MONCK’S NEW HALL

On the east side of the estate sits the classically inspired hall which Sir Charles built in 1807–17.

Instead of employing an architect, Monck designed the hall himself, drawing inspiration from the classical Greek architecture he saw on his Grand Tour. The chief model for the front of the building was the Theseion Temple in Athens, which he first saw on 2 May 1805.

In this diary entry, Monck describes his first approach to Athens as he admires the ‘charming view’ of the city. He expresses a particular appreciation of the Theseion (also known as the Temple of Hephaestus), calling it ‘beautiful in the extreme’.

THE GARDENS

Monck designed the garden and landscape at Belsay to work together with the architecture of his new ‘Greek’ hall. Creating a harmony between plant life, natural landscape and architecture was an important element of Monck’s vision for his estate and was something he clearly admired when he visited the classical sites in Greece.

The Theseion’s appeal for Monck was heightened by its setting, richly endowed with plant life (in contrast to the then very built-up Acropolis). This diary entry records his evening walk there with Louisa: his attention is equally occupied by caper plants (and some persistent bees).

Monck’s enthusiasms for plant life and the landscape alongside architecture are also clear when he visits the famous Doric temples of Aphaia (on 5 July) and Sounion (on 6 September).

In these two extracts from his diary he expresses a lively sense of how the classical stonework is enhanced by the incursion of greenery. He names many of the plants he encounters there. Back at Belsay, planting on the terraces would serve to create the same blend of greenery and Greek architecture in the vistas of Monck’s new hall.

THE STABLE BLOCK

Slightly north of the hall is the stable block, also designed by Charles Monck and built between 1807 and 1817. The clock-tower on this building takes the octagonal form of the Tower of the Winds, an ancient monument in the Roman forum of Athens, which Monck visited in June 1805 to witness a Dervish dance performance.

Monck’s diary entry for his visit records a rather lukewarm response to the building:

He nonetheless incorporated the form of the tower in his designs for Belsay. As with the hall, Monck kept the design of the stable block plain and did not attempt to copy the sculptural frieze that is present along the top of the Tower of the Winds.

THE NORTH LODGE

Monck’s dedication to working out his own architectural designs in classical vein extended to some humbler buildings on the estate, like the Doric pilaster-and-pediment façade for the otherwise very English North Lodge – a rather eccentric addition.

Monck’s architectural aspirations may have evolved gradually through his travels. Sightseeing and scenic drawing were as important to his programme as architectural study, but he does record detailed observations at many sites and, as time went on, undertook some careful measuring. Once, at Zante, he used a handkerchief to do his measuring, as recorded in this extract from his diary.

THE CRAG WOOD

Trees, and how they enhance a landscape, are a particular focus of Monck’s scenic interests. Twice in his travel diaries he suggests how a Greek scene could be even finer if trees were planted. At Kefalonia he exclaims:

On the road from Thebes to Eleusis, his diary records a stirring sense of excitement over the exceptionally beautiful landscapes, where he is particularly taken by the mountain crags and the pine trees scattered among them.

Back at Belsay, Monck made use of the natural rocky hillside to the south of his new hall to create the Crag Wood, an area he planted with exotic conifers, Scots pine and native hardwoods.

THE LAKE

North of the Crag Wood and below its rocky hillside, there was a valley that Monck had dammed in order to form a new lake for his estate. In his diaries, Monck often admires the view of water, with the sea rarely far in the distance at the sites he visited.

Camping near the island port of Aegina, he waxes lyrical about the night and sea, before rising to draw the Doric columns of the Temple of Venus.

Such experiences may have influenced the way his new Belsay Hall, and the lake in the surrounding landscape, could be designed to be part of each other’s vista.

THE QUARRY GARDENS

The Quarry Gardens at Belsay are possibly its most unique feature. Monck turned the stone quarries that were used to build his new hall into a dramatic, ‘wild’ landscape, richly planted with native greenery.

A central inspiration for this was the ‘Latomie’ quarries in Syracuse, Sicily. Originally a state quarry and prison, they evolved into an awe-inspiring, greenery-enhanced rockscape, which was eventually converted into famous gardens by Capuchin monks after 1582. Monck embraced the idea of a man-made, thoroughly pragmatic construction, transformed both by the artistry of nature and – in Belsay’s case, as latterly in Syracuse – by deliberate human design.

THE CASTLE

On the west side of the Belsay estate sits a medieval castle dating back to the late 14th century and extended in the 17th century. The Monck family lived in the castle until the end of 1817 when they moved into their newly built hall.

The two contrasting building styles – one medieval, the other neoclassical – may seem at odds with one another. However, for Monck, they represented how the layers of the past can be expressed through architecture.

When reflecting on Palermo Cathedral on his Sicily tour in 1831, he muses that the fascination of medieval cathedrals and castles may arise from their succession of different building styles, which creates ‘monuments of epochal changes’.

Monck was perhaps also conscious of the way one experienced the first view of the castle when approaching it from his Quarry Garden. Emerging from the last defile of the quarry, the view opens up dramatically to reveal the medieval castle. This is similar to an experience Monck would later have when approaching the Temple of Egesta in Sicily, 1831. He describes the temple as ‘standing beautifully … through a rocky ravine’.