The Country House Revealed (2011) s01e03 Episode Script
Episode 3
DAN CRUICKSHANK: Our great country houses, the most familiar and yet intriguing sights Britain has to offer, standing like sentinels in the landscape.
Hundreds of thousands of us visit them every year, but not all are open to the public.
I've been granted the privileged opportunity to pass through the portals of six of our greatest country houses normally hidden from public view.
They've seen five centuries of British history, up close and personal.
The families who built these houses played their part in great affairs of state.
Central to their dreams, the great house, the ultimate status symbol.
But all too often, also the ultimate money drainer.
Few of these families went the distance, but their houses did, with their secrets intact.
This is their story, but it's also our story.
For these houses offer a guided tour of our nation's hidden history.
Easton Neston in Northamptonshire.
What triumphs and disasters this house can bear witness to.
Debts, jewels, family estrangements, fortunes lost, sometimes at the turn of a card, and fortunes won.
It's a wonderful design, a building with tremendous power and presence, an architectural masterpiece.
But it's not only a house of beauty, it's also a house of secrets.
Precisely who designed it and when has been one of the greatest mysteries of British architecture.
Easton Neston is also a house full of history.
It's a testament in stone to more than three centuries of its owners' wealth, power and privilege.
The ordinary man and woman would have seen the world of the Fermors as I would see Bill Gates.
Something so far away.
It's a completely different universe.
The Fermor family kept Easton Neston going, thanks to two desperate measures, mortgage and marriage.
JOANNE BAILEY: This is the consumer society in the 18th century and so they increasingly get into debt.
And so one of the ways, of course, to pay that off, their strategy, indeed, is to marry.
CRUICKSHANK: For 10 generations this family didn't dirty its hands with business, up until the 1970s, when it went into the motor trade.
Here was a turn up for the books, if not for the family fortunes.
After all, it's not every country house that gets to play host to a Formula One racing team.
(CAMERA CLICKS) The latest chapter in Easton Neston's history shows that it's lost none of its power to please.
In 2005, it became the European headquarters of a global fashion brand.
(GUNSHOT) Its new owner isn't an aristocrat, but a wealthy Los Angeles-based, Russian-born fashion designer with a liking for traditional English country pursuits.
It was really love at first sight.
It was the most beautiful house that I had ever seen.
I had to have it right there and then.
CRUICKSHANK: Easton Neston is one of the most beautiful examples of a short-lived, but important architectural movement, English Baroque.
It only lasted from the 1660s to the 1730s.
For me, it's one of the richest and most glorious styles of our native architecture.
Baroque is based on ancient classical models, but it's playful, wilful and inventive.
It began in Italy.
Here in England, Baroque was more reserved, less sinuous and feminine.
A little bit more masculine in style, but still sumptuous.
The interior is every bit as imposing as the exterior, and again it's a masterpiece of the Baroque style.
Originally, this wall wasn't here.
There was just a pair of columns.
And there was a reason for this.
When the house was built, you would have stepped through the front door and immediately encountered Easton Neston's first splendour.
This was one of the most famous and spatially surprising and exciting rooms in early 18th century Britain.
It's the hall, and originally it was double-height, almost twice as high as it is now.
This ceiling was inserted in the late 19th century.
And here we can see what the hall looked like when first built.
Can you imagine the extraordinary impact this double-height room would have had? It was one of the greatest glories of the English Baroque.
One thing that characterises Baroque is that each new space you encounter is designed to take you by surprise.
The staircase is the architectural highpoint, the focus of the interior, indeed, of the house.
It's all to do, of course, with space, light, drama.
This was one of the most admired staircases in the whole of Europe and with good reason.
The staircase is not just visually beautiful, it's also something of an engineering marvel.
There are all these rebates on the underside of each tread.
They'd lock the treads together and they ensure that the weight of the staircase is transferred in a reliable and regular manner from tread to tread, from top to bottom.
The whole staircase does seem to deny commonsense, it really does float.
Also, I love the fact that most people using this staircase, bounding up and down it, have no idea what keeps it standing.
And the great staircase has another trick up its sleeve.
As you turn the corner and walk up the second flight of stairs, the experience is different again.
Looking back towards the mighty window, the quality of the space is very different.
It becomes a world now of light and shade.
And so to the next part of the tour and there's another cleverly worked transition.
From antique gloom to light.
This gallery is again a glorious spatial surprise.
It stretches the full depth of the house and at each end are huge windows.
These windows offer sensational views out.
One can see here that in fact, this gallery sits astride an axis through the house, but also extended into the landscape, this direction and that direction as far as the eye can see.
So, although this gallery, is in a sense the end of the architectural promenade through the house, it's also a connection to the larger world.
And, of course, the human figures in this landscape would have been peering back in shock and awe.
This family had arrived, but where had it started from? The story of Easton Neston starts here.
It was a large Tudor house, 150 yards south of the existing house, which means the mansion was roughly where I'm walking now.
And if you think that Easton Neston sounds like a village, well it was, but the village was removed in 1499.
All that marks its existence is the medieval parish church.
As for the parishioners themselves, well, it seems they were simply thrown off the estate.
They were in the way.
And here in the church are the tombs of the family, which was to own the estate of Easton Neston from the 1530s until 2005.
The Fermor family had scrabbled its way up through the Tudor ranks to become important merchants, lawyers and politicians.
Under the Stewarts came formal recognition of their burgeoning status.
This temple or banqueting house is dated 1641.
Now, it could mark the beginnings of a great ambition, because in 1641, the same date as it was built, William Fermor was made a baronet.
As Sir William, he may have hankered after a grand new house in keeping with his brand-new status.
Could this little garden building, indeed, be the beginning of a great building campaign to create a new classical country house in this style just about here? If this was the case, then the timing was somewhat unfortunate, because only a year later the English Civil War started.
Building an imposing country house, suddenly didn't seem such a pressing priority.
But in 1660, with the restoration of Charles II, the King's loyal supporters could dust off their chequebooks and start to spend.
Here's the man who finally built the new house.
The second Sir William Fermor, he was an MP, but he wasn't like his ancestors in trade.
The Fermors had left the cutthroat world of the Tudors behind and reached sunnier pastures.
Fermors wealth came not from business, but from a different source altogether, marriage.
Marrying money was a lot quicker and presumably easier than actually earning it.
In 1671, Sir William Fermor's first wife proved this, 'cause she bought him a dowry, or wedding gift of £7,000.
She soon died, but 10 years later he married a second time, and that wife bought him a dowry of £9,000.
That's inflation for you.
And now, with the money flooding in, the time had come to spend it.
Fermor took a momentous decision.
He resolved to build a grand new house to reflect the family's rise in fortunes.
For this an architect would come in handy, and luckily for Fermor, he was related to one by marriage, Sir Christopher Wren.
There could hardly have been a more prestigious name to call on.
Wren was a wonder of the age, Britain's greatest living architect, responsible for designing St Paul's Cathedral and over 50 churches after London's Great Fire of 1666.
He was one of Britain's first superstar architects.
We know for certain that Wren was approached by Fermor, but how much involvement did he actually have in the design of Easton Neston? This seemingly simple question has turned into one of the longest-running controversies in British architectural history, but it's one we're hoping to solve.
The first staging post on the Easton Neston trail is here at Oxford.
Wren's career as an architect began at the university.
He was a fellow here at All Souls and a professor, not of architecture, but of astronomy.
This sundial is his work.
Many of Wren's papers are still kept here at All Souls, including one that's of particular interest to us.
Here at All Souls, is a design that is said to be the first or certainly a very early design for Easton Neston by Sir Christopher Wren.
What's intriguing is that the existing house is nine-windows wide.
This is, indeed, nine-windows wide.
So, in scale, similar, and broad composition, similar, main block with wings, but much, much more modest.
Much more modest than the existing building.
This seems very clearly to be a design for Easton Neston, but how come the existing house was not built to Wren's design? At a certain point, and frustratingly, we don't know exactly when it was, Wren handed over the design of Easton Neston to his talented protégé, Nicholas Hawksmoor.
Hawksmoor was born around 1662.
It's thought, to a poor farming family in Nottinghamshire.
He came to work for Wren, aged 18, and became his clerk, pupil and eventually, collaborator.
And what a career Hawksmoor had.
Up to his death in 1736, he's one of the greatest exponents of the English Baroque style.
He also built, in a different manner at All Souls.
But his most famous work are the six astonishing churches, he designed in London after 1712.
Such as Christ Church, Spitalfields.
These are the mature masterpieces of the English Baroque.
The culmination of a journey into the sublime, that began for Hawksmoor at Easton Neston.
But how did the young Hawksmoor come to be involved in Easton Neston at all? And how do we get from this, rather, modest design to this? Clues, as to how the design of Easton Neston changed so radically are to be found here, the north wing.
