The great Tudor hall that housed the guillotine probably used on Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette was executed by guillotine on October 16, 1793. Rumour has is that the exact same machine found its way to Weald Hall in Essex where it was photographed by Country Life.
When looking through Country Life’s incomparable collection of architectural photographs, it is fairly common to spot items that are less than favourable to modern sensibilities.
Fashions, tastes and social norms change. Some will later return to favour. One item of decoration we can all agree should never return to the interior decorators’ arsenal, however, is the guillotine, displayed in a hallway (or any other room for that matter).
Country Life’s photographers and writers visited Weald Hall a remarkable three times in the magazine’s first 15 years, recognising its significance and complexity.
The ivy-cloaked Tudor mansion was surrounded by its own deer park.
Changing faces: The impressive Georgian portico on the other side of the house.
Weald was vast and, depending on which angle you approached it from, looked like an old hunting lodge, ivy-encrusted Tudor mansion or grand Georgian pile.
The original structure was built using Henry VII-era red brick, but the south facade was given a distinctly Georgian makeover at some point in the ensuing years. Think an imposing Ionic-columned portico and double-height entrance hall.
Situated on the outskirts of Brentwood, Essex, the ancient land on which Weald stood had first been documented as a Roman camp.
The vast entrance hall. Note the magnificent, oversized putti playfully lurking on top of the door pediments.
By the 11th century, it was in the possession of Waltham Abbey and used as a retreat for monks, who, according to a report by Country Life, published in 1897, enjoyed visiting the nuns of Cheshunt.
Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the land, deer park and mansion landed in the lap of Sir Brian Tuke, Henry VIII's friend and 'treasurer to the royal household'. It passed hands several more times, until 1759, when Thomas Tower took possession.
The prominent member of society and MP was one of the first Georgia Trustees, a group of men who pushed through a plan to free up space in English prisons, by deporting the prisoners to the USA, where they were forced to build and defend a new settlement.
The Tower family's main seat was Huntsmoor Park in Buckinghamshire, but, as the second son, Thomas Tower knew he was unlikely to inherit it, so set about finding somewhere suitable to live.
One of the sumptuously carved staircases.
Subsequent Towers inherited the property including Christopher Tower who, in 1778, commissioned Robert Adam to remodel the 'eating room' into something less Tudor, and Victoria-era Towers, voracious collectors all of them, who hung works by Reynolds, van de Velde, and van Dyck on its walls. However, other than that, Weald retained much of its original character.
At some point the aforementioned guillotine arrived on the scene — which local and visitor accounts claim was the same one that separated Marie Antoinette's body from her head. The presence of the bloody instrument is linked to Captain Tower (Christian name unknown) who helped escort Napoleon to his Elba exile in 1814 and acquired various bits of memorabilia on the way.
Weald Hall entered the 20th century in rude health. According to the 1911 Census, Christopher John and his wife Cecilia lived at the Hall with their two sons, Christopher Cecil and Hugh Christopher, and 12 servants.
A picture of the guillotine that may or may not have been used to execute Marie Antoinette appeared in the November 20, 1897, issue of Country Life.
An early Georgian ceiling in the Drawing Room.
In April 1913, Christopher Cecil married Dorothy Cynthia Surtees in Eaton Square, London. They received Weald Hall as a wedding present and Christopher John and Cecilia retired to the estate's Dower House. The newlyweds had two children in quick succession: Pamela Sophia in 1914 and Christopher Thomas in 1915.
Unfortunately Christopher Cecil was killed in Flanders on October 2, 1915, aged just 30. His younger brother Hugh, who signed up for the newly-founded Royal Air Corps, was killed a year later over France.
Christopher Thomas wasn't even two years old when he inherited the hall, so it was looked after by a trust and rented out to multiple families, including British motor-racing ace Dick Seaman's.
By the time Christopher Thomas came of age, the Second World War was fast approaching. He celebrated his 21st birthday in 1936 at Weald and was presented with gifts from the church, his tenants and tenant farmers. The local newspaper reported how he 'expressed the pleasure it had given him to visit the old home of his father.' However, he never actually lived in it.
During the Second World War, Weald was given to the military during whose tenure it was badly damaged by fire.
In 1946, Christopher Thomas decided to part with the badly damaged old house he had never really called home. He gave parcels of land to the church and sold the rest. By 1951, Weald Hall had been flattened.
No one knows what happened to the guillotine, but one can only hope it was a victim of the fire. The remaining grounds — Weald Country Park — are now enjoyed by thousands every year.
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