Aaron Manning

For a proper study of this exquisite room and its designer, Anne Greville, you have to check out
Dr Adam Busiakiewicz's magnificent PhD thesis: wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/17...

Here, possibly, is Anne Greville's self-portrait, a watercolour of her in the brand new Library, c1880

Finally George Greville, the Victorian earl who oversaw the final restoration of the majestic apartments, including the Library...

…though this is sheer modesty on behalf of his wife: it was Anne Greville who was fundamental in the restoration, painting, and decorating!

Robert Greville, the Restoration owner who transformed the castle's interiors into a grand stately home in the 1670s; the floor plan depicting his great enfilade through the house.

Then the momentous fire in 1871, that destroyed much of his work.

But my eyes can't help but be drawn to the decorative columns around the bookcases, which depict a pictorial architectural history of Warwick Castle:

Thomas Beauchamp the elder, the 'Devil Warwick' who commissioned the mighty towers and ramparts of the castle in the 1350/60s...

An embossed soffitto ceiling crowns the painted panelled walls; the friezes contain painted plates with messages from the Seven Sages of Greece - Cleobulus's 'Moderation is Best' and Bias of Priene's 'Whatever Good Fortune Befalls You, Attribute It To The Gods' among them.

There's no question one of my favourite rooms at
@WarwickCastle
is the Library...

Designed by Victorian architect George Edward Fox, with the helping hand of Anne, countess of Warwick, the Library is infused with the spirit and swagger of the Italian Renaissance.

🧵

It also changes our knowledge of the Castle’s history. The Dudley period is known as a period of ruin and neglect, deliberately left to rot by the Dudleys to emphasise its antiquity.

This plasterwork, found in the old medieval Solar, suggests it may been renovated with the latest 16th designs.

Ambrose was known for commissioning a temporary timber lodging at the castle in 1571-2 for a state visit of Elizabeth I, could it belong to the same period of work?

If true, as far as I’m aware this may be the only surviving architectural work commissioned by Ambrose Dudley…

Then there are symbols either side. They are thought to be either Masonic or guild marks, but take a step back and they look like a decorative A and W.

Tantalising thought - the owner of Warwick Castle between 1562-90 was Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick.

The plasterwork clearly shows the moulding of a Ragged Staff, a Warwick emblem not used by the castle owners between 1590-1668. The use of the staff hints it be older than that…

The current ceiling was installed between 1668-72, suggesting the plasterwork revealed underneath must be older.

Initial thoughts were it must have belonged to renovations made between 1605-15, but there’s a problem with this theory…

A NEW TUDOR DISCOVERY?

Last week I was invited to Warwick Castle to consult on a recent discovery made during conservation work.

Conservation specialists made the find while repairing a plaster ceiling in the Cedar Drawing Room.

Here’s what they found…

Image credits:

[1] The Coronation Portrait, c1600, copy of original, NPG

[2] State Dining Room, Warwick Castle, c1869

[3] The Visit of Queen Victoria in 1858, London Illustrated News

[4] Musgrave’s Catalogue of Picktures, 1762, British Library

The portrait was eventually sold by the Earls of Warwick in 1978.

Lord Brooke, the earls son, had attempted to take the portrait out of the UK to his Parisian flat. When refused export, he attempted to sell to the US. The NPG raised funds to buy and save it for the nation.

In 1815, in the castle’s first official guidebook, the painting was in the Red Dressing Room, as

“A curious portrait of Queen Elizabeth, by her goldsmith Guillim Stretes…the Queen was violent and haughty, yet of great presence of mind”

Beside her was a portrait of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester.

Probably first recorded in a Catalogue of Picktures in 1762, in a ‘Little Room’ beside portraits of her mother Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII, by the mid nineteenth century the Coronation portrait was displayed in the State Dining Room for the State Visit of Queen Victoria, over the Kenilworth Buffet….

On 15 January 1559 Elizabeth I was crowned Queen in Westminster Abbey, the iconic moment of the Queen holding the orb and sceptre of State captured in this ‘Coronation’ portrait.

BUT for most of this famous portrait’s history, it hung hundreds of miles away at Warwick Castle….

Short 🧵

DON’T FORGET to switch on to BBC One at 11.45 to see the stunning St Mary’s Church Warwick, resting place of the House of Warwick and the iconic Beauchamp Chapel, host midnight mass!

For all the noise around this discoveries links to the Princes in the Tower, I have to say this just goes to show that noble and gentry accounts/wills are infinitely more interesting than royal archives! So many questions and stories to be found there.

PS Anne Neville killed the Princes anyway, so…

📍Chatsworth House

TOO many good history books this year, that DIY library is getting very full, very fast! Can’t wait to see what’s on offer in 2025….

The ‘Coronation Portrait’ of Elizabeth I in the Great Hall at Warwick Castle.

First recorded at Warwick in 1762, though probably there much longer, it survived a devastating fire in 1871 and was reframed into its current ‘Sansovino’ style frame.

The portrait was sold to the NPG in 1978.

🎄 at Hampton Court incoming….

Last of the ancient Arden outside Warwick…

“The nurse-life wheat, within his green husk growing,
Flatters our hope and tickles our desire,
Nature's true riches in sweet beauties showing,
Which set all hearts with lobor's love on fire.”

Sir Fulke Greville, Caelica

It’s going to be nice to actually see and speak to history nerds and cool people for a while until He comes to destroy it all over again…