Castle Howard

English country house situated in the north-east of Yorkshire. It was mostly built from 1701 to 1724 by John Vanbrugh for the 3rd Earl of Carlisle, Charles Howard. Howard was a member of the famous Kit-Cat-Club. It took over a hundred years to finish the House. The gardens were planned by George London.

House

The house is built in the Baroque style with two symmetrical wings. Castle Howard is one of the largest and most important country houses in England. It was the first private building with a dome. Its ceiling was painted by the Venetian artist Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini with a depiction of The Fall of Phaeton in 1709. Pellegrini painted the saloon of the mansion with scenes from the Life of Aeneas.

On 9 November 1940 a fire broke out in the southeast wing of the house and destroyed many rooms, among them the dome. The restoration of the house began in 1962 and was finished in 1981. The building also starred as title character in several versions of Brideshead Revisited (TV series 1981; film 2008).

Today Castle Howard is open for public and is visited by roughly 200,000 people per year.

Sources

Smith, Charles Saumarez. The building of Castle Howard. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990.

http://www.everycastle.com/Castle-Howard.html

http://www.timetravel-britain.com/articles/castles/howard.shtml