Trafalgar House (Wiltshire)
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- Trafalgar Park redirects here. For the New Zealand sports stadium, see Trafalgar Park, Nelson.
Trafalgar House, also known as Trafalgar Park, is a country house in Wiltshire, England associated with the family of Admiral Lord Nelson, victor of the Battle of Trafalgar.
The first house on the estate dated back at least to Elizabethan times, when it was acquired by the Bockland family. It was called Standlynch House. In 1726 the estate was sold to Sir Peter Vandeput, Baronet who had a new house built in 1733. It was a seven bay red brick building with three main storeys and forms the central block of the present house. The largest of the interiors was a two storey cubic hall with rococo plasterwork, which probably dates from after 1745.
In 1766 Standlynch was purchased by Henry Dawkins, M.P. who added two pavilions of two storeys and basement which are attached to either end of the house by galleries. The architects employed were John Wood, the Younger and Nicholas Revett. Giovanni Battista Cipriani painted the walls of the music room.
In 1806 Parliament voted the sum of £90,000 for "purchasing an estate for the successors of Vice-Admiral Viscount Nelson" and granted the family a perpetual pension of £5,000. In 1814 Standlynch was purchased in fulfilment of this grant and it was then renamed Trafalgar House. The estate and the contents of the house were sold at auction in 1950, following the termination of the pension by the Labour government after the death of the 4th Earl Nelson in 1947.
The house survives and is a Grade I listed building. It is available as a wedding venue [1] [2] and has been used as a film set.
[edit] References
- Christopher Hussey, English Country Houses: Mid Georgian (1955) ISBN 1-85149-031-0 (1988 edition)
