Geograph - photograph every grid square

Written by Brian Robert Marshall

The story of the relatively short history of the rise, decline and rescue of Tyntesfield is by now well known from television and other media coverage. In brief, the essentially Victorian gothic revival pile and its estate ended up in 2001 occupied by the 2nd Baron Wraxall virtually alone and using only a handful of the many rooms under the complex and leak-prone roof. The bachelor baron died without issue that year leaving his estate to about 17 beneficiaries. This meant the house and land had to be sold. The following year the house, its contents and gardens were purchased by the National Trust after a major fundraising campaign with the aims of cataloguing and conserving the vast inventory of contents and stabilizing the decaying house. Local legend has it that the NT had to compete with an antipodean pop songstress for possession, although that tale may be apocryphal. Inevitably with such a large project, restoration is going to be a lengthy process which may be completed at about the same time as La Sagrada Familia. As time passes though, more of Tyntesfield House is open to the public who now flock there in ever greater numbers.

The house as it now appears is largely attributable to the aspirations of its progenitor, one William Gibbs, who made a huge fortune from the sale of Peruvian bird droppings in the 19th century. So great did this fortune turn out to be that a rhyme circulated in the City of London:

'Mr Gibbs made his dibbs,
Selling the turds of foreign birds.'

Some might say that the appearance of the house reflects the origin of the money that enabled it. It seems Queen Mary may have taken such a stance when she reportedly remarked that it was 'an ugly house with some nice pictures & things & a nice view from the terrace'. It stands as a monument to the notion that lots of money does not always encourage good taste. On this precedent our descendants can look forward to the National Trust saving present-day Premiership footballers' houses for the nation in the decades to come.