Post by Dave on Jul 2, 2018 17:28:37 GMT
Ugbrooke House 2nd July 2018
As many as 2,000 notable English country houses have been lost since 1800. Many suffered large fires and ended up being demolished, while others became derelict due to lack of funds to maintain their upkeep.
Thankfully the National Trust and English Heritage have saved so many of the wonderful properties still standing in the UK, but it is sad so many were lost. One day before I leave this earth, I hope our own Oldway Mansion is fully repaired and opened once again so the people of Torbay and our visitors can enjoy it again.
When you read the history of Ugbrooke House below, you will learn it ended up uninhabited and was being used as a grain store. This house could have so easily have joined the list of lost houses that can be found on this website
www.lostheritage.org.uk/index.html
Ugbrooke House has been on my must visit list for a number of years and I had planned to go there yesterday, but rain stopped play as they say and so the visit was put off until today. Some reviews I read have claimed it was expensive to visit the house, but I take the view that it is worth every penny to help keep our wonderful old buildings alive and well.
Lyn and I left home at 11.30pm and got to Ugbrooke House just as it was being opened. It was only a very short walk down to the house and we decided to go on the first guided tour at 12.30pm. There were only eight of us for this tour and the next one only had three people. The third and last tour was cancelled as there was no one to go on it.
Ugbrooke does not enjoy the visitor numbers National Trust properties receive and some of them are cheaper to get in, at Ugbrooke it costs £10 to view the house, but that does include the gardens etc.
Sadly you only get to see eight rooms in total and the talk is very long and becomes a bit boring which is a shame. The dear lady giving the talk found it hard at times to find her words and often struggled to remember some words she was looking for.
The tour and talk took one and a half hours and by them Lyn and I were glad to get back out into the fresh air. The rooms we saw were nothing that special and the only part that had a wow factor was when a false book case display was opened to reveal the chapel.
Being so hot Lyn did not fancy the lakeside walk which took me an hour to complete, but I am glad I did it as it was a very enjoyable walk.
I enjoyed my time at Ugbrooke but the house lacks the wow factor I have enjoyed at so many of the National Trust properties I have visited, also not being able to just wander around and explore the house was also a bit disappointing. As I said the talk is far to long with so many historical facts that you fail to remember once the talk is over. You are also not allowed to take any photos inside the house, a rule the Trust has changed recently. Ugbrooke is in a stunning location which is why it is a popular wedding venue and place to stay. It also earns its money from shoots held on its land and by holding other events during the year.
History Of Ugbrooke House
Ugbrooke House has a fascinating history covering 900 years, originally featuring in the Domesday book of 1086, and today it remains the private home of the Clifford family. It exhibits a variety of alterations made over the centuries, particularly the alterations made by Robert Adam when he and Capability Brown were commissioned by the 4th Lord Clifford to remodel the house, grounds and garden in the mid 18th century.
As one of the earliest examples of Adam’s “toy fort” style, the house has had a thoroughly varied past, journeying through periods of stately grandeur and desperate, troughs of disrepair. Requisitioned as a school during the Second World War, then serving as a refuge for the Polish Army, the house was subsequently relegated to a grain store. However, it was rescued in 1957 by the 13th Lord and Lady Clifford who painstakingly restored it back into a family home.
To help fund the restoration, a family heirloom – the state papers of the secret 1670 Treaty of Dover between Charles II and Louis XIV that had been given to the first Lord Clifford for safekeeping – was sold at auction.
Lady Clifford was a professional London-based interior designer who, after her marriage, threw herself whole-heartedly into the house's rebirth on a budget. Stables and attics were searched, and long-neglected furnishings were restored and given a fresh place in the house. Murky forgotten paintings became glorious again once cleaned and re hung.
The Cliffords have the kind of family history that novelists love. Scattered through the centuries are a royal mistress and an Elizabethan privateer, an adventuresome lord who rode the American plains with General Custer, another who became a cardinal, and yet another who was an eccentric famous for founding the Mystic Evolution Society.
But the ancestor most important to Ugbrooke was Thomas Clifford, 1st Baron of Chudleigh, who was one of the most trusted of Charles II's ministers. even though he wasn't well-liked.In return for Lord Clifford's services, the king granted him the land that would become Ugbrooke.
