Houghton House
| Houghton House | |
|---|---|
Ruins of Houghton House
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| General information | |
| Type | Manor house |
| Location | Houghton Conquest, Bedfordshire |
| Country | England |
| Coordinates | 52°02′38″N 0°29′11″W / 52.044°N 0.48626°W |
Houghton House is a ruined mansion house in the parish of Maulden,Bedfordshire. It is a Grade I listed building, positioned above the surrounding countryside, and commands excellent views. It is said that the house was the model for House Beautiful in John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress (1678). It is today the property of English Heritage, and is open to free public access during daylight hours.
The estate of Houghton was granted by King James I (1603-1625) to Mary Herbert, Dowager Countess of Pembroke (1561-1621), née Sidney, a courtier, writer, translator, and literary patron, who commenced the building of the surviving house in about 1615. Two architects were very likely responsible for the design, John Thorpe, who worked in the Jacobean tradition, and Inigo Jones, who introduced the classical style into England. The Countess was visited there by King James I in 1621, soon after its completion. Shortly afterwards on 25 September 1621 she died of smallpox. The surviving Jacobean-style frieze on the western side of the house displays heraldic elements relating to the Sidney family and to the Countess's relations the Dudley family.
Following the death of the Countess, the estate was granted in 1624 by King James I to Thomas Bruce, 1st Earl of Elgin (1599–1663), whose family used it as their seat for three generations. In the churchyard of nearby Maulden Church, the advowson of which was owned by the Bruce family, is the Ailesbury Mausoleum, the earliest free-standing mausoleum in England, built in 1656 by Thomas Bruce, 1st Earl of Elgin in memory of his 2nd wife Diana Cecil. The Bruce family resided in the house until Thomas Bruce, 3rd Earl of Elgin, 2nd Earl of Ailesbury went into exile on the Continent in 1696 on account of his loyalty to the deposed King James II (1685-deposed 1688, died 1701).
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