Seaton Delaval Hall in Northumberland, in the north east of England, is one of the finest English stately homes. It was built between 1718 and 1728 by Sir John Vanbrugh for Admiral George Delaval. Vanbrugh also built Blenheim Palace, the birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill (the 1st Duke of Marlborough, who led the English Army to victories against the French in the Nine Years' War from 1688-1697, was an ancestor of Sir Winston Churchill).
Seaton Delaval is a magnificent building which rivals Buckingham Palace, and thanks to the locals it has been restored to its former glory.
And what a history this hall can relate....
How dusty old Seaton Delaval Hall is set to become the Geordie Versailles - thanks to a whip-round by the locals
By Robert Hardman
23rd January 2009
Daily Mail
The road meanders past defunct collieries and out towards the distant cranes of Blyth.
This bleak corner of Northumberland does industrial heritage like Cornwall does clotted cream. Outside the old pit village of Seaton Delaval, the road suddenly becomes a tree-lined avenue.
You pass the turn for New Hartley - where 204 men and boys were buried alive in 1862 in one of the worst mining disasters in British history - and drive on towards the sea. And then you almost skid off the road.
Thanks to a whip-round by the locals, this majestic pile's colourful past of lusty lords, royal mistresses and a deadly curse should be preserved forever
Because standing there in all its glory - looking out towards the derricks of Blyth in one direction and the Tyne in another - is a thumping great palace.
Two mighty wings either side of a towering central block encase a courtyard to rival that of Buckingham Palace. This is the Geordie Versailles. And yet there is neither a glimmer of light nor a soul to be seen.
Seaton Delaval Hall is so incongruous it's like finding a WAG in Matalan.
This jewel makes the average stately home seem common. It boasts more scandals than a Sunday tabloid - there's the royal mistress, the bed-hopping MP who blasted bribes from a cannon, the sex-starved heir who died from a chambermaid's kick in the groin...
There is the mandatory ghost, a curse and a lineage stretching from William the Conqueror to the Archers.
And it is all bound up in a building so remarkable that leading architectural historians regard it as one of the most important houses in Britain.
Because Seaton Delaval was the last masterpiece of Sir John Vanbrugh.
He was the genius behind national landmarks such as Blenheim Palace (seat of the Duke of Marlborough and birthplace of Winston Churchill) and Castle Howard (the Yorkshire pile which has now starred in two versions of Brideshead Revisited).
'Vanbrugh ranks among our greatest architects and many regard Seaton Delaval as his finest work,' says Jeremy Musson, author, television historian and Vanbrugh expert.
But while Blenheim and Castle Howard are much-loved family homes which pull in coachloads all year round, Seaton Delaval stands empty and unnoticed by anyone except those who happen to be driving past.
They cannot see through the doors into the great hall where the appalling Sir Francis Delaval MP would hold competitions to bite the heads off sparrows. They can't look up at the statues charred in the terrible fire of 1822.
They cannot get lost in the eerie labyrinth of cellars where the only signs of life are ferns sprouting through the old stone.
They can't step into the positively regal stables of the East Wing where stone stalls still bear the name plates of their 19th-century occupants - 'Hercules', 'Steady', 'Regulus'... Nor can anyone creak through attics which, not so long ago, were home to Italian and German prisoners of war.
No one can view the portraits and busts in the cosy family home which the late Lord Hastings created out of servants' quarters in the West Wing.
For a few days each summer, locals can still wander round the gardens, but they cannot begin to imagine what this place was like in its heyday.
And that is why the National Trust is working with the latest owner to give the whole thing a new lease of life and make this none other than the Blenheim of the North-East.
The 22nd Lord Hastings, whose descendants arrived here in Norman times, died in April 2007, aged 95.
He left Seaton Delaval plus the family's Norfolk estate to his eldest son, a former actor whose credits include playing a cad called Cameron Fraser in Radio 4's farming soap, The Archers.
Now 48, and a genuine farmer, the 23rd Lord Hastings does not want to uproot his family from their East Anglian farmhouse and move them into an 18th century pile in Northumberland.
