Nathaniel Curzon, who, in 1761, was raised to the peerage by the style
and title of Baron Scarsdale of Scarsdale, in the county of Derby—the
title being derived from the hundred of Scarsdale in that county. His
lordship had previously married the Lady Catherine Colyear, daughter of
the Earl of Portmore, by whom he had issue five sons and one daughter.
He died in 1804, and was succeeded in his title and estates by his
eldest son, the Hon. Nathaniel Curzon, as second Lord Scarsdale. This
nobleman married, first, the Hon. Sophia Susannah Noel, sister and
co-heiress of Thomas, Viscount Wentworth, by whom (who died in 1782) he
had issue the Hon. Nathaniel, who succeeded him, and the Hon. Sophia
Caroline, who married Robert Viscount Tamworth, son of Earl Ferrars.
Lord Scarsdale married, secondly, a Roman Catholic lady, Félicité Anne
de Wattines, of Tournay, in Belgium, by whom (who died in 1850) he had,
with other issue, the Hon. and Rev. Alfred Curzon; the Hon. Francis
James Curzon, barrister-at-law; the Hon. Mary Elizabeth, married to
John Beaumont, Esq., of Barrow; and the Hon. Caroline Esther, married
to William Drury Holden, Esq., of Locko Park, in Derbyshire, who
assumed the surname of Lowe instead of that of Holden, and is well
known as William Drury Lowe, Esq.
The Hon. Nathaniel Curzon succeeded his father as third Lord Scarsdale
in 1837, but died unmarried in 1856, when the title and estates
passed to his nephew, the present peer, the Rev. Alfred Nathaniel
Holden Curzon, second son of the Hon. and Rev. Alfred Curzon, already
mentioned.
The Hon. and Rev. Alfred Curzon, eldest son, by his second marriage,
of the second Lord Scarsdale, was born in 1801, and married in 1825
Sophia, daughter of Robert Holden, Esq., of Nuttall Temple, by whom he
had issue two sons—George Nathaniel Curzon, Esq., who was accidentally
killed by being thrown from his horse, and the Rev. Alfred Nathaniel
Holden Curzon, the present Lord Scarsdale—and two daughters, Sophia
Félicité Curzon and Mary Curzon, the elder being married to W. H. De
Rodes, Esq., of Barlborough Hall, and the younger to Lord Arthur Edwin
Hill-Trevor, son of the Marquis of Downshire. He died in January, 1850.
The present peer, the Rev. Alfred Nathaniel Holden Curzon, succeeded
his uncle in the title and estates as fourth Baron Scarsdale, and as
a baronet, in 1856. His lordship, who was born in 1831, was educated
at Rugby, and at Merton College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in
1852, and M.A. in 1865. In 1856 he became Rector of Kedleston, and in
the same year married Blanche, second daughter of Joseph Pocklington
Senhouse, Esq., of Nether Hall, Cumberland, by whom he has issue
living—the Hon. George Nathaniel, heir-apparent, born 1859; the Hon.
Alfred Nathaniel, born 1860; the Hon. Francis Nathaniel, born 1865;
the Hon. Assheton Nathaniel, born 1867; the Hon. Sophia Caroline, born
1857; the Hon. Blanche Felicia, born 1861; the Hon. Eveline Mary, born
1864; the Hon. Elinor Florence, born 1869; the Hon. Geraldine Emily,
born 1871; and the Hon. Margaret Georgiana, born 1874. Lady Scarsdale
died in 1875. His lordship is patron of five livings (viz. Kedleston,
Quarndon, Mickleover, and Littleover, in Derbyshire, and Worthington,
in Leicestershire), and is a magistrate for the county of Derby.
