There aren’t many notable places to stay in and around Rotherham.
None at all, in fact, once you’ve discounted the cheap and not always cheerful Holiday Inn and Ibis chains.
But, hold those plastic room keys for a moment, because there are plans to open the grandest of grand B&Bs, not only in all of South Yorkshire but possibly in the entire country.
Set in nearly 90 acres of parkland, this new, 20-room enterprise will be just a few miles from Rotherham city centre at Grade 1-listed Wentworth Woodhouse, the dilapidated stately pile with as many rooms as there are days in the year – a mansion which makes Buckingham Palace look like a tiddler.
The grand whistlejacket room at Wentworth. The architectural historian, Nikolous Pevsner, described the interiors as ‘quite exceptional value, not easily matched anywhere in Britain’
Its Palladian frontage, with a 19-bay central block, two wings and a pavilion on each end, is the length of two football pitches; there are four acres of roofing and nearly two miles of corridors
Work has started in the so-called ‘Bedlam’ wing, where ensuite rooms over three floors will offer a luxury night’s sleep, a sumptuous breakfast fry-up and a chance to revel in one of the finest houses in Britain, which, after many uncertain years and a fair number of scandals, is now the object of a £200 million restoration programme planned over several decades.
The architectural historian, Nikolous Pevsner, described Wentworth’s interiors as of ‘quite exceptional value, not easily matched anywhere in Britain.’ And Marcus Binney, president of SAVE Britain’s Heritage, says the house’s six column Corinthian portico is ‘one of the most beautiful in English architecture, surpassing even those of the National Gallery and St Martin’s-in-the-Fields in London’s Trafalgar Square.’
Today, despite its flaking ceilings, rotting windows and crumbling brick work, it is still a masterpiece on a colossal scale, which if circumstances had been different would be mentioned in the same breath as Chatsworth, Blenheim Palace and Woburn Abbey.
The sweeping main staircase features Greek and Roman statues and busts
The Daily Mail’s Mark Palmer sits in the massive, square Marble Saloon. This perfectly symmetrical room has a wrap-around gallery supported by ionic pillars
Not that size matters, but Wentworth Woodhouse is bigger than any of them.
Its Palladian frontage, with a 19-bay central block, two wings and a pavilion on each end, is the length of two football pitches; there are four acres of roofing and nearly two miles of corridors.
In its glory days as the ancestral seat of the fabulously wealthy Fitzwilliam family, guests were issued with confetti to scatter behind them so they could find their way back to their respective bedrooms after dinner.
Downton Abbey’s Lady Mary and her husband Henry Talbot dance in the marble saloon, used as the ballroom in the film
Its quality has continued to shine through, not least in highly acclaimed films and TV series, such as Darkest Hour, starring Gary Oldman as Sir Winston Churchill
But Wentworth eventually ran out of heirs with the kind of money to keep it going in the style to which it had become accustomed, and then it fell victim to a class war waged by members of the Labour government in 1946, when the British Government seized Wentworth Woodhouse’s gardens and parkland for open-cast mining.
Even so, its quality has continued to shine through, not least in highly acclaimed films and TV series, such as Darkest Hour, starring Gary Oldman as Sir Winston Churchill; ITV’s Victoria; the BBC’s Gentleman Jack – and not forgetting the Downton Abbey movie when Wentworth’s ‘Marble Saloon’ was used as the ballroom.
Real life at Wentworth has not always been so glamorous but a fairytale of sorts is now being played out following its acquisition by the Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust in 2017.
It’s a scheme not dissimilar to the repainting of the Forth Road Bridge – once you’ve finished what needs doing it’s time to start all over again.
‘This is an ongoing project and one that will never end if the house is to survive for another 100 years or more,’ says Sarah McLeod, 56, chief executive of WWPT. ‘We’ve got to give Wentworth a modern relevance while treating it with integrity.’
Despite its flaking ceilings, rotting windows and crumbling brick work, it is still a masterpiece on a colossal scale, which if circumstances had been different would be mentioned in the same breath as Chatsworth, Blenheim Palace and Woburn Abbey
The B&B element in the Bedlam Wing – so-named because that’s where bachelors were billeted for house parties – won’t be up and running for a couple of years, but next week sees the opening of the Camellia House, built within the grounds in 1738 by the 5th Earl Fitzwilliam as a tea room for his wife, Lady Mary Dundas.
This alone cost some £5 million, of which almost £4 million came from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the rest from Historic England.
Quite how the blooming camellias survived amid years of broken glass, rubble, brambles, nettles and nothing much in the way of tender loving care is a triumph of nature.
Some of them, including the ‘Pompone’ and pink ‘Japonica Elegans’ date back to the early 1800s and cost the 4th Earl Fitzwilliam the equivalent of a housemaid’s annual wage. They are regarded as on a par with the collection at London’s Chiswick House – and every leaf has been polished by hand prior to the opening.
The Camellia House was built within the grounds in 1738 by the 5th Earl Fitzwilliam as a tea room for his wife, Lady Mary Dundas. It will open next week to the public
Wentworth Woodhouse, as it is today, was built for the 1st Marquess of Rockingham in 1724 and took 25 years to complete. It is actually two houses joined together, a semi-detached like none other.
The West Front, where the family made their living quarters, is in English Baroque style, but the Earl did not think it sufficiently palatial (and the Whig party, to which he belonged, saw Baroque as distasteful) and so set about building the East Front in the then-fashionable Palladian style, with a series of interconnecting state rooms, resplendent with marble statues, vast canvas paintings and Greek and Roman pillars – all symbols of power and wealth.
Visitors to the house enter through the many-pillared lower hall and ascend a half moon stair with twin flights, leading to the massive, square Marble Saloon. This perfectly symmetrical room has a wrap-around gallery supported by ionic pillars.
