You may or may not know that I love rot, abandonment and a general state of dereliction, whatever the style or age of the building may be. However, when there’s an aristocratic bent to the decay — well, then the bread pudding thickens. Hannah of Hello Mr. Fox recently visited Calke Abbey, a 1704 country house and estate in Derbyshire, England preserved in 20th-century decline. The story of this Baroque mansion is that of an eccentric family given to massive taxidermy collections and lots of hoarding. (Drooling. Cannot close mouth. Attempting — to — breathe.)
According to Hitchcock Blonde:
“Calke Abbey is a kind of architectural elegy to the extinction of the rural peer, a giant version of the taxidermist’s tanks that fill its rotting, forsaken rooms. A twelfth-century Augustinian priory (go figure) tucked away in Ticknall, Derbyshire, Calke was inhabited by the ambitious Harpur family from 1622 to 1980, suffering a slow and spectacular decline as its rooms fillled with a marvellous and mundane miscellany of art, fossils, shells, children’s toys, books, butterflies and birds: the fallout of fruitcakes with fulsome funds.
“Calke is a 3D map of mild psychosis, from the collections of Henry Harpur (1789), the baronet with ‘an unhealthy taste for solitude’ who married a lady’s maid, to the christening present bought by Richard Harpur Crewe (1880) for his nephew, a silver-mounted ostrich egg with decorative boars’ tusks.”
This country mansion has since been donated to the National Trust after the family died off and fell into massive debt. I’m so pleased that they’ve allowed it to stay as it was — and that there are tours! Learn more at the National Trust’s website.
[Via Hello Mr. Fox]
Argh!!! I saw this on Hello Mr Fox a while back and REALLY NEED TO GO HERE as well. I’m taking a day trip up to Derbyshire at the end of June and totally want to fit this into my schedule, look at it. LOOK AT IT!
So amazing. I want to live there.
xx
seriously amazing.
I saw a documentary on this place! Amazing! I think it was on PBS or something.
This is awesome. The stuff of fantasies. Thank you for the wonderful collection of photos.
Neat! I’d love to get lost in that place.
This is so great – English aristocracy porn. lovely fotos.
[...] mit seinen 400 Grabmälern ist also gar nicht als Ort der Verstorbenen zu verstehen, sondern als himmlischer Schlafsaal, in dem die Lebendigen über die plastische Vergegenwärtigung von in erster Linie kirchlichen [...]
Am driving thru Derbyshire in 2 weeks – and boy are we detouring to this AMAZING looking abbey. Love your blog – do you want me to post you something from there?
Oh yes, please! I’m so jealous that you’ll actually be there!