Finchcocks is an early Georgianmanor house in Goudhurst, Kent. For 45 years it housed a large, visitor-friendly museum of historical keyboard instruments, displaying a collection of harpsichords, clavichords, fortepianos, square pianos, organs and other musical instruments. The museum was run by the owners of the house, Richard and Katrina Burnett until 2017.[1] It is now owned by Neil and Harriet Nichols[2] who use it as a family home and a venue for residential piano courses and classical concerts.
Ownership
The house was built in 1725 and named after the family who lived on the site in the 13th century.
Finchcocks was owned by Edward Horden, whose family crest lies above the front door. Edward was Clerk of the Green Cloth - a secretary to the board that was responsible for organising royal journeys and auditing the Royal Household accounts for three monarchs, Edward VI, Mary and Elizabeth I.[3]
The current house was built for Edward Bathurst (1680-1772),[4] a London barrister and 'Master of the Middle Temple'. Edward resided there until his death, before which he conveyed the estate to Charles, son of his second marriage. Charles died in 1767 and subsequently passed it to his brother Reverend Thomas Bathurst, who resided there until 1796.[5]
Finchcocks was sold to Robert Springett (1753 – 1826) in 1797, a local landowner who enlarged the estate from 210 to 344 acres.[6]
In 1863, Richard Springett sold the property to his neighbour Edward Hussey of Scotney Castle.[7]
In the period of Hussey's ownership, the property was rented to Sir James Stirling who lived at Finchcocks from 1882.[8] During this time the property was visited by Siegfried Sassoon, who described the house in his memoirs The Weald of Youth.[9]
During the Second World War pupils and teachers from Kings School Rochester lodged there before the house was requisitioned by the army.[10]
From 1960 - 1970, the property was a school for The Legat Ballet - Nicolas Legat and his wife Nadine Nicolava Legat,[11] who brought the classical Russian style of ballet to the UK back in 1923.
After wartime use for military purposes and a period of institutional use in the 1960s, the house was acquired in 1971 by Richard and Katrina Burnett, who restored it and in 1976 opened it as both a museum housing their collection of historic keyboard instruments and a centre for concerts and other musical events.[12]
When they decided to retire and downsize in 2015, much of the important collection was dispersed at auction, but Finchcocks itself was sold to another musical couple, Neil and Harriet Nichols, who run courses for pianists at the house and host charitable concerts,[13] as well as making it their home.
Architecture
Aerial view of East elevation of Finchcocks
The property is noted for its brickwork and has a dramatic front elevation attributed to Thomas Archer. It is located in 25 acres (10 ha) of grounds. There is parkland to the front and a garden to the rear with wide formal lawns, mature shrub borders, an orchard for wild flowers, and a grade II listed walled garden and summerhouse.[14] To the East and West of the property lies a grade II listed Ha Ha.[15] There are extensive views over the Kentish landscape of park, farmland, and hop-gardens.
The house has an elongated rectangular main block with curved and projecting flanking wings in the English Baroque style. The imposing front façade displays a painted moulded cornice supported on Tuscan corner pillars and a pediment containing the Bathurst coat of arms. The rear (west) elevation is of simpler composition with a plinth and plat band around pillars which mirror the front elevation. Within the house, the vaulted cellar was said to have been so extravagantly built as to have delayed the erection of the wings. The main building has 4 storeys above the cellar, with a central hall running the full depth of the house.[16]
Notable architectural similarities exist with nearby Matfield House, as well as other buildings where Archer is known to be the architect including Chettle House and Marlow Place.
Events and broadcasts
The rooms within, with their high ceilings and oak panelling, provided an ideal setting for music performed on period instruments; the house and instruments were used regularly for recordings by leading exponents of early music such as Trevor Pinnock, Simon Preston and Nigel North.
Broadcasts and events at the property have featured on BBC Radio 3,[17] BBC music magazine,[18] the pianist magazine[19] and Classic FM.[20] It was also the location for the filming of the Amazing Mr Blunden directed by Mark Gatiss for Sky Movies.
The Finchcocks collection
Finchcocks was acquired by Richard Burnett, a fortepianist, in 1970. The Adlam Burnett workshop (founded by Derek Adlam and Richard Burnett) was set up at the house and enabled instrument makers to produce copies of historical keyboard instruments in an ideal environment, learning from the construction of many originals. The building housed the Katrina and Richard Burnett collection of over 100 historical keyboard instruments; about forty of which were fully restored to playing condition. These could be seen and heard whenever the house was open to the public; it was one of the few collections of historical instruments at which people were welcome to play them themselves. With the Burnetts' retirement in 2015, the museum closed and many of its instruments were auctioned off for charity.[21] The auction catalogue[22] documented the instruments meticulously and in the auction many fetched two or three times the estimated prices. A total of £835,462 was raised from the sale of the collection.[23]
Fourteen instruments from the collection were retained and form the Richard Burnett Heritage Collection, to be housed in 2018 at the Burnetts' home in Tunbridge Wells.[24][25]
Similarly, there is a collection of musical pictures, prints and an exhibition on the theme of London's 18th-century pleasure gardens such as Vauxhall and Ranelagh Gardens.
