[79525] Calke Abbey : Gardner Wilkinson Library

Calke Abbey, Derbyshire.

The National Trust.

Grade l listed.

 

The Gardner Wilkinson Library.

Containing books and manuscripts left to Sir John Harper Crewe by Sir John Gardner Wilkinson, a well-known Egyptologist of his time.

 

Sir John Gardner Wilkinson (1797-1875) spent many years in Egypt from 1821 studying ancient monuments and transcribing the hieroglyphic inscriptions. He was a cousin of Georgiana. Lady Harpur and left Sir John Harpur his library, sketchbooks and notes.

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With peeling paintwork and overgrown courtyards, Calke Abbey tells the story of the dramatic decline of a country house estate. The house and stables are little restored, with many abandoned areas vividly portraying a period in the 20th century when numerous country houses did not survive to tell their story.

 

The site was an Augustinian priory from the 12th century until its dissolution by Henry VIII. The present building, named Calke Abbey in 1808, was never actually an abbey, but is a Baroque mansion built between 1701 and 1704.

 

The house was owned by the Harpur family for nearly 300 years until it was passed to the National Trust in 1985 in lieu of death duties. Today, the house is open to the public and many of its rooms are deliberately displayed in the state of decline in which the house was handed to the Trust.

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