Here's another nice Lucy Worsley documentary, a bit like the 'Dancing Cheek to Cheek' one, but this time it's about dancing horses, manège, dressage, jousting and equestrianism.



[Edit in Jan' 2023] This youtube video was subsequently removed by the BBC ... and so well done to Vizzer for finding a new link to the original program:



It's all quite light and none too heavy but like all Lucy Worsley documentaries there are lots of interesting snippets of info. For instance I didn't know that horse dressage basically arose in the 17th century from the increasing need for horse manoeverability on the battlefield, thereby replacing the sport of jousting which was all about simple nerve and charging power. And while I knew Charles II was keen on horse racing, 'the sport of Kings', I didn't realise he promoted it as a important means to improve the stock of British cavalry horses that had been greatly depleted during the Civil War. (Interesting also to learn that Lucy did her PhD on William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, and the dressage school he established at Bolsover Castle).

And if you don't like Lucy Worsley then you can always concentrate on the her riding instructor, Ben Atkinson, and his muscular thighs squeezed into skin-tight jeans: "Don't do anything that I don't tell you to!" ...  No sir, I would never. [sigh]

Didn't many grand houses actually have special covered areas for training the horses in dressage - it was considered so important? Isn't the one at Bolsover Castle the only one left in existence now?

I didn't notice the chap's thighs to be honest. Lucy Worsley knows her stuff all right, but she is very irritating at times. She was unbearable in her Henry VIII's Wives series - lurking about in the corridors at Hampton Court, all dressed up like an extra from Wolf Hall.

Well, I did try, MM, but it seems that neither dancing horses nor Ben Atkinson's muscular thighs have excited any attention.

Odd that so important a historical topic (horses, that is, not thighs) is apparently of little interest.

It saddens me to think of all the horses that died in mankind's wars - the humans had some kind of choice; the animals had none. Trained or not, they must have been terrified and bewildered by it all. There is a War Memorial  in Hyde Park - not just for horses, but for all animals killed in battle.

Temperance wrote:

Didn't many grand houses actually have special covered areas for training the horses in dressage - it was considered so important? Isn't the one at Bolsover Castle the only one left in existence now?

That may well be the case Temp. I had thought that the Devonshire Dome in Buxton might have been such but it was just stables for the use of the well-heeled residents of Buxton Crescent. Incredibly when it was built in the 1780s the Dome was the largest self-supporting dome in the world. Co-incidentally (or otherwise) it was built by the Devonshires another branch of the Cavendish family and also in north Derbyshire. The Duke of Newcastle (of the Bolsover Cavendishes) was influential upon the 18th century French royal equerry François de La Guérinière who in turn would set the standard by which dressage is still judged today. In his 1733 book Ecole de Cavalerie, de La Guérinière said that the Duke of Newcastle was perhaps too deferential towards Spanish (Andalusian) horses which is, perhaps, justified with regard to dressage but that, in de La Guérinière’s opinion, English horses were the best breed for racing and hunting. Furthermore he added that the best of those were to be found in Yorkshire – les meilleurs sont de la Province d’Iorksire. One wonders, however, what Derbyshire folk might have made of that assertion.
 


(The Devonshire Dome, Buxton, Derbyshire – today a wedding venue & conference centre and before that a hospital, it started out life as stables.)

There are also the Prince Regent's grand stables and riding house that he had built at Brighton. Like Buxton's stables they have long since been repurposed, although the prince's equestrian hall is still essentially as it was built with the most obvious change being that the original gravel floor, which lasted until the latter part of the 19th century, has now been replaced by sprung wood for human, rather than equine, dancing.

When visiting Brighton - then little more than a small fishing village albeit one that was gaining popularity as a venue for the fashionable practice of sea-bathing - Prince George (later George IV) rented a relatively modest lodging house overlooking Old Steine gardens. Remote from the royal court in London, Brighton (or Brighthelmstone as it was then called), was a discreet location for the Prince to enjoy private liaisons with his long-time companion, Maria Fitzherbert. He subsequently bought the property and then started making additions and alterations to the buildings, which eventually led him to commission architect William Porden to draw up plans for a vast new stable block and riding house for his horses. The stable building was to be in the form of a vast dome and was inspired by an aquatint of the great Jama Masjid (mosque) in Delhi, published by William Thomas Daniell in 'Oriental Scenery' (six volumes of prints published between 1795 and 1808) and reflecting a prevalent interest in all things Indian at the time. The construction, with a segmented glass cupola, 80 feet (24 m) in diameter and 65 feet (20 m) in height, and which later gave the building its popular name of The Dome, is said to been based on the wooden-domed Halle au Ble (Corn Market) in Paris which had been built in 1782, but I wonder if there wasn't also a more direct influence from the glass dome of Buxton's stable building. When completed in 1808 there were stalls for sixty horses with rooms for the accompanying grooms and stable hands on the circular mezzanine level above, all constructed in a lavish 'mughal' style. It was a very ambitious piece of construction at the time and many people thought the glass roof would fall in once the scaffolding was removed.





