From Chippendale chairs and Tudor portraits to inkwells and candlesticks, the rooms at Burton ConstableHall are filled with spectacular collections that have survived from when the house was a much-loved family home.
The owners of Burton Constable Hall have had a range of interests, which is reflected in the variety of items in the collection today. One of the great collectors in the house’s history was William Constable. A gentleman of the Enlightenment, he was an avid collector who created a Cabinet of Curiosities—not a physical piece of furniture, but rather a collection of scientific instruments, antiquities, natural history specimens, and much more. This Cabinet is now the most significant surviving collection of its kind in any English country house. Such cabinets often formed the core around which museums like the British Museum were established.
Cabinets tend to reflect their owners' unique interests. Some pieces were probably acquired due to the persuasive, flattering sales tactics of English and Italian dealers. Others were ‘cherry-picked’ from existing collections, like the manuscripts and twenty objects William acquired from Dr. John Burton of York in 1769, for the unusual sum of an annuity of £55 on Dr. Burton’s wife. Dr. Burton’s sale included some rare objects, such as a ‘tooth-brush from Mecca in Arabia.’ One innovative and expensive purchase was a telescope from the renowned York clockmaker Henry Hindley, likely used to observe the Transit of Venus in 1761.
Some curiosities in the collection have a distinguished provenance, such as thousands of numismatic casts and geological specimens purchased from the collection of William Dugood, a Scottish jeweller and scientist. These included casts made when Dugood served as jeweller to the Farnese family, Dukes of Parma. William spared no expense on scientific instruments either. Models and equipment ordered from London include a concave "burning" mirror and a camera obscura for his sister, Winifred. These two items alone cost over £200—a small fortune in the 1750s. Custom-made electrical apparatus was also commissioned from local whitesmiths in Hull and Beverley.
Our new ‘Collections Online’ pages showcase some of the fascinating objects from William’s Cabinet of Curiosities.
Chippendale
During the eighteenth-century William Constable Esq.elected to spend a fortune re-fashioning his house with the tastes of the day.
The well-known furniture maker Thomas Chippendale first appears in the records in 1768 when he supplied a walnut 'gouty chair' with matching stool for a cost of £13-5s-6d. A few years later William's sister, Miss Winifred Constable, purchased a rosewood writing desk, which was delivered to Burton Constable on the 23rd December 1772; possibly a Christmas present for her brother.
From 1774, William Constable rented a fashionable London townhouse on Mansfield Place, which he furnished with an array of Chippendale items including a suite of Cabriole chairs japaned blue and white, a pair of gilt-pine oval mirrors and a gentleman's shaving table. When ill health forced William to abandon his London house and retreat to his country estate in the 1780's, the furniture was brought to Burton Constable Hall.
In 1776 William elected to create a new Great Drawing Room at Burton Constable and he employed the architect James Wyatt to supply him with a design. Wyatt's design was accepted, but evidently William was not impressed with his slow progress and in 1788 he employed the firm of Chippendale to execute Wyatt's scheme. This involved making three impressive mirror frames for the French glass already supplied by Wyatt, along with a pair of pier tables to support marble slabs acquired on William's Grand Tour to Italy, a pair of window pelmets and a large suite of Chippendale seat furniture. Working alongside the prestigious London firm, the Hull carver Jeremiah Hargrave was employed to carve the decoration for the three door cases along with a huge pair of lime wood and gilded girandoles that embellished the wall either side of the fireplace.
During the 19th century many of the Chippendale collections were altered by the family, which included gilding and reupholstering the suite of seat furniture and modifying the writing desk to accommodate three drawers.
Paintings
You can explore our painting collection via the Art Uk website.
Archives
The archive collection for Burton Constable is housed at the East Riding Archives in Beverley.
Click here for details.
The Collections held by East Riding Archive are searchable. Click here for details.