Holkham Hall

Holkham Hall (/ˈhoʊkəm/ or /ˈhɒlkəm/) is an 18th-century country house near the village of Holkham, Norfolk, England, constructed in the Neo-Palladian style for Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester (of the fifth creation of the title). The hall was designed by the architect William Kent, with contributions from Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington, the Norfolk architect and surveyor, Matthew Brettingham and Thomas Coke himself.
Holkham is one of England's finest examples of the Palladian revival style of architecture, and the severity of its design is closer to Andrea Palladio's ideals than many of the other numerous Palladian style houses of the period. The exterior consists of a central block, of two storeys and constructed of brick, and four flanking wings. The interior of the hall is opulent, but by the standards of the day, simply decorated and furnished. Ornament is used with such restraint that it was possible to decorate both private and state rooms in the same style, without oppressing the former. The principal entrance is through the Marble Hall, which is in fact made of pink Derbyshire alabaster; this leads to the piano nobile, or the first floor, and state rooms. The most impressive of these rooms is the Saloon, which has walls lined with red velvet. Each of the major state rooms is symmetrical in its layout and design; in some rooms, false doors are necessary to fully achieve this balanced effect. The four pavilions at each corner of the central block provide space for private, family accommodation, a guest wing, a chapel and the kitchens.
The question of who designed Holkham has challenged architectural historians, and contemporaries, almost since the time of the hall's construction. The clerk-of-works, Matthew Brettingham, claimed authorship when he published The Plans, Elevations and Sections, of Holkham in Norfolk in 1761. This claim was immediately challenged by Horace Walpole, who attributed the designs to William Kent. Brettingham's son, Matthew the Younger, acknowledged in a later addition of his father's work that, "the general idea [for Holkham] was first struck out by the Earls of Leicester and Burlington, assisted by Mr. William Kent". Later historians have debated the exact contributions of Burlington, and of Coke himself, with those writing in the early 20th century generally downplaying the roles of both, while those writing later in the 20th and in the 21st centuries have found evidence of greater involvement, at least of Coke. The exact role Brettingham played in the origination, rather than the execution, of the design remains uncertain.
The Holkham estate was built up by Sir Edward Coke, a lawyer in the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I and VI and the founder of his family's fortune. It remains the ancestral home of the Coke family, who became Earls of Leicester. The house is a Grade I listed building, and its park is listed, also at Grade I, on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England.
The originator of Palladianism, Andrea Palladio was born in Padua in 1508, the son of a stonemason. He was inspired by Roman buildings, by the writings of Vitruvius (80 BC), and by his immediate predecessors Donato Bramante and Raphael. He aspired to an architectural style that used symmetry and proportion to emulate the grandeur of classical buildings. Palladio recorded and publicised his work in the four-volume illustrated study, I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura (The Four Books of Architecture), published in 1570. The style made a brief appearance in England before the Civil War when it was introduced by Inigo Jones, but its monarchical associations soon saw it eclipsed by the Baroque style. Its revival some 70 years later was driven by an influential group of aristocrats, of Whig political persuasion such as Lord Burlington, who sought to identify themselves with the Romans of antiquity, and who viewed the Baroque with suspicion, considering it "theatrical, exuberant and Catholic." However, the style did not fully adhere to Palladio's strict rules of proportion. Burlington put together a collection of Palladio's drawings and published them in 1730. The style eventually evolved into what is generally referred to as Georgian, and neo-Georgian remains a popular and commonly-deployed style in the 21st century. It was the chosen style for numerous houses in both town and country, although Holkham is exceptional for both its severity of design and for drawing so heavily and so directly on Palladian examples.
Holkham Hall was built by Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester, who was born in 1697. A cultivated and wealthy man, Coke made the Grand Tour in his youth and was away from England for six years between 1712 and 1718. It is likely he met both Burlington, the aristocratic architect at the forefront of the Palladian revival movement in England, and William Kent, then a young artist dependent on the patronage of a number of wealthy sponsors including Burlington, in Italy in around 1715, and that it was in Italy, the home of Palladianism, that the idea of the mansion at Holkham was first conceived. Coke returned to England in 1718, not only with a newly acquired library, but also an art and sculpture collection with which to furnish his planned new mansion. On his return his dissolute lifestyle, focussed on drinking, gambling, hunting, and cockfighting, delayed progress. Funding was also a serious issue; Coke had made a major investment in the South Sea Company and when the South Sea Bubble burst in 1720, the resultant losses delayed the building of Coke's planned new country estate for over ten years. Created Earl of Leicester in 1744, Coke died in 1759, five years before the completion of Holkham, having never fully recovered his financial losses. His widow, Margaret (1700–1775), would oversee the finishing and furnishing of the house.