Originally, there was a matching wing opposite that contained the stables.
That was demolished just over 200 years ago, leaving only its twin still standing.
It's thought to date, from the 1680s, and by tradition has been called the Wren Wing, because it's vaguely in the style of Wren.
Few people now believe this is by Wren.
It is not like his designs that survive in All Souls College.
And Hawksmoor called the wing "good for nothing".
Something he would not have said, if it had been by Wren, his revered master.
So, who did design it? Well, we have absolutely no idea.
What we do know is when the wing was built.
That's because Robert Howard, a dendrochronologist, has used the tree ring dating technique, to show that the wing was roofed between 1683 and 1686.
Next, he's going to be dating the roof of the main house.
The wing was all but destroyed by fire in 2002.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER) It's been restored by the Architect Ptolemy Dean, who also commissioned the tree ring dating.
After stripping away decades of plywood, paint and plaster, Ptolemy has uncovered some intriguing secrets that the building's been keeping to itself.
(INDISTINCT) Looking at the difference between two sets of roof timbers, it seems that after the wing was built, six feet were chopped off one end of it.
Then look what happens here.
The end A bay, here, is cut short.
Cut off, and you And you can imagine this because they look out there and they say, "Goodness me, we're not going to have enough room for that house.
" CRUICKSHANK: Here's the proof.
The windows in the roof aren't arranged symmetrically.
If you look behind you at that elevation there, you'll see one, two, three windows.
CRUICKSHANK: Yeah.
PTOLEMY: Do you see, it's moved it? - I do.
I do.
- Do you see that? I do.
I do.
More space on the right than left.
Exactly.
CRUICKSHANK: So, right from the start, there were concerns that not enough room had been left for the main house.
And when he came to restore the basement, Ptolemy found that it, too, had been altered at some point after it had first been built.
- Here is one of those basement piers.
- Yeah.
Just, you know, standard stuff here.
It all carries on vaulting here and then, look, where are we on the plan? - We are under the staircase.
- Staircase.
And look at this.
Suddenly, we've got more of this massive Hawksmoor masonry, this banding, abutting up to the existing stone pit.
Later, later, later.
Yeah.
Later, later, later, and this incredible depth.
And it's not just here.
It's there, it's there and here.
It's on the other side.
And we deliberately left this area unpainted, so that you can see clearly, Hawksmoor coming into this existing basement saying, "This staircase is not going to be supported on the existing "flimsy stone vaulting.
"We need some proper stonemasonry here "to make the grand staircase for this grand house "I'm making above.
" CRUICKSHANK: So, the vault from the basement corridor was strengthened by the addition of massive stone arches to help support the great staircase.
And the vaults in the kitchen were also strengthened to support the weight of a redesigned double-height hall.
It seems that neither of these heavy-stone structures was in prospect when the building of the basement started.
So why did the house get grander in conception? We need to look at the family history.
In 1687, Sir William Fermor's second wife died.
Perhaps that's why work on the house stopped.
But five years later, he married again and hit the jackpot.
He married the daughter of the Duke of Leeds, one of the most important grandees in the country.
He was the main Tory sponsor of William and Mary and became king and queen after the glorious revolution of 1688.
The duke wasted no time in pulling strings for his son-in-law.
Within six weeks of his marriage, Sir William Fermor joined the peerage.
He became Lord Leominster or Lemster.
The glorious revolution had ushered in a golden age for the aristocracy.
To celebrate their increasing wealth and power, a spate of country house building now begun.
Easton Neston included.
The great house was the great statement of a landed family.
And, of course, a land was the basis of power, of political power.
Not just of economic power, but political power.
And it was through land that you influenced this, sort of, political world around you.
And the development of that estate is an investment in the future of your family and your descendants being part of the ruling class.
CRUICKSHANK: At the centre of this power network was marriage.
BAILEY: With William Fermor, he has three marriages.
And he seems to move upwards.
He seems to be doing the - Social ascent.
Yeah, yeah.
- Yes.
This is about looking for marrying into a prestigious lineage.
- So, clearly money will come with that.
- Yeah.
But the social status is of some significance there.
Looking for power.
Yes, because they're marrying, not just into an important lineage, the patronage networks come with that and that's a way to, to get all of those sorts of political influence and so on.
CRUICKSHANK: Power, patronage and political influence.
The voters were often in their pockets, were part and parcel of the aristocrat's trappings.
But they were also at pains to show that they were people of culture and learning.
The country house had also to advertise its owner's taste.
In 1691, with his third marriage in prospect, Sir William bought a collection of important statues.
They were known as the Arundel Marbles after Lord Arundel, who collected them in the early 17th century.
It's the first-ever British collection of statutes from ancient Greece and Rome.
The hall and staircase weren't just the showpieces of the house, they were also conceived as the setting for the Arundel Marbles.
Sir William Fermor was intent on becoming the Charles Saatchi of his day, the possessor of Britain's finest private art collection.
The staircase is, in many ways designed around the Arundel Marbles, which occupied these various niches each side of the staircase hall.
Here's a statue, modern addition.
Does the job, well, rather beautifully, actually, but here would have been one of the great inspirational Arundel Marbles.
And on the wall, between the niches where the Marbles sat is a series of rather stupendous wall paintings executed by James Thornhill just after the house was completed.
Thornhill was one of the leading artists of his day.
He also painted the interior of the dome of St Paul's.
The whole thing works as an ascending art gallery, and that's the point in a way, this is like a museum.
He's a pioneer of the public museum, because in the 18th century groups of people came here, two or three groups a week, to admire the Arundel Marbles, to be inspired by them, but also to enjoy Thornhill's paintings.
These parts of the house, that were meant to impress important visitors, took up a huge amount of space.
Now remember, space was in short supply, because the wings had already been built.
So how did Hawksmoor fit in the less spectacular rooms, that were essential for the running of the house? Luckily, he left a guide to show us just how ingenious he'd been.
Up until 2005, it was at the house.
Now it's at the study centre of the Royal Institute of British Architects in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Well, the model of Easton Neston.
One of the most important, fascinating, and enigmatic objects in British architectural history.
It dates from the very late 17th century and simply, models from that period do not survive.
Also, of course, it's by one of Britain's greatest architects.
What a fantastic opportunity to see, in the making one of Britain's greatest country houses.
Here we can see how the hall once rose the full height of the building.
But Hawksmoor had to work hard to make room for it.
So these little bedrooms and service areas, including these little service staircases here are really packing the space together in a very, very, very ingenious manner.
Because so much of the volume of the house has gone for the great state rooms, the double-height hall, the great staircase.
Here's the clever bit.
There aren't just two storeys set above the basement as the garden elevation implies, but four storeys at the south end of the house and five at the north end.
Cunningly hidden away are mezzanine floors, into which Hawksmoor crammed staircases for servants and bedrooms for less-important guests.
On the north elevation, this is made plain.
And here we can see that there was one major difference between his model and what was actually built.
At this stage in the design, there are two storeys of columns.
But evidently, this didn't satisfy the customer's insatiable demand for ostentation.
He wanted more swank.
And he got it.
Hawksmoor made the building grander and more imposing still, as travellers on what was the main road to Northampton might just have noticed.
This is the view the public would have had of the house.
This is why its design got increasingly grand.
And here was the 18th century equivalent of a heated swimming pool, palm trees and helipad on the roof.
These columns, which rise the full height of the house, are in a style made famous by Michelangelo.
They are called the giant order and they constitute a giant statement.
Now, the giant order carries many messages, and for Hawksmoor, it would have the stamp of Roman authority.
The client would have loved that association.
Gave him also, of course, the dignity and authority of a Roman senator.
The same swaggering spirit is also present in the Roman design of the capitals.
But there's a rather curious and charming variation on antique prototype.
Hawksmoor introduced the head of a lion.
There it is, at the centre, at the top of a complete capital, a lion's head.
But why a lion's head? Well, because the client had recently been made Lord Lemster or Lord Leominster.
Leo for Lion.
And to top it all Hora E Sempre, "Now and always".
There's confidence for you.
Contemporaries raved about the building.
One wrote that, "In the opinion of good judges, "no seat in Europe exceeds it.
" A resounding triumph for Nicholas Hawksmoor then? Alas, it's not so simple.
40 years ago, an eminent architectural historian set the cat amongst the pigeons.
He suggested that the house was built between 1685 and 1695 in brick, partly to designs by Nicholas Hawksmoor and partly designs by Hawksmoor's old master, Sir Christopher Wren.
Five years later, the argument goes, Hawksmoor covered the brick house in stone and added the giant order.
This theory, if true, would reduce Hawksmoor's role in the creation of the house and deny him the full credit for his first major independent commission.
