Dan Cruickshank gets inside Wentworth Woodhouse

[Nigel Watts]

Riveting programme on the Beeb this evening. Breathtaking pictures of WW in the snow to the strains of Don Giovanni, a rare interview with the reclusive architect who paid a mere £1.5m for one of Britain's very finest and largest 18th C mansions, rare footage of the interiors in all their splendour, desolation (and in some parts, decay), the story of the spectacular rise and fall of the Rockinghams and Fitzwilliams and the nasty, petty vindictiveness of Manny Shinwell who ordered uneconomic open cast coal mining to be carried out within feet of the facade - something even the NUM objected to as an act of vandalism.

WW has lost its contents but as a work of architecture it far surpasses Dumfries House, lately rescued by Prince Charles. Lets hope this house finds its saviour before too long.

 

[Nigel Watts]

.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Yes, for once I could forgive "Whispering Dan"'s "Whispering Dan" act. Though it seemed very unclear what its future is really going to be in the long term, unless there's a string of suitable affluent but eccentric aesthetes willing to live in it as a private house.

For those who don't know it (and it's been described as "the greatest country house you've never heard of"), here's the east front, all 600+ feet of it - said to be the longest house facade in Europe:
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/167193
The west front is similarly spectacular but completely unrelated and a generation earlier - effectively WW is two complete country houses built back to back:
http://www.countrylifeimages.co.uk/...bc7eff&rd=2|wentworth woodhouse||1|20|187|150

 

[Feltwell]

I missed it, but luckily for me & anyone else interested it's on Iplayer:-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b011qd3d/The_Country_House_Revealed_Wentworth_Woodhouse/