History
The estate was bought by Sir Henry Harpur, 1st baronet (c1579-1639) in 1622. The house was rebuilt by Sir John Harpur, 4th baronet (1680-1741) between 1701 and 1704. The house and estate were owned by successive Harpur baronets and were ultimately inherited by Sir Vauncey Harpur-Crewe (1846-1924), 10th (and last) baronet who was devoted to his collection of natural history specimens. When he died, his eldest daughter, Hilda Harpur-Crewe (1877-1949) sold some of his collection of birds, butterflies and fishes to pay death duties. She was succeeded by her nephew, Charles Jenney (1917-1981) who was the eldest son of Frances Harpur-Crewe, the fourth daughter of Sir Vauncey. Charles changed his name to Charles Harpur-Crewe. His sudden death led to crippling death duties (£8m of an estate worth £14m) and in 1985 the estate was transferred to the National Trust by his younger brother Henry Harpur-Crewe (1921-1991).
Read more about this topic: Calke Abbey
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“The history of mankind interests us only as it exhibits a steady gain of truth and right, in the incessant conflict which it records between the material and the moral nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)