Coke's six-year sojourn in Europe, where he studied Palladio's buildings and took instruction in drawing, had given him a clear idea as to the kind of house he wanted to build. The concept was further refined through his friendship with Burlington, whose approval he craved; and through his connection with William Kent, who had returned to England with Coke, had remained in contact with him, and who, with Burlington's support, had become the Palladian style's "most brilliant exponent". To bring the concept to fruition, Coke engaged a number of architects. The first of these was Colen Campbell, who had published the volume, Vitruvius Britannicus (The British Architect), in 1715. The series contained architectural prints of British buildings inspired by the great architects from Vitruvius to Palladio; at first mainly those of Inigo Jones, but the later works contained drawings and plans by Campbell and other 18th-century architects. While Campbell received payments from Coke in the early 1720s, it would appear that these were for a limited number of drawings, although there is evidence that Campbell visited the estate in 1729.
The oldest existing working and construction plans for Holkham were drawn by Matthew Brettingham, under Coke's supervision, in 1726. These followed the guidelines and ideals for the house as defined by Kent and Burlington. Brettingham was a local Norfolk architect, builder and surveyor, who was employed as the on-site clerk of works. Already engaged as the estate's architect, he was in receipt of £50 a year (about 9,000 pounds per year in 2025 terms) in return for "taking care of his Lordship's buildings". He was also influential in the design of the mansion, although he attributed the design of the Marble Hall to Coke himself. Brettingham described the building of Holkham as "the great work of [my life]", and when he published his "The Plans and Elevations of the late Earl of Leicester's House at Holkham", he described himself as sole architect, making no mention of Kent's involvement. However, in a later edition of the book, Brettingham's son admitted that "the general idea was first struck out by the Earls of Leicester and Burlington, assisted by Mr. William Kent".
In 1734, the first foundations were laid; however, building was to continue for thirty years, until the completion of the great house in 1764. Kent was largely responsible for the external appearance of Holkham; he based his design on Palladio's unbuilt Villa Mocenigo, as it appears in I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura but with modifications. He was also mainly responsible for the interiors of the Southwest pavilion, or family wing block, particularly the Long Library. The architectural historian Frank Salmon is certain that Kent, while influenced by others principally Coke, was the ultimate originator of the designs of Holkham as executed. Kent had earlier gained considerable experience on his move from artist to building and landscape architect at other houses in Norfolk and elsewhere, including at Raynham Hall and Houghton Hall.
The exact influences on the design of Lord Burlington and Coke has been much debated; writing in 1974, Rudolf Wittkower noted that "the history of Holkham has not yet been worked out in detail and Kent's debt to the two noblemen has not been solved". Wittkower pointed to Burlington's innovative design for the four wings at Tottenham House in Wiltshire as evidence of his influence at Holkham. However, John Harris writing in the 1990s, demonstrated that Burlington's designs for the Tottenham wings post-dated those of Kent's for Holkham. Examples of Burlington's style are nonetheless numerous; John Julius Norwich notes the Venetian windows, the general severity of the design, and the "stacatto treatment of the elevation(s)" as all characteristic of Burlington's designs at Chiswick and elsewhere. Moreover, the contemporary critic Lord Hervey wrote in 1731 of Coke having shown him the designs for "a Burlington house with four pavilions on paper" but it is not certain that this was a plan for Holkham. Timothy Mowl, in his biography of Kent published in 2006, suggests a greater role for Coke, working with Brettingham in the design of the central block, but firmly attributes the sole responsibility for the pavilions to Kent. Bill Wilson, reviewing the most recent evidence available when revising the Norfolk 2: North-West and South volume in the Pevsner Buildings of England series in 2002, suggests that Coke's input was central, "in consultation with Lord Burlington, employing first Brettingham as a draughtsman and supervisor, and later Kent in a more responsible role". In 1997 the Holkham archivist Christine Hiskey published a paper The Building of Holkham Hall: Newly Discovered Letters in the journal Architectural History, in which she outlined details of a cache of twelve letters from Coke to Brettingham covering the period 1734 to 1741. In the first letter Coke writes of having received Burlington's approval for "our whole design", indicating that the earliest plans for the central block, without the four flanking pavilions, were drawn up by Coke and Brettingham. Hiskey concludes that the two "worked closely together on the planning of the house, no less than its execution". As Hiskey acknowledged, however, the letters by no means fully clarify the individual contributions; the letter of 27 November 1733 continues, "he [Burlington] says the insides plan is the best he ever saw. Kent's outside is also vastly in favour & the going up steps from the hall also"...
