UPDATE: Wentworth Woodhouse was sold in February 2016 to the Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust, a non-profit organisation set up to save the house and grounds and open them to the public. In November 2016, the Trust secured a grant of £7.6 million from the UK government to help fund restoration work.
Good news for Pride and Prejudice’s fans: Pemberley is for sale. Wentworth Woodhouse, the spectacular country house that may have inspired the fictional Darcy estate in Jane Austen’s masterpiece, hit the market last week (though it sadly has no dashing Mr Darcy brooding in the ballroom).
Set in 85 acres of land in the West Riding of Yorkshire, northern England, Wentworth Woodhouse is one of the finest examples of 18th-century British architecture—and one of the biggest. At 124,600 square feet, the house made it into the 1966 Guinness World Record as the largest private home in Britain. Its 606-foot façade is nearly twice as long as Buckingham Palace’s, and the interiors are a magnificent maze spanning several wings, more than 300 rooms and about five miles of corridors. The massive Palladian wing, in particular, has a sequence of State Rooms that wouldn’t look out of place in a Royal palace, from the sculpture-studded Pillared Hall to the heavily gilded Whistlejacket Room (named after a famous racehorse) and the sumptuous Marble Saloon, a 60ft long and 40ft high hall bordered by pillars and decorated with intricate plasterwork.
Wentworth is one of the finest examples of English architecture
Familiar with the area, Austen must have been struck by Wentworth’s grandiose elegance and may have used it as one of the models for Pemberley, along with nearby Chatsworth, the country house that played the role of the Darcy estate in the 2005 film starring Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen. Although Wentworth is situated in Yorkshire, while Pemberley is set in Derbyshire, several signs point to it having been a source of inspiration for the Pride and Prejudice author. The biggest clue is in Mr Darcy’s own name: Austen christened him Fitzwilliam Darcy—and Wentworth belonged to the Fitzwilliam family at the time of her writing.
This claim has been dismissed by the Jane Austen Society on the grounds that there's no evidence the Pride and Prejudice author ever visited Winkworth. But the Yorkshire house wasn't just home to fictional heroes. Over the centuries, it played host to some of the most prominent people in Britain, including an open-minded Prime Minister that supported American colonists, a car manufacturing pioneer, and Kathleen Kennedy's ill-starred lover.
The Baroque wing at Wentworth Woodhouse
The estate was originally owned by (and named after) the Wentworth family, who rose to particular importance in the 17th century with Thomas Wentworth, first Earl of Strafford. An enterprising politician, he was Lord Deputy of Ireland before becoming an advisor to King Charles I, whom he supported in his struggle against the English and Scottish Parliament. Alas, his loyalty was badly repaid: when Parliament asked for Strafford's head, the King signed his death warrant, despite earlier promises that the Earl would “not suffer in life, honor or fortune.” Strafford was executed in 1641 but Parliament was not appeased and the King met the same fate eight years later. In those years, about 60 family members and servants lived at Wentworth—a trifling number compared to the 1,000 staff employed at the house in 1841, among whom were a rat catcher and a state bed maker.
More than a century after Strafford’s death, the estate still remained at the heart of English political intrigue, having by then passed into the hands of the Watson-Wentworth family, who were influential members of the Whigs party. In particular, the second Marquess of Rockingham, who lived at Wentworth in the second half of the 18th century, was twice Prime Minister, in 1765-66 and again in 1782. During his stints, he first tried to reduce the tax burden on American colonists and later argued in favor of accepting the Independence of the United States.
The Marble Saloon is one of the grandest state rooms at Wentworth Woodhouse
After Rockingham’s death, his nephew, the fourth Earl of Fitzwilliam, inherited the estate. As compassionate as he was wealthy, he may have partly inspired the figure of Mr Darcy in Pride and Prejudice. Fitzwilliam was a close friend of the Prince of Wales, who visited Wentworth in 1789, sanctioning its fame. But this wasn't the only time the house entertained Royal guests. In 1912, when Wentworth was owned by the seventh Earl of Fitzwilliam, a visionary who backed one of Britain’s first car manufacturing factories, King George V, and his wife, Queen Mary, spent some days at the estate. Accommodating the royal couple and their retinue required an astounding 76 bedrooms.
However, tragedy was lying in wait for both Wentworth and the Fitzwilliams. The seventh Earl’s son died before him and his grandson, the eight Earl, started a scandalous affair with Kathleen Kennedy that ended in death. The couple was killed in a plane crash in Saint-Bauzile, France, as they went to seek (and failed to obtain) the Kennedy family’s approval of their relationship.
By then, politics, always at home at Wentworth, had also sown the seeds of the estate’s decline. After the Second World War, Manny Shinwell, the British Ministry of Fuel and Power, allowed coal mining on Wentworth’s grounds, and this turned the manicured parkland into a mess of soil and dust. Reeling from the blow of the eight Earl’s death, the family gave up on the house, first leasing most of it to the local Council, who used it for schooling, then selling it in 1988.
Wentworth has more than 300 rooms
It was only the energy and willpower of a London architect, the late Clifford Newbold, who saved Wentworth Woodhouse from complete disrepair. Having bought the property in 1999, he worked tirelessly to restore its interiors, replant the parkland and preserve the estate for the future. However, Newbold passed away earlier this month and his family has decided to put Wentworth on the market.
Prospective buyers will need deep pockets to buy the estate, and not just because of the £8 million (about $12.5 million) price tag. A good part of the house still needs restoration, and on-going work is required to address subsidence damage caused by the mining activities that took place in the 1940s and 1950s (for which the current owners are seeking compensation from the British Coal Authority). But if there is a house that is worth splurging on, there’s no doubt that Wentworth, with its architectural prestige, literary connections and extraordinary history, is the one.
Wentworth Woodhouse is on the market with Savills.