And now the time has come to test this troublesome theory against the insights offered by modern science.
(DRILL WHIRRING) Up in the attics, the tree ring dating specialist Robert Howard has taken a dozen or so samples from the original roof timbers.
Here, we hope, is the answer once and for all.
You can see the, the growth rings of this particular tree on this sample here, which I've sanded up and polished just to show them, etcetera.
And you can see that there are variations in width over the lifetime of this tree caused by the weather.
And it's rather like a supermarket barcode.
So, you feel confident these samples can give a really precise accuracy? Absolutely.
I feel very confident.
Prognosis, result, is very good indeed.
Whatever he did or didn't design, Hawksmoor finished the main fabric of the house in 1702, and for nearly four decades the Fermor family lived high on the hog.
In 1721, aged just 24, the son of the builder of the house became an earl, Earl Pomfret.
To celebrate, he decided to spruce up his collection of marbles.
As is the habit of ancient statues, many torsos were missing limbs.
The Earl decided to make good that deficit.
He hired an Italian sculptor named Giovanni Guelfi to add new heads and limbs.
This book, published in the 1760s, records the appearance of the Arundel Marble's various statues after the First Earl had had his way with them.
What fun they must have had deciding what would go where.
There is here, for example, Paris.
Head, legs, parts of the body added.
This was on the staircase, and throughout the 18th century, this would have been regarded as an exemplary inspirational piece of ancient art until taste changed.
They were, for years, the family's pride and joy and the first Lord Lemster specified in his will that they were to stay in the house forever.
But, they're not here now, what happened? The answer is that cracks were beginning to appear in the Fermor facade.
The magnificent image shown to the public was increasingly a lie.
Behind the scenes, in private, the Earl and Countess were going broke.
Easton Neston provided status, it burnt money.
By the late 1730s, the ink was so red they had to relocate to Italy, where the living was cheaper, and close Easton Neston down for three years.
And with the next generation, things were to get even worse.
The Fermor family is not very well-known, but there's a wonderful mosaic of information lurking in various archives throughout the land.
And if this information's brought together, a rather fascinating picture emerges.
In letters and court reports, we meet the black sheep of the Fermor family, the son of the First Earl.
He was going broke even quicker than his parents.
In letter after letter, his father pleads with him to economise and not gamble.
Despite all the advice from his father, the son, George Fermor, did not reform.
He was very much a rake, indeed an extreme example of a Georgian rake.
He was involved, as far as we know, in at least four duels.
And in one, in 1752, he actually killed an opponent, a fellow Guards officer.
They were fighting with swords and he run the chap through.
Now this was potentially a case of murder.
He was indeed sent to trail at the Old Bailey and ultimately was found guilty of manslaughter, which for him was, of course, very fortunate, otherwise he could have been executed.
On another occasion, we're told he lost £ 12,000 at a single sitting at cards.
That's 500 times what a labourer earned in a year.
The estate could hardly have gone to a less safe pair of hands.
But the aristocracy were no fools.
Over the years, they constructed a built-in safety net to protect country houses, contents, estates, wealth and status, from improvident eldest sons.
They did it by various legal methods that prevented the eldest son selling off the house or estate.
The land had to stay in the family.
Unable to trust his wayward son to provide dowries for his unmarried sisters, the Earl took drastic action.
He couldn't prevent his eldest son inheriting the house, but he could stop him getting his hands on the contents.
The Earl duly changed his will and left his movable possessions to his daughters.
And so when the First Earl died in 1753, there was a huge sale, which virtually everything, apart from the family portraits were sold off.
When I say everything, I mean everything.
This is a copy of the catalogue for the 1753 sale.
It says here, "Catalogue of some household furniture.
"Brewing vessels, garden rollers, cucumber frames, glasses," etcetera.
"Of the Right Honourable, the Earl of Pomfret, deceased.
" Great variety of bedsteads, curtains.
But also there are things one would regard as fittings.
"Lead cisterns.
"Kitchen furniture.
" They were going to sell the kitchen sink.
I imagine, when these things were sold, the house was pretty well uninhabitable.
"A large range, two pot hooks, "a lead kerb round the sink.
" It really is the kitchen sink.
These people are desperate for the last penny.
And the Arundel Marbles, the family's pride and joy were donated to Oxford, out of the clutches of the Second Earl, as he'd now become.
Imagine, you're the Second Earl in 1754, and your house, the symbol of your aristocratic status, is echoingly empty, apart from family portraits looking accusingly down from the walls.
And all of this is your fault, the result of your spendthrift habits.
Would you hang your head in shame? I should hope so.
Did the Second Earl? Probably not.
What he did was look around for a solution.
And he needed one.
He'd inherited a mortgage of £6,000.
Within 10 years, it stood at £30,000.
That's more than seven times the estate's annual rental income.
But then, as bankruptcy beckoned, with one bound, our hero was free or at least married.
What we know of Anna Maria, is that she was somewhat on the stout side and very rich.
One contemporary observer said she was like a richly laden treasure ship.
Another, that her tonnage was equal to her poundage.
But, whatever her appearance, she brought much-needed money into the family.
There are no known portraits of the Second Earl, but here in the parish church, well away from the altar, we can make his acquaintance.
Here he is, the reckless Georgian rake.
With him is his wife, Anna Maria.
An interesting monument this.
He has his head in his hands, I suppose worrying about the afterlife, though it does rather look as if he's worrying about his money troubles.
And she was described in life looking like a well-laden treasure ship.
Here, of course, looking very svelte indeed.
Lovely.
What happened to her money? We're not quite sure.
But what we do know is, that the Earl did not use it to pay off the mortgage on Easton Neston.
The honour of trying to pay that off went to the son of George and Anna Maria, the Third Earl.
His tomb's also to be found in the parish church.
Here he is sitting, looking very composed.
It says here, "George, Third Earl of Pomfret.
A dutiful son.
"A most kind brother, a father to all his family, "a beneficent landlord, a beloved master, a sincere Christian.
" But it does not say, of course, he was a good and loving husband.
And that's the way it is.
So often with monuments, it's what's not said that says everything.
The Third Earl certainly was a husband.
Indeed, thanks to his mortgage, he took up the family business with a considerable enthusiasm, and like his father, snapped up an heiress.
Mary Trollope Browne was the daughter of a rich landowner, rather stiffly described as an opulent wine merchant.
No pictures of her exist.
All we know about her is that she was 25 and absolutely loaded to the tune of nearly £ 120,000.
A master craftsman might earn £200 a year.
The only problem for the Earl was that in aristocratic marriages, the wife's money was usually protected by a marriage settlement, the prenuptial agreement of its day.
Mary agreed to cough up £30,000 to pay off the mortgage.
The other £90,000 she would keep.
So far so good.
But then, as often in the history of a marriage, a mother-in-law throws a spanner into the works.
In this case, by her unexpected death.
- Because the mother-in-law dies - Yes.
her money goes straight to him? - Yes.
Because she doesn't make a will.
Now, if she'd made a will, where she'd set that money aside for her daughter's separate use, they'd have The daughter would have been safe.
But because this money goes straight to the husband, that's one of the complaints that the wife makes, which is that, once he got his hands on her money, - he treated her badly.
- Yeah.
CRUICKSHANK: With the marriage in meltdown, the Earl and Countess separate and soon lawyers are called in to establish who's at fault.
The Earl accuses Mary of physical violence and being scruffy.
She accuses him of mental cruelty and adultery.
They do separate, but the Earl still wants his £30,000.
Mary tells him he can whistle for it.
And then finally, 25 years after the marriage, the Court of Chancery decides in the Earl's favour.
For the first time in 65 years, the family is back in the black.
How did all this affect Easton Neston? The real change caused by Mary's money wasn't seen in the house, but in the grounds, the acreage of which was increased.
When the Third Earl came into funds in the early 1820s, he commissioned this splendid gate and neoclassical screen.
At the same time, he moves some public roads further away from the main house.
The object, of course, was to increase the splendour and isolation of the setting of Easton Neston.
But despite the family motto, "Now and always'", in 1867, the male Fermor line died out and through marriage, Easton Neston passed to a new family, the Heskeths, who duly became Fermor-Heskeths.
Thanks to marriage to terrifyingly rich American heiresses, the old Fermor formula, the Heskeths managed to keep the house afloat, and then some.
This was the new money that paid for the hall to be altered in the 1890s.
Meanwhile, daily life in the house continued almost as if in a time capsule.
Trish York began to work as a lady's maid here in 1975 for Lady Hesketh.
At that point, Easton Neston was still very much in Upstairs Downstairs mode.
As a young lady's maid it was my duty to clean these stairs.
CRUICKSHANK: You'd clean the stairs? YORK: Absolutely.
Every bit of the wrought iron.
