Darnley Mausoleum

The Darnley Mausoleum, or Cobham Mausoleum as it is often now referred to, is a Grade I Listed building, now owned by the National Trust and situated in Cobham Woods, Kent (OS grid ref: TQ694684). It was designed by James Wyatt for the 4th Earl of Darnley of Cobham Hall according to detailed instructions in the will of the 3rd Earl of Darnley. It was never used for interments. The woodland is part of the parkland laid out by Humphry Repton, and is 1.6 km from the North Downs Way.

The Earls of Darnley had been buried at Westminster Abbey, but after the death in 1781 of John Bligh, the 3rd Earl, spaces at the Abbey were no longer available. James Wyatt (1746–1813), a fashionable and extremely prolific architect of the time, was commissioned to design a mausoleum to hold the coffins of the Earls and their family members. Wyatt exhibited the design at the Royal Academy in 1783. A slightly modified design was completed in 1786 under the supervision of George Dance the Younger (1741–1825), perhaps fortunately as Wyatt had a poor reputation for supervising the execution of his work. For obscure reasons the mausoleum was never consecrated so no bodies were laid to rest there. However, shortly after it was completed, Humphry Repton (1752–1818) started to redesign the landscapes around Cobham Hall for the 4th Earl in the 1790s and subsequently over nearly 30 years. As a result the mausoleum became an important landscape feature, sitting at the highest point of the Darnley estate.

The mausoleum is built of brick faced with Portland stone, is square with projecting chamfered corners, and surmounted by a pyramid. The form is an unusually grand classical temple, using Roman Doric order, fluted columns in antis on the face, prostyle on the angles. The mausoleum is a high point of the neo-classical period in Britain, which was much more concerned than the preceding baroque period that classical architecture should be used correctly according to ancient Greek and Roman precedent. However, the pyramid-shaped roof, the mausoleum's most distinctive feature, while usual in classical architecture may have been derived by Wyatt from a painting by Nicholas Poussin rather than directly from antique precedents. There is a flying staircase to the piano nobile. There are lunette openings above the cornice filled with amber glass to create an ethereal light inside. Tomb chests are above the angle architraves. On the piano nobile, there is a circular chapel with Tivoli variant Corinthian order columns of rose marble and a coffered dome of stone. The crypt at the lower level is accessed by steps at the rear and is lined in stone. It has 32 coffin shelves under a shallow stone dome. The mausoleum is important because of its architect, its situation in parkland at a predominant position on the North Downs, and as a demonstration of 'the Age of Enlightenment's preoccupation with a 'classical way of death'.

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