Cragside

Cragside from the footbridge, designed by Richard Norman Shaw between 1869 and 1895

Kitchen

Cragside featured in my Open University Arts Foundation course in 1996, and finally I get to see it! It was built (incrementally) for Lord Armstrong (1810-1900) – scientist, inventor, industrialist, arms manufacturer, philanthropist – and was the first house to be lit by hydroelectric power. Even today an Archimedes screw below the house powers a couple of table lamps in the library. All mod cons, of course – the cooking spit and dumb waiter in the kitchen run on hydraulic power.

Inside, the house is stuffed with decoration. In the dining-room inglenook there are two stained glass William Morris windows from 1873 depicting the four seasons; the library has a large bay window with the upper panes designed by Burne-Jones, Rossetti, Philip Webb and Ford Madox Brown.

St George and the Dragon pane in the library

The rather hideous pièce de résistance is in the drawing room (one of the later additions): it has another inglenook, but this time made of of ten tons of marble to a design by W R Lethaby. It’s so heavy that it actually requires the rock outside (it is built on a crag after all) to rest on.

Lord Armstrong also had a picture gallery; he seems to have favoured faithful-unto-death dog pictures. (I’m sure he would have bought Bubbles if Lord Lever hadn’t got there first.) Very extensive grounds and wonderful views, but I felt slightly disappointed. That probably had more to do with the crowds of people (of whom I was one) everywhere.