(Vanished) House of the Week!
Yes, that's it. Eight pairs of elaborate gate piers and part of a walled garden are all that is left of the First Earl of Craven's splendid house at Hamstead Marshall in Berkshire, yet despite that the site is one of the most fascinating and atmospheric places to visit, perhaps because you can let your imagination run riot. There are pieces of roof slates, floor tiles and window glass still lying in the fields as testament to the magnificence of the house and you can walk across the whole area, imagining that you are strolling in the pleasure grounds. Aerial photographs still clearly show the outlines of the parterre and box gardens and the foundation line of the front of the house. The house was built by Sir Balthazar Gerbier in the early 1660s, modelled on Elizabeth of Bohemia's palace at Heidelberg. It burned down in 1718, only 21 years after the first Earl's death. Some of the design paperwork survives today in the form of 40 drawings in the Bodleian Library. They ...