What's more, he has some hefty death duties to pay to the Treasury. So, he has decided to sell Seaton Delaval.
He could turn it into flats or flog it to a local tycoon, just as the Marquess of Londonderry sold his stately home down the road to millionaire Sir John Hall.
Even in this sorry climate, there are plenty who would pay handsomely to live in Vanbrugh's last gem.
But Lord Hastings is mindful of the family's ancient ties to the area and the fact that his father was the first squire in nearly 200 years to love Seaton Delaval enough to live in it.
On a grey day, Seaton Delaval's funereal air is oddly appropriate. It is regarded as one of the greatest English baroque country houses, arguably the greatest by Vanbrugh, a master of the classical-with-a-twist style revered by many contemporary architects. But by the time it was completed in 1728, both architect and his patron Admiral George Delaval, a younger son who made his fortune at sea, were dead.
So, he is planning to give the house and various heirlooms to the National Trust in lieu of inheritance tax. He then plans to rent a small flat back off the Trust for family visits.
It's not, he says, the 'commercially optimum route' to take, but he believes it is an honourable solution: 'My view was that to let Seaton Delaval Hall lie empty was a wasteful indulgence when it could be open to the public.'
The National Trust still has a long way to go. The Government has yet to decide whether it will accept Seaton Delaval in lieu of tax and, even if it does, the Trust needs to spend several million pounds on repairs before the masses are allowed in.
The Trust also wants to buy several hundred acres around the house from Lord Hastings. So, it has launched an appeal for £6.3 million.
Given the economy, the timing could hardly be worse. And yet, the locals are so keen that they have already coughed up nearly £2.5 million in donations to the National Trust.
Much of it has come in £10 and £20 notes from ordinary people who would never have dreamed of giving money to a place like this before.
For centuries, the house was only intermittently occupied. The magnificent 60-foot stables were only full in the hunting season or when the family filled the house for legendary theatrical parties. In 1953 a county history, compiled as a souvenir for the Queen's coronation year, read: "No longer do its marble halls echo the wild laughter of the gay Delavals."
The Trust, for its part, has been busy consulting them on their ideas for the place (weddings and banquets are popular). Area manager Liz Fisher says she has been bowled over by the enthusiasm.
This week, the main board of the Trust confirmed that it has set aside £6.9 million from central coffers to maintain Seaton Delaval for ever, providing the appeal succeeds.
After centuries in private hands, one of Britain's finest houses will finally belong to the people.
The original Delavals came over with an uncle called William the Conqueror and were given land up here in return for their loyalty.
They became very wealthy, especially when the rich seams of coal under their land enabled them to set up a lucrative salt business.
So rich were they that they even built their own private port, still known as Seaton Sluice. With wealth came status and a baronetcy from Charles II, but the family was nearly ruined by a great legal battle in 1717.
Sir John Delaval ended up selling his estate to a cousin, Admiral George Delaval, who had made a fortune as a foreign envoy for Queen Anne.
Although a bachelor, he wanted to create a monument to himself on ancestral acres so he knocked down the existing family seat and hired Sir John Vanbrugh to build a thumping great mansion befitting his importance.
As it turned out, both the admiral and Vanbrugh would die before Seaton Delaval Hall was completed. George was killed falling from his horse in the grounds and the new house went to his nephew, Captain Francis Delaval.
The captain had also inherited nearby Ford Castle and had married an heiress, which was just as well as they went on to produce a dozen children - and a bizarre run of bad luck.
After the captain died in a drunken fall down his own steps, Seaton Delaval passed to his eldest son, also Francis.
A rogue of the first order, he married a widow for her money, had children by various mistresses and bribed his way into Parliament on three occasions.
At one point, he became the MP for Andover after showering the electorate with 500 guinea coins fired from a cannon.
He acquired a bogus reputation as a national hero - and a knighthood - after leading an assault on a nonexistent French force at St Malo in 1758.
At home, his passions were practical jokes - he was fond of hiding live animals beneath guests' sheets - and drama.
In London, he once hired the Theatre Royal for £1,500 to stage his own production of Othello - featuring himself and a cast of family and friends.
