Those of you who’ve trawled through my previous reports will notice I rarely post articles on manor houses that have any recent history, or that are in a stop-gap period between uses. In Britain, the majority of stately homes met their end more than a century ago due to a shift in social conditions across the country. Many of their crumbled carcasses still decorate our landscape, over time becoming known as the “lost houses”. Those that survived the mass demolition in the late 19th century became so expensive to maintain that only the likes of the National Trust could entertain the idea of maintaining them as soon as they slipped from the hands of aristocracy. Many like Windlestone have fought on through recent times by finding new purpose in order to avoid falling into ruin. The fact of the matter is that a building of such magnitude has undoubtedly been through tough times before, more often than not whilst waiting for the next lord, businessman and nowadays either property developer or lottery winner to pop along. This estate however tells a story that has somehow managed to accumulate all of these in a littered history that spans just short of 200 years.
It's history begins with the Edens. A bunch of royalists who held the manor of Windlestone way back in the 17th century at the time of the English civil war. By the time the fifth Baronet of the family came along, the hall we see today was built, designed by architect Ignatius Bonimi. Whom as the name suggests, had Italian descendancy and was part of a family of sculptors and surveyors. Himself being responsible for many of the country’s railway bridges, often being referred to as Britain’s ‘first railway architect’. Anyhow, his work was complete by 1821, and the Eden’s moved in.
This is how the Eden family looked at the time. On the left, Sir Frederick Morton Eden, 2nd Baronet, and head don at the time that Windlestone was being built. His father Robert Eden on the right was probably most responsible for the family's upper class status. Head sheriff of Durham in the mid 1800s, he became the last Governor of Maryland in the US under British rule.
These two images show the ornate gardens at Windlestone taken in 1910. Whoever took these images might have been well aware that they were documenting the end of an era for wealthy estates in Britain. Death duties were suddenly on the horizon due to the complete and utter shift in the nations priorities following WW1. Families who once owned huge chunks of land and had lived through centuries of luxury would eventually have to come to grips with equality.
The coach house & stables to the north of the hall was added in the 19th century and would have been used for resting the family's horses after arriving down the long driveway through the gardens.
The entrance to the coach house is dominated by the purely cosmetic clock tower surmounted by a cupola, like a mini St Pauls Cathedral. Again, this was just to show off. Especially important given that the hall itself was relatively understated in its appearance.
This image shows the archway in 1961 when the hall was in much better repair, and the clock still actually existed. I wonder where it went?
A much later building found in the overgrowth at what once used to be the walled garden area. This was used by staff during the hall's use as a special needs school.
One building that I couldn't find was Eden's mausoleum. Built in 1868 and photographed here in the 1960's, the family’s dead were transferred from St Helen’s Auckland. Once the estate was sold, however it was somewhat disregarded.
In 1954, two youths aged 16 and 21, broke into the mausoleum and, in a misplaced “spirit of adventure” opened the walnut coffin of a nine-year-old member of the Eden family who had been dead for 100 years. They then prised open the lead inner shell and when an “almost perfectly preserved body emerged”, they fled in terror, and pleaded guilty to removing a corpse from a grave in a burial ground. in 1984 after further vandalism the family had decided enough was enough, and the mausoleum was instructed to be demolished and the Edens were returned to St Helens. You could argue this was the moment when the descendants of the family truly wiped their hands of Windlestone.
You might recognise the surname Eden from the last Netflix series of the crown. Or real life history books, if you’re into those. Successor to Churchill, the Prime Minister Anthony Eden ranked among the least successful British PM’s of all time was born here in 1897. He ventured into politics in 1923 and by the time he reached such status and began the monumental screwing up of his time in office, his brother Timothy who inherited the baronetcy sold the hall and all of its 4500 acres and the family ended its occupancy. Cue the downward spiral that followed.
