Broadlands

Broadlands.
Photo by Derry Moore for Architectural Digest.

Broadlands is a handsome house in Hampshire near Romsey that is best known as the residence of the late Earl and Countess Mountbatten of Burma.  But it also earned a footnote as the early destination of two royal honeymoons:  Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip in 1947, and the Prince and Princess of Wales in 1981.  However, Devoted Readers will know it as once the location of a particularly lovely set of panels painted by Rex Whistler;  the previous post of The Devoted Classicist about these panels may be read here.


Broadlands, Hampshire.
Photo by Derry Moore for Architectural Digest.

Before the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII, the original manor belonged to Romsey Abbey, pre-dating the Norman Conquest of the 11th century.  In 1547, Broadlands was sold to Sir Francis Fleming whose daughter married into the St. Barbe family, who lived on the manor for the next 117 years.  Henry Temple, 1st Viscount Palmerston, bought Broadlands in 1736 and started, with the advice of William Kent, to deformalize the gardens from the house to the river.  Kent changed the course of the river Test to sweep towards the house and created a slight slope down to the river, the broad-lands. Lancelot "Capability" Brown, the famed architect and landscape designer, was brought in to refine the transformation in 1767, and his vision of making the Tudor and Jacobean manor house into a symmetrical, creamy brick Palladian mansion was completed by architect Henry Holland.


The river Test with farmlands beyond.
The first settlements in this valley date from
the fifth century when Saxons sailed up the river.
Photo by Derry Moore for Architectural Digest.

Edwina Mountbatten (who was briefly profiled in the earlier post for commissioning the Whistler decoration) inherited Broadlands in 1939, during World War II, and the house was adapted for use as a hospital.  After returning from India where Lord Louis Mountbatten was the last viceroy, then governor general, the house was refurbished.  The twenty-seven room Victorian "bachelor wing" was pulled down and the Georgian architecture and décor was highlighted.  Entertaining resumed with lavish weekend house parties attended by high-society guests, much like the grand style of the 1930s, with only small concessions to a reduction of staff.  The Mountbattens had two daughters, Patricia and Pamela, who married famed decorator David Hicks.  (Patricia and Pamela, by the way, are first cousins to the husband of Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh).

Lord Louis Mountbatten, 79, was assassinated in 1979 when the Irish Republican Army blew up his boat in Donegal Bay, Ireland.  Also killed were a young boatsman, Mountbatten's 14 year old grandson Nicholas and the boy's grandmother, Dowager Lady Brabourne.  Patricia Mountbatten Knatchbull succeeded as The Countess Mountbatten of Burma, and her son who inherited Broadlands, was known with his wife as Lord and Lady Romsey, a courtesy title;  after the 2005 death of Patricia's husband, the Romseys took the subsidiary title of Lord and Lady Brabourne.


The Romseys at Broadlands, circa 1983.
Photo via Daily Mail.

David Hicks was glad to be asked to help with the house's decoration when it was inherited by his wife's nephew.  In an April, 1983, article in Architectural Digest, Hicks says, "I've been longing to get my hands on those rooms for twenty-two years."  These photos show the Hicks arrangements of the rooms at that time.  "Pale colors," Hicks said, "are what Lady Romsey wanted, and what better for a pretty blonde in an eighteenth-century house?"

The ornamented plaster paneling in the Saloon by Joseph Rose dates from 1767, during Lord Palmerston's residency.  Adamesque gilt sofas and chairs of the same period are grouped around the fireplace and an Aubusson rug on strips of neutral velvet-pile carpeting sized to the room.  Bookcases now house Lord Mountbatten's collection of Sevres and Meissen that had been arranged by his brother-in-law, King Gustav of Sweden, a porcelain expert.


The Drawing Room at Broadlands, circa 1983.
Photo by Derry Moore for Architectural Digest.

Palmerston family portraits flank the fireplace in the Drawing Room.  Note the placement of picture lights and the table-top lamps for the lower paintings.  It is a tradition for pots of azaleas to decorate the room each spring.


The Dining Room at Broadlands, circa 1983.
Photo by Derry Moore for Architectural Digest.

David Hicks chose a vibrant yellow for the walls of the Dining Room to compliment four portraits by van Dyck.  This room shows the influence of Hicks the most, with the blue and yellow carpet of classical motifs and the set of ten armchairs at the table.  The bulk of the silver collection shown here consists of pieces given to the Mountbattens as gifts during their stay in India.


The Wedgwood Room at Broadlands, circa 1983.
Photo by Derry Moore for Architectural Digest.

Afternoon tea is served in the Wedgwood Room with a suite of Empire seating pulled up to a round table in front of the fireplace.  Sir Peter Lely painted the portraits of Barbara Villiers and Lady Annabella Howe.  Henry Holland the Younger designed the room in 1788.


The Portico Room at Broadlands, circa 1983.
Photo by Derry Moore for Architectural Digest.

The Bedroom known as the Portico Room uses chintz that had been ordered in 1854 for the royal yacht, the first named the Victoria and Albert (later renamed the Osborne).  Broadlands is open to the public late June to early September;  see the Broadland Estates website here.


Lord Braburne, right, with his son Nicholas, 2012.
Photo via Daily Mail.

Lord Braburne left Broadlands for the Bahamas in 2010, leaving his wife Penny for his mistress, according to the British tabloids.  He now lives in the Belgravia section of London, according to reports.  After a period of addiction to crack cocaine and heroin, son Nicholas (named for his uncle killed by the IRA) is now clean according to the Daily Mail, and on track to eventually become the Earl Mountbatten, inheriting Broadlands and the associated fortune.