The Royal Family came to watch and the Commons rose early to have a look. When Francis drank himself to death without a legitimate heir, Seaton Delaval passed to his brother John.
A much brighter specimen with a flair for business, he used his fortune to secure himself a peerage while one of his daughters married an Earl and became the mistress of George III's soldier son, the (Grand Old) Duke of York. But John's only son, suffered from poor health.
In his late teens, the boy was sent to a spa near Bristol where he groped a chambermaid. Her response was a kick in the groin so vigorous that the young man died of his injuries.
One by one, the eight male heirs died out. According to family legend, a carved ram's head had pronounced a curse on all male Delavals for as long as the family retained both Ford Castle and Seaton Delaval.
One son was drowned at sea, one died on active service and so on. Only Edward Delaval, survived to old age after splitting up the two estates (and thus, presumably, lifting the curse).
A Cambridge academic, he hated Seaton Delaval and gave Vanbrugh's pile to his elder sister, Rhoda, who had married into an ancient Norfolk family called the Astleys.
They had been granted the medieval title of Lord Hastings by Edward I and proved so loyal to the Crown over the centuries that, to this day, the Astley family do not talk of the English Civil War.
They call it 'The Rebellion'. They also retain the right to carry the Monarch's spurs at every Coronation.
While the Astleys trousered the rents from their northern estate, they preferred to live in Norfolk and left Seaton Delaval Hall in the hands of a caretaker.
On a blustery January night in 1822, there was no one in residence when a mysterious fire destroyed most of the central section of the house.
And that was how the place remained for more than a century until the late Lord Hastings decided that it was time to make a go of his neglected ancestral seat and made it the family home.
'It could get pretty cold, but we had great fun rollerskating through the house,' recalls the present Lord Hastings, the first son and heir in 200 years to be born in Northumberland.
'The cellars were always dark and scary and my mother swore that she'd seen certain ghostly characters.'
But now the cogs of history have turned once more.
Just as the House of Delaval eventually gave way to the House of Astley, so it is time for Seaton Delaval Hall to pass on to a new dynasty - the people of Tyneside.
And it seems likely that they will cherish the place rather more than some of its previous owners. Welcome to the House of Geordie.
dailymail.co.uk
Seaton Delaval is a magnificent building which rivals Buckingham Palace, and thanks to the locals it has been restored to its former glory.
And what a history this hall can relate....
How dusty old Seaton Delaval Hall is set to become the Geordie Versailles - thanks to a whip-round by the locals
By Robert Hardman
23rd January 2009
Daily Mail
The road meanders past defunct collieries and out towards the distant cranes of Blyth.
This bleak corner of Northumberland does industrial heritage like Cornwall does clotted cream. Outside the old pit village of Seaton Delaval, the road suddenly becomes a tree-lined avenue.
You pass the turn for New Hartley - where 204 men and boys were buried alive in 1862 in one of the worst mining disasters in British history - and drive on towards the sea. And then you almost skid off the road.
Thanks to a whip-round by the locals, this majestic pile's colourful past of lusty lords, royal mistresses and a deadly curse should be preserved forever
Because standing there in all its glory - looking out towards the derricks of Blyth in one direction and the Tyne in another - is a thumping great palace.
Two mighty wings either side of a towering central block encase a courtyard to rival that of Buckingham Palace. This is the Geordie Versailles. And yet there is neither a glimmer of light nor a soul to be seen.
Seaton Delaval Hall is so incongruous it's like finding a WAG in Matalan.
This jewel makes the average stately home seem common. It boasts more scandals than a Sunday tabloid - there's the royal mistress, the bed-hopping MP who blasted bribes from a cannon, the sex-starved heir who died from a chambermaid's kick in the groin...
There is the mandatory ghost, a curse and a lineage stretching from William the Conqueror to the Archers.
And it is all bound up in a building so remarkable that leading architectural historians regard it as one of the most important houses in Britain.
Because Seaton Delaval was the last masterpiece of Sir John Vanbrugh.