Oh, the wrought iron.
That's the thing, isn't it? And Lady Hesketh used to come along and she'd inspect every single one, and if it wasn't right, she'd come and tell us or she'd do it herself.
CRUICKSHANK: Beautiful.
In the '70s, what was life like? Was it really, as one might imagine, - a great Victorian country house to be? - Yes, it was.
Everybody had their job to do and the butler would preside over us all.
He followed us around and made sure that everything was done.
And when we said that a room had been done or such, you know, that cushions had been plumped up, when people had gone to dinner and he would come in and check that.
(THE BOYS ARE BACKIN TOWN PLAYING) CRUICKSHANK: But the house was soon to enter a somewhat more informal stage.
In 1973, the present Lord Hesketh set up a Formula One racing team.
(INDISTINCT) Here was a chapter, every bit as colourful as anything Easton Neston had yet seen.
When Lord Hesketh was more in control of the house, your role presumably changed to a degree? It changed to the different calibre of people that were coming along.
You know, it wasn't gentry that were coming along or aristocrats as much.
They were coming along, but it was generally more everyday people.
Did they know how to behave though, the guests? No, not at all.
No.
No? That's fascinating that.
That's how the world had changed.
- The guest didn't know how to behave.
- No, absolutely not, no.
Yeah.
Interesting, isn't it? And a lot of them were models and things that, you know, that had never been to a big house before and just suddenly thought, "Oh, I've got people on hand to get me a cup of tea," and you know, do this and that and constantly ringing the bell, 'cause they wanted you to come and get them some ice or whatever.
And you'd say, "Well, the ice is in the cupboard just there.
" CRUICKSHANK: The Hesketh racing team enjoyed great early success.
In 1974,James Hunt won at Silverstone.
In 1975, Team Hesketh won a Grand Prix, the last privately-owned team ever to do so.
Mick Broom came to work here at Easton Neston as an engineer.
Can you tell me a bit more about, you know, the Formula One days here? Oh, I think a lot of the things that will be remembered, was obviously the fact that he was a privateer, he didn't have any, sort of, backing, but they also approached the racing a lot more different.
They were professional, they worked hard, in, sort of, producing the car from next to nothing, but they also played hard.
And, you know, there's lots and lots of stories around of them going to Monaco with one car and three yachts, whereas most people went with one yacht and three cars, you know? CRUICKSHANK: When the racing team folded, that wasn't the end of motor sports here at Easton Neston.
In a market full of inexpensive Japanese imports, Lord Hesketh picked up the gauntlet and tried to revive the ailing British luxury bike industry.
BROOM: I built this personally.
CRUICKSHANK: This one? - This bike, yes.
- Ooh! It was a labour of love, more than anything else those days, because we were starting from almost raw aluminium.
It was a job which was inspired by the surroundings, it was inspired by working for the lord.
It's not the, sort of, thing that you normally get when you're working on motorbikes in back sheds.
It was inspired by the building? Did the beauty of Hawksmoor's house, somehow inspire the design? Yes, basically, because, you know, it all came into the atmosphere.
The atmosphere was definitely different from a normal commercial exercise.
But I mean it must have been, gosh, expensive though? It was expensive because it was a low volume one.
And it was destined not really to work because, and this is one of the other advantages of the atmosphere and the fact that there was a lord involved, because if you'd looked at it as a solid businessman in the '80s, when the bike industry was in decline and all the rest of it and it was a very expensive bike coming in at the wrong time, you wouldn't do it.
And that in a way, like that quirkiness, you know, gave us the bike.
CRUICKSHANK: One thing that's remained constant at Easton Neston throughout its history, is the sheer cost of keeping it going.
And in 2005, a long chapter in that history came to an end.
The house's contents went under the hammer.
The sale raised over eight million pounds, the second greatest haul from a country house contents sale in British auction history.
It was masterminded by James Miller of Sotheby's.
(INDISTINCT) Can you tell me, I mean, how important was the collection? Well, it was collections, because it was a collection which had grown and diminished in the middle of the 18th century and then grown again, and then put on colossal weight at the end of the 19th, early 20th century.
And there'd been a succession of members of, either Fermors or Heskeths, who had, both a liking for works of art, a good eye and the wherewithal to express it.
So it's layer upon layer, accretions of taste, and, of course, to me, I find that almost more exciting than having a complete picture.
I like a jigsaw puzzle where you put things together.
But it obviously was an important collection, in so far as reflecting the history of this house and the history of the family? Well, it's important, because you've got First of all, you've got a house which was built for a collection Yeah, the Arundels.
But I think this house was always meant for display, so you tended not to be able to get away with, what you and I might call charming, but domestic furniture.
- Yeah.
- It's got to earn its keep here.
You can't just put in any old bit of mahogany.
If you were a bad object, you, sort of, had to go away.
(BOTH LAUGH) CRUICKSHANK: The sale of 2005 has an almost uncanny resemblance to the sale of 1753, when the house was stripped virtually bare.
(INAUDIBLE) Here again, along with great paintings and grand furniture, there are many far humbler day to day objects up for sale.
For example, a child's croquet set, including five balls, four mallets and six hoops.
40 quid! (INDISTINCT) And here, a Victorian iron garden roller, with loop and heart-pierced end, indeed.
Heartbreaking.
80 quid.
(INDISTINCT) Everything had to go.
Virtually, everything did go.
Not long after the auction, the house itself was sold.
"In a good year,"Lord Hesketh said, "the estate lost half a million pounds.
"In a bad year, three times that amount.
" Unlike his ancestor, the Second Earl, back in 1753, Lord Hesketh could sell the family seat and he did.
The whole estate was put on sale for £50 million, but there were no takers.
So the land, that was in theory meant to support the house, was broken up into smaller pieces.
600 prime acres, plus the house itself, was snapped up by the Los Angeles-based, Russian-born fashion magnate, Leon Max.
Price, £ 15 million.
I had this romantic idea that I should live in the country, in England, in some beautiful, old, white elephant of a house, where I could set up a design studio.
And I looked at a few houses.
This one was not quite in the price range, this was a little too expensive.
But at some point we made a deal with the Heskeths and here we are.
So, did he leave you any welcoming gifts, Lord Hesketh? Yes, there was a bottle of vodka with a note, sort of, welcome and - Good luck.
- Good luck.
CRUICKSHANK: Having moved into a virtually empty house, Leon Max began the job of decorating it in the style of the 18th century.
Feels very much, a traditional English country house interior.
Wonderful paintings all acquired by you.
MAX: Yes, it was interesting.
It, sort of, became a hobby for me.
Well, I run a dot com, so I have a lot of very clever boys on my staff, and they'd done a model, so anything that came up at auction, that I thought was the appropriate piece would be scaled and placed in that model.
And so it was all done online, everything was bought online and hence everything fits rather well.
CRUICKSHANK: And so from pleasure to business.
Very lovely.
As you can see, this is one of our advertising shot here.
CRUICKSHANK: Here, in the restored wing, is Max' studio's European headquarters.
Oh, good Lord, this is It's hard to see It does seem a long way from Hawksmoor, yeah, doesn't it? Easton Neston was built to lend glamour and status to its aristocratic owners and then did so to a motor sports team.
Now it's being used as a backdrop for the most glamorous business of all, fashion.
And the Hawksmoor design continues to inspire.
I truly believe that this is one of, if not, the most beautiful design studio in the world.
I think it's impossible to make anything ugly in this setting.
And we're in the business of putting beautiful things into the world and so here we are.
CRUICKSHANK: Owners come and go, the house lives on.
Easton Neston has entered a new, if unexpected, chapter.
It's one of the greatest buildings in Britain and is certainly one of my favourite country houses.
And so it's time, finally, to solve the mystery of who designed it and when.
Was it begun in the 1680s to a design by Sir Christopher Wren, or was it a Hawksmoor's work alone, built nearer to 1702? Let's get the verdict of the tree ring dating.
Well, good to see you.
Let's hear your results.
Well, I'm not quite sure what date you were really expecting, but I can reveal that, having taken several samples - from the timbers, that - In the roof on the main house? In the roof, yes, of the main house, yes, they were all felled between the spring of 1700 and the spring of 1701.
Well, that's completely spot on.
Oh, really? CRUICKSHANK: It is just what one would expect.
HOWARD: Great.
This has now been solved, or put to bed, this speculation.
It's so brilliant you've answered one of the great questions of English architectural history! Frustration, actually, that whole question.
Good.
Well, I'm pleased that Because, actually, now Hawksmoor reigns supreme in the attics.
CRUICKSHANK: Hawksmoor came back here in 1731, nearly 30 years after the exterior of the house had been completed.
At that point he was ill and his architecture had fallen from favour.
But, he at least was still pleased with what he saw.
