I spent the day at Clandon, an extraordinary and massive conservation project.

I don’t think I had registered the full extent of the damage: that so little was left apart from the exterior shell, with its amazingly beautiful brickwork left intact.

The major thing about Clandon was the Marble Hall which filled the central volume of the house, two storeys high.  It has all gone, apart from the two great chimneypieces north and south by Rysbrack (signed).  Of the great ceiling, presumed to be by Artari and Bagutti still, nothing apart from melancholy fragments survive.

Here is the exterior shell from the west, covered in scaffolding:-

We entered from the east via what was the Saloon, with what’s left of a grand chimneypiece:-

Into the Marble Hall:-

Houghton is the only equivalent in terms of grand classicism.

The only plasterwork to survive is the ceiling of the Speaker’s Parlour:-

It is planned to re-open in 2029.  The chimneypots were piled outside, waiting to be reinstated:-