Appearances can be deceiving. From the outside, Herefordshire’s Eastnor Castle, designed by architect Robert Smirke in a Norman Renaissance style, is imposing (even brutal) with its 4,000 tons of stone and turrets. However, inside there is a mind-blowing mix of Gothic, Italian Renaissance and Baronial Regency styles. Between the hand-painted coffered ceilings, the Pugin scheme in the Gothic Hall, the multi-panel tapestries and marquetry, every surface is packed with decoration.
Built for the 2nd Baron (Lord) Somers between 1810 and 1824, the house bears the imprint of successive generations and has seen days of glory and latent decay. Today, Imogen Hervey-Bathurst, daughter of owner James Hervey-Bathurst, is planning the castle’s next chapter and making its sensory overload a calling card. She grew up in Eastnor and in 2023 became director of what is now a visitor attraction, wedding venue and filming location (the castle appeared in the first season of Succession as a venue for Shiv and Tom’s wedding), having previously worked as director of investment research at Stanhope Capital.
A bold new bet is the creation of wallpapers, scenic paintings and textiles with a specialized manufacturer. watts 1874the furniture and interior decoration business created by architects George Frederick Bodley and Thomas Garner in collaboration with George Gilbert Scott junior. “Eastnor is very immersive, it’s about design and experience, and I felt that some of the storytelling could be done through creative collaborations,” explains Imogen, now in her 30s and one of three sisters (Isabella and Nancy), with two half-sisters (Stella and Minna) too.
Watts 1874, which has long graced major projects such as Ham House in Surrey, Powis Castle in Wales and Oxford University’s Bodleian Library, has proven to be the ideal partner. “It is a great company. People usually associate collaborations with reproductions, but at Eastnor we don’t have samples or an archive, so the patterns and details are taken directly from the rooms,” Imogen says of the meticulous process involving geometric calibration cameras and digital mapping. The technology makes it possible to convert three-dimensional elements, such as the dining room’s coffered ceiling, into 2D trompe-l’oeil wallpapers, 17th-century mythological sea tapestries from the Long Library (originally from a palace in Mantua) into scenic murals, and a screen from painted leather from Trastámara in the Great Hall to be translated into papers and fabrics.
Launched at the Déco Off design festival in Paris in January, the Watts 1874 x Eastnor Castle collection, comprising digital and hand-blocked papers and fabrics, will be ready for private residences, hotels, restaurants and clubs, as well as anyone who clamors for shameless opulence. “We don’t do small flowers, we only care about scale, historically we design for large estates and churches, and my goodness, Eastnor has scale!” says Marie-Séverine de Caraman Chimay, CEO of Watts 1874 and fifth-generation Scott. His grandmother resurrected the firm in the post-war years, when the decoration industry was still on its knees.
The threads between Eastnor and Watts 1874 (which previously had two arms in the business: ecclesiastical/ceremonial and interior decoration) stretch back through time and personalities. The firm’s creative director, Fiona Flint, worked with Imogen’s mother, Sarah Hervey-Bathurst, on a series of bespoke wall coverings in the 1990s. During research, Flint identified more of Watts’ original decoration in the castle
Imogen herself was introduced to the brand at a dinner sitting alongside Robert Hoare, chief executive of the ecclesiastical company Watts & Co. She later visited the workshop in Westminster. “It was an amazing old building full of young people from Central Saint Martins. There were pieces for the Vatican and coronation robes, all handmade. We talked about the architect Pugin, who worked on the castle, and I felt an instinctive connection,” says Imogen, who later met Robert’s sister Marie-Séverine at the Chelsea Harbor textiles and design showroom, where she recognized some of the patterns at Estenor.
Imogen takes me around the great rooms of the castle; It is not tied to tradition or the weight of history. Her own childhood was not “grand” or princess-like. “We lived in an apartment on the other side of the castle with its own entrance, so it was no different to living in a London apartment,” he says. “The large rooms were in disrepair after a long period of inactivity, land was sold and many things were put into storage. My grandparents lived like church mice, with buckets, drippers, and blackout curtains in wartime. “They just didn’t have the means to restore it.”
Eastnor’s romance comes from the lives and passions of Imogen’s ancestor, the 3rd Earl Somers, and his Anglo-Indian wife, Virginia. They lived a proto-bohemian life in a circle that included William Thackeray, Julia Margaret Cameron, Virginia Woolf and the artist George Frederic Watts, and they also traveled widely, acquiring art and antiques along the way. “He was a great collector, had random tastes and must have spent a fortune,” smiles Imogen. But the count’s indulgences can turn out to be gold. The artifacts and furnishings, including 17th-century Venetian furniture, portraits and Renaissance tapestries, provide Watts creative director Fiona Flint with a seemingly endless trove of ideas.
“There are patterns everywhere, especially in Pugin’s scheme in the Gothic Hall but also in ornate textures in wood, stone, walls and lacquer. To me, it’s an instant inspiration – a feast,” says Flint, who is reimagining elements for contemporary tastes, including a scenic wallpaper featuring a beautiful horse digitally “drawn” from a tapestry in Staircase Hall. The border patterns, dotted with repair threads and intricate marquetry work, have also caught her eye.
The second major wave of restoration began in the 1990s, when Imogen’s parents set out to bolster the castle’s reputation to boost private rental business and visitor attendance. “My father inherited the house and, with my mother, they took a great risk to resurrect it and rediscover it. But it was his introduction to Bernard Nevill that set everything in motion. He was an interesting character: a professor of textile design. [at the Central School of Art & Design, the Royal College of Art and St Martin’s School of Art] tutoring designers such as Ossie Clark and Zandra Rhodes while designing for Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Balmain. Essentially, he was completely contrary and loved things that were unlovable! The scenes at Uncle Monty’s London house in Connail and me they were filmed at home,” says Imogen.
If given free rein, Nevill and Imogen’s mother would head to country sales and Lots Road Auctions, buying tapestries and commissioning giant mirrors to transform and extend the once-spartan Staircase Hall with layered rugs, dragon-shaped Venetian benches and a dragon-shaped chandelier from the Corsini Palace. “They wanted each room to look lived-in and really used,” explains Imogen of the renovation, with new wallpaper and fabrics commissioned (Flint worked on the project) and artwork and furniture (much older than the castle itself) rearranged and removed. storage. The opulent dining room with its gilded ceiling was enlivened with blue curtains and upholstery, the small library with a Watts linen wall covering that is also being repeated.
Imogen, as the next generation castellan, is determined to breathe new life into Eastnor. The decorative partnership is one part of a rebrand that will also see a dragon replacing a stag in the heraldic logo and a series of salons and cultural events to be hosted at the castle. Meanwhile, his father, James, continues to run the privately owned castle and estate with operations in tourism, entertainment, hospitality and real estate, as well as forestry and agriculture.
There is also steady revenue from Land Rover offering off-road driving experiences in the Estate. In fact, you can order a new Defender in the Eastnor Green color scheme. Income from events and venue rentals is less predictable, explains Imogen. The preservation and future preparation of castles requires a bold imagination. With the Watts 1874-Eastnor offering, one might find themselves dining on the other side of the world pleasantly bewildered by much of the castle’s decorative history.