Roman holiday

West Wycombe Park, Buckinghamshire, part II The seat of Sir Edward Dashwood, Bt A property of the National Trust

- 

In the second of two articles, John Goodall looks at the sources of inspiration behind the design for this magnificently idiosyncratic house

SIR FRANCIS DASHWOOD was not quite 16 when he entered into his inheritance in 1724. His father and namesake, a London merchant, had built up a considerable fortune with four marriages. Dashwood was born to the second union, which took place in 1705, to Mary Fane, a daughter of the 4th Earl of Westmoreland (later Westmorland). Having already been knighted for his interests in the City of London, the elder Sir Francis further secured a baronetcy in 1707—which, following the Act of Union, made him the premier baronet of Great Britain—and a parliamentary seat in 1708. It was probably these advances that encouraged him to set up as a country gentleman.

In 1706, he purchased full possession of West Wycombe, an estate he had bought jointly with his brother, a Lord Mayor of London, in 1698. He then began a completely new house on the site. An estate plan of about 1720 shows this as a conventional two-storey brick box five window bays wide, with an imposing central door and hipped roof. Remarkably, its remains are encased within the present house.

Mary Fane died in 1710, when her son was just under two years old. The close connection with her family persisted, however, when her brother, the Hon John Fane, later 7th Earl of Westmorland, became the guardian of his nephew. As he assumed this responsibility, Fane was completing an ambitious new seat for himself at Mereworth in Kent. His architect was Colen Campbell, a leading advocate of Palladianism, a Classical style named after the 16th-century Vicentine architect Andrea Palladio who inspired it.