[Illustration: _Arms of Scarsdale._]
The arms of Lord Scarsdale are—_argent_, on a bend, _sable_, three
popinjays, _or_, collared, _gules_. Crest—a popinjay rising, wings
displayed and inverted, _or_, collared, _gules_. Supporters—dexter,
a female figure representing Prudence, habited, _argent_, mantled,
_azure_, holding in her sinister hand a javelin, entwined with a
remora, _proper_; sinister, a female figure representing Liberality,
habited, _argent_, mantled, _purpure_, holding in both hands a
cornucopia, resting against her shoulder, _proper_. Motto—“Recte et
suaviter.”
The title of “Scarsdale” had previously been held by the family
of Leake, but had become extinct. The Leakes were descended from
Adam de Leca, of Leak, in Nottinghamshire, who was living in 1141.
William Leake, or Leke, who settled at Sutton-in-the-Dale, or, as it
is frequently called, Sutton-Scarsdale, in Derbyshire, early in the
fifteenth century, was a younger son of Sir John Leake, of Gotham.
One of his descendants, Sir Francis Leke, Knt., married one of the
co-heiresses of Swift, of Rotherham, and by her had issue a son,
Francis Leke, who, on the institution of the order of baronetcy, was
created a baronet in 1611. In 1624 he was created Baron Deincourt
of Sutton, and, having taken an active part for the King during the
civil wars, was in 1645 raised to the dignity of Earl of Scarsdale.
He married Anne, daughter of Sir Edward Carey, Knt., and had issue
by her—Nicholas, his successor; Francis, Edward, and Charles, slain
in battle; and six daughters, one of whom was married to Viscount
Gormanston, and another to Charles, Lord Lucas. His lordship felt
the execution of his royal master, Charles I., so acutely, that he
clothed himself in sackcloth, and, causing his grave to be dug some
years before his death, laid himself in it every Friday for divine
meditation and prayer. He died in 1665, and was succeeded by his son
Nicholas as second Earl of Scarsdale and Baron Deincourt. This nobleman
married Lady Frances Rich, daughter of the Earl of Warwick, and died
in 1680. His eldest son, Robert, succeeded to the titles and estates,
and having married Mary, one of the co-heiresses of Sir John Lewis, was
made Lord-Lieutenant of Derbyshire, Colonel of Horse, and Groom of the
Stole to Prince George of Denmark. Dying in 1707, he was succeeded,
as fourth Earl of Scarsdale and Baron Deincourt, by his nephew, Sir
Nicholas Leke, who, dying unmarried in 1736, the titles, including the
baronetcy, became extinct.
[Illustration: _Arms of Leke._]
The old hall of Kedleston, the ancient residence of the Curzon family
for many generations, stood nearly on the site occupied by the present
magnificent mansion. It was a fine quadrangular brick building of three
stories in height, the entrance being under an advanced balustraded
portico of three arches. Adjoining the house were training paddocks
and all the appliances for the stud which was kept up. Of this house,
fortunately, a painting is preserved in the present mansion. Not so
of the still older house, of which no representation appears to be
remaining. It must, however, judging from the records of the armorial
bearings which decorated its stained-glass windows when the survey
was made in 1667, have been a building possessed of many noticeable
features. In the north window of the hall of 1677 we find recorded
some of the bearings of the most distinguished families of the time,
which seem to throw a strong light on the connections of the Curzon
family. Among the arms, either alone or quartered or impaled, were, it
seems, in the north window of the hall, Curzon, Twyford, Arden, Bek
or Beke, Gresley, Wasteneys, Chandos of Radborne, Talbot, Furnival,
and Montgomery of Cubley; in the south windows those of Curzon and
Bagot; in another window those of Curzon, Vernon, Ludlow, Poole or
Pole, and the device of the House of Lancaster; at the upper end of the
hall, Curzon and Pole with Pole’s quarterings, Curzon alone, Curzon
and Vernon with Vernon’s quarterings, and Curzon and Sacheverell
with Sacheverell’s quarterings. About the room the following coats
were irregularly dispersed—viz. Sacheverell, Vernon, Pole, Bagot,
Montgomery, Ireton, Minors, Curzon, Twyford, and Brailsford; and on the
inside of the large chimney of the Buttery were Touchet, Lord Audley
of Marston, Erm, a chevron and lion rampt, but the colours gone, and
Latimer or Greville (a cross fleury), and Frecheville. On the outside
of the same chimney, a saltier without colour; Montgomery as before;
a border of horse-shoes, probably Ferrers; Griffith of Whichnor, &c.
