Victorian Harewood: Gowns for the crown

Harewood House fares pretty well when it comes to regal credentials. Renowned for its magnificent Robert Adam interiors, it also boasts an impressive range of Thomas Chippendale furniture and a world-class collection of paintings by, among others, JMW Turner, Reynolds, Titian and El Greco. However, recently the stakes have been upped a little.
Alexis Guntrip and Lucy Allen, arranging Victoria's coronation robes.Alexis Guntrip and Lucy Allen, arranging Victoria's coronation robes.
Alexis Guntrip and Lucy Allen, arranging Victoria's coronation robes.

The estate was among a number of Yorkshire locations which provided the backdrop for the ITV series Victoria with various rooms at Harewood standing in for both Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace as Jenna Coleman’s young queen took her first – and sometimes faltering – steps as a monarch.

While the show might not have quite had the Brideshead Revisited effect which saw visitor numbers rocket at Castle Howard during the 1980s, the team at Harewood have noticed an uplift in ticket sales from those wanting a glimpse behind the scenes.

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“More than five million viewers tuned in each week to watch Victoria and anything which piques people’s interest in Harewood is good for us,” says Jane Marriott, director of the Harewood House Estate.

This bracelet was presented to Lady Canning as a Christmas gift from Queen Victoria in 1842, the year she aceppted her post as lady-in-waiting.This bracelet was presented to Lady Canning as a Christmas gift from Queen Victoria in 1842, the year she aceppted her post as lady-in-waiting.
This bracelet was presented to Lady Canning as a Christmas gift from Queen Victoria in 1842, the year she aceppted her post as lady-in-waiting.

“What was really great about that series was that it showed a different side to Victoria. We still tend to think of her as the rather large lady who always wore black and who was never very amused. We forget that when she first took the throne, she was a young woman who had her own ideas of how the monarch should behave.”

As filming starts on the second series, throughout the spring and summer visitors to the estate, near Leeds, will be able to see some of the costumes from the show, including the lavish Coronation gown. However, elaborate dresses are just one part of the Victorian Harewood exhibition which organisers hope will cast new light on an often overlooked chapter in the history of the house and the people who have lived there.

“People associate Harewood with the 18th century,” adds Jane. “That’s entirely understandable because most of the interiors of the house date from that period. However, when we found out that we would be able to exhibit some of the Victoria costumes we thought that it would be the perfect springboard to explore that same era in the life of the house.”

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Three influential women dominate the exhibition just as they did Harewood’s history in the late 19th and early 20th century. Through letters, photographs and other personal items, the exhibition will tell the story of Lady Charlotte Canning, who was one of Victoria’s ladies in waiting; Lady Louisa, Third Countess of Harewood, who masterminded a grand redevelopment of the property; and Florence Bridgeman, Fifth Countess of Harewood and keen amateur photographer.

This bracelet was presented to Lady Canning as a Christmas gift from Queen Victoria in 1842, the year she aceppted her post as lady-in-waiting.This bracelet was presented to Lady Canning as a Christmas gift from Queen Victoria in 1842, the year she aceppted her post as lady-in-waiting.
This bracelet was presented to Lady Canning as a Christmas gift from Queen Victoria in 1842, the year she aceppted her post as lady-in-waiting.

“Victoria stayed at the estate and there’s a couple of lovely lines from one of her journals in which she says: ‘The park seems very fine, the view from the window is very pretty, but the house itself not nearly so comfortable’. That all changed when Lady Louisa moved into Harewood. She had 13 children and very quickly decided that the house needed major remodelling to suit the family’s needs,” adds Jane.

“Fashions changed radically during the Victorian period, and suddenly you find purple leather furniture and crimson curtains being introduced to Harewood. Lady Louisa also created a service passage from the dining room to the kitchen so the servants could move about more efficiently and the parterre terrace with its stately fountains, symmetrical flower beds and box hedging, which stretches more than a mile in length, was also down to her. The family paid Charles Barry £37,000 to complete the alterations, which was the equivalent of £1.6m in today’s money. There is a temptation to think that the women of this period were seen and not heard, but women like Lady Louisa really left their mark on the place.”

So too did Florence Bridgeman. Born in 1859, she was 22 when she married Henry, Viscount Lascelles and she lived through a golden age of British aristocracy.

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“Britain was economically and politically stable and like other women of her social status, she enjoyed entertaining and frequent overseas travel,” says Jane.

“However, unlike many of her peers, she also embraced photography, which was a relatively new art form. She captured a series of candid and natural images of friends and family which stand in stark contrast to the posed, often stoic portraits which characterised the earlier Victorian era.

“There are some lovely images of her friends play sword-fighting and balancing glasses on their head which really show the down to earth and very human side to the British aristocracy.”

Complementing Victorian Harewood are two contemporary art exhibitions. The Empire Line is a collection of photographs by Gavin Fernandes which feature Indian women wearing 19th century dress commonly worn by middle-class British women while Harewood’s China Room will be showing a selection of Kathy Dalwood’s Secret Society busts.

• Victorian Harewood runs until October 29, harewood.org