Trentham Park, Staffordshire

Trentham Hall is shown here as it would have looked after it had been extensively renovated by Sir Charles Barry, the architect of the Houses of Parliament. Commissioned by George Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, the 2nd Duke of Sutherland, he redesigned the building and made substantial alterations and modernizations to the 18th Century Italianate villa which had previously stood on the site. These included the addition of the distinctive clock tower, a sculpture gallery and the rebuilding of the church of St Mary and All Saints. The house overlooks a large lake, visible in this picture, which was enlarged by Capability Brown between 1759 & 1780 as part of a larger garden design in the English landscape tradition which he was so instrumental in popularizing. The house and estate were greatly affected by the deliberate pollution of the River Trent and the expanding Potteries and the Duke of Sutherland and his family had ceased to live there by the mid 1870s. The house was offered to the County Council as a gift by the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland in 1905 but this was declined. The house, and its remaining contents, were eventually sold for the recovery of materials and it was demolished in 1911.