He wrote at the time, "You can hardly avoid loving your own children.
" (THE STATELYHOMES OF ENGLAND PLAYING)
Hundreds of thousands of us visit them every year, but not all are open to the public.
I've been granted the privileged opportunity to pass through the portals of six of our greatest country houses normally hidden from public view.
They've seen five centuries of British history, up close and personal.
The families who built these houses played their part in great affairs of state.
Central to their dreams, the great house, the ultimate status symbol.
But all too often, also the ultimate money drainer.
Few of these families went the distance, but their houses did, with their secrets intact.
This is their story, but it's also our story.
For these houses offer a guided tour of our nation's hidden history.
Easton Neston in Northamptonshire.
What triumphs and disasters this house can bear witness to.
Debts, jewels, family estrangements, fortunes lost, sometimes at the turn of a card, and fortunes won.
It's a wonderful design, a building with tremendous power and presence, an architectural masterpiece.
But it's not only a house of beauty, it's also a house of secrets.
Precisely who designed it and when has been one of the greatest mysteries of British architecture.
Easton Neston is also a house full of history.
It's a testament in stone to more than three centuries of its owners' wealth, power and privilege.
The ordinary man and woman would have seen the world of the Fermors as I would see Bill Gates.
Something so far away.
It's a completely different universe.
The Fermor family kept Easton Neston going, thanks to two desperate measures, mortgage and marriage.
JOANNE BAILEY: This is the consumer society in the 18th century and so they increasingly get into debt.
And so one of the ways, of course, to pay that off, their strategy, indeed, is to marry.
CRUICKSHANK: For 10 generations this family didn't dirty its hands with business, up until the 1970s, when it went into the motor trade.
Here was a turn up for the books, if not for the family fortunes.
After all, it's not every country house that gets to play host to a Formula One racing team.
(CAMERA CLICKS) The latest chapter in Easton Neston's history shows that it's lost none of its power to please.
In 2005, it became the European headquarters of a global fashion brand.
(GUNSHOT) Its new owner isn't an aristocrat, but a wealthy Los Angeles-based, Russian-born fashion designer with a liking for traditional English country pursuits.
It was really love at first sight.
It was the most beautiful house that I had ever seen.
I had to have it right there and then.
CRUICKSHANK: Easton Neston is one of the most beautiful examples of a short-lived, but important architectural movement, English Baroque.
It only lasted from the 1660s to the 1730s.
For me, it's one of the richest and most glorious styles of our native architecture.
Baroque is based on ancient classical models, but it's playful, wilful and inventive.
It began in Italy.
Here in England, Baroque was more reserved, less sinuous and feminine.
A little bit more masculine in style, but still sumptuous.
The interior is every bit as imposing as the exterior, and again it's a masterpiece of the Baroque style.
Originally, this wall wasn't here.
There was just a pair of columns.
And there was a reason for this.
When the house was built, you would have stepped through the front door and immediately encountered Easton Neston's first splendour.
This was one of the most famous and spatially surprising and exciting rooms in early 18th century Britain.
It's the hall, and originally it was double-height, almost twice as high as it is now.
This ceiling was inserted in the late 19th century.
And here we can see what the hall looked like when first built.
Can you imagine the extraordinary impact this double-height room would have had? It was one of the greatest glories of the English Baroque.
One thing that characterises Baroque is that each new space you encounter is designed to take you by surprise.
The staircase is the architectural highpoint, the focus of the interior, indeed, of the house.
It's all to do, of course, with space, light, drama.
This was one of the most admired staircases in the whole of Europe and with good reason.
The staircase is not just visually beautiful, it's also something of an engineering marvel.
There are all these rebates on the underside of each tread.
They'd lock the treads together and they ensure that the weight of the staircase is transferred in a reliable and regular manner from tread to tread, from top to bottom.
The whole staircase does seem to deny commonsense, it really does float.
Also, I love the fact that most people using this staircase, bounding up and down it, have no idea what keeps it standing.
And the great staircase has another trick up its sleeve.
As you turn the corner and walk up the second flight of stairs, the experience is different again.
Looking back towards the mighty window, the quality of the space is very different.
It becomes a world now of light and shade.
And so to the next part of the tour and there's another cleverly worked transition.
From antique gloom to light.
This gallery is again a glorious spatial surprise.
It stretches the full depth of the house and at each end are huge windows.
These windows offer sensational views out.
One can see here that in fact, this gallery sits astride an axis through the house, but also extended into the landscape, this direction and that direction as far as the eye can see.
So, although this gallery, is in a sense the end of the architectural promenade through the house, it's also a connection to the larger world.
And, of course, the human figures in this landscape would have been peering back in shock and awe.
This family had arrived, but where had it started from? The story of Easton Neston starts here.
It was a large Tudor house, 150 yards south of the existing house, which means the mansion was roughly where I'm walking now.
And if you think that Easton Neston sounds like a village, well it was, but the village was removed in 1499.
All that marks its existence is the medieval parish church.
As for the parishioners themselves, well, it seems they were simply thrown off the estate.
They were in the way.
And here in the church are the tombs of the family, which was to own the estate of Easton Neston from the 1530s until 2005.
The Fermor family had scrabbled its way up through the Tudor ranks to become important merchants, lawyers and politicians.
Under the Stewarts came formal recognition of their burgeoning status.
This temple or banqueting house is dated 1641.
Now, it could mark the beginnings of a great ambition, because in 1641, the same date as it was built, William Fermor was made a baronet.
As Sir William, he may have hankered after a grand new house in keeping with his brand-new status.
Could this little garden building, indeed, be the beginning of a great building campaign to create a new classical country house in this style just about here? If this was the case, then the timing was somewhat unfortunate, because only a year later the English Civil War started.
Building an imposing country house, suddenly didn't seem such a pressing priority.
But in 1660, with the restoration of Charles II, the King's loyal supporters could dust off their chequebooks and start to spend.
Here's the man who finally built the new house.
The second Sir William Fermor, he was an MP, but he wasn't like his ancestors in trade.
The Fermors had left the cutthroat world of the Tudors behind and reached sunnier pastures.
Fermors wealth came not from business, but from a different source altogether, marriage.
Marrying money was a lot quicker and presumably easier than actually earning it.
In 1671, Sir William Fermor's first wife proved this, 'cause she bought him a dowry, or wedding gift of £7,000.
She soon died, but 10 years later he married a second time, and that wife bought him a dowry of £9,000.
That's inflation for you.
And now, with the money flooding in, the time had come to spend it.
Fermor took a momentous decision.
He resolved to build a grand new house to reflect the family's rise in fortunes.
For this an architect would come in handy, and luckily for Fermor, he was related to one by marriage, Sir Christopher Wren.
There could hardly have been a more prestigious name to call on.
Wren was a wonder of the age, Britain's greatest living architect, responsible for designing St Paul's Cathedral and over 50 churches after London's Great Fire of 1666.
He was one of Britain's first superstar architects.
We know for certain that Wren was approached by Fermor, but how much involvement did he actually have in the design of Easton Neston? This seemingly simple question has turned into one of the longest-running controversies in British architectural history, but it's one we're hoping to solve.
The first staging post on the Easton Neston trail is here at Oxford.
Wren's career as an architect began at the university.
He was a fellow here at All Souls and a professor, not of architecture, but of astronomy.
This sundial is his work.
Many of Wren's papers are still kept here at All Souls, including one that's of particular interest to us.
Here at All Souls, is a design that is said to be the first or certainly a very early design for Easton Neston by Sir Christopher Wren.
What's intriguing is that the existing house is nine-windows wide.
This is, indeed, nine-windows wide.
So, in scale, similar, and broad composition, similar, main block with wings, but much, much more modest.
Much more modest than the existing building.
This seems very clearly to be a design for Easton Neston, but how come the existing house was not built to Wren's design? At a certain point, and frustratingly, we don't know exactly when it was, Wren handed over the design of Easton Neston to his talented protégé, Nicholas Hawksmoor.
Hawksmoor was born around 1662.
It's thought, to a poor farming family in Nottinghamshire.
He came to work for Wren, aged 18, and became his clerk, pupil and eventually, collaborator.
And what a career Hawksmoor had.
Up to his death in 1736, he's one of the greatest exponents of the English Baroque style.
He also built, in a different manner at All Souls.
But his most famous work are the six astonishing churches, he designed in London after 1712.
Such as Christ Church, Spitalfields.
These are the mature masterpieces of the English Baroque.
The culmination of a journey into the sublime, that began for Hawksmoor at Easton Neston.
But how did the young Hawksmoor come to be involved in Easton Neston at all? And how do we get from this, rather, modest design to this? Clues, as to how the design of Easton Neston changed so radically are to be found here, the north wing.
Originally, there was a matching wing opposite that contained the stables.
