Passed down through 29 generations, Madresfield Court has remained in the same family longer than any other civilian residence in England.
“The whole interior had been gutted, elaborately refurnished and redecorated in the arts-and-crafts style of the last decade of the nineteenth century. Angels in printed cotton smocks, rambler-roses, flower-spangled meadows, frisking lambs, texts in Celtic script, saint in armour, covered the walls in an intricate pattern of clear, bright colours. There was a triptych of pale oak, carved so as to give it the peculiar property of seeming to have been molded in Plasticine. The sanctuary lamp and all the metal furniture were of bronze … the altar steps had a carpet of grass-green, strewn with white and gold daisies.”
Placed incongruously in a Palladian and Baroque mansion, the chapel can appear to be a product of Waugh’s imagination. But, aside from a few minor alterations, Brideshead Castle actually describes a very real and very notable English chapel with which the author was intimately familiar: Madresfield Court’s chapel.
Built as a finishing touch to one of England’s most magnificent country houses, the Madresfield Court chapel is perhaps the finest example of the Arts and Crafts movement’s ecclesial architecture.
Gothic Aesthetics
Madresfield Court is one of the greatest works of Victorian architectural restoration and renovation. Although the estate’s early history is lost, we do know the manor was owned by Robert de Braci by 1196.
Extensive rebuilding, renovation, and expansion of the mansion in the 1590s created the basic model for Madresfield Court as it now exists. The resulting house’s style remained largely grounded in Gothic tradition. But its Gothic aesthetic was that of a civilian home in a settled country. Aside from the moat, remaining fortifications were removed. Large mullioned windows were added. A red brick exterior and a multiplicity of chimneys and gabled roofs helped complete the transition. Classicist proportions and, for some parts of the house, classicist symmetry were also incorporated into the design.
Madresfield Court had not reached its full architectural development until the Victorian era, when it needed extensive repairs to preserve its structural soundness. The gothic and Elizabethan characteristics had also been reduced and partially obscured by 17th- and 18th-century alterations.
Everything changed on March 4, 1866. Fredrick Lygon became the 6th Earl of Beauchamp and owner of Madresfield Court upon the premature death of his childless older brother Henry. The new earl was a strong and energetic devotee of Victorian England’s Gothic Revival. Before the end of the year, he had set in motion a major program of restoration, renovation, and expansion.
Aesthetically as well as structurally, most of the exquisite work of those decades focused on restoration. Madresfield’s exterior was returned to the style of the 1590s renovation. Changes to the interior were similarly faithful to the house’s older heritage. They tended to stress the gothic and vernacular influences on Elizabethan high architecture. For example, the use of dark wood flooring, wainscoting (interior wall paneling), and beams are pervasive.
Arts and Crafts Renovations
A year after the 6th Earl brought the decades-long architectural project to completion in 1890, his son William, the 7th Earl Beauchamp, inherited Madresfield Court. A dedicated patron of the Arts and Crafts movement, the 7th Earl commissioned additions from the period throughout the estate—most notably in the library and chapel.
The first of the 7th Earl’s renovations was the two-story high Staircase Hall: He transformed three rooms in the center of the house into one. The walls of the hall’s bottom half—the height of ground floor rooms—are wood stained dark enough to almost look black. On the other three sides, the hall is topped by a second story hallway that slightly overhangs the edges of the Staircase Hall like a gallery. It has an almost black wooden railing. Contrasting white is used for the second-story walls, fireplace, and ceiling, which is accented in black.
Next came the library—dominated by brown wood bookcases, floors and ceilings. Last of all was the chapel—for which it would be impossible to improve on Waugh’s descriptions except to note two changes he made to it. Rather than being made of bronze, the sanctuary lamp and metal work were covered by champlevé enamel. The triptych was made of gold rather than pale oak. With the completion of the renovations, Madresfield Court finally reached its full magnificence.
