Broadlands Visit

On 27th July 2016 we enjoyed another Ince Cousins visit, this time to Broadlands in Romsey, Hampshire. 

Broadlands was the home of the second Viscount Palmerston, whose accounts record purchases of nearly two thousand pounds for furniture from Ince & Mayhew for Broadlands and also for their London home, 22 Hanover Square.  The house was remodelled by Brown in the 1760s and 1770s when Ince & Mayhew provided the pier glasses and marble-topped tables in the Drawing Room, the hall chairs, the side tables in the Dining room and the bed in the Green bedroom.[i]  Later, when Holland was making further improvements in the late 1780s and early 1790s they provided items such as the pier tables for the Wedgwood Room, and the desk for Lady Palmerston, which she mentioned in her inventory of 1797 as ‘secretary made by Ince (17)82’.  There are also some lovely Ince & Mayhew commodes there, a pair in the Salon, along with a beautiful Pembroke table, and a pair of serpentine marquetry commodes in the Wedgwood Room. 

We enjoyed seeing the furniture in the downstairs rooms, but were unable to see the four other commodes, tables and desk which were upstairs.

Lord Palmerston was a husband who took an interest in the furnishing of his homes, and made reference to Ince in a letter to his wife about the sofa for their Hanover Square house written in 1795: Ince has been altering it as to the stuffing and making cushions etc according to the directions you left him.   The question now will be, will you have those eight chairs of his which will match very well with the sofa…[ii]

Broadlands has strong links with the British royal family.  The Queen and Prince Philip spent their honeymoon there in 1947, returning in 2007 for their diamond anniversary, and at the weekend prior to our visit one of the daughters of Lady Brabourne had been married at Romsey Abbey, with the reception at Broadlands.  All the members of the royal family had been there, including the Queen and Prince Charles.  Let’s hope they appreciated the Ince & Mayhew furniture!

There were nineteen of us in the party, fourteen of whom are direct descendants of William Ince.  

[i] Roberts, Hugh The Ince and Mayhew connection: furniture at Broadlands, Hampshire; Country Life, 169(4354), 29 January 1981, pp 288-90
[ii] Vickery, A.   Behind Closed Doors Yale University Press, New Haven & London 2009 p141