Tyntesfield
Tyntesfield
is a Victorian Gothic Revival country house and estate near Wraxall, North Somerset, England. The house is a Grade I listed building named after the Tynte baronets, who had owned estates in the area since about 1500. The location was formerly that of a 16th-century hunting lodge, which was used as a farmhouse until the early 19th century. In the 1830s a Georgian mansion was built on the site, which was bought by English businessman William Gibbs, whose huge fortune came from guano used as fertilizer. In the 1860s Gibbs had the house significantly expanded and remodelled; a chapel was added in the 1870s. The Gibbs family owned the house until the death of Richard Gibbs, 2nd Baron Wraxall in 2001.
Tyntesfield was purchased by the National Trust in June 2002, after a fundraising campaign to prevent it being sold to private interests and ensure it would be open to the public. The house was opened to visitors for the first time just 10 weeks after the acquisition, and as more rooms are restored they are added to the tour.
The mansion was visited by 356,766 people in 2019.
History
Background
The land on which the house and its estate were developed was originally part of the Tynte family estate. The family had lived in the area since the 1500s, but their primary residence was Halswell House in Goathurst, near Bridgwater.By the late 1700s, John Tynte owned what is now the Tyntesfield estate; at that time the house was approached by an avenue of elm trees, planted after they were bequeathed in the 1678 will of Sir Charles Harbord to the people of Wraxall in memory of two boys he had apprenticed from the village. The Tyntes had originally lived on the estate, but by the early 1800s, John had made Chelvey Court in Brockley his principal residence. Tyntes Place was downgraded to a farmhouse and leased to John Vowles. In 1813, George Penrose Seymour of the adjoining Belmont estate purchased the property and gave it to his son, the Rev. George Turner Seymour. He in turn built a new Georgian mansion on the site of the former Saddler's Tenement, and demolished the old farmhouse. Further remodelling was undertaken by Robert Newton of Nailsea in Somerset.
Purchase by the Gibbs family
In 1843, the property was bought by businessman William Gibbs, who made his fortune in the family business, Antony Gibbs & Sons. From 1847 the firm had an effective monopoly in the import and marketing to Europe and North America of guano from Peru as a fertilizer. This was mined by indentured Chinese labour on the Chincha Islands in conditions which the Peruvian government acknowledged in 1856 had degenerated "into a kind of Negro slave trade". The firm's profits from this trade were such that William Gibbs became the richest non-noble man in England.Throughout his life, William Gibbs and his wife Matilda Blanche Crawley-Boevey, principally lived in London, for the greater part of his marriage at 16 Hyde Park Gardens, which the family owned until Blanche's death. But as he travelled regularly on business to the Port of Bristol he required a residence in the area; thus it was, in 1843, he came to buy Tyntes Place, which he subsequently renamed Tyntesfield. Within a few years of making his purchase, Gibbs began a major programme of rebuilding and enlarging of the mansion.
The architectural style selected for the rebuilding was a loose Gothic combining many forms and reinventions of the medieval style. The choice of Gothic was influenced by William and Blanche Gibb's Anglo-Catholic beliefs as followers of the Oxford Movement. This wing of the Anglican Church advocated the view set out in the architect Augustus Pugin's 1836 book Contrasts, which argued for the revival of the medieval Gothic style, and "a return to the faith and the social structures of the Middle Ages". The Oxford Movement, of which both Pugin and Gibbs were disciples, later took this philosophy a step further and claimed that the Gothic style was the only architecture suitable for Christian worship. Thus it became a symbolic display of Christian beliefs and lifestyle, and was embraced by devout Victorians such as Gibbs. The completion of the mansion's chapel further accentuated the building's medieval monastical air so beloved by the Oxford Movement's devotees. When completed, the ecclesiastical design was reinforced by a dominating square tower with a steeply pitched roof adorned by four tourelles, which was demolished in 1935.
Redevelopment
In 1854 William Gibbs commissioned John Gregory Crace, an interior decorator he was already using elsewhere, to redesign and decorate the principal rooms at Tyntesfield. These new designs included gilded panelling, woodwork, moulding and chimneypieces all in the Gothic style.Rebuilding work did not begin in earnest until 1863, when William Gibbs had the property substantially remodelled in a Gothic Revival style. William Cubitt & Co. were the builders and John Norton was the architect. Norton's design enveloped the original house. He added an extra floor, two new wings and towers. Norton emphasised the importance of architectural continuity in restoration and rebuilding relating to several historical periods. As a result, while some walls remained plain, others were adorned with Gothic and naturalistic carvings to fit in with the previous architectural styles.
Design
The house is built of two types of Bath stone, and is highly picturesque, bristling with turrets and possessing an elaborate roof. The combined effect of the architecture and chosen materials has been described by journalist Sir Simon Jenkins as "severe". During restoration, stonemasons either conserved or, on occasion, copy-carved new sections, carving new mouldings to replace standard architectural elements that formed the weathering, as well as repointing most of the miles of lime pointing. All stone was accurately matched to the original, with Veyzeys quarry near Tetbury providing Cotswold oolitic limestone. The house, which includes the servants' wing and the chapel, was made a Grade II* listed building in 1973, and has since been upgraded to Grade I.The front and north are faced in one shade of ochreous Bath Stone, while the south, which is mainly allocated to the service area and servants quarters, is faced in cheaper red-tinged Draycott marble rubble, and has some plastered finishes. All façades have many Gothic main windows, Tudor oriel windows, chimneys and attic dormers. Norton topped the design with an irregular roof, its various pitches and gables emphasising the building's asymmetrical architecture. The final external addition was a huge ironwork conservatory by Hart, Son, Peard and Co. to the rear. The result was described by novelist Charlotte Mary Yonge, a cousin of Blanche Gibbs, as "like a church in spirit".
The interiors were also in the Gothic style. Crace was again engaged to remodel the interiors, in some places extending or adapting his initial works, in others providing new schemes. Other notable features of the house are glass by James Powell and Harry Ellis Wooldridge, ironwork by Hart, Son, Peard and Co. and mosaics by Salviati. George Plucknett was Cubitt's foreman, who was related to James Plunkett of Collier and Plucknett, furniture makers of Warwick. The result was that Gibbs ordered a number of specially commissioned pieces from the firm, including a fully fitted bathroom for his wife. All of these fine pieces of craftsmanship were added to by Gibb's expanding collection of artworks.
While the reconstruction on the house was being undertaken, William Gibbs had rented Mamhead Park in Devon. The total cost of redevelopment to create a house with 23 main bedrooms and 47 in total including servants' accommodation came to £70,000. The sum was equivalent to 18 months' gross profit from all of Gibbs's business interests. After completion of the main building works, Gibbs created more cash by selling shares in Antony Gibbs & Sons to his nephew Henry Hucks Gibbs, which enabled him to purchase two adjoining properties – including Belmont to the east from his nephew George Lewis Monck Gibbs – to create a farming estate, founded on dairy production and forestry management. Added to further by later land purchases, at its peak the Tyntesfield estate spanned over, encompassing of forest, from Portishead in the north to south of the valley in which the main house lay. The house and estate employed more than 500 workers.