SIMON HEFFER HINTERLAND

Holkham Hall resembles a giant digestive biscuit – and is every bit as tasteful

he stately homes of England tend to impress more with their contents than their architecture. The latter can be outstanding: think of Chatsworth in Derbyshire; or vast Wentworth Woodhouse in Yorkshire; or the palatial splendour of Blenheim in Oxfordshire. But it isn’t usually until one gets inside, and sees fine portraits or objets brought back from a grand tour nearly 300 years ago, that one realises what treasure houses they are.

Yet for me the splendour of architecture caps anything else, and I was reminded of this not along ago when I visited Holkham Hall, in north Norfolk, for the first time in years. Matthew Brettingham, an inexperienced local architect, built the house in the Palladian style for

Thomas Coke, who in 1744 became 1st Earl of Leicester – but did so with a restraint and austerity that give it a peculiarly English flavour.

Begun in 1734, the house was not completed until 1764, five years after the 1st Earl’s death. Identical wings, or pavilions, lead out from each of the four corners of the central building. The focal point is the great Palladian portico of six columns under a triangular pediment; and one notices how comparatively small and how few are the windows, compared with houses of the later 18th century. This was to keep the house warm, the architect deeming he had supplied enough windows to provide the required amount of light.

The walls are yellow brick, looking on a sunny day rather like a digestive biscuit. This partly reflects the absence of stone in Norfolk (Coke considered using Bath stone until he realised the cost of transporting it across England), but also mimics the material in which a Roman palace would have been built.

Each of the four wings, which echo the plainness of the main house, has a defined purpose. One is the kitchen wing; another houses the chapel; and a third is a guest wing. The fourth is the family’s own quarters, where they could live comfortably and warmly when the grand staterooms of the main block were not being used for great events.

There is a satisfying symmetry, simplicity and logic to the house’s external appearance, reinforced by the pyramidal roofs over little towers on each corner of the main building. But possibly the finest architectural feature of all is when one comes through the unassuming main entrance in the north front and enters the great Stone Hall, filled with columns, to imitate a Roman basilica, made of alabaster from Derbyshire. The space overwhelms by its height (more than 50ft) and, its remarkable golden ceiling notwithstanding, by its plainness.

Holkham’s interiors are rightly

PALLADIAN GEMHolkham Hall