Adjacent to the stables Prince George also had built an equally ambitious riding house that was 178 feet by 58 feet with a 34-foot-high unsupported roof (the roof is unusual as it is constructed of naturally curved timbers, a cause of considerable delay in construction as suitable timbers were difficult to obtain). There was originally a grand royal balcony built on the Eastern wall for the Prince and his guests to watch his horses being excercised and trained (the Prince by then being far to fat to actively ride); this was later dismantled, but only in a 1930s refurbishment.



Inevitably, given the scale of these two projects, people soon remarked that the Prince’s horses were housed more favourably than the Regent himself, spurring him to transform his relatively modest Marine Pavilion into the grand oriental-style palace that is now known as the Royal Pavilion. The expense in constructing and decorating all these buildings was enormous and effectively bankrupted him, yet again, after most of his previous debts had already been paid off by Parliament when he agreed, most reluctantly, to leave his mistress Mrs Fitzherbert and for the succession marry Caroline of Brunswick.



Queen Victoria inherited the whole complex of buildings on her accession to the throne but sold the estate to Brighton Corporation soon after (she didn't much like Brighton's then growing reputation as a fun and popular but slightly tacky seaside resort). The stables became a concert hall, during which time the original roof was rebuilt several times with smaller windows, the interior remodelled and gas chandeliers installed. The riding school was used as a cavalry barracks before becoming the town's Corn Exchange. During WW1 both buildings were used as a military hospital, almost exclusively for Indian troops as it was felt the oriental decor would make them feel at home.




Nowadays the Dome functions as a grand concert venue ...



... while the adjacent Riding Hall/Corn Exchange building - albeit currently under restoration (2023) but planned to return to its usual use as a venue for concerts, exhibitions, wedding receptions and civic events - remains almost exactly as it was built in the early 1800s, complete with its unique curved timber ceiling,

I’ve been to Brighton twice but I've never been inside the Pavilion. When I was there I was visiting friends who lived in a flat just off the adjacent Lanes. I thought that the Lanes were very quaint, but apart from a brief jaunt down to the seafront to see the famous pebbly beach and the Palace Pier, I never really got to explore the rest of the town. Although I’d heard of the Brighton Dome as a music venue, I wasn’t aware of its origin as a stable or that it was part of the Pavilion complex along with the Riding Hall/Corn Exchange, so thanks for those revelations MM.

Brighton Pavillion is well worth a visit if you are in the town and particularly if you have an interest in Regency England. As a 'stately home' it's nowhere near as large nor grand as say Windsor Castle, Blenheim Palace, Longleat, Castle Howard, Hardwick Hall or Burghley House, but then it was originally intended as 'just' a fantasy seaside villa, albeit one fit for a (soon-to-be) king. However the Pavillion is redolent of the whole slightly bizarre Regency period, whether that's at the level of the Prince Regent's extravagant, self-indulgent fantasy of a seaside villa, or with Jane Austen's much simpler yet still rather bourgeois aspirations. And of course the decor in the Brighton Pavillion is fantastic, in several senses of the word.

The Pavillion's exterior Indo-Saracenic style is well-known and now iconic for Brighton as a whole, however the interior decoration is actually almost exclusively in a lavish Regency-Chinese style. While almost nothing remains of the earlier interior decor in the Dome (the Prince's stables) because it was remodelled so many times - from the original mock-mughal glass and carved stone, through a late Victorian quasi-oriental style of crystal chandeliers and ornate cast-iron, then 1930s Art Deco concrete and coloured tiles, to today's modern, acoustically-sensitive concert hall - by contrast the Royal Pavillion's interior has remained almost unchanged for 200 years.

