More than 2,000 large country houses were allowed to decay or fall apart, and many others were under threat for many years. But Wentworth Woodhouse, South Yorkshire’s most notable stately home, has managed to buck the trend despite a chequered history during which time it was owned by the related Wentworth, Rockingham and Fitzwilliam families. Our talk on the history of the house and its families was given by local historian Dr Julie Banham.
In 1841, they employed over 1,000 people in a multitude of roles. The house was extended by building wings out at the sides to make it the largest house in Britain. It had more fine rooms than Buckingham Palace. It was so big that over 20 architects were involved in the house building in some way of other. It was a status symbol to outdo all others, built to express power and to political clout.
Thomas Wentworth – son of Sir Thomas Wentworth, the first baronet – was the original owner, but when he died he had no male heirs so the house passed to Thomas Watson-Wentworth, who in 1728 was elevated to the peerage as Lord Malton. He was the third son of Edward Watson by his wife Anne Wentworth, only daughter of Thomas Wentworth and heiress of her childless brother William Wentworth, second Earl of Strafford.
It seemed that that Wentworths married to get money or land, or to get power by political positions. Thomas Watson-Wentworth commissioned an architect to build him a new East Front extension, making a new and larger house facing south-east. The West Front is the private facade that looked out on to a walled kitchen garden intended for the family’s enjoyment. Later the house was inherited by Charles Watson-Wentworth, who had become the second Marquess of Rockingham, a British Whig statesman most notable for his two terms as Prime Minister (in 1765 and 1782).
He too had married into money, and he could well afford to extend Wentworth Woodhouse further, adding extra storeys to parts of the East Front and 25 Palladian rooms, which were considered the best in the country (Buckingham Palace had only 20!). The house passed to the family of the Marquess’s sister, and specifically to the Earl Fitzwilliam. William Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, the fourth Earl, extended the house by making the wings from two storeys to three, as well as altering the towers at the ends of the wings. He also added a grand staircase and new marble floors.
In the Second World War the house was used as used by the army as a Training Depot and Headquarters of the Intelligence Corps. Later, the government of the day declared that private properties should be used for the benefit of the nation, so parts of the gardens were mined for coal, and from 1949 onwards the house was used by the Lady Mable College of Physical Education and later by Sheffield Polytechnic.