page_title: Holkham Hall
section_title: Grounds
hierarchical_section_title: Holkham Hall / Grounds
caption_attribution_description: English: The Monument to Coke of Holkham A fine column monument to this famous agricultural pioneer erected by his tenants and friends after his death.
context_page_description: Holkham Hall is an 18th-century country house located adjacent to the village of Holkham, Norfolk, England. The house was constructed in the Palladian style for the 1st Earl of Leicester by the architect William Kent, aided by the architect and aristocrat Lord Burlington.
  Holkham Hall is one of England's finest examples of the Palladian revival style of architecture, and the severity of its design is closer to Palladio's ideals than many of the other numerous Palladian style houses of the period. The Holkham Estate was built up by Sir Edward Coke, the founder of his family's fortune. He bought Neales manor in 1609, though never lived there, and made many other purchases of land in Norfolk to endow to his six sons. His fourth son, John, inherited the land and married heiress Meriel Wheatley in 1612. They made Hill Hall their home, and by 1659, John had complete ownership of all three Holkham manors. It is the ancestral home of the Coke family, who became Earls of Leicester.
  The interior of the hall is opulent, but by the standards of the day, simply decorated and furnished.
context_section_description: 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 feet (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 km²). 
  Other garden buildings designed by Kent are, near the far end of the avenue the Triumphal Arch, designed in 1739 but only completed in 1752 and the domed doric temple (1730–1735) in the woods near the obelisk. Above the main entrance to the house within the Marble Hall is this inscription:
  THIS SEAT, on an open barren Estate
  
  Was planned, planted, built, decorated.
  
  And inhabited the middle of the XVIIIth Century
  
  By THO's COKE EARL of LEICESTER
  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 km²). As well as planting over a million trees on the estate Coke employed the architect Samuel Wyatt to design over a number of 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 m²). 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 feet (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. Coke's work to increase farm yields had resulted in the rental income of the estate rising between 1776 and 1816 from £2,200 to £20,000, and had considerable influence on agricultural methods in Britain.
  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 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 roofless and windowless.
caption: The Leicester Monument, on the grounds of Holkham Hall
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