Castle Howard: Excitement amid major restoration to Tapestry Drawing Room

As stately piles go, Castle Howard, nestled in the Howardian Hills 15 miles north of York, has the lot. Set in a thousand acres of sweeping parkland filled with statues, temples, lakes and fountains, it is one of the most historically significant houses in Europe, recognised by millions of TV fans around the world as the location for Brideshead Revisited and Bridgerton.

And there is a story behind this renovation project. A devastating fire in 1940 destroyed the iconic dome and more than 20 rooms in the house, including the Tapestry Drawing Room, while it was being used as a girls’ school. After the war, George Howard kept the house and estate in family ownership and embarked on the restoration of the house, which in 1952 opened to the public. He restored the dome in 1962, and the filming of Brideshead Revisited two decades later enabled the reconstruction of the Garden Hall and New Library.

Castle Howard has been home to nine generations of the Howard family for the last 300 years and its current custodians, husband and wife Nicholas and Victoria Howard, have overseen this latest restoration working alongside architect Francis Terry and designers Remy Renzullo and Alec Cobbe, the éminence grise of the project.

Work started in 2019 only to be interrupted by Covid before being picked up again in 2023. Regular visitors will no doubt notice the difference the moment they step onto the Grand Staircase, which is all about showing the Grand Tour history of the house, with antique sculptures and artefacts collected by the 4th and 5th Earls on their travels through Europe, displayed alongside a series of newly acquired plaster casts and busts. “Visitors will come in and be instantly transported back to ancient Rome and Greece,” says Victoria Howard. “The collection in this house was all about the Grand Tours and the antiquities in the grand entrance reinforce that.”

Many of the paintings that were on the Grand Staircase have migrated to the Long Gallery, which now has more than 60 works on display. Tweaks to the lighting and extra seating, giving visitors time to take in the handiwork of artists like Pannini, Kneller and Hoppner, adds to the feeling that you’re in an art gallery.

It is the Tapestry Drawing Room, though, that has undergone the biggest transformation. It remained a shell following the wartime blaze but has been restored and redecorated with the four tapestries woven for the room in 1706 by John Vanderbank returned to their original positions.

There are no drawings of what the room, which was remodelled in the mid-19th century, originally looked like. All the Howards and their team had to go on was a snippet of information in a letter from architect Nicholas Hawksmoor to Vanderbank about where and how the tapestries should be hung in the room. Despite this they have “reimagined” the room in an 18th century style. “It’s very significant. We’ve restored a room that was destroyed in the fire which makes three rooms now that have been done,” says Nicholas Howard.

Victoria believes that renovating this particular room made sense from a visitor perspective. “The dome had been put back on and the Garden Hall had been restored. But it still meant that if you wanted to do the visitor route you had to go through this burned-out room, so it was the obvious room to do.”

It was while designing the room that they bought a painting at auction by Italian Baroque artist Marco Ricci, who painted a lot of paintings for Castle Howard, for the fireplace. “We discovered this painting had been in the house originally and sold in 1993. So, there’s a rather nice story that the tapestries are coming home and the picture above the fireplace is coming back,” says Victoria.

Throughout the process they used craftspeople skilled in traditional restoration techniques, including York-based decoration and restoration specialists Hesp Jones & Co, and fine wood carving experts Houghtons of York. “We could have done it more cheaply, but we would have been cutting corners,” says Victoria. “We wouldn’t have been using the original type of craftsmen and at the end of the day it’s an investment doing it properly. You could do it like a stage set and get away with it but it wouldn’t have been the real thing, and I think it’s terribly important to the integrity of this place that it’s the real thing.”

Castle Howard is a visitor attraction but it’s also where the Howards live, albeit in a different wing. “I don’t want to walk into the room six months later and say, ‘I wish we’d done this, or I wish we’d done that.’ I want to keep going back in and being delighted by it,” says Nicholas. “To actually have a room where there wasn’t one before is fabulous. This is a lived-in house and it’s very important that when we do things like this the rooms feel domestic as well as grand.”

For the Howards, it’s been about getting the balance right. “It’s made us think about restoration in general,” Victoria says. “I think we feel you need to have a degree of flexibility. I like this idea that we’re honouring the spirit of the house but we’re not trying to be absolutely literal. We’re a visitor attraction and visitor attractions need to refresh themselves from time to time. We want people to come back here who might have already visited once or twice and want something new to see.”

English country houses like Castle Howard have a broad and enduring appeal. “Our demographic is very varied. It’s by no means just full of history graduates. We see a lot of people from different ethnic backgrounds coming to Castle Howard and enjoying this culture and that’s very satisfying,” says Victoria. “It’s a day out. You can do the house or not do the house, or you can do the house for an hour and a half and still have your picnic or go to the children’s playground.” The couple see themselves as custodians of the house, and it’s a role they take seriously. “What we’re here for is to restore and preserve Castle Howard, that’s our job,” explains Victoria. “What we can’t do is not keep this amazing place alive, because it is a very significant place. It’s one of the most significant houses not just in England, but in Europe. It’s a globally important house.”

It’s also one that has evolved over time. “A lot of people who come here comment that it feels alive and one of the reasons for that is it has been through this process of constant change ever since it was built,” says Nicholas.

For him and his family, ensuring that Castle Howard continues to flourish is an ongoing labour of love. “I grew up in this house and I know it intimately and I feel about it as I feel about a person almost. It’s only right that I should leave it in a better condition than when I took it on.”

For more information visit www.castlehoward.co.uk