Grantham, Lincolnshire - Belton Gardens - Valentines postcard c.1905

Postcard
• Picture / Image:  Belton Gardens, Grantham, Lincolnshire
• Publisher:  Valentine's
• Postally used:  no
• Stamp:  n/a
• Postmark(s): n/a
• Sent to:  n/a
• Notes / condition: 

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Text from the free encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA may appear below to give a little background information (internal links may not  work) :

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Belton House is a Grade I listed country house in Belton near Grantham, Lincolnshire, England. The mansion is surrounded by formal gardens and a series of avenues leading to follies within a larger wooded park. Belton has been described as a compilation of all that is finest of Carolean architecture, the only truly vernacular style of architecture that England had produced since the Tudor period.^[1] The house has also been described as the most complete example of a typical English country house;^[2] the claim has even been made that Belton's principal facade was the inspiration for the modern British motorway signs which give directions to stately homes.^[3] Only Brympton d'Evercy has been similarly lauded as the perfect English country house.^[4]

For three hundred years, Belton House was the seat of the Brownlow and Cust family, who had first acquired land in the area in the late 16th century. Between 1685 and 1688 Sir John Brownlow and his wife had the present mansion built. Despite great wealth they chose to build a modest country house rather than a grand contemporary Baroque palace. The contemporary, if provincial, Carolean style was the selected choice of design. However, the new house was fitted with the latest innovations such as sash windows^[5] for the principal rooms, and more importantly completely separate areas for the staff. As the Brownlows rose from baronets to barons upward to earls and then once again became barons, successive generations made changes to the interior of the house which reflected their changing social position and tastes, yet the fabric and design of the house changed little.

Following World War I (a period when the Machine Gun Corps was based in the park), the Brownlows, like many of their peers, were faced with mounting financial problems. In 1984 they gave the house away—complete with most of its contents. The recipients of their gift, the National Trust, today fully open Belton to the public. It is in a good state of repair and visited by many thousands of tourists each year.

The Brownlow family, a dynasty of lawyers, began accumulating land in the Belton area from approximately 1598.^[6] In 1609 they acquired the reversion of the manor of Belton itself from the Pakenham family, who finally sold the manor house to Sir John Brownlow I in 1619.^[7] The old house was situated near the church in the garden of the present house and remained largely unoccupied, since the family preferred their other houses elsewhere. John Brownlow had married an heiress but was childless. He became attached to two of his more distant blood relations: a great-nephew, also called John Brownlow, and a great-niece, Alice Sherard. The two cousins married each other in 1676 when both were aged 16;^[8] three years later, the couple inherited the Brownlow estates from their great-uncle together with an income of £9,000 per annum (about £ 1.17 million in present day terms) and £20,000 in cash (equivalent to about £ 2.59 million now).^[9] They immediately bought a town house in the newly fashionable Southampton Square in Bloomsbury, and decided to build a new country house at Belton.^[10]

Work on the new house began in 1685. The architect thought to have been responsible for the initial design is William Winde, although the house has also been attributed to Sir Christopher Wren, while others believe the design to be so similar to Roger Pratt's Clarendon House, London, that it could have been the work of any talented draughtsman.^[11] The assumption popular today, that Winde was the architect, is based on the stylistic similarity between Belton and Coombe Abbey, which was remodelled by Winde between 1682 and 1685. Further evidence is a letter dated 1690, in which Winde recommends a plasterer who worked at Belton to another of his patrons.^[12]

type=printed postcards

theme=topographical: british

sub-theme=england

county/ country=lincolnshire

number of items=single

period=pre - 1914

postage condition=unposted