Dorset Magazine - Dorset’s Treasured House
Dorset Magazine published my six-page feature in the August 2022 edition of the magazine. 2022 marks the 40th anniversary of Ralph Bankes’ extraordinary gift of his estate to the National Trust. Part of that gift was Kingston Lacy, near Wimborne. This feature explores the history of the house and answers questions such as: Why is there an Egyptian obelisk in the Dorset countryside? What prompted Ralph Bankes to leave such a generous bequest to the nation? What does it take to care for the house and its impressive art collections?
Photo: Rachel Henson
The 40th Anniversary of the Bankes Estate and the National Trust
Kingston Lacy, Corfe Castle, Studland and Badbury Rings. These are familiar place names to those of us who love to get out and about in Dorset, but they have something else in common. They were all once part of the Bankes Estate, passed down through generations of the Bankes family.
Henry John Ralph Bankes, known as Ralph, inherited the estate when he was only two years old, and became the largest private landowner in Dorset. He was a country squire who kept himself to himself in his later years until he passed away in 1981. Wanting his land and properties to be looked after for years to come, he gave them to the nation and, in 1982, the National Trust took on the challenge of preserving his estate for future generations to enjoy.
The Greatest Gift
Ralph Bankes’ gift was extraordinary. It was the largest bequest ever left to the National Trust, and included antiques, art collections and 16,000 acres of land. He also left the Bankes Estate archives of legal documents, personal letters and diaries, that are now housed at the Dorset History Centre.
Many of us know and love these places, and Kingston Lacy, Ralph Bankes’ family home, now receives over 350,000 visitors a year. Kingston Lacy house was designed by Sir Roger Pratt in 1663 to resemble a Venetian palace, with layers of character added by successive generations of Bankes family residents.
Kingston Lacy became the family’s home after their previous residence, Corfe Castle, was destroyed during the Civil War. During the siege of the castle, Lady Mary Bankes stoically defended her home while her husband was away fighting elsewhere. The Parliamentarians were so impressed that before they destroyed the castle, they allowed her to walk out unharmed. She took the keys to the castle with her, and although the doors they once belonged to no longer exist they now hang poignantly above the fireplace in the Kingston Lacy library.
Today, you can discover glimmers of the personalities of individual members of the Bankes family through the marks they left at Kingston Lacy. The Edwardian drawing room would have been a fine place to sit and entertain, with its lavish pink silk walls chosen by Ralph’s mother, Henrietta Bankes. The State Bedroom, Ralph Bankes’ bedroom, is slightly more subtle, despite the amazing carved walnut and holly wood bed. But credit for much of the house’s character lies with William John Bankes, Ralph’s great uncle.
Great Uncle William
William John Bankes was the driving creative force behind the Kingston Lacy we see today. He was a man with many interests and a respected explorer but fled abroad after being caught in a relationship with a man. At the time, this was a criminal offence punishable by execution. Unable to return to Dorset, he continued to send artworks home to his sister from overseas, adding to the family’s internationally significant art collection. When William spotted the ‘The Separation of Night from Day’, by Italian artist Guido Reni, in a palazzo in Bologna, he bought the fresco, rolled it up and sent it to Dorset. It now resides on the library ceiling, thanks to extensive conservation work undertaken by the National Trust.
William John Bankes was fascinated with Ancient Egypt. He made meticulous drawings of artefacts during expeditions and contributed to the study of Ancient Egyptian life. From the house windows, it’s impossible to miss one of the artefacts he brought to Dorset, as the Philae Obelisk reaches up from the lawn. Bearing inscriptions in Greek and Hieroglyphics, William realised that it might be possible to use existing understanding of Greek to translate the unknown language. Acting as a second Rosetta Stone, the obelisk played an important role in deciphering Hieroglyphics. Unsurprisingly, it was no easy task transporting the obelisk. After being shipped from Philae to the banks of the River Nile, it sank into the bank and ended up stuck on the river bed. Too heavy to recover, it stayed there for several years until a fellow adventurer engineered its extraction from the river. Not short of useful friends, William then called in a favour from Arthur Wellesley, the First Duke of Wellington, who arranged its onward to travel to Dorset in his gun carriage.
It was also thanks to William’s innovation that the flamboyant Spanish Room exists. Communicating with his sister from Venice, he described his vision and provided her with instructions, measurements and huge amounts of Spanish leather to cover the walls. The result is a dark but impressive room, where artworks by Murillo and Velazquez hang in heavy golden frames. Although there is a local tale that he did manage to make a secret visit to Kingston Lacy towards the end of his life, it would have been dangerous, and it is likely that William John Bankes never returned home to see his creation.
Conservation is an Ongoing Job
Kingston Lacy was left to the National Trust in a state of disrepair and had to undergo extensive restoration before opening to the public in 1986 as Tim Turner, Kingston Lacy’s General Manager, recalls.
“It was an enormous job. Major structural repairs were needed to restore the house. There was wet and dry rot, woodworm, and death-watch beetle. Many of the rooms were stripped right back to the stone or stud walls and it’s a testament to the work that you’d never know it today.”
Protecting the house for future generations to enjoy is a big job, and the staff take every challenge seriously, from daily dusting to delicate restoration projects. One such project was to restore the tented bedrooms. Dating back to the mid-19th Century, these incredible rooms made the most of the unusual shapes of the upstairs ceilings by designing them like striped campaign tents. They weren’t to everyone’s taste though, and Henrietta Bankes so disliked the elaborate design that she papered over the blue and white stripes with 1950s floral wallpaper.
The conservation work continues outside, with a dedicated team working hard to restore the gardens. Forty years ago, the gardens were completely overgrown, their characters lost. Now, the fernery boasts a national collection of wood anemones and impressive spring snowdrop displays, and the acers in the Japanese garden light up the autumn with their fiery leaves. Last year, as part of the Sakura Cherry Tree Project, one hundred cherry trees were planted, ensuring that trees would long continue to blossom around Henrietta Bankes’ beloved Japanese tea garden.
It is now the Victorian Kitchen Garden’s turn to receive care and attention. The team have lovingly restored the glasshouse, built a pergola containing roses and fruit trees, and planted an orchard with eighty apple and pear trees. Once producing vegetables for the household, today the aim of the Kitchen Garden is to express our heritage.
From replacing old boilers with a new heating system that will cut emissions, to installing a new glasshouse-themed play area in the Kitchen Gardens, the National Trust is looking ahead and trying new things, but not at the expense of preserving the estate’s history. Even repainting the garden gates is no simple task. To work out the correct paint colour, a specialist using cutting-edge technology examined eleven layers of old paint to make sure that the gates could stand proud in their original 1911 shade of grey.
Looking Ahead
Walking around Kingston Lacy, it would be easy to think only of the house and gardens, but conserving the surrounding environment is just as important. One of Ralph Bankes’ passions was for farming and a condition of his bequest to the National Trust was that they continued the Ruby Red Devon Cattle herd that his father started. Today they can be spotted around the Bankes Estate at Holt Heath, a Site of Special Scientific Interest, and Badbury Rings, the Scheduled Ancient Monument just across the road. Low level grazing is important to protect saplings damaging delicate sites like these and the Ruby Red Devon Cattle form an important part of the Trust’s conservation grazing strategy.
Ralph Bankes was a community-minded man, but following the loss of his mother, sister and wife, he became reclusive in his later years and restricted himself to only a few rooms in the house. He may have stepped back from public life, but leaving his family’s estate to the National Trust will not be forgotten. His generous final gift to the community has made sure that places such as Kingston Lacy will be protected for future generations to enjoy forever.