No web images, no access, no listing status even, this 19th-century edifice and estate, seat of choice (there’s three) of the current Earl of Durham racks up still more points by being completely absent from Pevsner. Tatler magazine last year perhaps gave us a clue why:
‘White gothic Fenton, with its 60-foot campanile, looks like a nursing home designed by someone who hadn’t studied architecture but thought it couldn’t be all that hard.’
Actually, that magazine feature did carry what looks like a phone cam snap of the place, the aforementioned tower appearing to be topped by giant inverted ice-cream cone.
Still curious? Sadly, only a social leg-up of Kate Middleton-esque proportions is likely to get you a whole lot closer than this:
Or, perhaps, this:
As luck would have it, a wanderer on flickr did get close enough to take a photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/johndal/392003777/
One particularly interesting feature visible on the larger Google aerial view is the phantom garden which has obviously been replaced by lawns at some point: http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&sll=55.545614,-2.014523&sspn=0.050517,0.128059&ie=UTF8&t=k&source=embed&ll=55.605374,-2.018867&spn=0.001009,0.00284&z=19
Love the quote from Tatler – very much part of a long tradition of waspish criticism.
Matthew
Excellent stuff, Matthew. I now realise I’d seen that Flickr image about a year ago but it completely slipped my mind. There was also a personal reminiscence by someone who spent some of his school hols at Fenton in the 1970s which I now can’t find either. All contributions gratefully received..
i have an old postcard photo of Fenton House if you would like it for your site please let me know…..all the best john
Thanks, John, I’m sure I wouldn’t be alone in wanting to see this. Are you able to scan it or send some kind of copy as an attachment?
yes i’ll send it as an attachment……….all the best
The privacy mystique is a powerful force. It remains one of my “bucket list” goals to set foot in the magnificent conservatory at Flintham Hall. I suspect there is nothing else quite like it on our planet. The idea that some reclusive curmudgeon is tottering around in it is much more appealing than knowing it has been remuddled into a conference center……….even if that means I will never see it.
As a foreigner, I find the comments about Grade Listing being a mandate for public access interesting. If private owners are willing to shoulder the enormous costs of maintaining these magnificent piles as private homes, then I feel they should certainly control who gets inside them. From what I have read, it seems that being listed may well be equivalent to being handcuffed. Now, if the listing came with a hefty stipend to repair the house, that would be an entirely different matter………and Miss R. Watson would surely be out of a job.
I’ve been researching my family tree which includes the Lambton family (Earls of Durham). Frederick Lambton lived at Fenton Hall in 1911. His wife, Beatrix was Countess of Fenton. The family may still own it.
Brian,
I too may, be descended from the Lambtons. My birth mother was in service there ( she lived at Kilham, nearby). There is a story that I was born after an affair with someone up at the Lambton’s house. This would be in 1946.
However, of course, it may be very hard for me to take this further.
Sincerely Ian B Dick ( Alva, Scotland) ( birth name Martin Barnfield of Kilham.
Fenton House is in Pevsner (Northumberland) You haven’t looked hard enough.
A score-draw on this one, Hal 9000. Fenton House is not included in the original – classic – edition of ‘The Buidlings of England: Northumberland’ (published 1957, republished 1987). But, yes, it does appear in the unwieldy 700-page mini-brick that is the 2nd edition (published 1992), ‘revised and expanded’ by a veritable committee of contributing authors:
‘This edition incorporates many of Sir Nikolaus’s stimulating insights, but also includes new interpretations made in the light of new research.’ Hmmm… as Stewart Lee once said, you can prove anything with facts!
It tells us Fenton was designed/built for the Durhams c.1870 by Thomas Farrer ‘in Tudor Gothic style’ but we also know that it now scores ever-so-slightly lower on the all important mystique-ometer…
There is an 1895 photograph of Fenton House in Christopher Simon Sykes, Country House Camera (1980), pp126-7).
Fenton House and its estate are currently on the market with GSC Grays. Their website has some photos of the house and grounds and the brochure which is downloadable from their website gives some titbits on the house itself.
Thanks Graham..yes, I’ve tweeted about this sale – https://twitter.com/handedon – will update the blog post if and when the place is sold (the first one I will have ‘lost’). Seems quite a steep asking price given the location but we’ll see..
I think its about the going asking price at the moment. The 2000 odd acres of farmland probably make up most of the asking price on their own. A nearby 600 acre arable farm is on the market for over £6 million at the moment. Whether anyone can actually justify paying that much is an entirely different question.
My family lived and worked on the estate for over twenty years.