Burton Constable Hall
Burton Constable Hall is a large Elizabethan country house with 18th and 19th century interiors, and a fine 18th century cabinet of curiosities. The hall, a Grade I listed building, is set in a park designed by Capability Brown with an area of 300 acres (1.2 km2). It is located 3 miles (5 km) south-east of the village Skirlaugh, East Riding of Yorkshire, England, approximately 9 miles (14 km) north-east of the city of Hull, and has been the home of the Constable family for over 400 years.
The hall and park are owned by the Burton Constable Foundation, a registered charity.
Despite its apparent uniformity of style, Burton Constable has a long and complicated building history. The lower part of the north tower, built from limestone, is the oldest part of the house to survive and dates to the 12th century, when a medieval pele tower served to protect the village of Burton Constable from the reign of King Stephen. In the late 15th century a new brick manor house was built at Burton Constable, eventually replacing Halsham as the family's principal seat. In the 1560s Sir John Constable embarked on the building of the Elizabethan prodigy house that stands today. This incorporated remains of the earlier manor house along with the addition of the new range containing a Great Hall, which rose the full height of the building and was top-lit by a lantern, along with a Parlour, Chambers and South Wing.
By the 18th century, the Great Hall must have seemed old fashioned, and a surviving design of c. 1730 suggests that Cuthbert Constable intended to completely remodel the interior. However, it appears that remodelling was not undertaken until the 1760s when his son William Constable commissioned a number of architects for designs. These included John Carr, Timothy Lightoler. and Capability Brown. The decorative plasterwork was executed by James Henderson of York. At this time, Constable also acquired the plaster figures of Demosthenes and Hercules with Cerebus, and plaster busts of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus and the Greek poet Sappho, from the sculptor John Cheere. Above the fireplace is a carving of oak boughs and garlands of laurel leaves, crowned by the Garter Star, surrounding the armourial shield of the Constable family in scagliola by Domenico Bartoli.
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