That was demolished just over 200 years ago, leaving only its twin still standing.
It's thought to date, from the 1680s, and by tradition has been called the Wren Wing, because it's vaguely in the style of Wren.
Few people now believe this is by Wren.
It is not like his designs that survive in All Souls College.
And Hawksmoor called the wing "good for nothing".
Something he would not have said, if it had been by Wren, his revered master.
So, who did design it? Well, we have absolutely no idea.
What we do know is when the wing was built.
That's because Robert Howard, a dendrochronologist, has used the tree ring dating technique, to show that the wing was roofed between 1683 and 1686.
Next, he's going to be dating the roof of the main house.
The wing was all but destroyed by fire in 2002.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER) It's been restored by the Architect Ptolemy Dean, who also commissioned the tree ring dating.
After stripping away decades of plywood, paint and plaster, Ptolemy has uncovered some intriguing secrets that the building's been keeping to itself.
(INDISTINCT) Looking at the difference between two sets of roof timbers, it seems that after the wing was built, six feet were chopped off one end of it.
Then look what happens here.
The end A bay, here, is cut short.
Cut off, and you And you can imagine this because they look out there and they say, "Goodness me, we're not going to have enough room for that house.
" CRUICKSHANK: Here's the proof.
The windows in the roof aren't arranged symmetrically.
If you look behind you at that elevation there, you'll see one, two, three windows.
CRUICKSHANK: Yeah.
PTOLEMY: Do you see, it's moved it? - I do.
I do.
- Do you see that? I do.
I do.
More space on the right than left.
Exactly.
CRUICKSHANK: So, right from the start, there were concerns that not enough room had been left for the main house.
And when he came to restore the basement, Ptolemy found that it, too, had been altered at some point after it had first been built.
- Here is one of those basement piers.
- Yeah.
Just, you know, standard stuff here.
It all carries on vaulting here and then, look, where are we on the plan? - We are under the staircase.
- Staircase.
And look at this.
Suddenly, we've got more of this massive Hawksmoor masonry, this banding, abutting up to the existing stone pit.
Later, later, later.
Yeah.
Later, later, later, and this incredible depth.
And it's not just here.
It's there, it's there and here.
It's on the other side.
And we deliberately left this area unpainted, so that you can see clearly, Hawksmoor coming into this existing basement saying, "This staircase is not going to be supported on the existing "flimsy stone vaulting.
"We need some proper stonemasonry here "to make the grand staircase for this grand house "I'm making above.
" CRUICKSHANK: So, the vault from the basement corridor was strengthened by the addition of massive stone arches to help support the great staircase.
And the vaults in the kitchen were also strengthened to support the weight of a redesigned double-height hall.
It seems that neither of these heavy-stone structures was in prospect when the building of the basement started.
So why did the house get grander in conception? We need to look at the family history.
In 1687, Sir William Fermor's second wife died.
Perhaps that's why work on the house stopped.
But five years later, he married again and hit the jackpot.
He married the daughter of the Duke of Leeds, one of the most important grandees in the country.
He was the main Tory sponsor of William and Mary and became king and queen after the glorious revolution of 1688.
The duke wasted no time in pulling strings for his son-in-law.
Within six weeks of his marriage, Sir William Fermor joined the peerage.
He became Lord Leominster or Lemster.
The glorious revolution had ushered in a golden age for the aristocracy.
To celebrate their increasing wealth and power, a spate of country house building now begun.
Easton Neston included.
The great house was the great statement of a landed family.
And, of course, a land was the basis of power, of political power.
Not just of economic power, but political power.
And it was through land that you influenced this, sort of, political world around you.
And the development of that estate is an investment in the future of your family and your descendants being part of the ruling class.
CRUICKSHANK: At the centre of this power network was marriage.
BAILEY: With William Fermor, he has three marriages.
And he seems to move upwards.
He seems to be doing the - Social ascent.
Yeah, yeah.
- Yes.
This is about looking for marrying into a prestigious lineage.
- So, clearly money will come with that.
- Yeah.
But the social status is of some significance there.
Looking for power.
Yes, because they're marrying, not just into an important lineage, the patronage networks come with that and that's a way to, to get all of those sorts of political influence and so on.
CRUICKSHANK: Power, patronage and political influence.
The voters were often in their pockets, were part and parcel of the aristocrat's trappings.
But they were also at pains to show that they were people of culture and learning.
The country house had also to advertise its owner's taste.
In 1691, with his third marriage in prospect, Sir William bought a collection of important statues.
They were known as the Arundel Marbles after Lord Arundel, who collected them in the early 17th century.
It's the first-ever British collection of statutes from ancient Greece and Rome.
The hall and staircase weren't just the showpieces of the house, they were also conceived as the setting for the Arundel Marbles.
Sir William Fermor was intent on becoming the Charles Saatchi of his day, the possessor of Britain's finest private art collection.
The staircase is, in many ways designed around the Arundel Marbles, which occupied these various niches each side of the staircase hall.
Here's a statue, modern addition.
Does the job, well, rather beautifully, actually, but here would have been one of the great inspirational Arundel Marbles.
And on the wall, between the niches where the Marbles sat is a series of rather stupendous wall paintings executed by James Thornhill just after the house was completed.
Thornhill was one of the leading artists of his day.
He also painted the interior of the dome of St Paul's.
The whole thing works as an ascending art gallery, and that's the point in a way, this is like a museum.
He's a pioneer of the public museum, because in the 18th century groups of people came here, two or three groups a week, to admire the Arundel Marbles, to be inspired by them, but also to enjoy Thornhill's paintings.
These parts of the house, that were meant to impress important visitors, took up a huge amount of space.
Now remember, space was in short supply, because the wings had already been built.
So how did Hawksmoor fit in the less spectacular rooms, that were essential for the running of the house? Luckily, he left a guide to show us just how ingenious he'd been.
Up until 2005, it was at the house.
Now it's at the study centre of the Royal Institute of British Architects in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Well, the model of Easton Neston.
One of the most important, fascinating, and enigmatic objects in British architectural history.
It dates from the very late 17th century and simply, models from that period do not survive.
Also, of course, it's by one of Britain's greatest architects.
What a fantastic opportunity to see, in the making one of Britain's greatest country houses.
Here we can see how the hall once rose the full height of the building.
But Hawksmoor had to work hard to make room for it.
So these little bedrooms and service areas, including these little service staircases here are really packing the space together in a very, very, very ingenious manner.
Because so much of the volume of the house has gone for the great state rooms, the double-height hall, the great staircase.
Here's the clever bit.
There aren't just two storeys set above the basement as the garden elevation implies, but four storeys at the south end of the house and five at the north end.
Cunningly hidden away are mezzanine floors, into which Hawksmoor crammed staircases for servants and bedrooms for less-important guests.
On the north elevation, this is made plain.
And here we can see that there was one major difference between his model and what was actually built.
At this stage in the design, there are two storeys of columns.
But evidently, this didn't satisfy the customer's insatiable demand for ostentation.
He wanted more swank.
And he got it.
Hawksmoor made the building grander and more imposing still, as travellers on what was the main road to Northampton might just have noticed.
This is the view the public would have had of the house.
This is why its design got increasingly grand.
And here was the 18th century equivalent of a heated swimming pool, palm trees and helipad on the roof.
These columns, which rise the full height of the house, are in a style made famous by Michelangelo.
They are called the giant order and they constitute a giant statement.
Now, the giant order carries many messages, and for Hawksmoor, it would have the stamp of Roman authority.
The client would have loved that association.
Gave him also, of course, the dignity and authority of a Roman senator.
The same swaggering spirit is also present in the Roman design of the capitals.
But there's a rather curious and charming variation on antique prototype.
Hawksmoor introduced the head of a lion.
There it is, at the centre, at the top of a complete capital, a lion's head.
But why a lion's head? Well, because the client had recently been made Lord Lemster or Lord Leominster.
Leo for Lion.
And to top it all Hora E Sempre, "Now and always".
There's confidence for you.
Contemporaries raved about the building.
One wrote that, "In the opinion of good judges, "no seat in Europe exceeds it.
" A resounding triumph for Nicholas Hawksmoor then? Alas, it's not so simple.
40 years ago, an eminent architectural historian set the cat amongst the pigeons.
He suggested that the house was built between 1685 and 1695 in brick, partly to designs by Nicholas Hawksmoor and partly designs by Hawksmoor's old master, Sir Christopher Wren.
Five years later, the argument goes, Hawksmoor covered the brick house in stone and added the giant order.
This theory, if true, would reduce Hawksmoor's role in the creation of the house and deny him the full credit for his first major independent commission.
And now the time has come to test this troublesome theory against the insights offered by modern science.