The authorship debate continues in the 21st century, stimulated in part by an important exhibition focussed on Kent, William Kent: Designing Georgian Britain held in New York and London in 2013-2014. In a series of articles published by the Georgian Group and in Architectural History, Salmon debated the issue with the curator Leo Schmidt, whose doctoral thesis was on the architecture of Holkham. Schmidt had earlier sought to argue for a greater early involvement for both Brettingham and Coke, and for Campbell, in plans for the house he termed 'Holkham 1', undertaken in the mid-1720s. While acknowledging Coke's contribution, Salmon's articles dismissed the 'Holkham 1' theory and contended that it was above all Kent, and not Campbell nor Brettingham, who was most capable of, and who was responsible for, the overall design.
The plans for Holkham were of a large central block of two floors only, containing on the piano nobile level a series of symmetrically balanced state rooms situated around two courtyards. No hint of these courtyards is given externally; they are intended for lighting rather than recreation or architectural value. This great central block is flanked by four smaller, rectangular blocks, or wings, that are linked to the main house not by long colonnades—as would have been the norm in Palladian architecture—but by short two-storey wings of only one bay. The total cost of the construction of Holkham is thought to have been in the region of £90,000, (about 16,123,000 pounds in 2025 terms.) In their study of the costs of country house building, Wilson and Mackley detail the known costs of a number of 18th-century English houses; Holkham tops the list at £92,000; followed by Moor Park at £86,000; Wentworth Woodhouse at £80,000; Castle Howard at £78,000; and Kedleston Hall at £70,000.
The external appearance of Holkham can best be described as a huge Roman palace. While a Palladian house, even by Palladian standards the external appearance is unusually austere and devoid of ornamentation. This can almost certainly be traced to Coke himself. The on-site, supervising architect, Matthew Brettingham, related that Coke required and demanded "commodiousness", which can be interpreted as comfort. Hence rooms that were adequately lit by one window, had only one, as a second might have improved the external appearance but could have made a room cold or draughty. As a result, the few windows on the piano nobile, although symmetrically placed and balanced, appear lost in a sea of brickwork; albeit these yellow bricks were cast as exact replicas of ancient Roman bricks expressly for Holkham. Coke had originally intended to face the house with Bath Stone. When this proved too expensive, Coke turned to his own brick manufactory. The effect has been subject to criticism; John Julius Norwich wrote of the "unhealthy liverish colour" of the façades, while Sacheverell Sitwell condemned the "ugly and mechanical rustication" and the "depressing white brick". Above the windows of the piano nobile, where on a true Palladian structure the windows of a mezzanine would be, there is nothing. The reason for this is the double height of the state rooms on the piano nobile; however, not even a blind window, such as those often seen in Palladio's own work, is permitted to alleviate the severity of the façade. On the ground floor, the rusticated walls are pierced by small windows more reminiscent of a institution than a grand house; one architectural commentator, Nigel Nicolson, described the exterior as appearing as functional as a Prussian riding school.
The principal, or South façade, is 344 feet (104.9 m) in length (from each of the flanking wings to the other), its austerity relieved on the piano nobile level only by a great six-columned portico. Each end of the central block is terminated by a slight projection, containing a Venetian window surmounted by a single storey square tower and capped roof, similar to those employed by Inigo Jones at Wilton House nearly a century earlier. The one storey porch at the main north entrance was designed in the 1850s by Samuel Sanders Teulon, although stylistically it is indistinguishable from the 18th-century building. The architectural historian Mark Girouard praised the "admirably self-effacing" Victorian additions.
The flanking wings contain service and secondary rooms—the family wing to the south-west; the guest wing to the north-west; the chapel wing to the south-east; and the kitchen wing to the north-east. Each wing's external appearance is identical: three bays, each separated from the other by a narrow recess in the elevation. Each bay is surmounted by an unadorned pediment. The composition of stone, recesses, varying pediments and chimneys of the four blocks is almost reminiscent of the English Baroque style in favour ten years earlier, employed at Seaton Delaval Hall by Sir John Vanbrugh. One of these wings, as at the later Kedleston Hall, was a self-contained country house to accommodate the family when the state rooms and central block were not in use.
