Brodsworth's Beetle Drive
English Heritage's attempts to save this Victorian Country House
Infestations of fur beetle, carpet beetle, moth and woodworm are among the creepy-crawlies English Heritage have had to tackle in a major effort to save an unusual Victorian country house from literally being eaten alive. Brodsworth Hall, near Doncaster, South Yorkshire, opens on July 6th, after four years of intensive conservation work at a cost of £3.9 million.
Looking like an Italian town palace from the outside, the two-storey limestone hall was built in the 1860s as a country retreat by Captain Charles Sabine Thellusson, a wealthy banker of French descent whose family had owned the Brodsworth estate since 1790. An eighteenth-century house was demolished to make way for the new hall which, reflecting Thellusson's European tastes (he was born in Florence), was based on the designs of an Italian Chevalier Casentini, but carried out by London architect Philip Wilkinson.
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