5 Castle Howard: Part 1

  We finally got to Castle Howard.

I've wanted to go there since we moved here, and it's only an hour away- so I'm not sure why it took us so long to go.  Really more of a large stately home than a castle, the 18th century Baroque mansion is widely considered one of the most beautiful in all of England.

Now, I'll warn you, I'm not happy with my images.  I'm posting them for you to see, but I think we'll have to go back so I can take more. (oops!)
Some of you may recognize the house as its alter-ego, Brideshead.  Both the 1981 miniseries and the 2008 motion picture were filmed here.

This was the carriage house- now it's a gift shop and farm shop!

 Statue in the gardens.

 The top of a pillar in the garden- I just found the pose entertaining. 

 The house! 

 We could have walked up another path to the front of the house, but walking down through the grounds to the front of the house was just so perfect!

  The Atlas Fountain is an iconic part of Castle Howard's image.  It was added to the house in the 1850s, and later provided the setting for a pivotal scene in Brideshead Revisited. 

 You actually enter the house from the back, so we went around.

 The view from the back of the home.

Not so bad...

 Paul was quite taken with the ceiling skylight over the entry stairs.

The China Room is at the top of the stairs, and is the first room we saw.

 I about died over the china chests- if only stuff was still shipped that way!

 The whole wall was a china cabinet, but I only took a picture of this pattern.

Sorry. 

 Like I said, I found the chests far more interesting!

 A flushing chamber pot! Water stored in the bottom flushed out the bowl, similar to an airplane toilet. 

 I have a chair problem. My auction purchases will attest to this.

I love these chairs, and now want to paint some of mine!

 Combination firescreen/writing desk!

 Oh, the chairs... the chairs!

 The Antiquities Passage displays the treasures collected by the 4th Earl, Henry Howard, during his 1738-39 travels in Italy.

 The sun beaming through the windows made this hard to photograph, but remnants of mosaic floors were turned into tabletops. Gorgeous!

 Paul and I decided a corridor full of antiquities wouldn't be so bad... 

 Oh, hello, George... odd seeing you here.

 Castle Howard's central dome is one of the most identifiable parts of the house, from the inside and out.  A massive fire in 1940 destroyed the East wing and collapsed the dome, which was rebuilt twenty years later.

 The fresco was repainted based on careful studies of photographs of the original dome, as no sketches or plans remained.

The Atlas Fountain through the front door of the house.

I just wish a 32-year-old Jeremy Irons would walk through the door... 

oh, did I daydream there?

Check out Part II for the rest of the house!