| Badminton House | |
| Type: | Country house |
| Map Relief: | yes |
| Coordinates: | 51.5449°N -2.2805°W |
| Location: | Badminton, Gloucestershire |
| Built: | c. 1660–1750 with earlier elements |
| Architect: | Francis Smith of Warwick, James Gibbs, William Kent |
| Architecture: | Palladian |
| Governing Body: | Duke of Beaufort |
| Designation1: | Grade I |
| Designation1 Offname: | Badminton House |
| Designation1 Date: | 17 September 1952 |
| Designation1 Number: | 1320832 |
| Designation2: | Grade I listed building |
| Designation2 Offname: | Worcester Lodge |
| Designation2 Date: | 5 September 1954 |
| Designation2 Number: | 1349715 |
| Designation3: | Grade II* listed building |
| Designation3 Offname: | Orangery, 50 yards southeast of Church of St Michael and All Angels |
| Designation3 Date: | 17 September 1952 |
| Designation3 Number: | 1129313 |
| Designation4: | Grade II* listed building |
| Designation4 Offname: | Castle barn, flanking dovecotes and screen walls |
| Designation4 Date: | 10 November 1983 |
| Designation4 Number: | 1129344 |
| Designation5: | Grade II* listed building |
| Designation5 Offname: | Laundry and dairy house 30 yards west of Badminton House |
| Designation5 Date: | 10 November 1983 |
| Designation5 Number: | 1129315 |
Badminton House is a large country house and Grade I Listed Building in Badminton, Gloucestershire, England, which has been the principal seat of the Dukes of Beaufort since the late 17th century. The house, which has given its name to the sport of badminton, is set among of land. The gardens and park surrounding the house are listed at Grade I on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.
In 1612 Edward Somerset, 4th Earl of Worcester, bought from Nicholas Boteler his manors of Great and Little Badminton, called "Madmintune" in the Domesday Book of 1086, while one century earlier the name "Badimyncgtun" was recorded,[1] held by that family since 1275. Edward Somerset's third son Sir Thomas Somerset modernized the old house in the late 1620s, and had a new T-shaped gabled range built. Evidence suggests he also had the present north and west fronts built up.
The Dukes of Beaufort acquired the property in the late 17th century, when the family moved from Raglan Castle, Monmouthshire, which had been ruined in the Civil War. The third duke adapted Sir Thomas Somerset's house by incorporating his several gabled ranges around the courtyard and extending the old house eastwards to provide a new set of domestic apartments. He had a grand Jonesian centrepiece raised on the north front. The two-bay flanking elevations were five storeys high, reduced to three storeys in 1713. Their domed crowning pavilions are by James Gibbs.
For the fourth duke, who succeeded his brother in 1745, the architect William Kent renovated and extended the house in the Palladian style, but many earlier elements remain.[2] The duke was instrumental in bringing the Venetian artist Canaletto to England: Canaletto's two views of Badminton remain in the house.[3]
Whether or not the sport of badminton was re-introduced from British India or was invented during the hard winter of 1863 by the children of the eighth duke in the Great Hall (where the featherweight shuttlecock would not mar the life-size portraits of horses by John Wootton, as the tradition of the house has it),[4] it was popularised at the house, hence the sport's name.[5]
Queen Mary stayed at Badminton House for much of World War II. Her staff occupied most of the building, to the Duke and Duchess of Beaufort's inconvenience. Afterward, when the Duchess of Beaufort, who was Queen Mary's niece, was asked in which part of the great house the Queen had resided, she responded "She lived in all of it."[6]
In the later 20th century, Badminton House became best known for the annual Badminton Horse Trials held there since 1949.[7] Badminton House has also been strongly associated with fox hunting. Successive Dukes of Beaufort have been masters of the Beaufort Hunt, one of the two most famous hunts in the United Kingdom alongside the Quorn Hunt.
Weddings and parties can be booked at Badminton House. Occasionally, houses and cottage on the estate can be rented. The estate was the location for some scenes of the films The Remains of the Day, 28 Days Later and Pearl Harbor, and of the Netflix series Bridgerton, and The Gentlemen.[8]
Except for the Grade I listed parish church and Worcester Lodge, all structures named below are Grade II* listed.
Adjacent to Badminton House is the Grade I listed parish church of St Michael and All Angels, built in 1785. It serves as the principal burial place of the Somerset family; nearly all Dukes and Duchesses of Beaufort are interred here.[9]
At the north entrance to the park, near the Tetbury road and reached from the house by the Three Mile Ride, the Grade I listed Worcester Lodge was designed in 1746 by William Kent. The part-rusticated main block has four storeys. Over the high central archway is a dining room with generous windows and balustraded balconies; a pediment bears the Beaufort arms and the roof is partly domed. The room has a plaster ceiling by Kent, depicting fruit and flowers of the four seasons, described as very fine by Historic England. Kent also designed the convex mirror with a sunburst pattern. Outside, the ornamental flanking quadrant walls on both sides finish at small pavilions.
Several buildings and follies were designed by Thomas Wright of Durham, around 1750.