The house we see today at Clandon Park was built in the early 1730s to impress and entertain. Thomas Onslow and his wife Elizabeth Knight demolished an earlier Jacobean house to make way for their cutting-edge Palladian mansion and employed people and materials from across the globe to create and furnish the house. These included Italian architect, Giacomo Leoni, and leading European sculptors.
The house was built using money in part generated from the transatlantic slave trade. In 1706, Elizabeth inherited a huge fortune from her uncle, Charles Knight, a plantation owner and enslaver. This fortune passed to Thomas Onslow in 1708 when they married, and a Jamaican plantation continued to provide the family with an income until it was sold by the third Earl around 1832. Thomas Onslow was also a founding member of a marine insurance firm, which insured ships transporting enslaved people from Africa to the West Indies.
The Onslows were an ambitious family in law, trade and politics and their new house helped to cement their social and political influence around Guildford and Surrey. Its most famous room was the Marble Hall, an elegant and imposing white cube imitating marble, with an elaborate stucco ceiling and richly carved marble fireplaces by leading sculptors of the day.
The house you can explore today has been transformed by fire as well as fashion. In April 2015 a huge blaze gutted the house, leaving it open to the skies. Although the fire destroyed much of the house’s interior – revealing how it was constructed and crafted – elements of this remarkable space and others survive, including the dining room, known as the ‘Speakers Parlour’, as well as the kitchen and other basement rooms.
We plan to remake and reimagine the house at Clandon Park, and we’ve worked hard to open the house for visitors while we develop our plans. Once you’ve donned your hard hat and high vis jacket, two purpose-built walkways take you inside the ruined house. You’ll see the spaces burnt out by the fire, taking in the poetic grandeur of a great house laid bare.
Outside in the garden, you’ll encounter Clandon’s unique connection to New Zealand. William, 4th Earl of Onslow, served as Under Secretary of State for the Colonies and later Governor of New Zealand from 1888-92. When returning from New Zealand, he purchased Hinemihi, a Māori meeting house and brought her back to England. Māori people believe that Hinemihi is alive – that she is a living embodiment of their ancestor, Hinemihi, who lived several centuries ago. Hinemihi now sits in the grounds at Clandon Park, where she is at the heart of ceremonial events and celebrations for the UK Māori community. The National Trust, supported by the current Earl of Onslow, recently agreed in principle to a request by the Māori tribe who created Hinemihi that her historic carvings be returned to New Zealand. In exchange her tribe will create carvings for a new meeting house at Clandon to keep this relationship alive for current and future generations.
If you visit today, you’ll see an English country house laid bare. The fire has stripped this ‘traditional’ home back to its bones, revealing a place created by people, ideas and materials from all over the world. A place of beauty, but also one embodying difficult and sometimes over-looked histories. It’s a chance to get to grips with the huge heritage challenge we face and to share your ideas about the house’s future with us as we develop our plans.