Nicolson considered Holkham to have "the finest Palladian interior" in the country. Its grandeur is obtained with an absence of excessive ornament, and reflects Kent's career-long taste for "the eloquence of a plain surface". Work on the interiors ran from 1739 to 1773. The first habitable rooms were in the family wing and were in use from 1740, the Long Library being the first major room completed in 1741. Kent's design of the library was unusual in that it formed part of Coke's private, family, apartments in the south-west wing, rather then acting as one of the state rooms in the main block. Among the last to be completed and entirely under Lady Leicester's supervision is the chapel of 1760.
The house is entered through the Marble Hall modelled by Kent on a Roman basilica. The room is over 50 feet (15 m) from floor to ceiling and is dominated by the broad white marble flight of steps leading to the surrounding gallery, or peristyle: here alabaster clad Ionic columns support the coffered, gilded ceiling, copied from a design by Inigo Jones, inspired by the Pantheon in Rome. The chief building fabric is in fact pink Derbyshire alabaster. The fluted columns are thought to be replicas of those in the Temple of Fortuna Virilis, also in Rome. Around the hall are statues in niches; these are predominantly plaster copies of classical deities. Sacheverell Sitwell suggested that the Marble Hall's only rivals for grandeur in England were the halls at Kedleston and Syon, "the masterworks of Robert Adam", while Ralph Dutton posited Syon, and the Double Cube Room at Wilton House as its only competitors.
The hall's flight of steps lead to the piano nobile and state rooms. The grandest, the Saloon, is situated immediately behind the great portico, with its walls lined with patterned red caffoy, a mixture of wool, linen and silk known as Genoa velvet and another of the spoils of Coke's travels, and a coffered, gilded ceiling. In this room hangs Rubens's Return from Egypt. It also houses the Anthony van Dyck portrait of the Duke of Arenberg. Two tables designed by Kent and carved by John Michael Rysbrack have tops incorporating sections of Roman pavement excavated from Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli. Much of the furniture in the state rooms was also designed by William Kent, in a stately classicising baroque manner. So restrained, "chaste" in James Lees-Milne's terminology, is the interior decoration of the state rooms, that the smaller, more intimate rooms in the family's private south-west wing were decorated in similar vein, without being overpowering.
On his Grand Tour, the Earl acquired a collection of Roman copies of Greek and Roman sculpture which is contained in the extensive Statue Gallery, which runs the full length of the house north to south. The niches were constructed to exactly fit the statuary. Mark Girouard, writing in his study, Life in the English Country House, noted that the earl's collection of sculpture was so extensive that while much was placed in the gallery, other pieces were installed in the hall, the dining room, and elsewhere in the house. Coke's creation of the Statue Gallery represented a new aesthetic, where sculpture was actively used as "an integral part of the architectural interior".
The North Dining Room, a cube room of 27 feet (8.2 m) has a dome and coffered niches and arches. A classical apse gives the room an almost temple air. A bust of Aelius Verus, set in a niche is matched by one of the goddess, Juno, and another pair depict Caracalla and Marcus Aurelius. Most of these examples were bought on Coke's grand tour and he juxtaposed "good" with "bad" examples as a mark of his erudition. The walls are decorated with tapestries by Gerard Peemans, and an Axminster carpet has a design which mirrors that of the ceiling. Four doorcases with pediments give access, including from the kitchens and service areas of the house.
The Green State bedroom is the principal bedroom; it is decorated with paintings and tapestries, including works by Paul Saunders and George Smith Bradshaw. Tapestries depicting the continents are by Albert Auwercx, a tapestry maker from Brussels. During a royal visit, when Queen Mary was allocated use of the bedroom, Gavin Hamilton's "lewd" depiction of Jupiter Caressing Juno "was considered unsuitable for that lady's eyes and was banished to the attics". The hall retains the majority of the original mid-18th century furniture commissioned by Coke.
Each corner of the east side of the principal block contains a square salon lit by a huge Venetian window, one of them – the Landscape Room – hung with paintings by Claude Lorrain and Gaspar Poussin. All of the major state rooms have symmetrical walls, even where this involves matching real with false doors. The major rooms also have elaborate white and multi-coloured marble fireplaces, most with carvings and sculpture, mainly the work of Thomas Carter, though Joseph Pickford carved the fireplace in the Statue Gallery.