Personally I'm not too keen on chintzy Regency-Chinoiserie bling (although the sheer fantastic opulence of it all is certainly breath-taking) and so when I last visited (many years ago) what really interested me were the kitchens together with the ancillary larders, pastry and confectionary rooms (all five of them, the Prince had a sweet tooth and liked his sugary desserts), the final food-prep rooms, and of course the grand Banqueting Hall itself.

Alongside the Prince Regent's passion for his horses, he also loved food and fine dining and this is reflected in the large space (within what is actually quite a small, even homely 'palace') that was allocated to the new kitchens. Unlike most service rooms in many grand houses of the time, the Great Kitchen in the Royal Pavillion included features just to make life better for the servants - and subsequently for the good of all - such as providing toilet and hand-washing facilities for the kitchen staff. The kitchens were even decorated in accordance with the overall theme of the whole building: the functional cast iron columns supporting the kitchen's high, airy ceiling are topped with slightly whimsical painted copper palm leaves. Nevertheless despite these artistic flourishes the kitchen was one of the most technologically advanced of its day. The main kitchen was spacious, light and well-ventilated, with hot and cold running water constantly on tap. There was an open range that enabled five huge spit-roast meats to be cooked at the same time (to supply the typically Georgian desire for huge meaty roast joints) ... but there was also a long separate stewing bench with multiple charcoal-heated 'hobs' (with indiviual temperature control) for cooking all the latest French-style 'composed' dishes. There was also a very innovative central steam-heated table which made it so much easier to keep food warm whilst it was being prepared.

The whole kitchen has now been faithfully restored and kitted out with period equipment, including most recently the acquisition of a huge number of gleaming copper pots and pans taken from the Duke of Wellington’s London home at Apsley House. In 1816 George employed the renowned French chef Carême to introduce the sophisticated culinary standards set in France and although Carême only lasted a year (he couldn't tolerate the Prince Regent's constant interferring in culinary matters) both his cooking style and the technical innovations he introduced into the Royal Pavillon kitchens were copied in grand houses throughout England.


The Great Kitchen in about 1820 - it's essentially unchanged today.


The magnificent Banqueting Hall.

The whole Royal Pavillion estate, in addition to the Prince Regent's main villa (the Pavillion), his stables (The Dome) and his riding hall (The Corn Exchange building), included numerous other buildings - estate offices, accommodation for domestic servants and gardeners, coach houses, kitchens etc - and these were mostly, at least externally where they might be seen, decorated in the same Indo-Saracenic style. The majority of these buildings have subsequently been repurposed, and so hidden away behind the ornate oriental facades fronting Church Street are also to be found Brighton Studio Theatre as well as Brighton Museum and Art Gallery.  


The Church Street entrance to The Dome concert hall venue and going further up the street are other civic buildings, all in the same oriental style. But note that this street is very much at the rear of the Royal Pavillion estate, beyond the gardens and behind even the stables. Despite their grand facades, ornate doorways, decorative domes, chatris and minarets, these were essentially the tradesmens' entances 'around the back'.

The most westerly building of the whole estate as you go uphill along Church Street, and immediately adjoining what was the Prince's Riding Hall, is now a theatre, although it too was originally yet another equestrian building; Mrs Fitzherbert's Stables. Maria Fitzherbert was of course one of the Prince's mistresses who he was forced to put aside (he'd actually married her although as she was Catholic this union was later declared illegal and so null and void) in order to marry Caroline of Brunswick as a specific condition for Parliament to pay off his debts. She too was very keen on equestrianism and her numerous riding and carriage horses were housed in a large building close to the Prince's own stables and with access to his riding hall. I think the basic fabric of the building predates both The Dome and Pavillion, it being part of the original estate, however it seems likely that it was originally intended that it be remodelled into the same lavish oriental style as the other buildings around it. However circumstance intervened: Maria Fitzherbert fell from favour, her influence with the Prince declined and so her stables were never redeveloped before they, along with the rest of the estate, were eventually sold by Queen Victoria to Brighton Corporation. The building currently houses The Studio Theatre, which is presently buried away as part of the Dome complex of buildings hidden behind their mock-mughal facades.


The Studio Theatre occupies this large hall within The Dome complex and which originally served as the stables for Mrs Fitzherbert's horses. Like the adjacent Corn Exchange/Riding Hall this building is currently (2023) being restored to bring the theatre up to modern standards while preserving the building's 18th century architectural features.