Holding What Curzon Held
An overview of Kedleston Hall, as the National Trust launch an appeal for money to restore the property which was once the home of Viscount Curzon.
A £2 million appeal has been launched by the National Trust as part of a rescue package for Kedleston Hall – safeguarding public access to what was not only Robert Adam's first complete house but also the home of Viscount Curzon, epitome of the Edwardian Raj in British India.
Curzon was the 28th Lord of Kedleston in an unbroken 850-year occupancy of the Derbyshire seat by the same family and the one reaching greatest prominence, with a political career which included being Viceroy of India (1898-1905) and British Foreign Secretary (1919-24). He grew up at Kedleston but the longevity of his father, the 4th Baron Scarsdale, meant that ambitious plans to renovate the Hall were uncompleted at Curzon's death in 1925. Perhaps that was just as well, since one of Kedleston's special features today is that little has changed since, inspired by the Grand Tour, the young Robert Adam produced his classical tour de force, with the rooms, furniture, landscape and park ornaments all of a piece in evoking the eighteenth century's image of the Roman world.
Curzon was the 28th Lord of Kedleston in an unbroken 850-year occupancy of the Derbyshire seat by the same family and the one reaching greatest prominence, with a political career which included being Viceroy of India (1898-1905) and British Foreign Secretary (1919-24). He grew up at Kedleston but the longevity of his father, the 4th Baron Scarsdale, meant that ambitious plans to renovate the Hall were uncompleted at Curzon's death in 1925. Perhaps that was just as well, since one of Kedleston's special features today is that little has changed since, inspired by the Grand Tour, the young Robert Adam produced his classical tour de force, with the rooms, furniture, landscape and park ornaments all of a piece in evoking the eighteenth century's image of the Roman world.
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