The Long Library runs the full length of the wing and still contains the collection of books acquired by Thomas Coke on his Grand Tour through Italy, where he saw for the first time the Palladian villas which were to inspire Holkham. Decorated by Kent, it includes a marble fireplace incorporating a Roman mosaic of a lion killing a leopard. The earliest extant architectural drawing by Kent in which he used colour is of an unexecuted decorative design for this room. The Holkham library collection remains of considerable importance; the Folger Shakespeare Library described it as "one of the finest private libraries" in England; although sales in the 19th and 20th centuries saw the disposal of some of its most rare and valuable works, such as the Codex Leicester which was sold in the 1980s.
Holkham also holds a major private archive, containing over 100,000 documents dating from the 13th to the 21st centuries. The archive was refurbished in 2023.
In addition to his acquisitions of statuary and antiquities, Coke's six-year Grand Tour enabled him to assemble one of the finest private art collections in the country. The collection, which remains substantially intact, includes works by Anthony van Dyck, Peter Paul Rubens, Claude Lorrain, Gaspard Dughet and Canaletto. The number of landscapes by Lorrain is exceeded only by the Louvre's collection in Paris. The collection also held Titian's Venus and the Lute Player, until it was sold to the MET in New York in 1931. A sporting portrait of 'Coke of Norfolk' by Thomas Gainsborough is a later addition to the collection. Nigel Nicolson considered Rubens' The Return of the Holy Family from Egypt the most important picture remaining at the house. Simon Jenkins described the assemblage of pictures in the Landscape Room as "without equal in an English house". Items from the collection are frequently loaned to museums and galleries worldwide.
Work to the designs of William Kent on the park commenced in 1729, several years before the house was constructed. This event was commemorated by the construction in 1730 of the obelisk, 80 ft (24 m) in height, standing on the highest point in the park. It is located over half a mile to the south and on axis with the centre of the house. An avenue of trees stretches over a mile south of the obelisk. Thousands of trees were planted on what had been windswept land; by 1770 the park covered 1,500 acres (6.1 km). Other garden buildings designed by Kent are, near the far end of the avenue the Triumphal Arch, designed around 1730 but completed up to two decades later, and the domed Doric Temple (1730–1735). Above the main entrance to the house within the Marble Hall is an inscribed plaque, erected by Coke's widow and inscribed with her posthumous tribute to her husband:
Under Coke of Norfolk, the great-nephew and heir of the builder, extensive improvements were made to the park and by his death in 1842 it had grown to its present extent of over 3,000 acres (12 km). As well as planting over a million trees on the estate Coke employed the architect Samuel Wyatt to design over 50 buildings, including a series of farm buildings and farmhouses in a simplified neo-classical style and, in the 1780s, the new walled kitchen gardens covering 6 acres (24,000 m). The walled garden was restored between 2020-2022. The earl’s wife, "Mrs Coke", hired Humphry Repton who created a 'Red Book' full of landscape gardening ideas for Holkham. The gardens stand to the west of the lake and include: a fig house, a peach house, a vinery, and other greenhouses. Wyatt's designs culminated in c. 1790 with the Great Barn, located in the park half a mile south-east of the obelisk. The cost of each farm was in the region of £1,500 to £2,600: Lodge Farm, Castle Acre, cost £2,604 6s. 5d. in 1797–1800. The lake to the west of the house, originally a marshy inlet or creek off the North Sea, was created in 1801–1803 by the landscape gardener William Eames.
After his death, Coke was commemorated by the Leicester Monument, designed by William Donthorne and erected in 1845–1848 at a cost to the tenants of the estate of £4,000. The monument consists of a Corinthian column 120 ft (37 m) high, surmounted by a drum supporting a wheatsheaf and a plinth decorated with bas-reliefs carved by John Henning Jr. The corners of the plinth support sculptures of an ox, sheep, plough and seed-drill all referencing Coke's agricultural innovations.
In 1850, Thomas Coke, 2nd Earl of Leicester, called in the architect William Burn to build new stables to the east of the house, in collaboration with W. A. Nesfield, who had designed the parterres. Work started at the same time on the terraces surrounding the house. This work continued until 1857 and included, to the south and on axis with the house, the monumental fountain of Saint George and the Dragon dated c. 1849–57 and sculpted by Charles Raymond Smith. To the east of the house and overlooking the terrace, Burn designed the large stone orangery, with a three-bay pedimented centre and three-bay flanking wings. The orangery is now without its roof or its windows.
