"Many of the hundred or so rooms were out of use, abundantly piled with cases of stuffed animals, fossils, shells, artworks and unused antiques in chaotic disarray"
The respectable Harpur-Crewe family were renowned for many years solely for their affluence, yet the unusual personality traits and preferences that began to emerge in the late eighteenth century provided a reputation far more intriguing than mere riches. The backdrop for their story, perhaps as integral and idiosyncratic as its inhabitants, was Calke Abbey, a seventeenth century house that stands to this day as a testament to a two hundred-year lineage of eccentricity and isolation.
Sir Henry Harpur-Crewe (1763-1819), known as The Isolated Lord, was the first to display the profound reclusiveness, unsociable and obsessive behaviour that would go on to characterise subsequent generations. Despite many serving in honoured positions, such as high sheriffs and Members of Parliament for Derbyshire, most of Sir Henry’s descendants were retiring types who shunned the society life of gentlemen, none more so than the last in the family line, Sir Vauncey.
Born in 1846, Sir Vauncey had very little contact with the world beyond his ancestral home. Educated privately at Calke Abbey, the secluded setting provided the perfect vantage point from which to study the birds, animals, plants and natural sciences that so enthralled him. However, displaying from a young age some of the family’s more extreme traits of eccentricity, this soon became an all-consuming obsession. A prodigious talent, he wrote the first of a two volume Natural History of Calke and Warslow, at only twelve years of age. Taught, alongside the more commonplace childhood lessons, the art of taxidermy, young Vauncey saw the estate more as a private game reserve, with birds aplenty to shoot and study.
The great displays of taste and refinement, of which the upper classes are so proud, was in no short supply for the Harpur-Crewes. Beginning with Sir John Harpur (1680-1741) and his penchant for fine silverware, Vauncey’s grandfather George Harpur collected Renaissance paintings and began accumulating stuffed animals and birds. Yet this harmless devotion to the study of natural history and beautiful artefacts grew into a fascination which would dominate the halls and walls of Calke Abbey for many subsequent generations. Throughout the long family lineage scarcely anything was discarded; once a room was fit to bust, the inhabitants simply shut the door and moved onto the next, the luxury of manor living perhaps.
The growing collection was already expanded greatly by his father long before Vauncey took up the mantle. By the time of his marriage to Isabel Adderley in 1876, many of the hundred or so rooms were out of use, abundantly piled with cases of stuffed animals, fossils, shells, artworks and unused antiques in chaotic disarray. A notable example was Vauncey’s childhood bedroom; the floor littered with dusty Victorian toys and the bed with mounted stag heads, appearing as two separate chapters of life frozen and forgotten in the same moment.
Unfortunately for Isabel, it seems their widely celebrated ceremony was the high point of the union, and they swiftly settled into separate lives, as her husband’s reclusiveness intensified. Unaware of his quirks, she had much to acclimatise to, as year by year the house was cluttered with yet more of Vauncey’s treasures, increasingly resembling a curious museum. To preserve his collection, he insisted the temperature be kept as consistent as possible, and the offence of letting any of the constantly burning fires go out was met with a swift letter of dismissal.
Save for a brief sojourn as High Sheriff of Derbyshire, he shied away from public life, much to his family’s dismay. In tandem with his retreat into isolation, Vauncey continued to collect his curious specimens, his favourite items being exotic butterflies, birds and eggs. A keen hunter, he was known to often disappear into the grounds – particularly during social occasions at Calke – to hunt his own beasts, which were then stuffed and mounted. Vague and cavelier inscriptions on the brass plaques such as ‘Shot by Me’ suggest that although he held a great pride in his kills, they were not intended so much for others to see.
The motivation behind this curious family tradition remains clouded; while many Victorian collections were the souvenirs of exotic grand tours, brought home by aristocratic plunderers to be shown off or studied, the Calke collection is markedly different. Perhaps Vauncey’s detachment from the world outside materialised in a mania of acquiring knowledge at a safe distance. However, the items are set in such a haphazard display throughout the house, showing little sign of scientific study or classification, the desire to possess seemingly gaining more significance than their educational qualities or beauty.
As the end of the nineteenth century flaunted its industrial innovations, Vauncey stood firm in his rejection of such luxuries, choosing to persist with gaslight, horse-drawn carriages and antique plumbing systems. Yet, most strangely, in direct contradiction of what one might expect, his reputation for thoughtfulness and generosity towards his staff stood in stark contrast to the unsettling aloofness and disinterest shown towards his own family.
Communication was painfully strained, most often taking place in the form of notes delivered via footman and posted letters. His daughters bore the brunt of his domestic tyranny, each forbidden from marriage, while one was banished from the family home for the crime of smoking a single cigarette, which a paranoid fear of fire strictly forbid. Still, she fared better than cousin Henry who, following an altercation with Vauncey, saw the house on the edge of the estate in which he had been living destroyed in vengeance.
After Vauncey’s death, Calke Abbey remained out of step with the modern world. His descendants closed off much of the house and many items were sold to pay accumulating debts. When it was handed to the National Trust in 1985, the great, enigmatic collection was discovered and, in keeping with the unusual nature of the Harpur-Crewe family, the property has been largely left untouched but for basic repairs.
In all its faded glory, Calke and the Harpur-Crewe collection is now open to the public as a treasury of Victorian life as well as a dramatic representation of the traditional country house and its decline throughout the twentieth century. To step through the doors is to step not only back in time, but into the history of a once great family and the curious mind of its last son.
The Dilettante Society Meeting, The Chameleon Arts Cafe, Monday 18 July, 7.30pm, free. All welcome, the more the merrier.
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