the richly ornamental interiors of William Kent and furnished to reflect Walpole’s growing wealth and power.  The Hall is the home of the 7th Marquess of Cholmondeley, Walpole’s descendent, and his family.

World renowned artists take over its gardens and historic interiors every year and this is the main focus of our visit today to see the exhibitions of Antony Gormley and Magdalene Odundo which finish this autumn.

Antony Gormley, Time Horizon

This spectacular large-scale installation features 100 life-size sculpture.  Distributed across 300 acres of the park and gardens the cast-iron sculptures each weighing 620kg and standing at an average of 191cm are installed at the same height to create a single horizontal plane across the landscape.  The ‘datum’ work in the Arcade (the Hall’s lower floor) sets the height for all the sculptures.

Dame Magdalene Odundo

The showcase features both established pieces and new creations spanning her illustrious 30-year career.  Notably visitors have the chance to witness a significant new commission, conceived during her residency at the iconic Wedgwood factory in Stoke-on-Trent.  The exhibition promises a captivating interplay between her distinctive works and the grandeur of Houghton’s State Rooms.

Surrounded by traditional parkland, Houghton Hall has a stunning herd of white fallow deer.  The award winning five acre Walled Garden includes a spectacular double-sided herbaceous border, a formal rose parterre and a rustic temple designed by Julian and Isabel Bannerman. 

The Stables contain a range of original wooden stalls and tack and harness room.  The Soldier Museum holds the Cholmondeley Collection, one of the largest private collections in the world with 20,000 models.  

St. Martin’s Church, a medieval landmark nestled within the grounds, boasts a rich history dating back to the 13th Century.  Over the centuries it has undergone significant enlargement and restoration with notable contributions from figures such as Sir Robert Walpole, who reconstructed the tower in approximately 1730 to honour his grandfather, Sir Jeffery Burwell."

We had 6 1/2 hours from arriving until the coach left to take us home so we had time to see just about everything.

Here are a few of my photos.

We had our teas and coffees in the South Wing.

All day we had a myriad of swallows or swifts darting about.

Looking west towards the Sandringham estate, the statues added a spookiness to the misty landscape. With low cloud and mist it was a bit mizzly all day, but not cold and it was never heavy enough to need a umbrella.

Our guide didn't keep us out in the drizzle for too long....

...before taking us up the stairs to the state rooms. You can read about them here,  here and here.

The Consort's throne on the right here is used for the state opening of parliament. It was first installed in 1901 for Queen Alexandra, is in the care of the previous Lord Great Chamberlain the Marquess of Cholmondeley for safekeeping. When the present incumbent, Rupert Carington, 7th Baron Carrington took over, it was decided it would remain at Houghton Hall as he had nowhere suitable to keep it.

"Don't forget to look up", said our guide.

Not much of the Sèvres porcelain was on display, making room for Magdalene Odundo's pieces scattered through the rooms.

The bronze copy of the Borghese Gladiator, discovered in 1611 and reproduced by Le Sueur for the Earl of Pembroke's garden stands in the middle of the main staircase.

After the tour of the Hall, we explored the grounds of the estate and visited most of the artworks installed in the gardens.

This is Richard Long's Full Moon Circle.

This stack of railway sleepers is Sean Scully's Indoor Sleeper.

We encountered many of the Antony Gormley Time Horizon statues.

The cast iron sculptures, each weighing approximately 640 kg and standing at an average of 191cm, are installed at the same datum level to create a single horizontal plane across the landscape. Some works are buried, allowing only a part of the head to be visible, while others are buried to the chest or knees according to the topography. Only occasionally do they stand on the existing surface. Around a quarter of the works are placed on concrete columns that vary from a few centimetres high to rising four meters off the ground.

Here are some in the parkland to the west of the hall.

There is no staircase on this side of the hall.

This is the 'datum' statue at the centre of the work in the ground floor of the hall (with some of it in the basement).

We liked James Turrell's Skyspace: Seldom Seen, which dates from 2002 and is the first of the artworks to be installed in the grounds.

It is quite mesmerising even with the total cloud cover we had today.

We ate our picnic at one of the tables in the courtyard of the stables.

We visited the stables and tack room...

...and model soldier exhibition. This is the wonderful diorama of the battle of Waterloo.

Then it was on to the Walled Garden - the highlight of our visit.

The rose garden was surrounded by white roses.

It is at a lower level than the hall, so this statue had to be on a tall plinth to be at the right height.

Dawn liked the hot border the best.

There are some exotic flowers by the greenhouse at the end.

The fruit garden is very impressive with the trees laden with apples and pears of many varieties.

The dahlia border was very impressive too.

We went out into the parkland again to look for the deer and visit St Martin's Church.

We still had a few minutes before we needed to head for the coach so we revisited the walled garden to see an area we had missed. We were glad we did!

Here we found Richard Long's Houghton Cross..

.

...and Jeppe Hein's amazing Waterflame which varied in height over time.

The final fountain nearby...

...brought our visit to an end. Then it was back to the coach for the ride home. A great day out, despite the persistent mizzle. Thank-you Pat for organising.

You can see plenty more of my photos here on Flickr.