These were presumed to be about the date of Henry IV., and the door was
supposed at that time to be at least three hundred years old.
The old hall and the venerable church are said to have stood about the
centre of the then village of Kedleston, and a corn-mill was near. The
whole of the village, every house and every vestige of habitation,
the “small inn for the accommodation of those who came to drink of a
medicinal well, which has the virtues of the Harrogate water,” the
corn-mill, and the old hall itself, were removed by the first Lord
Scarsdale to make room for the present mansion, which he erected in
1765: the church alone remained. The village was removed to a charming
spot a short distance off; the corn-mill was taken away; the stream
which turned its wheel was converted into the magnificent lake that
forms so fine a feature in the present park; the turnpike-road was
removed to a distance of more than half a mile; and the “small inn” was
replaced by the present capacious Kedleston Inn, some three-quarters of
a mile away from its original site.
The present edifice was built from the designs of Robert Adam, one
of the architect brothers of the Adelphi, and is considered to
be his masterpiece. It consists of a noble central pile with two
advanced wings or pavilions, with which it is connected by two curved
corridors. The principal or north front has a grand central portico,
the entablature and pediment of which are supported by six magnificent
columns, 30 feet high, and 3 feet in diameter: some of these are
composed of one single stone their entire length. They are designed
from those at the Pantheon at Rome. The entrance in the portico is
approached by a double or reflected flight of stone steps, which again
are marvellous for the size of the stones: they are 10 feet in length,
and each stone forms two steps. The pediment is surmounted by figures
of Venus, Bacchus, and Ceres, and the sculptured _bassi-relievi_
(by Collins) represent vintage, pasturage, harvest, ploughing, and
boar-hunting; while within the porticos are statues of a Bacchante, two
of the Muses, and a Vestal. The Arcade, leading to Cæsar’s Hall, and
the Corridors, are designed from the Amphitheatre. The Grand Entrance
is in the centre of the portico, and opens at once into the Great Hall.
[Illustration: _The North Front._]
The Great Hall, a noble room, and one of the finest classical
apartments in existence in the purity of its style, the beauty of its
details, and the perfection of its proportions, is about 67 feet in
length by 42 feet in width, and 40 feet in height. The vaulted ceiling
rises to the full height of the house, and is supported on twenty
fluted Corinthian columns 25 feet in height, and 2 feet 6 inches in
diameter. These columns, which are “the glory of Kedleston,” are
of native alabaster from Red Hill, in Leicestershire. The Hall is
decorated with paintings and sculpture, the whole being classical,
and in perfect keeping with the design of the building itself. The
subjects of the _chiaro-oscuro_ paintings on the east side are—“Helen
reproaching Paris, and silenced by Venus,” “Achilles receiving Armour
from Thetis,” “Achilles delivering his Armour to Patroclus,” and
“Mercury, Juno, and Neptune before Jupiter;” on the west side, “Helen
and Paris,” “The Judgment of Paris,” “Hector and Andromache,” and
“Juno and Minerva.” At the ends are “Apollo and the Hours,” “Night
distributing her Poppies,” and “Sacrifices to Sylvanus, Diana, Apollo,
and Mars.” Over the doors are four marriage subjects. The statues
are Apollo Belvedere, Meleager, Idol, Venus, Faun, Apollo Vil. Med.,
Urania, Faun, Venus, Ganymede, Antinous, and Mercury. From the Hall the
Dining-room is entered on the right, the Music-room on the left, and
the Saloon at the south end.
[Illustration: _The Great Hall._]
Our account of the principal rooms must necessarily be very brief. It
is enough to say that they are all fitted and finished in the most
exquisite taste and in the most sumptuous manner, and are hung, or
rather decorated—for the greater part of the pictures are let into
the walls, as a part of the original design—with one of the best
collections of paintings any house can boast.
