Sezincote House (pronounced ''seas in coat'') is the centre of a country estate in the civil parish of Sezincote, in the county of

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

, England. The house was designed by Samuel Pepys Cockerell, built in 1805, and is a notable example of Neo-Mughal architecture, a 19th-century reinterpretation of 16th and 17th-century architecture from the

Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the ...

. At the time of its construction,

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

was becoming the "jewel in the crown" of the world's largest empire. According to

Shashi Tharoor Shashi Tharoor (; ; born 9 March 1956 in London, England ) is an Indian former international civil servant, diplomat, bureaucrat and politician, writer and public intellectual who has been serving as Member of Parliament for Thiruvananthapuram, ...

, the palace is an 'incongruous monument to the opulence of the nabobs' loot', referring to the construction of the palace using the wealth acquired by the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Sout ...

's loot and plunder in

Bengal Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...

. Sezincote is dominated by its red sandstone colour, typical in Mughal architecture, but features a copper-covered dome instead of the typical

white marble Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite. Marble is typically not foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the term ''marble'' refers to metamorphosed ...

. The fenestration is composed of a sequence of extra-large windows with an arch-shape at the top. The arch, however, is not a simple or typical design, but instead a shell-like fan that is evidence of the Mughal influence. The interior design is more typical European style. The landscape was designed by

Humphry Repton Humphry Repton (21 April 1752 – 24 March 1818) was the last great English landscape designer of the eighteenth century, often regarded as the successor to Capability Brown; he also sowed the seeds of the more intricate and eclectic styles of ...

. It is essentially a renaissance-style garden with elements of Hindu style, as seen in the crescent bridge with columns.

Site and commission

The house is in countryside from

Moreton-in-Marsh Moreton-in-Marsh is a market town in the Evenlode Valley, within the Cotswolds district and Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in Gloucestershire, England. The town stands at the crossroads of the Fosse Way Roman road (now the A429) and the ...

, "set on high ground in the shelter of the

Cotswolds The Cotswolds (, ) is a region in central-southwest England, along a range of rolling hills that rise from the meadows of the upper Thames to an escarpment above the Severn Valley and Evesham Vale. The area is defined by the bedrock of Ju ...

". Colonel John Cockerell bought the estate in 1795 on his return from

where he had been in the service of the

(EIC). After his death in 1798, his youngest brother, Sir Charles Cockerell, inherited the property who then "employed another brother, Samuel Pepys Cockerell, to build him a house in the Indian manner." 2016 Sezincote 2

Samuel Pepys Cockerell had worked as a surveyor for the EIC and as an apprentice to

Sir Robert Taylor Sir Robert Taylor (1714–1788) was an English architect and sculptor who worked in London and the south of England. Early life Born at Woodford, Essex, Taylor followed in his father's footsteps and started working as a stonemason and sculptor ...

, where John Nash was also apprenticed. In spite of his tenure as Surveyor to the East India Company, Cockerell never travelled to

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

; his encounters with Mughal architecture, a building style that flourished in India in the 16th century, were strictly through the medium of drawings and engravings, such as those by Thomas Daniell (who designed the garden for his "old Indian ally" Sir Charles Cockerell and its temple, bridge, dairy and farm buildings) and his nephews. Cockerell had already experimented cautiously with Indian elements at Daylesford, Gloucestershire, built for

Warren Hastings Warren Hastings (6 December 1732 – 22 August 1818) was a British colonial administrator, who served as the first Governor of the Presidency of Fort William (Bengal), the head of the Supreme Council of Bengal, and so the first Governor-Genera ...

, first governor-general of British India, nearby. Here the style is characterized by a striking revival of Islamic architecture in northern India, where Persian, Indian and various provincial styles were fused to produce works of great refinement. Favoured materials included white marble and red sandstone. A notable example is the

Taj Mahal The Taj Mahal (; ) is an Islamic ivory-white marble mausoleum on the right bank of the river Yamuna in the Indian city of Agra. It was commissioned in 1631 by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan () to house the tomb of his favourite wife, Mu ...

, completed in 1648 by the Emperor

Shah Jahan Shihab-ud-Din Muhammad Khurram (5 January 1592 – 22 January 1666), better known by his regnal name Shah Jahan I (; ), was the fifth emperor of the Mughal Empire, reigning from January 1628 until July 1658. Under his emperorship, the Mugh ...

Architecture

The architecture of the estate can be described as a British re-interpretation in Georgian architecture of classic Mughal forms. Emperor

Akbar Abu'l-Fath Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar (25 October 1542 – 27 October 1605), popularly known as Akbar the Great ( fa, ), and also as Akbar I (), was the third Mughal emperor, who reigned from 1556 to 1605. Akbar succeeded his father, H ...

, who ruled the empire from 1556 to 1605, "deliberately mixed Islamic and Hindu elements in architecture in an effort to culturally integrate" his kingdom. It has a green onion shaped dome, umbrella-shaped and overhanging , Mughal gardens, serpent fountains, a Surya temples, Shiva lingams and has Nandi bulls guarding the estate.

Construction

The house is made of stone, taken from a nearby quarry and may have been artificially stained. Traditional Mughal construction materials would include red sandstone and white marble. Sezincote uses copper, however, on the dome. It is a

Grade I listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Ire ...

Sources

*''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'': Thomas Daniell (1749–1840)

References

External links

*
Sezincote
(official site)
Sezincote entry from The DiCamillo Companion to British & Irish Country Houses
{{coord, 51.9775, -1.7512, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Country houses in Gloucestershire Gardens in Gloucestershire Grade I listed houses in Gloucestershire Historic house museums in Gloucestershire Houses completed in 1805 Mughal architecture 1805 establishments in England Cotswold District