Blagdon Hall () is a privately owned

English country house image:Blenheim - Blenheim Palace - 20210417125239.jpg, 300px, Blenheim Palace - Oxfordshire An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a Townhou ...

near

Cramlington Cramlington is a town and civil parish in Northumberland. It is north of Newcastle upon Tyne. The name suggests a probable founding by the Danes or Anglo-Saxons. The population was 28,843 as of 2021 census data from Northumberland County Cou ...

Northumberland Northumberland ( ) is a ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North East England, on the Anglo-Scottish border, border with Scotland. It is bordered by the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, Cumb ...

. It is a

Grade I listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

. The house and estate have been in the ownership of the White Ridley family since 1698. The present

Viscount Ridley Viscount Ridley is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1900 for the Conservative politician Sir Matthew White Ridley, 5th Baronet, Home Secretary from 1895 to 1900. He was made Baron Wensleydale, of Blagdon and Bly ...

is the science writer and hereditary peer

Matt Ridley Matthew White Ridley, 5th Viscount Ridley (born 7 February 1958), is a British science writer, journalist and businessman. He is known for his writings on science, the environment, and economics, and has been a regular contributor to ''The Tim ...

. The house was built in two phases between about 1720 and 1752 by Matthew White and his son Sir Matthew White, 1st Baronet, whose sister Elizabeth married Matthew Ridley (1711–1778), four times Mayor of Newcastle upon Tyne. His son Matthew White Ridley inherited the estate and succeeded his uncle as second baronet. Blagdon Hall was substantially enlarged in the nineteenth century to designs by the architects John Dobson and

Ignatius Bonomi Ignatius Bonomi (1787–1870) was an English architect and surveyor, with Italian origins by his father, strongly associated with Durham in north-east England. Life He was the son of an architect and draughtsman, Joseph Bonomi (1739&ndash ...

. Some of these additions were removed following a fire in 1944. The gardens were extensively remodelled in the 1930s by

Sir Edwin Lutyens Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens ( ; 29 March 1869 – 1 January 1944) was an English architect known for imaginatively adapting traditional architectural styles to the requirements of his era. He designed many English country houses, war memorials ...

, whose daughter Ursula was married to The 3rd Viscount Ridley. The stable block designed by

James Wyatt James Wyatt (3 August 1746 – 4 September 1813) was an English architect, a rival of Robert Adam in the Neoclassicism, neoclassical and neo-Gothic styles. He was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts in 1785 and was its president from 1805 to ...

Palladian style Palladian architecture is a European architectural style derived from the work of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580). What is today recognised as Palladian architecture evolved from his concepts of symmetry, perspective and ...

in 1791 is

Grade II* listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

and a 19th-century folly in the grounds is

Grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

. The gardens also contain the only surviving bronze of

John Graham Lough John Graham Lough (8 January 1798 – 8 April 1876) was an English sculptor known for his funerary monuments and a variety of portrait sculpture. He also produced ideal classical male and female figures. Life John Graham Lough was born at Bl ...

's gigantic statue of

Milo of Croton Milo or Milon of Croton () was a famous Ancient Greece, ancient Greek athlete from Crotone, Croton, which is today in the Magna Graecia region of southern Italy. Milo was a six-time winner at the Ancient Olympic Games, Olympics, once for boys' w ...

On the estate is Shotton Surface Mine, a large open cast

coal mine Coal mining is the process of resource extraction, extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its Energy value of coal, energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to Electricity generation, generate electr ...

and ''

Northumberlandia ''Northumberlandia'' (the "Lady of the North") is a huge land art sculpture in the shape of a reclining female figure, which was completed in 2012, near Cramlington, Northumberland, northern England. It is in the care of Northumberland Wildlife ...

'' (the "Lady of the North"), a huge land sculpture in the shape of a reclining female figure made from mining waste. The

Royal Agricultural Society of England The Royal Agricultural Society of England (RASE) promotes the scientific development of English agriculture. It was established in 1838 with the motto "Practice with Science" and was known as the English Agricultural Society until it received i ...

awarded the Bledisloe Gold Medal in 2015 to Ridley as they "wanted to highlight the extensive environmental improvement work that has been undertaken across the land".

References

External links

* {{coord, 55, 5, 14.47, N, 1, 39, 50.23, W, display=title Grade I listed buildings in Northumberland Grade I listed houses Country houses in Northumberland Gardens in Northumberland Works of Edwin Lutyens in England Ridley family