(DRILL WHIRRING) Up in the attics, the tree ring dating specialist Robert Howard has taken a dozen or so samples from the original roof timbers.
Here, we hope, is the answer once and for all.
You can see the, the growth rings of this particular tree on this sample here, which I've sanded up and polished just to show them, etcetera.
And you can see that there are variations in width over the lifetime of this tree caused by the weather.
And it's rather like a supermarket barcode.
So, you feel confident these samples can give a really precise accuracy? Absolutely.
I feel very confident.
Prognosis, result, is very good indeed.
Whatever he did or didn't design, Hawksmoor finished the main fabric of the house in 1702, and for nearly four decades the Fermor family lived high on the hog.
In 1721, aged just 24, the son of the builder of the house became an earl, Earl Pomfret.
To celebrate, he decided to spruce up his collection of marbles.
As is the habit of ancient statues, many torsos were missing limbs.
The Earl decided to make good that deficit.
He hired an Italian sculptor named Giovanni Guelfi to add new heads and limbs.
This book, published in the 1760s, records the appearance of the Arundel Marble's various statues after the First Earl had had his way with them.
What fun they must have had deciding what would go where.
There is here, for example, Paris.
Head, legs, parts of the body added.
This was on the staircase, and throughout the 18th century, this would have been regarded as an exemplary inspirational piece of ancient art until taste changed.
They were, for years, the family's pride and joy and the first Lord Lemster specified in his will that they were to stay in the house forever.
But, they're not here now, what happened? The answer is that cracks were beginning to appear in the Fermor facade.
The magnificent image shown to the public was increasingly a lie.
Behind the scenes, in private, the Earl and Countess were going broke.
Easton Neston provided status, it burnt money.
By the late 1730s, the ink was so red they had to relocate to Italy, where the living was cheaper, and close Easton Neston down for three years.
And with the next generation, things were to get even worse.
The Fermor family is not very well-known, but there's a wonderful mosaic of information lurking in various archives throughout the land.
And if this information's brought together, a rather fascinating picture emerges.
In letters and court reports, we meet the black sheep of the Fermor family, the son of the First Earl.
He was going broke even quicker than his parents.
In letter after letter, his father pleads with him to economise and not gamble.
Despite all the advice from his father, the son, George Fermor, did not reform.
He was very much a rake, indeed an extreme example of a Georgian rake.
He was involved, as far as we know, in at least four duels.
And in one, in 1752, he actually killed an opponent, a fellow Guards officer.
They were fighting with swords and he run the chap through.
Now this was potentially a case of murder.
He was indeed sent to trail at the Old Bailey and ultimately was found guilty of manslaughter, which for him was, of course, very fortunate, otherwise he could have been executed.
On another occasion, we're told he lost £ 12,000 at a single sitting at cards.
That's 500 times what a labourer earned in a year.
The estate could hardly have gone to a less safe pair of hands.
But the aristocracy were no fools.
Over the years, they constructed a built-in safety net to protect country houses, contents, estates, wealth and status, from improvident eldest sons.
They did it by various legal methods that prevented the eldest son selling off the house or estate.
The land had to stay in the family.
Unable to trust his wayward son to provide dowries for his unmarried sisters, the Earl took drastic action.
He couldn't prevent his eldest son inheriting the house, but he could stop him getting his hands on the contents.
The Earl duly changed his will and left his movable possessions to his daughters.
And so when the First Earl died in 1753, there was a huge sale, which virtually everything, apart from the family portraits were sold off.
When I say everything, I mean everything.
This is a copy of the catalogue for the 1753 sale.
It says here, "Catalogue of some household furniture.
"Brewing vessels, garden rollers, cucumber frames, glasses," etcetera.
"Of the Right Honourable, the Earl of Pomfret, deceased.
" Great variety of bedsteads, curtains.
But also there are things one would regard as fittings.
"Lead cisterns.
"Kitchen furniture.
" They were going to sell the kitchen sink.
I imagine, when these things were sold, the house was pretty well uninhabitable.
"A large range, two pot hooks, "a lead kerb round the sink.
" It really is the kitchen sink.
These people are desperate for the last penny.
And the Arundel Marbles, the family's pride and joy were donated to Oxford, out of the clutches of the Second Earl, as he'd now become.
Imagine, you're the Second Earl in 1754, and your house, the symbol of your aristocratic status, is echoingly empty, apart from family portraits looking accusingly down from the walls.
And all of this is your fault, the result of your spendthrift habits.
Would you hang your head in shame? I should hope so.
Did the Second Earl? Probably not.
What he did was look around for a solution.
And he needed one.
He'd inherited a mortgage of £6,000.
Within 10 years, it stood at £30,000.
That's more than seven times the estate's annual rental income.
But then, as bankruptcy beckoned, with one bound, our hero was free or at least married.
What we know of Anna Maria, is that she was somewhat on the stout side and very rich.
One contemporary observer said she was like a richly laden treasure ship.
Another, that her tonnage was equal to her poundage.
But, whatever her appearance, she brought much-needed money into the family.
There are no known portraits of the Second Earl, but here in the parish church, well away from the altar, we can make his acquaintance.
Here he is, the reckless Georgian rake.
With him is his wife, Anna Maria.
An interesting monument this.
He has his head in his hands, I suppose worrying about the afterlife, though it does rather look as if he's worrying about his money troubles.
And she was described in life looking like a well-laden treasure ship.
Here, of course, looking very svelte indeed.
Lovely.
What happened to her money? We're not quite sure.
But what we do know is, that the Earl did not use it to pay off the mortgage on Easton Neston.
The honour of trying to pay that off went to the son of George and Anna Maria, the Third Earl.
His tomb's also to be found in the parish church.
Here he is sitting, looking very composed.
It says here, "George, Third Earl of Pomfret.
A dutiful son.
"A most kind brother, a father to all his family, "a beneficent landlord, a beloved master, a sincere Christian.
" But it does not say, of course, he was a good and loving husband.
And that's the way it is.
So often with monuments, it's what's not said that says everything.
The Third Earl certainly was a husband.
Indeed, thanks to his mortgage, he took up the family business with a considerable enthusiasm, and like his father, snapped up an heiress.
Mary Trollope Browne was the daughter of a rich landowner, rather stiffly described as an opulent wine merchant.
No pictures of her exist.
All we know about her is that she was 25 and absolutely loaded to the tune of nearly £ 120,000.
A master craftsman might earn £200 a year.
The only problem for the Earl was that in aristocratic marriages, the wife's money was usually protected by a marriage settlement, the prenuptial agreement of its day.
Mary agreed to cough up £30,000 to pay off the mortgage.
The other £90,000 she would keep.
So far so good.
But then, as often in the history of a marriage, a mother-in-law throws a spanner into the works.
In this case, by her unexpected death.
- Because the mother-in-law dies - Yes.
her money goes straight to him? - Yes.
Because she doesn't make a will.
Now, if she'd made a will, where she'd set that money aside for her daughter's separate use, they'd have The daughter would have been safe.
But because this money goes straight to the husband, that's one of the complaints that the wife makes, which is that, once he got his hands on her money, - he treated her badly.
- Yeah.
CRUICKSHANK: With the marriage in meltdown, the Earl and Countess separate and soon lawyers are called in to establish who's at fault.
The Earl accuses Mary of physical violence and being scruffy.
She accuses him of mental cruelty and adultery.
They do separate, but the Earl still wants his £30,000.
Mary tells him he can whistle for it.
And then finally, 25 years after the marriage, the Court of Chancery decides in the Earl's favour.
For the first time in 65 years, the family is back in the black.
How did all this affect Easton Neston? The real change caused by Mary's money wasn't seen in the house, but in the grounds, the acreage of which was increased.
When the Third Earl came into funds in the early 1820s, he commissioned this splendid gate and neoclassical screen.
At the same time, he moves some public roads further away from the main house.
The object, of course, was to increase the splendour and isolation of the setting of Easton Neston.
But despite the family motto, "Now and always'", in 1867, the male Fermor line died out and through marriage, Easton Neston passed to a new family, the Heskeths, who duly became Fermor-Heskeths.
Thanks to marriage to terrifyingly rich American heiresses, the old Fermor formula, the Heskeths managed to keep the house afloat, and then some.
This was the new money that paid for the hall to be altered in the 1890s.
Meanwhile, daily life in the house continued almost as if in a time capsule.
Trish York began to work as a lady's maid here in 1975 for Lady Hesketh.
At that point, Easton Neston was still very much in Upstairs Downstairs mode.
As a young lady's maid it was my duty to clean these stairs.
CRUICKSHANK: You'd clean the stairs? YORK: Absolutely.
Every bit of the wrought iron.
Oh, the wrought iron.
That's the thing, isn't it? And Lady Hesketh used to come along and she'd inspect every single one, and if it wasn't right, she'd come and tell us or she'd do it herself.
