Passing down through inheritance for nearly 400 years, Holker Hall has a rich history resulting in an interior that combines comfort with charm. Former House & Garden editor Susan Crewe recounts her childhood set within its walls, her elder brother's tenure and the arrival of her niece as chatelaine of this Cumbrian gem
It is quite unusual for an English country house to have never been bought or sold in 400 years, but Holker Hall has passed down through three families by inheritance - sometimes through women - since 1610. Architecturally the house is pleasing rather than distinguished, but its position, within sight of an estuary on the northern shores of Morecambe Bay and the mountains and fells of the southern Lake District, endow it with surroundings of breathtaking and varied beauty.
Another exceptional thing about Holker - pronounced 'Hooker' to the surprise of American visitors - is how much it has been loved and enjoyed by the successive generations who have lived there. Perhaps I should declare an interest at this point. It is the house in which I was born, grew up and to which I often joyfully return. My father, Richard Cavendish, inherited Holker upon the death of his own father in 1946 - just after the end of the Second World War - but he also inherited colossal debts and an estate depleted by wartime exigencies. He and my mother were young and had small children, and despite being advised to sell the whole thing, they decided to fight for it. Over the next 26 years, they gradually turned its fortunes around. They opened the Victorian wing and the garden to the public - only the second 'stately home' in England to do so - converted another wing of the house into flats and tried by every means possible to make the various enterprises on the estate productive.
These days the entrance to the family's part of the house is the antithesis of a grand front door, rather it is reached by a narrow wrought-iron gate set in a wall and a short passage that isn't far removed from an alley. This is on account of needing to skirt the vast, red sandstone wing that replaced one that burned to the ground in 1871. The Victorian wing is wonderfully self-confident and not in the least bit subtle, with towers, domes, stained-glass windows, and a huge portico and front door. It was also an absolute gift to my parents, who were able to open it to the public in 1949, leaving themselves an earlier and far more manageable part of the house to actually live in.
If it was my parents' role to save and secure Holker, my brother and sister-in-law have burnished it. Never have two people lived more fully in a house or made it such a welcoming place. The garden at dusk, picnics on the shore, delicious feasts in the dining room, fires in the bedrooms, walks in gentle rain, the smell of polish, the sound of laughter and of dogs' paws on slate - these are the impressions that linger in the minds of the many guests who have stayed in the house over the years.
Indeed, it was a small pack of my sister-in-law's lurchers - never less than three - that greeted you in the hall after you'd negotiated the wrought-iron gate in the wall. They bounded about in silent tail-wagging welcome and escorted you down a short flight ofsteps into the brown hall. This is the first in an enfilade of rooms that progresses through the drawing room to the dining room and finally to the most charming garden room or loggia, where many summer meals are enjoyed.
Holker Hall: 015395-58328; holkerhall.co.uk
Taken from the June 2015 issue of House & Garden.
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