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Read the text about Britain’s largest private home. Number the topics (A–E) in ...
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Read the text about Britain’s largest private home. Number the topics (A–E) in the order they are mentioned.
A History of Transformation: Wentworth Woodhouse Despite being the largest private residence in the UK, many are unaware of the existence of Wentworth Woodhouse, situated in the village of Wentworth in South Yorkshire. Nevertheless, it has been visited by presidents, kings and queens, and has featured in films and TV series, including ‘Downton Abbey’. At 600 feet long, the eastern façade, or front, of the house is twice as long as that of Buckingham Palace. There are so many rooms and corridors that it would take a visitor several hours to complete a tour of the entire house. It has been modernised several times in its nearly five-hundred-year history, and it is currently undergoing another transformation expected to last twenty years. The house takes its name from two families which owned the surrounding land in the 1300s. A marriage between the Wentworth and Woodhouse families resulted in the founding of the Wentworth Woodhouse estate. At that point, a far smaller property occupied the space where woodland had once been. It remained unchanged for three hundred years. It was in the 17th century, when the family had acquired more wealth and power, that Wentworth Woodhouse was built. Although it was nowhere near as big as the current construction, the house was still large enough to accommodate more than sixty people. Unfortunately, there are no surviving illustrations of the property, but some of the original features can still be appreciated, including gates and doorways. In 1724, the house was inherited by Thomas Watson-Wentworth and was completely reconstructed. Architectural tastes had changed since the construction of the original house, which explains Watson-Wentworth’s decision to modernise it. The project would take twenty-five years and the equivalent of millions of pounds in today’s money. At first, building work started on the west-facing side of the house, but the architectural style was disliked by people with political power. Shortly afterwards, work began on the east-facing side, using a completely different style influenced by Greek and Roman architecture. It featured marble columns and pillars and a huge ballroom used for entertaining guests. While this side of the house was used for receiving the rich and powerful, the west-facing side was where the family would have spent most of their time. In the 1780s, Wentworth Woodhouse was inherited by a member of the Fitzwilliam family, which owned it until the 1980s. The family had made a lot of money from coal mining and the discovery of coal on the Wentworth Woodhouse estate added to their wealth. However, in the late 1940s, the British government decided to take control of coal-mining operations across the country. This included the area around the estate and, rather unbelievably, the decision was taken to expand the open coal mine to the edges of the house. Despite the historical and architectural importance of the building, the private gardens were demolished and huge piles of mud and coal waste blocked light to the property. Apart from the damage, the family also experienced a loss of income as they no longer earned money from mining. A house the size of Wentworth Woodhouse was extremely expensive to maintain, especially without the income from mining. During the 1980s, parts of the estate were refurbished for use by a university, which helped cover some of the costs of maintenance. Nevertheless, by the time the university stopped using the estate in 1989, Wentworth Woodhouse was already beginning to fall apart. Anyone visiting the house at that time would have seen leaking roofs and peeling paint on the walls. Although various private investors bought the property with the intention of restoring it, little work had been carried out until 2016 when it was bought by Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust. The aim of the group is to protect and restore the estate and, with the help of government money, the public will be able to enjoy this remarkable British house.