Volume 1 was filmed at Wilton House in Wiltshire.
Open to the public, this stately home has been the ancestral home of the Earls of Pembroke for over 450 years. With a fascinating architectural as well as family history, Wilton House is an attractive setting for one of the country's oldest and finest art collections. This first programme introduces the huge, dynastic, group portrait of the 4th Earl of Pembroke and his family by Sir Anthony van Dyck, a winter landscape - The Bird Trap by Pieter Brueghel the Younger and a thought provoking bust of Florence Nightingale by Sir John Steell.
"There are so many great works in Britain easy for you to visit and today we're in Wiltshire." Wilton House is situated about three miles from the centre of the cathedral city of Salisbury and about ten miles from the ancient monument of Stonehenge.
Volume 2 was filmed at Castle Howard in Yorkshire.
Castle Howard is famous for its architecture and its extensive art collection, which has a great deal reflecting the travels and collecting of successive Earls of Carlisle on the 'Grand Tour'. This second programme introduces an imposing portrait of Henry VIII by Hans Holbein the Younger, three capriccios by Giovanni Paolo Pannini, illustrating the world of the eighteenth century Grand Tourist and an embroidered screen designed by William Morris, in stark contrast to the industrialisation of Victorian Britain. Open to the public, Castle Howard has been home to the Howard family ever since it was built at the beginning of the eighteenth century.
© Village Times Ltd. 2003
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