Ham House

Listen first. The gravel crunches under your shoes, the river moves somewhere behind you, and a heron might lift off the water meadow. Ahead, a long front of warm red brick catches the light. Rows of stone busts look down from small round niches. It is quiet here, unusually quiet for a place so close to London. This is Ham House, standing on the south bank of the Thames near Richmond, almost exactly as its most ambitious owner left it.

The house began in 1610, early in the reign of James the First. It was built for Sir Thomas Vavasour, a courtier who served the king. At first it was a fine but fairly conventional Jacobean house, meaning a house from the reign of King James. Its plan followed a familiar shape for the time. The real story of the place, though, begins a little later, with a family who used it to climb as high as anyone could at the Stuart court.

That family was the Murrays. William Murray grew up close to the future King Charles the First, and he became one of his trusted companions. Popular tradition says Murray served as the young prince's whipping boy, punished in his place when the royal child misbehaved. Historians treat that story with some caution, but it has stuck to him for centuries. What is certain is that his loyalty was rewarded. He was later made Earl of Dysart, and Ham House became his home.

His daughter Elizabeth is the person this house remembers most. She inherited her father's title and became Countess of Dysart in her own right, which was rare for a woman. She lived through the Civil War and the years of Oliver Cromwell's rule. Some accounts suggest she quietly helped the exiled royalist cause while keeping on good terms with Cromwell himself. Whatever the full truth, she kept her house and her fortune through dangerous times. That alone tells you something about her.

In 1672 Elizabeth married her second husband, John Maitland, Duke of Lauderdale. He was one of the most powerful men in the government of Charles the Second, and he controlled Scottish affairs for the king. Together, the Duke and Duchess transformed Ham. During the 1670s they enlarged the house and filled it with the most fashionable furniture, textiles and paintings they could find. They wanted visitors to understand, the moment they arrived, exactly how important their hosts were.

Here is the first surprise. Most great houses of this age were rebuilt again and again, as later owners chased new fashions. Ham House was not. The descendants of the Lauderdales, the Tollemache family, kept much of the interior as it was. Inventories from the seventeenth century survive, so curators can match many rooms to the way they were described at the time. When you walk inside, you are seeing one of the most complete groups of seventeenth-century interiors in England.

Inside, notice how the rooms are arranged. They follow a sequence that grows more private, and more exclusive, as you go deeper. A guest might be received in a grand room, but only a favoured few would reach the small closets at the end. The Queen's Closet is one of these intimate spaces, prepared with royal visits in mind. Look closely at the walls, the ceilings and the gilding. Every surface was designed to show status.

The second surprise is fragile and easy to miss. Many of the furnishings were made with expensive imported materials, including lacquer from East Asia, a hard glossy finish built up in many thin layers. Silk hangings, carved and gilded chairs, and delicate tables survive in some rooms. Light damages these materials, so the house is often kept dim, and blinds stay half drawn. If the rooms feel darker than you expected, that darkness is protecting them.

Now step outside again and look at the gardens. They have been restored to reflect their seventeenth-century character, with formal geometry rather than wild romantic landscape. To one side lies the Cherry Garden, with its neat beds and clipped hedges. Behind the house stretches the area called the Wilderness, which was not wild at all. It was a planned grid of hedged compartments, with paths and small enclosed spaces. People came here to walk, to talk, and to be seen.

The kitchen garden is worth a slow look too. It produced fruit, vegetables and herbs for the household, and it still grows produce today. Near it stands the Orangery, one of the older surviving buildings of its kind in England. Orangeries sheltered tender citrus trees through the English winter. Today it is a place to sit down, and on a warm afternoon the smell of cut grass and soil drifts over the walls.

Ham House also has a darker reputation. Locals and staff have long called it one of the most haunted houses in Britain. Some visitors say they have smelled tobacco in empty rooms, or felt a sudden chill on the stairs. Others claim to have seen the figure of the Duchess herself, still watching over her treasures, with a small dog at her heels. These are stories, not history. But in the half light of the upper rooms, you may understand why they started.

The Tollemache family lived here for generations. In 1948 the house passed to the National Trust, the British charity that cares for historic places. That is a big part of why it feels so intact. Its setting has stayed protected too. The meadows between the house and the river were never built over, so the view from the riverbank is still mostly green. Across the water, Twickenham carries on with its own quieter life.

Before you leave, walk down toward the Thames. On the riverside path the house sits behind its walls and trees, and from here you can picture how most guests once arrived, by boat rather than by road. Stand still for a moment. Listen to the water against the bank, the rowers calling out on the river, the wind moving through the avenue. The red brick front is still there behind you, much as the Duchess knew it.