Begun in 1754, and completed in 1757, Nuthall Temple was said to represent the finest Rococo work in England. A classical villa based upon Palladio’s design for Paolo Almerico’s villa at Capra, it featured a vast, octagonal hall festooned with ornate plasterwork.
Shortly before it was set alight, the interior fixtures and fittings were auctioned off. An advert for the forthcoming sale appeared in Country Life and used a photograph from the magazine’s archive to show the exceptional quality of the plasterwork in the Octagon Hall.
Considered the easiest of the four Palladian villas in England in which to live, and also possessing the prettiest gardens, like so many before and after it, the house succumbed to the inter-war period’s toxic trio of agricultural decline, high taxation, and decreasing control of traditional landowners. Attempts were made to save the Italianate building, with an advert placed in The Guardian on October 1, 1927 offering the property and land for sale with the vision for: ‘… a wonderful opportunity to create a Garden City’, complete with: ‘…trams, buses, electric light, gas and mains water' and offering Nuthall as: ‘…a fine old mansion, suitable for a club house, hotel etc’.
It was not to be, however. Just a month later, the estate was split into lots for sale, with sale of the furniture and contents coming in early 1928. The (almost) final nail in the coffin came with a full-page advert in Country Life — illustrated, somewhat ironically, with one of our architectural photographs — for the remaining fixtures and fittings, including the plasterwork in the aforementioned octagonal hall, to be auctioned off ahead of demolition. One Mr J. H. Brough of Beeston was put in charge of the demolition, with a piece in the Lincolnshire Echo on August 1, 1929, excitedly describing his new, more efficient form of destruction. Having underpinned parts of the house, ‘the woodwork was saturated with petrol and paraffin, and when it was ignited there was a tremendous blaze. Very soon the great wall and masonry, weighing about 400 tons, crashed’. It was further noted that Brough’s new method meant that eight week’s work could be completed in eight days, with the loss of woodwork (purists, cover your eyes now) more than compensated for by the saving in labour costs.
This was not quite the end of the house’s somewhat ignominious demise, however. Brough’s inflammatory method had not completely destroyed the rotunda, nor parts of the wings, which stood in ruins for the following 30 years until they, too, succumbed to progress. The shattered hulk suffered a final indignity by being blown up to make way for the M1 motorway in the 1960’s. Her remaining remains rest beneath the J26 southbound slip road.
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What everyone is talking about this week: Where are the new Cotswolds?The appearance of American Vice President J. D. Vance in the Cotswolds is a sure sign that they're saturated, but where else can you escape to that has the same charm?
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Audi RS3: The devil in a green dressAudi's iconic hot hatch has had a 2025 facelift. It might be the best one they've ever made.
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Everingham Park: The revival of a lost vision of Georgian gloryBuilt between 1758 and 1764, Everingham Park, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, was brilliantly reinvented in the 1960s. It also possesses an opulent chapel, a triumphalist product of Catholic Emancipation. John Goodall reports on this Georgian house, home of Philip and Helen Guest. Photography by Paul Highnam for the Country Life Picture Library.
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Sir Denys Lasdun: The brains behind the building branded 'a clever way of building a nuclear power station in the middle of London’ by The KingJohn Betjeman admired Sir Denys Lasdun’s work, but The King disliked it, and opinion remains divided to this day. Either way, the man who viewed ‘buildings as landscape’ has left an indelible mark on London.
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Thomas Cook: The travel agent who changed the world, and the house his descendants live in to this daySennowe Park in Norfolk is the home of Charles and Virginia Temple-Richards, the descendants of trailblazing travel agent Thomas Cook. Oliver Gerrish looks at the travel business that funded and informed the renovation of this extraordinary Edwardian country house.
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Eight of the UK's most impressive private libraries, as seen in the pages of Country LifeEvery Monday, Melanie Bryan, delves into the hidden depths of Country Life's extraordinary archive to bring you a long-forgotten story, photograph or advert.
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One of 'the most magnificent and perfectly preserved of Britain’s great Edwardian country houses', built for the heir to Thomas Cook's vast fortuneJohn Goodall looks at the creation of Sennowe Park in Norfolk — home of Charles and Virginia Temple-Richards — and charts its transformation at the hands of a local architect from a Georgian lodge to a luxurious Edwardian home.
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Opinion: If we want to keep our architectural heritage, why do we tax those who repair it?It beggars belief that the state lists buildings in order to protect them — and then doesn’t contribute to their upkeep, says Country Life columnist Agromenes.
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The country home with an intriguing connection to the Titanic, doomed for demolitionEvery Monday, Melanie Bryan, delves into the hidden depths of Country Life's extraordinary archive to bring you a long-forgotten story, photograph or advert.
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'Step through the front door and your expectations evaporate in amazement and delight': The humble end-of-terrace house that's a wonder of neo-Classical grandeurAn unassuming house in Swansea reveals a marvellous and unexpected secret. John Goodall enjoys a rich collection of neo-Classical decorative plasterwork lovingly created by Royston Jones and Fiona Gray.
