Kingston Lacy

Listen to the gravel under your feet. It crunches in a slow, even rhythm as the drive opens onto lawn. Ahead stands a calm, square house of pale stone. It sits in parkland so wide that the noise of the coast feels far away. You have come only a short drive inland from Poole, into the green farmland of east Dorset. Yet in this place the air smells of cut grass and old trees.

This is Kingston Lacy, home of the Bankes family for more than three hundred years. Today the National Trust cares for it. To understand why the house exists at all, we have to begin with a ruin. That ruin stands several miles away, on a hill in the Purbeck countryside.

In the seventeenth century the Bankes family lived at Corfe Castle. During the English Civil War, the conflict between King Charles the First and Parliament, the family supported the King. While her husband was away, Lady Mary Bankes held the castle against Parliamentary forces through two sieges. Her defence became famous. In the end the castle fell, reportedly through betrayal from inside. Parliament then deliberately wrecked its walls so it could never be used again.

So the family needed a new home. After the monarchy returned in 1660, Lady Mary's son, Sir Ralph Bankes, built this house in the 1660s. His architect was Sir Roger Pratt, a gentleman designer who had studied buildings in Europe. Pratt gave the house its clear, balanced shape — a block with even rows of windows and a confident roofline. It was a modern country house for its age, built for comfort rather than defence.

Here is the first surprise. The house you see now does not look quite as Pratt left it. It was first built in brick. In the nineteenth century it was refaced in stone and much of the interior was reworked. The man behind that change is the most remarkable figure in the family story. His name was William John Bankes.

William John Bankes was a traveller, a collector and a friend of the poet Lord Byron. In the early nineteenth century he journeyed through Egypt and up the Nile, far beyond where most Europeans went. He sketched temples, copied inscriptions and collected objects. He then brought them home to Dorset. Back in England he worked with the architect Charles Barry, who would later design the Houses of Parliament in London. Together they gave Kingston Lacy much of its present grandeur.

Now walk out onto the lawn and look for a tall, narrow stone pillar. This is an ancient Egyptian obelisk. It comes from the island of Philae on the Nile. Bankes arranged for it to be shipped to England, a huge effort at the time. And here is the second surprise. The obelisk carries writing in both Greek and Egyptian hieroglyphs. Scholars used it, alongside the Rosetta Stone, in the race to read hieroglyphs. The name Cleopatra helped them match signs to sounds.

Inside, the house holds an unusual mix of treasures. There is one of the largest private collections of ancient Egyptian objects in Britain. There is also a fine group of paintings, collected over generations. Visitors find works linked to great names such as Rubens, Van Dyck and Titian. Many of the paintings were bought by William John Bankes on his travels in Spain and Italy.

The room people remember most is the Spanish Room. Its walls are covered not with paint or paper, but with gilded leather. This is leather pressed with patterns and coated so it shines like gold. In lamplight it glows warm and deep. Bankes designed this room as a setting for his Spanish paintings. He took great care over every detail, from the ceiling to the door frames.

Yet Bankes himself never fully enjoyed his work. In 1841 he faced a criminal charge linked to his relationship with another man. At that time such a charge could carry very harsh punishment. He fled England and lived the rest of his life in exile, mostly in Italy. From there he kept sending objects, carvings and detailed instructions home. Locals say he may even have made secret visits back to the house. That story is told as a possibility, not proven fact.

One more echo of the Civil War waits inside. The family kept the keys of Corfe Castle, which they link to Lady Mary's defence. They are displayed in the house today. Outside, in the loggia — a covered open gallery — bronze statues honour Lady Mary, her husband and King Charles the First. Bankes ordered them from exile. In this way the house became a monument to the family's loyalty.

In 1981 the last owner, Ralph Bankes, left the whole estate to the National Trust. It was one of the largest gifts the Trust had ever received. The gift included the house and its contents. It also included farmland, villages, and stretches of countryside reaching towards the coast. Even the Iron Age hillfort of Badbury Rings, with its rings of grassy banks, belongs to the estate.

Before you leave, give the grounds some time. Paths lead through woodland, past a fernery and a Japanese garden. In late winter, carpets of snowdrops spread under the trees. Then stand once more on the lawn and look back at the pale house. Picture a burned-out castle, a sea crossing with an obelisk, and a man writing letters from Italy to a home he could not visit. All of that story sits quietly behind those windows. Listen again to the gravel as you walk away.