The State Rooms of Harewood House

 

When Edwin Lascelles started building Harewood House in 1759 he wanted nothing but the best for his new home. He employed the finest craftsmen of the time: York-born architect Robert Carr, fashionable interior designer Robert Adam, England’s greatest furniture maker Thomas Chippendale and visionary landscape gardener Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown. As you walk round the House, you can see Renaissance masterpieces, exquisite family portraits by Reynolds, Gainsborough, Lawrence and Richmond, as well as a fine collection of Sèvres china, among many other delights.

Over 250 years there have been major changes to Edwin’s original vision. In the 19th century Sir Charles Barry (architect of the Houses of Parliament) altered rooms, added a storey and built the formal Terrace. In the 1930s Sir Herbert Baker designed a suite of rooms with modern amenities for the 6th Earl and his wife Princess Mary, the Princess Royal. More recently, many of the rooms have been substantially restored, including the re-hanging of the ‘lost’ Chinese wallpaper in the East Bedroom.

Harewood is a piece of England’s history - but an ever-changing one, with a clear sense of the present as well as of the past.