He was the genius behind national landmarks such as Blenheim Palace (seat of the Duke of Marlborough and birthplace of Winston Churchill) and Castle Howard (the Yorkshire pile which has now starred in two versions of Brideshead Revisited).
'Vanbrugh ranks among our greatest architects and many regard Seaton Delaval as his finest work,' says Jeremy Musson, author, television historian and Vanbrugh expert.
But while Blenheim and Castle Howard are much-loved family homes which pull in coachloads all year round, Seaton Delaval stands empty and unnoticed by anyone except those who happen to be driving past.
They cannot see through the doors into the great hall where the appalling Sir Francis Delaval MP would hold competitions to bite the heads off sparrows. They can't look up at the statues charred in the terrible fire of 1822.
They cannot get lost in the eerie labyrinth of cellars where the only signs of life are ferns sprouting through the old stone.
They can't step into the positively regal stables of the East Wing where stone stalls still bear the name plates of their 19th-century occupants - 'Hercules', 'Steady', 'Regulus'... Nor can anyone creak through attics which, not so long ago, were home to Italian and German prisoners of war.
No one can view the portraits and busts in the cosy family home which the late Lord Hastings created out of servants' quarters in the West Wing.
For a few days each summer, locals can still wander round the gardens, but they cannot begin to imagine what this place was like in its heyday.
And that is why the National Trust is working with the latest owner to give the whole thing a new lease of life and make this none other than the Blenheim of the North-East.
The 22nd Lord Hastings, whose descendants arrived here in Norman times, died in April 2007, aged 95.
He left Seaton Delaval plus the family's Norfolk estate to his eldest son, a former actor whose credits include playing a cad called Cameron Fraser in Radio 4's farming soap, The Archers.
Now 48, and a genuine farmer, the 23rd Lord Hastings does not want to uproot his family from their East Anglian farmhouse and move them into an 18th century pile in Northumberland.
What's more, he has some hefty death duties to pay to the Treasury. So, he has decided to sell Seaton Delaval.
He could turn it into flats or flog it to a local tycoon, just as the Marquess of Londonderry sold his stately home down the road to millionaire Sir John Hall.
Even in this sorry climate, there are plenty who would pay handsomely to live in Vanbrugh's last gem.
But Lord Hastings is mindful of the family's ancient ties to the area and the fact that his father was the first squire in nearly 200 years to love Seaton Delaval enough to live in it.
On a grey day, Seaton Delaval's funereal air is oddly appropriate. It is regarded as one of the greatest English baroque country houses, arguably the greatest by Vanbrugh, a master of the classical-with-a-twist style revered by many contemporary architects. But by the time it was completed in 1728, both architect and his patron Admiral George Delaval, a younger son who made his fortune at sea, were dead.
So, he is planning to give the house and various heirlooms to the National Trust in lieu of inheritance tax. He then plans to rent a small flat back off the Trust for family visits.
It's not, he says, the 'commercially optimum route' to take, but he believes it is an honourable solution: 'My view was that to let Seaton Delaval Hall lie empty was a wasteful indulgence when it could be open to the public.'
The National Trust still has a long way to go. The Government has yet to decide whether it will accept Seaton Delaval in lieu of tax and, even if it does, the Trust needs to spend several million pounds on repairs before the masses are allowed in.
The Trust also wants to buy several hundred acres around the house from Lord Hastings. So, it has launched an appeal for £6.3 million.
Given the economy, the timing could hardly be worse. And yet, the locals are so keen that they have already coughed up nearly £2.5 million in donations to the National Trust.
Much of it has come in £10 and £20 notes from ordinary people who would never have dreamed of giving money to a place like this before.
For centuries, the house was only intermittently occupied. The magnificent 60-foot stables were only full in the hunting season or when the family filled the house for legendary theatrical parties. In 1953 a county history, compiled as a souvenir for the Queen's coronation year, read: "No longer do its marble halls echo the wild laughter of the gay Delavals."
The Trust, for its part, has been busy consulting them on their ideas for the place (weddings and banquets are popular). Area manager Liz Fisher says she has been bowled over by the enthusiasm.
