Corsham Court

Corsham Court is one of England's finest stately homes and is based upon an Elizabethan Manor dating from 1582. The interiors are laid out as a suite of magnificent Georgian Staterooms, the work of leading 18th and 19th Century architects. Their brief was to properly display the famous Methuen/Sanford art collection featuring Old Masters by Van Dyck, Carlo Dolci and Lippi. Important works still hang as intended alongside Adams Brothers' pier glasses in the unique triple cube picture gallery with ornate ceiling by Lancelot 'Capability' Brown. Extensive formal gardens with Brown/Repton landscape beyond complete the contemporary setting.

Corsham Court remains in private ownership and is the home of James Methuen-Campbell, the eighth generation of the Methuens to live there. He succeeded to the Corsham Estate on the death of the Sixth Baron Methuen in 1994. Since that time, conditional exemption from Inheritance Tax has been allowed by H.M. Treasury with respect to the library, various paintings and furniture in the private wing of the Court. Special guided tours will be taken of the Breakfast Room and Library enabling visitors to view these collections. 

Paul Methuen, had furnished the gallery and adjoining staterooms with the very best that money could buy in the latter part of the Eighteenth Century. A set of four pier-glasses and side tables were designed by the Adams brothers for him and he further commissioned a unique suite of seat furniture upholstered in crimson silk damask. These, and other great works, are on display in the Picture Gallery and Cabinet Room, where little has changed since the time of the Napoleonic wars.

The Court is used by the Bath Spa University as a post graduate centre and for the study of art, the humanities and cultural industries.