Garden hotel

Cliveden (pronounced CLIV-d'n) is a mansion in Buckinghamshire, England overlooking the River Thames owned by the National Trust and operated as a hotel by von Essen hotels. The gardens and woodlands are open to the public, together with parts of the house on certain days. The present house was built in 1851 by the architect Charles Barry for George Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 3rd Duke of Sutherland.

The present house:

The three-storey house, in the classic Italian style, was built in 1851 on the broad terraces of its predecessor, for the Duke of Sutherland, who required a country retreat near London. This new mansion was considerably grander and more luxurious than the previous house. The exterior remains much as designed by Barry, but the interiors were extensively altered in the 1870s, when the house was owned by the Hugh Lupus Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster, and again in the 1890s when the architect John Loughborough Pearson remodelled the entrance hall and sweeping staircase. The clock tower next to the house is in fact a disguised water tower.

In the formal gardens are temples and follies built by various owners and tenants. The Octagon temple (now the chapel), designed by the architect Giacomo Leoni, was commissioned by George Douglas-Hamilton, 1st Earl of Orkney in 1735.

Early history:

Cliveden stands on the site of a house built in 1666 designed by architect William Winde as the home of George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham. The house was let to Frederick, Prince of Wales from 1739 to 1751 during whose tenure, in 1740, the song "Rule, Britannia" was first performed, in the rustic theatre in the garden. In 1795 the house was seriously damaged by fire and for the next 30 years it remained a shell; following a second rebuilding it was again destroyed by fire in 1849.