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The use of electricity to run the house's appliances and internal systems made Cragside a pioneer of home automation; one of the first private residences to have a dishwasher, a vacuum cleaner and a washing machine, the conservators Sarah Schmitz and Caroline Rawson suggest Cragside was "the place where modern living began". [46]
The lakes were used to generate hydro-electricity, and the house was the first in the world to be lit by hydro-electricity, using incandescent lamps provided by the inventor Joseph Swan. [2] As Armstrong spent less and less time at the Elswick works, he spent more and more time at Cragside, and it became his main home.
Between 1862 and 1865, Armstrong built Cragside, a country house and "shooting box" (hunting lodge) just outside Rothbury, and extended it as a "fairy palace" between 1869 and 1900. The house and its estate are now owned by the National Trust and are open to the public, attracting many visitors to the area.
Expanding his landholdings around Cragside, Lord Armstrong acquired Cragend, a nearby 16th-century farmhouse [7] two miles south of Rothbury. [8] He started work on modernising the farm in the 1880s, [ 8 ] and around 1895 built the experimental hydraulic silo building now known as Cragend Silo.
Designed by Richard Norman Shaw for William Armstrong, 1st Baron Armstrong, Cragside is a house of firsts. The first in the world to be lit by hydroelectricity, it also topped Mark Girouard's list of Victorian houses that should be saved for the nation.
The house's most dramatic feature was a massive arch that formed a porte cochere and supported the loggia (open porch) and glass-enclosed billiard room above. Guests arriving by carriage would be dropped off under the arch, enter through the front door, and climb an interior stair to the main floor, which featured formal rooms for entertaining.
Historically, the trust tended to focus on English country houses, which still make up the largest part of its holdings, but it also protects historic landscapes such as in the Lake District, historic urban properties, and nature reserves.
It was sold at auction in 1875 for 3,100 guineas (£3,255) and acquired by William Armstrong for his house, Cragside. The Magazine of Art , vol.14 in 1891 described Chill October in the Armstrong collection as "the most famous landscape in the collection ... the first and noblest of his great landscapes.