When it was finished in 1588, Wollaton Hall in Nottingham was one of the finest, most unusual and most expensive stately homes ever built.
And in many ways it was only surpassed, until the likes of Chatsworth and Blenheim, by a house by the same Tudor architect, Robert Smythson. (In the late 1590s, Smythson built a sister to Wollaton, Hardwick Hall, which, because it retains its Tudor interiors, now tends to get higher billing on the historic house trail.)
Still, Sir Francis Willoughby's luxurious stone-clad home, with its heavy debt to French and Italian architectural styles, and enormous windows of leaded glass, was envied and admired by many. Landscaping and the creation of an ornamental lake in the 1740s, then later modernisations in the early 1800s by Sir Francis' descendant, Henry, Baron Middleton, only added to the prosperous air surrounding this land and coal-mine owning family.
But by 1925, Wollaton, like so many stately homes after the first world war, was an unaffordable drain on aristocratic (and soon local authority) resources. The house and park (of which around 500 acres is now in public use) was sold by the Middletons to Nottingham City Corporation that year.
In 1926, the city's natural history museum was moved to the house on the hill. In 1976, a small industrial museum was opened in part of the stable blocks as an additional attraction.
Visitors to the hall remember the incongruous spectacle of the Tudor great hall filled with massive cases crammed with dioramas and stuffed animals. One of the most famous, George the Gorilla, survives to this day in a new upstairs location.
Some of the weirdness of that earlier presentation still clings to Wollaton, partly because it is unfinished and partly because the museum has kept some of the older natural history displays alongside the new ones.
These, to the museum's credit, do try to make links between the spectacular building and its subsequent uses. Two of the museum's taxidermists who were based at Wollaton, the late Leonard Childe and Don Sharp, come in for deserved special mentions.
Fortunately for the museum, while the first Francis Willoughby was a luxury-loving spendthrift, his descendants were not.
Among them was the naturalist Francis Willoughby (1635-1672) who with fellow naturalist John Ray (1628-1705) made extensive studies of the birds of Britain and Europe. The museum makes links between him, his daughter Cassandra and the 20th-century tradition of natural research and taxidermy.
The first is a new gallery, Natural Connections, which has a film display of Cassandra talking about her and her father's love of nature. This is followed by today's scientists, amateur experts and visitors talking about the things you can learn about and find in the Nottingham collection.
The room is filled with a cabinet of curiosities-style collection of the odd, beautiful, important and grotesque. This works rather well, apart from the now almost obligatory labels about what some of them mean to someone else, then asking 'what does this mean to you?'
Somehow this display, and the other, older, natural displays don't make the most of the fact that they are in a really odd and eccentric house, and could have handled a less conventional treatment.
More successful is a 'museum of a museum' display, recreating an imaginary museum room of 1926. A curator's desk, complete with pipe, congealing cup of tea and piles of registers, records museum activities in a weekly diary.
A radio on the desk features news and songs of the era, while a Bakelite telephone by its side plays likely curatorial conversations. The plummy tones of what soon transpires to be a British Museum curator reverberate. The topic? A case load of stuffed birds offered by a collector which is 'surplus to BM requirements… We could send them to you, if you wish, but we could take them out of the cases to save carriage'.
A nice touch, and a very nice room - it also features large and small dioramas of local and exotic birds, that have been relabelled (but in period type) to explain their relevance to the natural environment of Nottingham and Wollaton. This is intriguing and seemed popular, intelligent and in keeping with the house's atmosphere.
The museum's other innovations are all around interpreting the house. Most of the £9m had to be spent on major structural renovations, both in the house and gardens, on an attractive cafe and two large banks of (theoretically) school-proof lavatories.
There is unfortunately no guidebook, and general signage and labelling are inadequate, though well written when they occur. But in-room, touchscreen interactives (covering history, characters, behind-the-scenes, and museum issues such as taxidermy and storage) are well done, easy to use and interesting.
Two rooms, a saloon and dining room from 1832 - the period of the second major renovation and an opportunity to discuss social issues such as the Peterloo massacre of 1819, the riots that came up to the gates of Wollaton, along with the aspirations of the Middleton's housekeeper - are impressionistically furnished.
Using video and audio, dustsheets and period copies (with a few original objects cased or out of reach), they conjure up the atmosphere of rich early Victorians teetering on social change, and show what can be done when period objects and interiors are absent.
The final bits in the jigsaw are the house's best-kept secrets. The 360-degree views from the Prospect room, found above the great hall and up 67 spiral steps, the roof-top Tudor snugs for after-dinner drinking, and the Elizabethan kitchens and cellars, are currently only available on a fascinating guided tour.
The kitchens and cellars are still to be refurbished, but when finished will be used for live Tudor cookery demonstrations, something worth returning for. But casual visitors must be disappointed to miss this experience (as I nearly did), with tours only happening two or three times a day, largely for health and safety reasons.
Perhaps if the next phase of the museum's fundraising drive is successful (it is clear that £9m isn't enough to stretch all the way), it will find a creative solution to bring these important aspects to life for the typical spontaneous (or like me, disorganised) visitor.
