Attingham Park

An earlier building known as Tern Hall was converted into the grand mansion of Attingham in 1783-5 by George Steuart for Noel Hill, 1st Lord Berwick. The result is a Palladian house of parade with French Neo-classical embellishments. The exterior is dominated by a 3-storey Ionic portico with colonnaded corridors to pavilions on either side. The French-inspired plan is divided between Lord Berwick’s apartments on one side and Lady Berwick’s on the other; the latter ends with a circular boudoir whose painted decoration has been attributed to Louis-André Delabrière. In 1807-10, the important Regency architect John Nash made additions for the 2nd Lord Berwick, including a top-lit staircase and a picture gallery – one of the earliest to use curved cast iron ribs in the construction of its ceiling. The landscape park was improved by Thomas Leggat in 1770 and by Humphrey Repton in 1797-8.

Attingham Park, Shropshire

This collection has 12,950 items online

Attingham boasts a vast collection of Regency furniture, silver, paintings, porcelain and textiles that reflects the changing fortunes of the property and the collecting habits of the family, who were either big spenders or careful savers. Thomas, 2nd Lord Berwick spent a large part of the family fortune and was bankrupted in 1827. The sale of his Grand Tour collection lasted 16 days and there was a further sale in 1829. His brother, 3rd Lord Berwick, re-furnished the house following the sales with French and Italian pieces acquired during his post as ambassador in Italy. The 8th Lord and Lady Berwick made thoughtful additions to the collection and secured its future with the National Trust. Despite difficult times, a remarkable 98% of the collection is indigenous to the house and reflects the lives of those who cherished or neglected Attingham's contents. Highlights include a large collection of paintings with 18th-20th century family portraits including works by Angelica Kaufmann, Lawrence, and Sickert; a Grand Tour collection housed in the purpose-built Nash Picture Gallery; the 5th Lord Berwick's prize-winning Hereford cattle portraits; white and gold Italian furniture (some of which may have been made for Napoleon's sister, Caroline Murat); a Samuel Green chamber organ (1788); mahogany furniture and upholstery by Gillows of Lancaster and a large collection of Regency silver by Paul Storr. The great library assembled by the 1st and 2nd Lords Berwick was massively depleted by the bankruptcy sale, but the house retains a substantial number of early family and legal books, as well as volumes collected by the 3rd Lord Berwick in the nineteenth century, and the 8th and last Lord Berwick in the twentieth.

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