The Music-room, a remarkably elegant apartment, contains many notable
pictures, especially an “Old Man’s Head” by Rembrandt, Giordano’s
“Triumph of Bacchus,” Guido’s “Bacchus and Ariadne,” Guercino’s
“David’s Triumph,” and Leonardo da Vinci’s “Holy Family.” The
chimney-piece contains a beautiful bas-relief by Spang. The Corridor
and Corridor Staircase also contain many choice pictures.
The Drawing-room is a gorgeous apartment, hung with blue damask.
It is 44 feet in length and 28 feet in width and height, and has a
beautiful coved ceiling. The door-cases are finished with Corinthian
columns of Derbyshire alabaster, and the chimney-piece of Italian
marble is supported by two exquisitely sculptured whole-length female
figures. The furniture, especially the couches, is of the most gorgeous
character—the carved and gilt figures and foliage being in the very
highest and purest style of Art. The paintings in this room include
splendid examples by Annibale Carracci, Paul Veronese, old Francks,
Breughel, Teniers, Cuyp, Mompert, Andrea del Sarto, Domenichino,
Raffaelle, Swanevelt, Guido Reni, Benedetto Luti, Polemberg, Bernardo
Strozzi, Claude Lorraine, Tintoretto, Parmigiano, and others of the old
masters.
The Library—a noble room fitted with mahogany book-cases, a Doric
entablature, and mosaic ceiling—contains among its pictures Vandyke’s
“Shakspere,” Rembrandt’s “Daniel interpreting to Nebuchadnezzar,” and
examples of Giordano, Carlo Loti, Drost, Michael Angelo, Salvator Rosa,
Poussin, and others. It also contains busts of Homer, Sappho, Socrates,
Virgil, Anacreon, Pindar, and Horace.
The Saloon is a grand circular apartment, 42 feet in diameter, and 63
feet high to the rose in the dome. It is considered, and truly, to be
one of the most beautiful rooms of its kind in Europe. Its decorations
are interesting from the classic taste displayed in designing them,
and the elegance with which they are executed. It is divided into four
recesses, or alcoves, having fire-places representing altars, with
sphinxes, &c., adorned with classical figures in bas-relief; these
alternate with as many doors; the whole painted and ornamented with
white and gold. Over the doors are paintings of ruins by Hamilton (the
frames representing the supporters of the family arms), and above the
recesses are delineations in _chiaro-oscuro_ by Rebecca—the subjects
from English history. The pillars, of scagliola marble, are by Bartoli.
The dome is white and gold, finished in octagonal compartments with
roses. The candle branches are of peculiar elegance, and beneath them
is a charming series of exquisite bas-reliefs of Cupids, &c. The Saloon
opens on its respective sides into the Great Hall, the Library, the
Ante-chamber, and the south or garden front of the hall. From the
ante-chamber, in which are Carlo Maratti’s “St. John” and many other
valuable paintings, is reached—
[Illustration: _The Saloon._]
The Principal Dressing-room, hung with blue damask, which contains,
among others, life-size portraits of the first Lord and Lady Scarsdale
by Hone; the second Lord Scarsdale by Reinagle, and his first wife
by Hone; Charles I. by Vandyke; Prince Rupert’s daughter by Kneller;
Prince Henry by Jansen; Prior by Kneller; and other paintings by Lely,
Vandyke, Cimaroli, and others.
The State Bed-room is hung with blue damask, and contains a remarkably
fine assemblage of family portraits, landscapes, and other pictures,
among which are Sir Nathaniel and Lady Curzon by Richardson; Duchess of
York by Lely; and the Countess of Dorset, daughter of George Curzon,
after Mytens.