This week, the main board of the Trust confirmed that it has set aside £6.9 million from central coffers to maintain Seaton Delaval for ever, providing the appeal succeeds.
After centuries in private hands, one of Britain's finest houses will finally belong to the people.
The original Delavals came over with an uncle called William the Conqueror and were given land up here in return for their loyalty.
They became very wealthy, especially when the rich seams of coal under their land enabled them to set up a lucrative salt business.
So rich were they that they even built their own private port, still known as Seaton Sluice. With wealth came status and a baronetcy from Charles II, but the family was nearly ruined by a great legal battle in 1717.
Sir John Delaval ended up selling his estate to a cousin, Admiral George Delaval, who had made a fortune as a foreign envoy for Queen Anne.
Although a bachelor, he wanted to create a monument to himself on ancestral acres so he knocked down the existing family seat and hired Sir John Vanbrugh to build a thumping great mansion befitting his importance.
As it turned out, both the admiral and Vanbrugh would die before Seaton Delaval Hall was completed. George was killed falling from his horse in the grounds and the new house went to his nephew, Captain Francis Delaval.
The captain had also inherited nearby Ford Castle and had married an heiress, which was just as well as they went on to produce a dozen children - and a bizarre run of bad luck.
After the captain died in a drunken fall down his own steps, Seaton Delaval passed to his eldest son, also Francis.
A rogue of the first order, he married a widow for her money, had children by various mistresses and bribed his way into Parliament on three occasions.
At one point, he became the MP for Andover after showering the electorate with 500 guinea coins fired from a cannon.
He acquired a bogus reputation as a national hero - and a knighthood - after leading an assault on a nonexistent French force at St Malo in 1758.
At home, his passions were practical jokes - he was fond of hiding live animals beneath guests' sheets - and drama.
In London, he once hired the Theatre Royal for £1,500 to stage his own production of Othello - featuring himself and a cast of family and friends.
The Royal Family came to watch and the Commons rose early to have a look. When Francis drank himself to death without a legitimate heir, Seaton Delaval passed to his brother John.
A much brighter specimen with a flair for business, he used his fortune to secure himself a peerage while one of his daughters married an Earl and became the mistress of George III's soldier son, the (Grand Old) Duke of York. But John's only son, suffered from poor health.
In his late teens, the boy was sent to a spa near Bristol where he groped a chambermaid. Her response was a kick in the groin so vigorous that the young man died of his injuries.
One by one, the eight male heirs died out. According to family legend, a carved ram's head had pronounced a curse on all male Delavals for as long as the family retained both Ford Castle and Seaton Delaval.
One son was drowned at sea, one died on active service and so on. Only Edward Delaval, survived to old age after splitting up the two estates (and thus, presumably, lifting the curse).
A Cambridge academic, he hated Seaton Delaval and gave Vanbrugh's pile to his elder sister, Rhoda, who had married into an ancient Norfolk family called the Astleys.
They had been granted the medieval title of Lord Hastings by Edward I and proved so loyal to the Crown over the centuries that, to this day, the Astley family do not talk of the English Civil War.
They call it 'The Rebellion'. They also retain the right to carry the Monarch's spurs at every Coronation.
While the Astleys trousered the rents from their northern estate, they preferred to live in Norfolk and left Seaton Delaval Hall in the hands of a caretaker.
On a blustery January night in 1822, there was no one in residence when a mysterious fire destroyed most of the central section of the house.
And that was how the place remained for more than a century until the late Lord Hastings decided that it was time to make a go of his neglected ancestral seat and made it the family home.
'It could get pretty cold, but we had great fun rollerskating through the house,' recalls the present Lord Hastings, the first son and heir in 200 years to be born in Northumberland.
'The cellars were always dark and scary and my mother swore that she'd seen certain ghostly characters.'
But now the cogs of history have turned once more.
Just as the House of Delaval eventually gave way to the House of Astley, so it is time for Seaton Delaval Hall to pass on to a new dynasty - the people of Tyneside.
And it seems likely that they will cherish the place rather more than some of its previous owners. Welcome to the House of Geordie.
dailymail.co.uk