page_title: Montacute House
section_title: Architecture
hierarchical_section_title: Montacute House / Architecture
caption_attribution_description: English: Montacute House East Front It was about the time of the Spanish Armada in 1588 that Sir Edward Phelips, a successful lawyer and Speaker of the House of Commons, commissioned the building of Montacute House. It was probably local builder William Arnold who was given the task of creating Sir Edward's new home in the Somerset countryside. Arnold used local Ham Hill stone to create a symmetrical 'H' plan building owing much to the classical detail of the Renaissance style of architecture. There is a carved date of 1601 over the east doorway, probably denoting the year the house was completed. The Phelips family reigned supreme at Montacute for over three centuries, until the agricultural depression of the late C19 saw the last Phelips leave in 1911, and most of the house contents sold. The house was acquired by the National Trust in 1931. Montacute House is Grade I Listed.
context_page_description: Montacute House is a late Elizabethan mansion with garden in Montacute, South Somerset.
  An example of English architecture during a period that was moving from the medieval Gothic to the Renaissance Classical, and one of few prodigy houses to survive almost unchanged from the Elizabethan era, the house has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade I listed building, and Scheduled Ancient Monument. It was visited by 125,442 people in 2013. Designed by an unknown architect, possibly the mason William Arnold, the three-storey mansion, constructed of the local Ham Hill stone, was built in about 1598 by Sir Edward Phelips, Master of the Rolls and the prosecutor during the trial of the Gunpowder Plotters.
  Sir Edward Phelips' descendants occupied the house until the early 20th century. For a brief period the house was let to tenants, one of whom was Lord Curzon, who lived at the house with his mistress, the novelist Elinor Glyn. In 1927, it was acquired by the National Trust.
  The house is maintained by the National Trust.
context_section_description: Built in what came to be considered the English Renaissance style, the east front, the intended principal façade, is distinguished by its Dutch gables decorated with clambering stone monkeys and other animals.
  Architecture during the early English Renaissance was far less formal than that of mainland Europe and drew from a greater selection of motifs both ancient and modern, with less emphasis placed on the strict observance of rules derived from antique architecture. This has led to an argument that the style was an evolution of Gothic rather than an innovation imported from Europe. This argument is evident at Montacute, where Gothic pinnacles, albeit obelisk in form, are combined with Renaissance gables, pediments, classical statuary, ogee roofs and windows appearing as bands of glass. This profusion of large, mullioned windows, an innovation of their day, give the appearance that the principal façade is built entirely of glass; a similar fenestration was employed at Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire. However, despite the Dutch gables, a feature of the English Renaissance acquired as the style spread from France across the Low Countries to England, and the Gothic elements, much of the architectural influence is Italian.
  The windows of the second-floor Long Gallery are divided by niches containing statues, an Italian Renaissance feature exemplified at the Palazzo degli Uffizi in Florence (1560–81), which at Montacute depict the Nine Worthies dressed as Roman soldiers; the bay windows have shallow segmented pediments – a very early and primitive occurrence of this motif in England – while beneath the bay windows are curious circular hollows, probably intended for the reception of terracotta medallions, again emulating the palazzi of Florence. Such medallions were one of the Renaissance motifs introduce to English Gothic architecture when Henry VIII was rebuilding Hampton Court and supporting the claim that the English Renaissance was little more than Gothic architecture with Renaissance ornament. At Montacute, however, the Renaissance style is not confined to ornament, the house also has perfect symmetry. Paired stair towers stand in the angles between the main body of the house and the wings that project forward, a sign of modern symmetry in the plan of the house as well as its elevation, and a symptom of the times, in that the hall no longer had a "high end" of greater state.
  Montacute, like many Elizabethan mansions, is built in an 'E' shape, a much-used plan in this era. On the ground floor was the great hall, kitchens and pantries, on the upper floors, retiring rooms for the family and honoured guests. Over the centuries, the layout and use of rooms changed: drawing and dining rooms evolved on the ground floor.
  The original approach to the house would have been far more impressive than the picturesque approach today. The east front was then the entrance façade and faced onto a large entrance court. The two remaining pavilions flanked a large gatehouse; this long-demolished structure contained secondary lodgings. In turn, the entrance court and gatehouse were approached through a larger outer court. The courts were however not fortified, but bordered by ornate balustrading, which with the ogee roofs of the pavilions, which in reality were follies, were a purely ornamental and domestic acknowledgement of the fortified courts and approaches found in earlier medieval English manors and castles.
  As in all houses of the Elizabethan era, Montacute had no corridors: the rooms led directly from one to another. This changed in 1787 when stonework from a nearby mansion at Clifton Maybank (which was being partly demolished) was purchased by Edward Phelips (1725–97) and used to rebuild Montacute's west front. This provided a corridor giving privacy to the ground-floor rooms and first-floor bedrooms. Now, with the new frontage in place, the house was virtually turned around: the "Clifton Maybank" façade became the front entrance, and the impressive former front elevation now overlooked a lawn surrounded by flower borders, rather than t
caption: The East front: the original approach to the mansion once faced a large entrance court
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