The Wardrobe, which adjoins, is principally remarkable for a fine
collection of thirty-six ancient enamels after Albert Dürer,
representing the life of our Saviour, and for the many fine family
portraits and other paintings which it contains. Among these are—Lady
Curzon and her sons, by Dobbs; Countess of Dorchester, by Kneller; the
wife and child of Quentin Matsys, by himself; Hon. Caroline Curzon, by
Angelica Kauffmann; Hon. H. Curzon, by Hamilton; family portraits, by
Hone and Barber; the “Nativity” and the “Resurrection,” by Murillo; and
the first Lady Scarsdale, by Hudson.
The Dining-room is of faultless proportions, and its fittings—all
precisely as originally planned by the architect—are in the best and
purest taste. The ceiling is magnificently painted in compartments by
Zucchi. The centre represents “Love embracing Fortune;” the oblong
squares, the four Seasons; and the small circles, Europe, Asia, Africa,
and America. In front of the recessed sideboard is a magnificent
cistern, or cooler, cut out of a solid block of Sicilian jasper; and
among the pictures are examples of Snyders, Zuccarelli, Ciro Ferri,
Claude Lorraine, Jean Fyt, Romanelli, Helmbrecker, and others, and
bas-reliefs by Collins and Spang.
On the Great Staircase are also many choice paintings (including, among
others, examples of Carlo Maratti, Hamilton, and old Stone, and some
fine statues and candelabra), while in the family wing of the house—in
Lady Scarsdale’s Boudoir, the Ante-room, the Breakfast-room, and the
other apartments—the assemblage of works of Art is very extensive
and valuable. In the Corridor, too, are some good paintings, and many
articles of _virtu_; while in the chimney-piece is an extremely fine
plaque of Wedgwood’s jasper-ware.
The opposite wing is occupied by the Kitchen—a noble apartment with
a gallery at one end, supported on Doric columns, and having over its
fire-place the admirable motto, “Waste not, want not”—and the other
domestic offices.
Cæsar’s Hall is the basement story beneath the portico, and is
decorated with busts of the Cæsars, and medallions of Homer, Hesiod,
Horace, and Tully; and in the Tetrastyle Hall, the staircases, and
other parts of the building, are numerous works of Art of one kind or
other.
The Garden Front, shown in the opposite engraving, is an adaptation of
an idea taken from the design of the Arch of Constantine. The statues
in the niches are Flora Farnese and an antique Bacchus. Over the
pillars are medallions of Apollo and Diana, and the statues above are
the Pastoral and the Comic Muses, Prudence, and Diana. By the steps are
the Medicean and Borghese vases.
[Illustration: _The South or Garden Front._]
The entrance to the noble park of Kedleston is by a lodge, designed
by Adams from the Arch of Octavia. From it the drive to the house
is about a mile in length, amidst the finest forest trees, beneath
which hundreds of deer browse in every direction. Nearing the house,
the drive is carried over the magnificent lake on a bridge of purely
classical design, enriched by statuary; and from it one of the finest
views of the mansion and its surroundings is obtained. Near to the
drive is a charmingly picturesque fountain, whose waters are constantly
flowing through a lion’s mouth.
In the park are the medicinal springs known as “Kedleston Baths,” over
which a plain, but picturesque, building was erected many years ago.
The waters are the best of the sulphureous springs of Derbyshire,
and approach closely, on analysis, to those of Harrogate. They were
formerly in much repute, and years ago it was quite a trade for the
poor people of Derby to fetch these waters to the town, where they
were sold at a penny per quart, and were drunk in place of malt liquor
by many of the inhabitants. Kedleston, in the latter part of last
century, was, indeed, a very favourite resort with the Derby people,
as is evidenced by the following curious advertisement of the year
1776:—“Kedleston Fly. Twice a day during the Summer Season. Will set
out on Monday next, the 20th inst., from John Campion’s, the Bell Inn,
in Sadler-gate, Derby; each person to pay One Shilling and Sixpence. A
good Ordinary is provided each day at Kedleston Inn. If desired, the
coach may be had from nine in the morning till two in the afternoon.”
