Visit to Wimpole Hall & Estate

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We remembered visiting Wimpole Hall, Royston near Cambridge several years ago. John & Mary took us there on 1 April 2015. Despite the cloudy weather, there were a lot of visitors to the Wimpole Estate. After lunch, we walked o the house. We remembered the red-brick façade and sizeable ground.



We started looking round from the Entrance Hall. One of the ushers suggested for us to look at the illusionistic murals in the chapel from the balcony.



There were a number of distinctive rooms on the ground floor – South Drawing Room, Long Gallery, Book Room, Red Room, Yellow Drawing Room, Saloon, Breakfast Room and Ground Dining Room.



I remembered the South Drawing Room, featuring feminine style room – cream and buff colours to match with the Ante Room – collections of pretty porcelain and portraits of the royal families – and its arrangement reflects Mrs Bembridge’s taste.



A professional pianist was playing Bach, Beethoven in the Long Gallery. The history of Wimpole started from the medieval era. We saw a display of the decorative wallet including the coat of arms used by the Exchequer at that time. Various types people lived in Wimpole Estate – Sir Thomas Chichely, the Harley family, the families of 1^st – 4^th Earls of Hardwicke, and Mr & Mrs Bembridge.



It was very interesting to see a huge collection of gilt-bound books and antiquarian books in the library. A beautiful library was furnished with French windows, bookcases with several shelves and plaster ceilings – it was designed by an Italian-educated architect James Gibbs.



Situated in the centre of the house, the T-shaped Yellow Room, provided the grand reception for staging county balls and concerts. The double-height space room with a wide skylight dome over the ‘crossing’, and ‘transepts’ in the form of semi-circular apses either side was designed by Sir J Soane.



Like many other stately homes, there were scores of signed paintings and masterpieces – still-life paintings, portraits of the family members, landscape paintings executed by famous painters, e.g. Sir Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough. The catalogue showed details of the paintings in Wimpole Hall.



It was interesting to know that Queen Victoria visited the Wimpole Hall. There were portraits of her and her family and pictures of Osborne House displayed in the Dining Room.



We went upstairs and looked round the Lord Chancellor’s Bedroom, Dressing Room, Mrs Bembridge’s Study, her bedroom, the print room and document room on the 1^st floor. I remembered seeing a number of cartoons, engravings of carriages predominately, and costume prints.



One of the original features of Wimpole hall, the Bath House, was designed by Soane for the 3^rd Earl of Hardwicke around 1792. A little swimming-pool like space once held 2,199 gallons of water. It wasn’t used for cleaning body but for relaxing.



We popped in the chapel and saw the mural of the Adoration of the Magi and three trompe l’oeil vases with ‘bas reliefs’ of the Baptism of Christ on the ground level.



We continued looking round the service quarters’ rooms – kitchen, storage room, the high rank servant’s and low rank servant’s room.



After that, we walked through the formal garden and kitchen garden. Cream and yellow daffodils, bluebells, tulips were blooming on the grounds and cherry blossoms were opening. Displays of modern sculptures offered intriguing landscapes with backgrounds of green pasture land where sheep and lambs were grazing.

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