Kedleston Hall was designed to be different. Take a trip back in time to the 1760s to chart the creation of a unique house and park.
© NTPL / Matthew Antrobus
Grand designs
Kedleston Hall was the brainchild of Sir Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Lord Scarsdale. He inherited Kedleston in 1758, aged 32 years old, and immediately knocked down the existing house to start again.
He wanted a grand house to entertain guests and show off his extensive collections. By the following year, two wings of the new house had been built and work had begun on the central block.
By now, a new fashion for Neo-classical style was emerging. In December 1758, Sir Nathaniel met the architect Robert Adam and a golden partnership was forged.
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The perfect partnership
© NTPL / Nadia Mackenzie
When he met Sir Nathaniel Curzon, Robert Adam was 30 years old, recently returned from Italy and full of enthusiasm for the monuments of classical antiquity.
Building a new mansion for Kedleston was Adam’s first major commission. He had already made designs on the parkland, replacing the formal gardens with landscaped pleasure grounds.
Adam drew on his and his patron's love of Italian architecture, a passion that earned him the nickname 'Bob the Roman'. Adam supervised almost every detail inside and out, including much of the Hall’s interior decoration and furnishings.
Fashionable Kedleston soon proved to be expensive. Money ran out before the two planned southern wings could be built. Despite this, Kedleston Hall remains one of the masterpieces of 18th-century English architecture.
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Kedleston later and today
© NTPL / Nadia Mackenzie
George Nathaniel, Lord Curzon, inherited Kedleston Hall in 1916. In the 1920s some alterations were made to the ground floor when Lord Curzon established a Smoking Room and converted a sculpture gallery into a space to house his Eastern Museum.
His greatest gift to Kedleston is the Eastern Museum, a glittering collection of gifts he received while serving as Viceroy of India and during his travels in Asia.
By the 1970s, the Hall was a serious financial burden. The house, parkland and most of the contents were given to the National Trust in 1987. The Curzon family still live in the Family Wing.
The National Trust continues to care for this very special place with an on-going programme of restoration and re-decoration.
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