The estate is expecting 120,000 visitors this year, up 60 per cent on the previous 12 months
The 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, who inherited from his father in 1750, was himself a pillar – of the establishment. As a founding member of the Jockey Club, he went on to become Prime Minister twice, latterly succeeding Lord North in 1782, after which he began peace negotiations with America to bring an end to the War of Independence and became something of a hero after passing the 1782 Relief of the Poor Act.
But the Earl might not have achieved any of this if he had been drawn into what society would have regarded as a shocking turn of events, when his youngest sister Lady Henrietta fell in love with a lowly Irish footman four years her junior, whom she used to tutor in grammar and mathematics.
Unbeknown to her family, Henrietta and the footman, William, married in secret and had a baby girl. When the Earl finally learnt of this from his sister, he carried her letter in his pocket for six months for fear that anyone would read it.
To protect her brother, Henrietta, William and their daughter Agnes fled to France where they went on to have four more children, before she died aged 52 in Rouen in 1789.
The 2nd Marquess had no direct heir but left his estates to his nephew, the 4th Earl Fitzwilliam, who was already exceptionally rich in his own right (and rumoured to have been the model for the Jane Austen hearthrob, Fitzwilliam Darcy, better known as plain Mr Darcy, as depicted by Colin Firth and that shirt).
Much of the wealth generated by the Wentworth-Fitzwilliams was due to the family owning a number of collieries in the area – and it was coal which eventually contributed to the house’s downfall.
But life was still merry at the turn of the 19th century when for the 5th Earl’s coming of age party in 1807, 10,000 guests consumed 26 roasted sheep and nearly 500 bottles of wine and champagne. And when the 6th Earl died in 1902, he left £2.8 million, more than £3 billion in today’s money.
Shortly afterwards, in 1912, George V and Queen Mary stayed at Wentworth for four days and were greeted by some 40,000 locals on their arrival.
For more than a century, it was recorded that the famous ballerina, Anna Pavlova, stepped out onto the floor of the Marble Saloon and danced for the royal couple but further research has revealed that the dancer was actually Lydia Kyasht, Pavlova’s more famous (at the time) compatriot and fellow graduate of the Imperial Ballet School at St Petersburg.
When George V and Queen Mary stayed at Wentworth in 1912, a famous ballerina, Lydia Kyasht, stepped out onto the floor of the Marble Saloon and danced for the royal couple
Visitors enter through the many-pillared lower hall. The house features countless Greek and Roman pillars – symbols of power and wealth
Things took a darker turn following World War Two, when the 8th Earl, Peter Fizwilliam – who had been awarded a DSO after completing 12 missions on motor gunboats – resided in the house with his wife, Olive ‘Obby’ Plunket, the daughter of a bishop.
At the time, the country was in desperate need of coal and Wentworth was sitting on plenty of it. Enter class warrior Manny Shinwell, Minister of Fuel and Power in Clement Atlee’s government, who set about nationalising the coal industry and gave the go-ahead for open-cast mining.
Shinwell claimed that any coal extracted from Wentworth would be of high quality, although there was no proof of this. Against the wishes of locals, the media, the Conservative Party and even the National Union of Mineworkers (pre-Arthur Scargill) the diggers moved in.
One morning, the Earl looked out of his bedroom window and was greeted with a mountain of coal practically touching the house. But worse was to follow.
For several years, Peter Fitzwilliam had been having an affair with Kathleen ‘Kick’ Kennedy, the beguilingly beautiful sister of U.S. President, John F. Kennedy. In 1948, she and Peter flew to Paris for one of their trysts but on the way back, their plane experienced severe turbulence and crashed. Both were killed instantly.
Peter Fizwilliam, the 8th earl, had been having an affair with Kathleen ‘Kick’ Kennedy, the beguilingly beautiful sister of U.S. President, John F. Kennedy. In 1948, she and Peter flew to Paris for one of their trysts but on the way back, their plane experienced severe turbulence and crashed. Both were killed instantly
It wasn’t long before the Fitzwilliam title died out, after which Wentworth became a teacher training college for PE students and then a campus used by Sheffield City Polytechnic. In 1986, it was bought by entrepreneur Wensley Haydon-Baillie and then 12 years later was sold to the architect, Clifford Newbold.
When Mr Newbold died in 2015, the house was in a perilous state. The National Trust was not minded to take it on, but SAVE Britain’s Heritage went into action and the Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust was launched, with the task of raising £7 million to buy the house.
Crucially, Philip Hammond, the then-chancellor, announced a £7.6 million grant for urgent repairs in his 2016 Autumn budget – and Wentworth was saved. The trust acquired it a year later.
Work has begun on the ‘Bedlam’ wing, where ensuite rooms over three floors will offer a luxury night’s sleep, a sumptuous breakfast fry-up and a chance to revel in one of the finest houses in Britain
Work on the stables – itself so imposing that people often mistake it for the actual house – is galloping ahead, transforming the Georgian buildings into spaces for weddings and corporate events. And the house is open to the public from Tuesday to Sunday, with guided tours throughout the day.
‘At the start in 2017, we had no internet, only one phone, one vacuum cleaner and a staff of six,’ says Ms McLeod. ‘Now we have 104 paid staff and 300 volunteers and have gone from a zero net turnover to £3.5 million. We are on course to have 120,000 visitors this year, up 60 per cent on the previous 12 months.’
Much of the front of the house is black – a legacy from its coal days – and Ms McLeod says she is often asked if the whole façade will be cleaned. But it’s not currently a priority.
A pristine portico and unblemished pillars might look attractive. It would, however, erase some poignant reminders of the house’s extraordinary history and its fight for survival.
For now, the past and present are reconciled – and Wentworth’s future appears no longer to be in jeopardy.
