A-Z Challenge 2017 - Houses, some real, some not - 'O'

O - Osborne House

"It's impossible to imagine a prettier spot."

That's what Queen Victoria said of Osborne House on the Isle of Wight.

North face of Osborne House, IOW
(CC BY-SA 3.0) 

The Osborne estate was in the hands of the Blachford family from 1705. Robert Pope Blachford  adapted an existing house there in the period 1774 to 1781.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert initially leased that house from the Blachford family before buying it in 1845. As it was too small for them Albert commissioned the master builder and developer, Thomas Cubitt to advise him.

Work on a new house began in 1846, the old house was demolished in 1848 and the new Osborne House's main wing was completed in 1851.

Prince Albert died of typhoid in 1861 and Victoria never really recovered from his death. She was to die at Osborne in 1901.

Neither Edward VII nor any other royal family member wanted the upkeep of the house and estate so , in 1902, he gave Osborne to the nation.

The house and Victoria and Albert's private rooms were sealed on Edward's orders but have been open to the public, with Queen Elizabeth's permission, since 1954.

English Heritage became responsible for management of Osborne in 1986. Since then other parts have accessible to the public as well, including the beach where Victoria used to bathe.

{ The majority of this post has been sourced from English Heritage's Osborne site.}

A-Z Challenge 2017 - Houses, some real, some not.- 'A'

A - Audley End

It seems appropriate somehow that an embezzler should end his life at 

Audley End

Thomas Howard, !st Earl of Suffolk,  King James I's Treasurer helped himself to  royal funds to build the splendid home of Audley End in 1614

However he was removed from there when convicted and sent to the Tower of London. After his release he returned to Audley End and died there in 1626.

The large building was expensive to maintain and the Howard family eventually demolished  more than half of it. What remains is still one of the biggest houses in Britain.

King Charles II bought the house in 1668 for the sum of £5 as somewhere to stay when he went to the races at Newmarket; it was returned to the Suffolks in 1701.

Capability Brown was commissioned to landscape the parkland in 1762.

During WWII Audley End became the base for the special-operations paratroops of the Polish Army in exile. A memorial to the men they lost stands in the drive to the house.

In 1948 the Braybrooke family sold the house to the Ministry of Works, the predecessor of English Heritage under whose stewardship Audley End remains. The house and gardens are open to the public at certain times of the year.

Photo attribution:

• Creative commons - Misterzee, 2008 - CC BY-3.0