Easton Neston

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Easton Neston is a country house near Towcester (pronounced "Toaster") in Northamptonshire, England. It was designed in the classical style by the architect Nicholas Hawksmoor. Easton Neston is thought to be the only mansion which was solely the work of Hawksmoor. From circa 1700 Hawksmoor was to work on many buildings, including Castle Howard and Blenheim Palace, with Sir John Vanbrugh, often providing the technical knowledge to the less qualified Vanbrugh. Hawksmoor's work, even after their many collaborations, was always more classically severe than Vanbrugh's. However, Easton Neston predates this partnership by some six years.

Architect

Hawksmoor was commissioned to build Easton Neston by Sir William Fermor, later created Lord Leominster ("Lemster"); Hawksmoor had been recommended to Fermor by his cousin Sir Christopher Wren, who had advised on the building of a new mansion on the site circa 1680. However no details of quite what Wren envisaged survive, and work seems to have ceased following completion of the two service blocks, of which only one survives. Following Fermor's marriage to an heiress, Catherine Poulett, in 1692, he decided to resurrect the idea of a new mansion, and subsequently Wren's pupil Hawksmoor received the commission circa 1694.

Exterior

The house Hawksmoor built at Easton Neston can be best described as a miniature palace that owes something to Michelangelo's palazzi on the Campidoglio at Rome and is very reminiscent of the Petit Trianon at Versailles, which was not to be built for another 50 years. The rectangular house is on three principal floors, the first is a rusticated basement, the two floors above appear to have equal value - 9 bays divided by Corinthian pilasters, each bay containing a tall slim sash window of the same height on each floor. The central bay contains the entrance, flanked by two Corinthian full columns. These two columns support a small round-headed pediment displaying the Fermor arms and motto. Above the door at second floor height is a massive venetian window. The roof-line is hidden by a balustrade and decorated at the ten intervals, above the pilasters below, by covered stone urns. The design and fenestration of the entrance facade is repeated at the rear on the garden facade (illustration, above); except the roof balustrade here is undecorated by urns and pediment. The house is built of Helmsdon stone, a cream stone of exceptional quality, which has ensured the carving is as crisp today as it was on completion of the house in 1702. Both main facades are of simple clear design devoid of ostentation.

The two side elevations of the house are fascinating to a social historian, as they tell the story of life in a country house before the age of the servants' bell. Until the invention of the distant bell, which could be jangled by a rope from far away, it was necessary to have servants within calling distance. In older houses such as Montacute House servants slept on the floor of the hall or outside the door of their employer's bedchamber; by the late 17th century this arrangement was becoming undesirable. Houses now began to have corridors, and employers, rather than stepping over sleeping servants, began to tidy them away in small rooms, often shared with their employer's close-stool. However these small rooms still had to be with in calling distance. In a brand-new luxurious house such as Easton Neston, this was achieved by inserting two very low mezzanine staff floors between each of the two upper floors. Hence at Easton Neston, while the two principal facades (West and East) are of three floors, the two less important sides of the house, by their windows, betray the secret, that there are in fact five floors. The windows of the two mezzanines, as befits the humble rooms they light, are a mere half the size of those of the grander rooms above and below them. This makes the fenestration of the side facades a complex, but interesting sight.

Some years after completion of the mansion in 1702, Hawsmoor drew some further plans for a huge entrance court; these designs, never fully executed, flanked the existing rectangular house with two wings, one containing stables, and the other service rooms. The fourth side of the courtyard was to have been an elaborate colonnade and etera. Apart from the house the only part of this scheme to have been built was the stable block, but this was demolished less than a century after it was built. Many architectural commentators feel that Hawksmoor's mansion would, in fact, have been spoilt by this scheme, which owed more to Sir John Vanbrugh's architectural concepts than Hawksmoor's. The whole design was depicted in Colen Campbell's Vitruvius Britannicus vol. i (1715, pls 98 - 100) as though it existed. Two large entrance piers are all that remains of this grandiose design.

Interior

The interior has the same refinement as the exterior, the principal rooms are light, as the windows rise almost floor to ceiling. The rooms are large and well proportioned without suffering from the oppressive grandeur that was to be a feature of Vanbrugh and Hawksmoor's collaborated work. The main staircase, with its wrought iron balustrade in the style of Jean Tijou, is two long shallow flights ascending to the first floor gallery.

Interiors at Easton Neston have undergone some changes since Hawksmoor completed the house. Hawksmoor's great hall, with its high bare walls and flanking vestibules and Corinthian columns, was sub-divided in the 19th century to create a dining room and a smaller more intimate hall. The principal drawing room the only heavily decorated room in the mansion, has also seen change: it contains plaster-work carried out by a local man in the mid 18th century, a high-relief ceiling matched by huge scrolled panels and picture surrounds, and trophies containing hunting emblems that would have horrified the severe, some say humourless, Hawksmoor; and yet as is so often the case in English country houses the varying styles and alterations seem to fit with each other rather than to jar the senses.

Gardens

In the grounds: Hawksmoor also designed a canal in the park to complement the house, this is on an axis with the door at the centre of the garden facade. The gardens in the 20th century were further enhanced by the creation of a water terrace, overlooked by the West, or garden facade, it is decorated by box topiary and roses, surrounding a large pool which reflects the house. This terrace, to our modern eyes, is a triumphal complement to the house, but one which would never have been dreamt of by the sober Hawksmoor himself. It is through innovations such as this that the English country has has evolved, rather than retaining rigidly the concepts of a long gone age.

Easton Neston Today

Easton Neston has always been a private house and never opened to the public, as a consequence it is little known. The house today is owned by Lord Hesketh whose family are distantly connected to the original builder, Sir William Fermor; It is furnished with fine paintings, tappestries and antique 18th. century furniture. The current Lord Hesketh has in 2004 put the house on the property market. The estate is large and includes Towcester Race Course, and may buildings in the nearby small market town of Towcester. As a consequence of the proposed sale the future of Easton Neston is uncertain for the first time in its 302 year history.

External link

• British History online: Easton Neston house and park

References

Nicolson, Nigel. 1965. Great Houses of Britain. George Weidenfeld and Nicolson Ltd.

Downes, Kerry. 1979. Hawksmoor. Thames and Hudson, London.

Girouard, Mark. 1978. Life in the English Country House. Yale University