This ruinous stately home inspired one of Britain's greatest satirical paintings
Melanie Bryan delves into the Country Life Archive to uncover the story of Sutton Scarsdale Hall.
Nicholas Leke, the fourth and last Earl of Scarsdale (c. 1682-1736), led a reasonably blessed life. He served as Lord Lieutenant of Derby, and as an envoy to Vienna. And, in 1707, he inherited some land after his elder brother died without issue.
By 1724, he'd tired of the house sitting on it and, wanting to leave a lasting impression on his ancestral plot, decided to build something better. It was said that he asked for something grander and ever more impressive than Chatsworth.
The 4th Earl commissioned Francis Smith of Warwick — who designed nearby Derby Cathedral — to build this new mansion. Sutton Scarsdale Hall.
The central staircase. Note the stiffly-placed furniture that would never live there in normal, everyday life.
The resulting structure was definitely imposing. Standing three stories high and nine bays wide, it loomed large over the land from a lofty ridge. Constructed from biscuit-coloured ashlar from Rang Quarry, a mile away, it featured work by some of the era's most refined craftspeople.
These included master carver Edward Poynton of Nottingham, who dressed the stonework with exquisitely hand-carved pillars and pilasters, topped with fine Corinthian capitals. And artists Albert Artari and Francesco Vassalli from Italy, who laboured over the fine stucco work in many of the rooms, including the grand entrance hall.
The grand entrance hall with its stucco work by Artari and Vassalli.
Needless to say, this all came at a cost and the extravagance was said to have inspired William Hogarth’s The Rake’s Progress. When the Earl died in 1736, aged just 53, he left behind no heir and a mountain of unpaid debts.
The house was sold off and changed hands numerous times in the following centuries, eventually landing in the hands of Richard Arkwright, the son of Sir Richard Arkwright, inventor of the Spinning Jenny, in 1820. It still belonged to the Arkwright family when Country Life was invited to visit in 1918.
The ensuing article, published a year later, did not mention any problems, but it is clear from the photographs — reproduced here — that something was amiss. Hardly any photographs of the interiors were taken and, in those that were, there are just a few pieces of oddly-placed furniture. In photographs of the outside, the lawn and beds look unkempt. The photographer, out of choice or under instruction, also went to great lengths to conceal the fact that the gardens no longer overlooked peaceful green fields. Sutton Scarsdale Hall was now surrounded by coal fields.
In June of that same year, the preliminary notice of the sale of the whole estate was announced in the press. By October, the 70-house village, the Arkwright Arms pub and more than 340 acres of land (not including mineral rights) had been auctioned off. The hall was sold afterwards to a consortium of local businessmen.
1970: overgrown and unloved.
This group wasted no time in calling in the asset strippers. If something could be sold, it was — even the roof, which left Artari and Vassalli’s presumably unsalvageable, exquisite work exposed to the elements.
In 1946, Sir Osbert Sitwell, a local landowner, purchased the decaying remains to stop them from being entirely demolished. They were duly awarded Grade-I listing in 1951. Sir Osbert, realising the enormity of the cost of preservation, then gifted the hall to the Ministry of Public, Building and Works (now English Heritage).
In 1970, a second article by Country Life helped to publicise the hall's plight and secure some much-needed funding.
It is still possible to visit the bones of Sutton Scarsdale. The once crumbling walls are now safe, but the roof and windows have never been replaced. It's also possible to visit parts of the hall in a less exposed setting. Sections of three of the principle rooms are on permanent display in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and a fourth, pine-panelled one lives in its entirety in the Huntington Library in San Marino, California.
Originally acquired by notorious newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, it then sold to a Hollywood production company — who used it as a backdrop in Kitty — before making its way into the Huntington’s collection.
The Country Life Image Archive contains more than 150,000 images documenting British culture and heritage, from 1897 to the present day. To search and purchase images directly from the Image Archive, please register here.
