Holkham Hall

Holkham is awarded Five Stars, and appears in the Top Twenty greatest houses in England's "Thousand Best Houses by Simon Jenkins. Built between 1734 and 1765, Holkham - the Earl of Leicester's 25,000-acre estate in Norfolk - is a tribute to a time gone by. Paintings by Gainsborough, Poussin, Gheeraerts, Claude, Van Dyck and Rubens adorn the damask-covered walls of this great house. "Holkham" is full of exquisite works of art and is one of England's premier tourist destinations. The hall and its grounds continue to be a thriving, self-sufficient community, which offers visitors a unique perspective on rural life as it was lived during the estate's conception. This colourful guide to the house, its treasures and the park explores for the first time the landscape and the architectural history of Holkham, profiling the client for whom the mansion was conceived and built, detailing its fascinating construction process and describing the magnificent historic interiors.