Jane Morris is an arts writer and editor
Project data
Restoration cost: £9m
Main funders: European Regional Development Fund, Heritage Lottery Fund £4.5m, DCMS Wolfson, Renaissance East Midlands
Project management: Hornagold & Hills
And in many ways it was only surpassed, until the likes of Chatsworth and Blenheim, by a house by the same Tudor architect, Robert Smythson. (In the late 1590s, Smythson built a sister to Wollaton, Hardwick Hall, which, because it retains its Tudor interiors, now tends to get higher billing on the historic house trail.)
Still, Sir Francis Willoughby's luxurious stone-clad home, with its heavy debt to French and Italian architectural styles, and enormous windows of leaded glass, was envied and admired by many. Landscaping and the creation of an ornamental lake in the 1740s, then later modernisations in the early 1800s by Sir Francis' descendant, Henry, Baron Middleton, only added to the prosperous air surrounding this land and coal-mine owning family.
But by 1925, Wollaton, like so many stately homes after the first world war, was an unaffordable drain on aristocratic (and soon local authority) resources. The house and park (of which around 500 acres is now in public use) was sold by the Middletons to Nottingham City Corporation that year.
In 1926, the city's natural history museum was moved to the house on the hill. In 1976, a small industrial museum was opened in part of the stable blocks as an additional attraction.
Visitors to the hall remember the incongruous spectacle of the Tudor great hall filled with massive cases crammed with dioramas and stuffed animals. One of the most famous, George the Gorilla, survives to this day in a new upstairs location.
Some of the weirdness of that earlier presentation still clings to Wollaton, partly because it is unfinished and partly because the museum has kept some of the older natural history displays alongside the new ones.
These, to the museum's credit, do try to make links between the spectacular building and its subsequent uses. Two of the museum's taxidermists who were based at Wollaton, the late Leonard Childe and Don Sharp, come in for deserved special mentions.
Fortunately for the museum, while the first Francis Willoughby was a luxury-loving spendthrift, his descendants were not.
Among them was the naturalist Francis Willoughby (1635-1672) who with fellow naturalist John Ray (1628-1705) made extensive studies of the birds of Britain and Europe. The museum makes links between him, his daughter Cassandra and the 20th-century tradition of natural research and taxidermy.
The first is a new gallery, Natural Connections, which has a film display of Cassandra talking about her and her father's love of nature. This is followed by today's scientists, amateur experts and visitors talking about the things you can learn about and find in the Nottingham collection.
The room is filled with a cabinet of curiosities-style collection of the odd, beautiful, important and grotesque. This works rather well, apart from the now almost obligatory labels about what some of them mean to someone else, then asking 'what does this mean to you?'
Somehow this display, and the other, older, natural displays don't make the most of the fact that they are in a really odd and eccentric house, and could have handled a less conventional treatment.
More successful is a 'museum of a museum' display, recreating an imaginary museum room of 1926. A curator's desk, complete with pipe, congealing cup of tea and piles of registers, records museum activities in a weekly diary.
A radio on the desk features news and songs of the era, while a Bakelite telephone by its side plays likely curatorial conversations. The plummy tones of what soon transpires to be a British Museum curator reverberate. The topic? A case load of stuffed birds offered by a collector which is 'surplus to BM requirements… We could send them to you, if you wish, but we could take them out of the cases to save carriage'.
A nice touch, and a very nice room - it also features large and small dioramas of local and exotic birds, that have been relabelled (but in period type) to explain their relevance to the natural environment of Nottingham and Wollaton. This is intriguing and seemed popular, intelligent and in keeping with the house's atmosphere.
The museum's other innovations are all around interpreting the house. Most of the £9m had to be spent on major structural renovations, both in the house and gardens, on an attractive cafe and two large banks of (theoretically) school-proof lavatories.
There is unfortunately no guidebook, and general signage and labelling are inadequate, though well written when they occur. But in-room, touchscreen interactives (covering history, characters, behind-the-scenes, and museum issues such as taxidermy and storage) are well done, easy to use and interesting.
Two rooms, a saloon and dining room from 1832 - the period of the second major renovation and an opportunity to discuss social issues such as the Peterloo massacre of 1819, the riots that came up to the gates of Wollaton, along with the aspirations of the Middleton's housekeeper - are impressionistically furnished.
Using video and audio, dustsheets and period copies (with a few original objects cased or out of reach), they conjure up the atmosphere of rich early Victorians teetering on social change, and show what can be done when period objects and interiors are absent.
The final bits in the jigsaw are the house's best-kept secrets. The 360-degree views from the Prospect room, found above the great hall and up 67 spiral steps, the roof-top Tudor snugs for after-dinner drinking, and the Elizabethan kitchens and cellars, are currently only available on a fascinating guided tour.
The kitchens and cellars are still to be refurbished, but when finished will be used for live Tudor cookery demonstrations, something worth returning for. But casual visitors must be disappointed to miss this experience (as I nearly did), with tours only happening two or three times a day, largely for health and safety reasons.
Perhaps if the next phase of the museum's fundraising drive is successful (it is clear that £9m isn't enough to stretch all the way), it will find a creative solution to bring these important aspects to life for the typical spontaneous (or like me, disorganised) visitor.
Jane Morris is an arts writer and editor
Project data
Restoration cost: £9m
Main funders: European Regional Development Fund, Heritage Lottery Fund £4.5m, DCMS Wolfson, Renaissance East Midlands
Project management: Hornagold & Hills
