Secrets and Discoveries at Clandon Park

The state bedroom after the fire at Clandon Park, Surrey — Previously hidden blue wooden panels in the State Bedroom | © National Trust Images/James Dobson

Now a house laid bare, Clandon Park has been slowly revealing its secrets. Objects have been discovered in the bones of the house – its ceilings, walls, and in the ground beneath our feet. Enriching our knowledge of how the house was made, the people who made it, and those who have lived and worked here.

From tiny teeth to witch marks and remains of the Jacobean house, these objects can unlock powerful and previously hidden stories. They tell of the wealthy family who lived here and how they invested in their home. The life and experiences of the people employed as domestic servants. And we see evidence of the master craftsmen at work.

Unexpected discoveries

Sharks Teeth Group at Clandon Park Surrey — 55-million-year-old sharks’ teeth | © National Trust / Andrew Shaylor

55-million-year-old sharks’ teeth

These tiny, fossilised teeth were found during excavations in the basement. They’re from a number of species, including an ancient ancestor of the Great White. The discovery of the teeth reveals Clandon Park was once at the bottom of a pre-historic lake populated by sharks and other fish.

Fire Back at Clandon Park Surrey — A heavy, cast iron fireback recently discovered in an outbuilding | © National Trust / Andrew Shaylor

Elizabethan cast iron fireback

This heavy cast iron fireback was discovered recently in an outbuilding at Clandon. The elaborate but worn coat of arms tells us it was made in about 1600 for Queen Elizabeth I’s favourite, Charles Blount, 8th Baron Mountjoy. A Sussex iron foundry owned by the Blount family was sold to Richard Onslow in 1628, which may explain how it made its way to Clandon.

Sash Pulley Wooden at Clandon Park Surrey — A 1730s cord pulley left behind after work in 1810 | © National Trust / Andrew Shaylor

18th Century sash pulley

Behind every surviving window at Clandon hides at least one sash pulley. Small and ordinary looking, each pulley tells an intriguing story. This 1730s wooden pulley was left behind during works c.1810, when replacement metal pulleys were part of a huge investment made by the family. Later examples show changing design and technologies, and even a nod to health and safety protocols with the use of chain instead of cord.

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Uncovering Clandon’s secrets

The fire has revealed layer upon layer of the historic building in remarkable ways, showing how the house was built brick by brick and piece by piece by many hands over the generations. The journey the project team has taken has led to the uncovering of some of Clandon’s tightly held secrets.

Clandon's true age: Tree-ring analysis of the fallen timbers salvaged from the fire has found that the main timbers inside the house were felled in 1729 in Finland, which means the house was likely completed in the 1730s.
Patchwork walls: The brick walls of the house, which helped it survive the fire, are in some places over 1 metre thick. These walls also contain stones taken from an earlier Jacobean house on the same site, which the Onslow family demolished and replaced.
Designing on the go: The original plan for the house wasn’t finalised when building began. Numerous doorways and alcoves, previously hidden beneath wall coverings and revealed when the fire burnt these away, show how the architect and builders kept their options open, allowing them to reshape spaces as they went.
A blue bedroom: The State Bedroom, which was displayed with rich red wallpaper before the fire, was originally a bright blue wood-panelled room. Large areas of this panelling are now visible.
Superstitious builders: The presence of protective ‘witches’ marks’ have been discovered on exposed timbers – shapes and symbols scratched into them by superstitious builders to ward off witches and evil spirits.

Behind the scenes of post-fire Clandon Park

An archaeologist wearing protective clothing and a face mask sifts through ashes in a fire-damaged room at Clandon Park, Surrey. — An archaeologist sifting through the ruins at Clandon Park | © National Trust Images/James Dobson

Sifting through the rubble

Sorting through the wreckage was hard, precise and heavy work for the archaeologists, particularly in the basement where the piles of debris reached 1.5 metres high. Despite the tough conditions there were extreme highs as items of the collection were found intact or when beautiful fragments of historic plaster were saved. Due to the way the floors collapsed during the fire some objects travelled the entire length of a room and down one or two levels.

Extensive fire damage on the basement floor at Clandon Park, Surrey. | © National Trust Images/Andreas von Einsiedel

Jacobean Clandon Park discovered

Once the debris had been removed from one room in the south-east corner of the basement it was clear that the floor was different. The stone in the other basement rooms had survived mostly intact, but here was exposed chalk, pieces of embedded brick, tile and bands of darker soil – perhaps indicating underfloor drains. The drains have since been dated to the 16th or 17th centuries and are the first physical evidence of the Jacobean home that stood here before the current house.

Detail of fire damage in the Library at Clandon Park, Surrey. The floor is missing, the walls are charred black and a shelf of books can be seen ruined. — Detail of fire damage in the Library at Clandon Park, Surrey | © National Trust Images/James Dobson

A library of two halves

The fate of the library has been a tale of two halves. One side of the room was heavily damaged, yet on the other side the fine fireplace and decorative plaster survives. Although many books were lost to the flames, others remain fused together by the intense heat and water. Some of the most precious items were rescued on the night of the fire including View of the House of Commons, the painting of Arthur Onslow and Sir Robert Walpole, by Thornhill and Hogarth (1730).