Broadlands

A View of Broadlands

In the year in which he purchased the estate, the 1st Viscount Palmerston wrote a letter dated 26 September 1736 to his son, Henry Temple, expressing his feelings for Broadlands, "I have many men at work here of all kinds; doing the necessary things to make this a convenient, comfortable habitation, and making the river the main object of pleasure . . . so I propose a very large, fine stable yard for myself enclosed within itself, and all offices as brew house, laundry, coach houses, wood houses, etc. on the side against the house down to the river from the stable . . . I may say to you that this place all together pleases me above any place I know . . . I have two salmons caught out of the River by me".

Broadlands stands in spacious parkland, in a landscape which is typically English. The River Test, one of the finest trout and salmon rivers in Europe flows for over 3 miles through the estate. But few appreciate that the character of the English countryside is really shaped by man. 'Capability' Brown's dictum was that 'Nature abhors a straight line'. His skill in applying it can be seen in the views of the River Test and the winding paths and open 'rides' between carefully placed trees: a "natural landscape" influenced by the paintings of Claude and Salvator Rosa.

In Capability Brown's view a house was above all a place in which to live comfortably. His influence here and a measure of his genius is the fact that with all its grandeur and Palladian elegance Broadlands expresses a warmth and cosiness' that few other stately homes possess.

It is evident everywhere throughout Broadlands that great care, and often considerable expense, has been taken to preserve the parkland setting, the house and its elegant decorations.

Lord Mountbatten paid tribute to his late wife's excellent arrangements of furnishings, fittings and picture-hanging to suit the character of the 18th century house. This tradition has been continued by Lady Romsey.

The stable building which now houses the Mount batten Exhibition is little changed from the time of William and Mary at the end of the 17th century when the old manor house of the St. Barbe family stood on the site of the present Georgian house.

The 18th-century ornamental dairy, now the visitor reception centre and gift shop, stands at the end of a shady walk, by the water side, surrounded by trees drooping their boughs to the stream. It was built to enable the ladies of the house to participate in making cream and butter.

The fact that Broadlands is closely associated with a tradition of public service gives it a special place in our history. It was Churchill who said "We shape our buildings and then they shape us!" If that is true Britain owes a debt of gratitude both to the men who shaped Broadlands, and to Broadlands itself, for the public men it has helped to shape.