Cragside

Wednesday June 19th

Today we decided to visit Cragside, a place I have long wanted to see. It was only about an hour’s drive from our overnight hotel, so this seemed a good opportunity.

Cragside is a Victorian country house in Northumberland. It was the home of William Armstrong, 1st Baron Armstrong, founder of the Armstrong Whitworth armaments firm. An industrial magnate, scientist, philanthropist and inventor of the hydraulic crane and the Armstrong gun, Armstrong also displayed his inventiveness in the domestic sphere, making Cragside the first house in the world to be lit using hydroelectric power. 

The original building was just a small shooting lodge which Armstrong had built in 1862. In 1869, he employed the architect Richard Norman Shaw to enlarge it, and in two phases of work between 1869 and 1882, they transformed the house into ‘a northern Neuschwanstein.’ 

This is it, as seen from the garden. Fortunately, the early morning rain had more or less gone off by the time we arrived, so we were able to see the grounds before going into the house.

Cragside is named after Cragend Hill above the house, The location for the house has been  described as ‘a lunatic site’ and even ‘Wagnerian’. The ledge on which it stands is narrow, and space for the repeated expansions of the house could only be found by dynamiting the rock face behind, or by building upwards. Both Armstrong and his wife were anxious to landscape the grounds and wanted to make a Himalayan garden, so rhododendrons  were planted, a whole hillside of them. 

You can probably appreciate the steepness of the site from this photo. As part of the landscaping, many trees were also planted, in fact it is said that they planted seven million trees and shrubs. 

Because the hillside is so steep, it was quite difficult to design a formal garden. There is one, but it is at some considerable distance from the house, necessitating a long walk down the hill, crossing an iron bridge designed by Armstrong, then climbing another long hillside up several flights of rocky steps. The formal garden is also on a hillside, so it is terraced and the views are wonderful.


Another part of the landscaping was the design and construction of the rockery, just below the house, so a long walk back from the formal garden. It is apparently the largest rockery in Europe. It is built up the very steep hillside - a lot steeper than it looks in my photograph below.



This is only one very small part of the steep path up through the rockery, and we were both somewhat exhausted by the time we reached the top!

Also in the grounds, Armstrong built dams and lakes to power a sawmill and a water-powered laundry as well as the electric lighting for the house.

This is one of the dams, and you can see that it has been landscaped so that it is not only useful but also beautiful. We were told that it was Lady Margaret Armstrong who was largely responsible for designing the landscaping, and at one time she employed 800 gardeners. 

After climbing all over the hillsides while the sun was actually shining, we decided it was time we saw inside the house.

Cragside is usually quoted as an example of Shaw's Tudor Revival style, though it is also often criticised as lacking in overall coherence.

I think this photograph illustrates both of these points.

Inside, the house shows the influence of the Arts and Crafts movement, and you can see the many William Morris wallpapers and stained glass windows. The halls are lined with Morris patterned tiles below the dado rail. 


Armstrong was a prolific inventor, so as well as the electricity to light the house, there were other inventions on display, especially in the kitchen. Here, he installed early versions of a dishwasher and a dumbwaiter, a hydraulic lift and a spit or rotisserie powered by water via a mechanism called a Barker’s Mill Turbine. This is the kitchen.

The only one of the inventions to be seen in this photo is the spit, I’m afraid. But you can see there was a lot of cooking going on in the kitchen, though we weren’t invited to eat anything, unfortunately. 

The most stunning room in the house was the Gallery, which the Armstrongs used to display their considerable collection of paintings and sculpture. 


Unfortunately, many of the paintings had to be sold to cover the debts of Armstrong’s son after Armstrong’s death, but there is a painting by Turner left.

Reached through the Gallery is the Drawing room, which is dominated by a two storey inglenook fireplace.



This is made of Italian marble and weighs 10 tons, so huge and heavy that it had to be built into the hillside to support it. It was carved in London and sent up to Northumberland in pieces, to be assembled there like a jigsaw.

Many important and society figures stayed at Cragside. In 1884, the Armstrongs received their grandest guests, the Prince and Princess of Wales, the future Edward 7th and Queen Alexandra. They chose to stay there, though royalty do not generally stay in the home of a commoner, because of the many inventions Armstrong had installed, so they probably enjoyed more comforts there than in any royal palace. 

The Owl suite was where they stayed.

This was called the Owl Suite because of the carved owls on top of the bedposts. I’m afraid they don’t show up all that well in my photo. The bedroom also had fitted cupboards and built in plumbing with hot and cold running water, otherwise unheard of at that date. You can’t see the bath in my photo, but it’s in the bright alcove you can see opposite the bed, between the two bedposts.

After spending some considerable time in the house, we took a ride in the mini-bus part of the way down the Carriage Drive. The bus didn’t go round the entire circuit, it’s 6 miles, but we got a flavour of it. Just imagine the size of an estate that means you can have a 6 mile carriage circuit in i! 

After that, and time for some refreshment, we went back to the car and set out on our two and a half hour journey to Edinburgh.