Restoration of The Main House
Elaine (Mrs Patrick) Brunner purchased the main house and the Clock Pavilion from Buckinghamshire County Council for £6,000 in 1957, two weeks before it was scheduled for demolition.
Brunner engaged Donald Insall Associates to carry out extensive work on the house, repairing the dilapidations, undoing most of the Butler alterations and restoring Soane's architectural details. However the central feature of Soane's redesign, the "Tribune", which had been destroyed by Butler, was still unrestored when she died in 1998.
The house passed to April, Brunner's daughter and her husband David Gladstone. The grounds are open to the public at least one day a week during the summer months, but viewing of the house is by appointment only.
In 2007 David Gladstone held a conference at Wotton in an attempt to determine the name of the original architect of the house. The conference generated at least two follow up papers: Howard Colvin (2010) proposed that John Fitch may have been the original architect, and later the same year John Millar (2010) proposed that it may have been Elizabeth Wilbraham (1632–1705).
Read more about this topic: Wotton House
Famous quotes containing the words restoration of the, restoration of, restoration, main and/or house:
“In comparison to the French Revolution, the American Revolution has come to seem a parochial and rather dull event. This, despite the fact that the American Revolution was successful—realizing the purposes of the revolutionaries and establishing a durable political regime—while the French Revolution was a resounding failure, devouring its own children and leading to an imperial despotism, followed by an eventual restoration of the monarchy.”
—Irving Kristol (b. 1920)
“Men who are occupied in the restoration of health to other men, by the joint exertion of skill and humanity, are above all the great of the earth. They even partake of divinity, since to preserve and renew is almost as noble as to create.”
—Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] (1694–1778)
“The King [Charles II] after the Restoration accused the poet, Edmund Waller, of having made finer verses in praise of Oliver Cromwell than of himself; to which he agreed, saying, that Fiction was the soul of Poetry.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“Man’s main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is. The most important product of his effort is his own personality.”
—Erich Fromm (1900–1980)
“Up the reputable walks of old established trees
They stalk, children of the nouveaux riches; chimes
Of the tall Clock Tower drench their heads in blessing:
“I don’t wanna play at your house;
I don’t like you any more.”
My house stands opposite, on the other hill,”
—William Dewitt Snodgrass (b. 1926)