The Holkham estate is listed at Grade I on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England. The estate contains some 40 listed buildings: including the hall, the garden temple, the Triumphal arch and the Leicester Monument at the highest grade, Grade I; and the Church of St Withburga, the vinery, the obelisk, the kitchen garden, the Great Barn and the Longlands estate workshop and clock tower, all at the next highest grade, II*.
The Coke family is recorded as living in Norfolk in the early 13th century. The family's rise to wealth and prominence was driven by Edward Coke (1552 – 1634), who served as Solicitor General, Speaker of the House of Commons and Attorney General under both Elizabeth I and James I. Edward Coke amassed extensive estates in Norfolk, and elsewhere in England, but the Holkham property was a later addition, acquired through marriage by his fourth son, John. At this time, an Elizabethan house, Hill Hall, stood on the site. The estates passed down through the family, eventually descending to Thomas Coke, aged 10, on the death of his father in 1707. The creation of Holkham as a suitable home for him and for his descendants became his life's main work, and the death of his childless son Edward in 1753 left Coke disappointed and disillusioned. One of his last letters was to Matthew Brettingham's son; "It is a melancholy thing to stand alone in one's own Country. I look around, not a house to be seen but my own. I am Giant, of Giant Castle, and have ate up all my neighbors—my nearest neighbour is the King of Denmark".
Coke was succeeded in 1759 by his nephew, Wenman (ca. 1717 – 1776). However, Coke's will provided for his widow to remain at Holkham and complete the house. Margaret Coke's contribution has often been overlooked, with the suggestion that she merely presided over the furnishing of the house: in fact she oversaw the completion of many rooms, including the Marble Hall; had the stables and coach house built; and finished the landscaping of the park. Wenman's son, Thomas (1754 – 1842) inherited Holkham in 1776, and following a parliamentary career of modest success, and a more renowned vocation as an agrarian reformer, became known as "Coke of Norfolk", and was made Earl of Leicester of the seventh creation in 1837. Coke was devoted to Holkham; although, like his predecessors and successors, he made few changes to the house, writing, "I shall never venture rashly to interfere with the result of years of thought and study in Italy"; he did instigate major improvements to the gardens, the park and, above all, to the wider estate, where his innovations in animal husbandry, crop rotation, and the granting of unusually long leases to his tenants to encourage investment, saw the annual rent roll rise from just over £2,000 to over £20,000.
The second earl (Thomas Coke, 1822 – 1909) followed his father as a countryman, serving as Lord Lieutenant of Norfolk for 60 years. His successors, the third, fourth, fifth and sixth earls, were soldiers, or in the last instance a pilot, serving in the Boer War, and the First and Second World Wars. The fourth earl, Thomas Coke, (1880 – 1949), considered donating the hall to the National Trust but did not proceed with the plan. The sixth earl, Anthony Coke (1909 – 1994), a cousin of the fifth earl, lived in South Africa and, on inheriting in 1976, determined not to move to England and sent his son Edward (1936 – 2015), to manage Holkham. Succeeding in 1994, the seventh earl is credited with reviving the Holkham estate; his obituary in the Daily Telegraph recorded that he transformed the hall "from a crumbling ancestral home to a major tourist attraction".
The enormous costs of building and furnishing Holkham nearly ruined the heirs of the 1st Earl, but, as a result, they were financially constrained from altering the house to suit later fashions. Thus, Holkham, "the supreme example of the neo-Palladian house", has remained almost untouched since its completion in 1764. The hall was given Grade I listed building status in 1951. While open to the public, it remains the family home of the Earls of Leicester of Holkham. The size of the wider estate has reduced from 40,000 acres (16,000 hectares) in the mid-20th century, to 25,000 (10,000 hectares) in the early 21st; but it remains a working country estate with over 200 full-time staff, making it the area's largest employer. The present earl, Thomas Coke, has sought to diversify the estate's income streams and to lessen the dependence on agriculture by developing new ventures; Holkham Estates saw a turnover of £35 million in 2017. The earl has also continued the renovation of the hall, and estate buildings, begun by his father. A history of the house, written by the Holkham archivist, Christine Hiskey, and described by the earl as "arguably the most important, certainly the most authoritative, book ever written on Holkham" was published in 2016.
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