CRUICKSHANK: Beautiful.
In the '70s, what was life like? Was it really, as one might imagine, - a great Victorian country house to be? - Yes, it was.
Everybody had their job to do and the butler would preside over us all.
He followed us around and made sure that everything was done.
And when we said that a room had been done or such, you know, that cushions had been plumped up, when people had gone to dinner and he would come in and check that.
(THE BOYS ARE BACKIN TOWN PLAYING) CRUICKSHANK: But the house was soon to enter a somewhat more informal stage.
In 1973, the present Lord Hesketh set up a Formula One racing team.
(INDISTINCT) Here was a chapter, every bit as colourful as anything Easton Neston had yet seen.
When Lord Hesketh was more in control of the house, your role presumably changed to a degree? It changed to the different calibre of people that were coming along.
You know, it wasn't gentry that were coming along or aristocrats as much.
They were coming along, but it was generally more everyday people.
Did they know how to behave though, the guests? No, not at all.
No.
No? That's fascinating that.
That's how the world had changed.
- The guest didn't know how to behave.
- No, absolutely not, no.
Yeah.
Interesting, isn't it? And a lot of them were models and things that, you know, that had never been to a big house before and just suddenly thought, "Oh, I've got people on hand to get me a cup of tea," and you know, do this and that and constantly ringing the bell, 'cause they wanted you to come and get them some ice or whatever.
And you'd say, "Well, the ice is in the cupboard just there.
" CRUICKSHANK: The Hesketh racing team enjoyed great early success.
In 1974,James Hunt won at Silverstone.
In 1975, Team Hesketh won a Grand Prix, the last privately-owned team ever to do so.
Mick Broom came to work here at Easton Neston as an engineer.
Can you tell me a bit more about, you know, the Formula One days here? Oh, I think a lot of the things that will be remembered, was obviously the fact that he was a privateer, he didn't have any, sort of, backing, but they also approached the racing a lot more different.
They were professional, they worked hard, in, sort of, producing the car from next to nothing, but they also played hard.
And, you know, there's lots and lots of stories around of them going to Monaco with one car and three yachts, whereas most people went with one yacht and three cars, you know? CRUICKSHANK: When the racing team folded, that wasn't the end of motor sports here at Easton Neston.
In a market full of inexpensive Japanese imports, Lord Hesketh picked up the gauntlet and tried to revive the ailing British luxury bike industry.
BROOM: I built this personally.
CRUICKSHANK: This one? - This bike, yes.
- Ooh! It was a labour of love, more than anything else those days, because we were starting from almost raw aluminium.
It was a job which was inspired by the surroundings, it was inspired by working for the lord.
It's not the, sort of, thing that you normally get when you're working on motorbikes in back sheds.
It was inspired by the building? Did the beauty of Hawksmoor's house, somehow inspire the design? Yes, basically, because, you know, it all came into the atmosphere.
The atmosphere was definitely different from a normal commercial exercise.
But I mean it must have been, gosh, expensive though? It was expensive because it was a low volume one.
And it was destined not really to work because, and this is one of the other advantages of the atmosphere and the fact that there was a lord involved, because if you'd looked at it as a solid businessman in the '80s, when the bike industry was in decline and all the rest of it and it was a very expensive bike coming in at the wrong time, you wouldn't do it.
And that in a way, like that quirkiness, you know, gave us the bike.
CRUICKSHANK: One thing that's remained constant at Easton Neston throughout its history, is the sheer cost of keeping it going.
And in 2005, a long chapter in that history came to an end.
The house's contents went under the hammer.
The sale raised over eight million pounds, the second greatest haul from a country house contents sale in British auction history.
It was masterminded by James Miller of Sotheby's.
(INDISTINCT) Can you tell me, I mean, how important was the collection? Well, it was collections, because it was a collection which had grown and diminished in the middle of the 18th century and then grown again, and then put on colossal weight at the end of the 19th, early 20th century.
And there'd been a succession of members of, either Fermors or Heskeths, who had, both a liking for works of art, a good eye and the wherewithal to express it.
So it's layer upon layer, accretions of taste, and, of course, to me, I find that almost more exciting than having a complete picture.
I like a jigsaw puzzle where you put things together.
But it obviously was an important collection, in so far as reflecting the history of this house and the history of the family? Well, it's important, because you've got First of all, you've got a house which was built for a collection Yeah, the Arundels.
But I think this house was always meant for display, so you tended not to be able to get away with, what you and I might call charming, but domestic furniture.
- Yeah.
- It's got to earn its keep here.
You can't just put in any old bit of mahogany.
If you were a bad object, you, sort of, had to go away.
(BOTH LAUGH) CRUICKSHANK: The sale of 2005 has an almost uncanny resemblance to the sale of 1753, when the house was stripped virtually bare.
(INAUDIBLE) Here again, along with great paintings and grand furniture, there are many far humbler day to day objects up for sale.
For example, a child's croquet set, including five balls, four mallets and six hoops.
40 quid! (INDISTINCT) And here, a Victorian iron garden roller, with loop and heart-pierced end, indeed.
Heartbreaking.
80 quid.
(INDISTINCT) Everything had to go.
Virtually, everything did go.
Not long after the auction, the house itself was sold.
"In a good year,"Lord Hesketh said, "the estate lost half a million pounds.
"In a bad year, three times that amount.
" Unlike his ancestor, the Second Earl, back in 1753, Lord Hesketh could sell the family seat and he did.
The whole estate was put on sale for £50 million, but there were no takers.
So the land, that was in theory meant to support the house, was broken up into smaller pieces.
600 prime acres, plus the house itself, was snapped up by the Los Angeles-based, Russian-born fashion magnate, Leon Max.
Price, £ 15 million.
I had this romantic idea that I should live in the country, in England, in some beautiful, old, white elephant of a house, where I could set up a design studio.
And I looked at a few houses.
This one was not quite in the price range, this was a little too expensive.
But at some point we made a deal with the Heskeths and here we are.
So, did he leave you any welcoming gifts, Lord Hesketh? Yes, there was a bottle of vodka with a note, sort of, welcome and - Good luck.
- Good luck.
CRUICKSHANK: Having moved into a virtually empty house, Leon Max began the job of decorating it in the style of the 18th century.
Feels very much, a traditional English country house interior.
Wonderful paintings all acquired by you.
MAX: Yes, it was interesting.
It, sort of, became a hobby for me.
Well, I run a dot com, so I have a lot of very clever boys on my staff, and they'd done a model, so anything that came up at auction, that I thought was the appropriate piece would be scaled and placed in that model.
And so it was all done online, everything was bought online and hence everything fits rather well.
CRUICKSHANK: And so from pleasure to business.
Very lovely.
As you can see, this is one of our advertising shot here.
CRUICKSHANK: Here, in the restored wing, is Max' studio's European headquarters.
Oh, good Lord, this is It's hard to see It does seem a long way from Hawksmoor, yeah, doesn't it? Easton Neston was built to lend glamour and status to its aristocratic owners and then did so to a motor sports team.
Now it's being used as a backdrop for the most glamorous business of all, fashion.
And the Hawksmoor design continues to inspire.
I truly believe that this is one of, if not, the most beautiful design studio in the world.
I think it's impossible to make anything ugly in this setting.
And we're in the business of putting beautiful things into the world and so here we are.
CRUICKSHANK: Owners come and go, the house lives on.
Easton Neston has entered a new, if unexpected, chapter.
It's one of the greatest buildings in Britain and is certainly one of my favourite country houses.
And so it's time, finally, to solve the mystery of who designed it and when.
Was it begun in the 1680s to a design by Sir Christopher Wren, or was it a Hawksmoor's work alone, built nearer to 1702? Let's get the verdict of the tree ring dating.
Well, good to see you.
Let's hear your results.
Well, I'm not quite sure what date you were really expecting, but I can reveal that, having taken several samples - from the timbers, that - In the roof on the main house? In the roof, yes, of the main house, yes, they were all felled between the spring of 1700 and the spring of 1701.
Well, that's completely spot on.
Oh, really? CRUICKSHANK: It is just what one would expect.
HOWARD: Great.
This has now been solved, or put to bed, this speculation.
It's so brilliant you've answered one of the great questions of English architectural history! Frustration, actually, that whole question.
Good.
Well, I'm pleased that Because, actually, now Hawksmoor reigns supreme in the attics.
CRUICKSHANK: Hawksmoor came back here in 1731, nearly 30 years after the exterior of the house had been completed.
At that point he was ill and his architecture had fallen from favour.
But, he at least was still pleased with what he saw.
He wrote at the time, "You can hardly avoid loving your own children.
" (THE STATELYHOMES OF ENGLAND PLAYING)