At Quarn, or Quarndon, about a mile distant, is another medicinal
spring—this time of chalybeate waters, which were, and yet are, with
those of Kedleston, much esteemed.
Of the fine old oaks in Kedleston Park it is enough to say they are
among the largest and most picturesque in the kingdom, the “King Oak”
being twenty-two feet in circumference at the bole, and the “Queen Oak”
nearly as much—a truly stately and royal pair. Many others are also
enormous in girth and stature. Of these oaks the Hon. Grantley Berkeley
thus graphically writes:—“In the park and vale of Berkeley, as well
as in the Forest of Dean, I have been used to view the oak-tree in
perfection, as well as in gigantic decay, as in the case at Berkeley
of ‘King William’s Oak,’ at the entrance to the park, set down as that
tree was, and is now, in Domesday Book as a tree then so much larger
than its fellows as to be selected in the survey as a mark for the
parish or hundred of Berkeley. With all this timber lore, however, the
tall oaks of Kedleston Hall astonished me, not in a few instances,
but in hundreds, or indeed all over the park. Timber of all kinds
stood on those emerald undulations (for never was a park or pasture
greener), valued by their proprietor as much for intrinsic worth as
for picturesque beauty, honoured in age, as they had been spared when
from their ranks might have been hewn a fortune. So struck was I with
the invariable size of these trees, that while casting a curious eye
through the herds of deer to make myself acquainted with the best buck
in that early season, destined for a trial of Pape’s breech-loading
rifle—which had been returned to his hands to be rearranged after
the trick it played me in the forest of Lord Breadalbane some time
ago—I could not help stepping their circumference at the roots
of some of them, the extent of which was as follows. The oaks very
commonly reached to fourteen yards where they entered the ground, and
ranged from that to fifteen and seventeen yards; while the ‘King Oak,’
standing by his ‘Queen’ of nearly the same size, measured twenty-two
yards where it sought the earth. Three feet from the ground the girth
of this monarch of the forest is twenty-five feet nine inches, and the
timber contained in the tree is calculated at from eleven hundred to
twelve hundred feet. The extraordinary beauty of these oaks—and their
name, so to speak, is legion—lies in their immensely tall straight
growth from the ground, scarcely ever putting forth a limb within reach
of my upstretched hand. The same luxuriant fact in this enchanting park
exists with all kinds of trees, and some of the broad-leafed elms round
whose boles I stepped measured fifteen yards. Lord Scarsdale takes
beautiful care of his trees, and when some high wind tears down a huge
arm from his favourites, the splinters are all sawn smoothly off from
the stem, and the wound is capped with lead to prevent the entrance of
water.”
And now for a word or two on the Church, which is one of the most
charming old buildings in the country. Long may it be kept from the
hands of the “restorer!” The edifice is cruciform, consisting of a
nave, chancel, north and south transepts, and central tower—the
south transept being the mortuary chapel of the Curzons. The south
doorway of the nave is early Norman, with beak-head mouldings and a
sculptured tympanum; and the “priest’s door” in the chancel is equally
interesting, although of later date.
In the chancel is a remarkably fine monument to Sir Nathaniel Curzon,
Bart., who died in 1758, aged eighty-four, designed by Robert Adam,
the architect of Kedleston, and executed by Michael Rysbrach in 1763;
and another monument erected in 1737 to Sir Nathaniel Curzon, and Dame
Sarah, his wife, daughter of William Penn, Esq. There are also a fine,
but partially mutilated, brass to an early Curzon, and an incised slab
to William Curzon, 1544. The east window of stained glass, “In Memory
of George Nathaniel Curzon, born Oct. 1826; died June 17, 1855,” is of
beautiful design. In the floor of the chancel, on removing two massive
circular pieces of wood mounted with rings, about a foot below the
surface, each within a deeply cut quatrefoil, are the heads of a knight
in armour and of a lady in veil and whimple. There is no inscription
connected with these extremely curious and unusual monuments, but they
most probably represent a knight and lady of the Curzon family.
[Illustration: _Kedleston Church, from the West._]