Jasper Conran to auction entire contents of New Wardour Castle today
Jasper Conran of the multi-talented Conran dynasty, a designer of clothes for Diana, Princess of Wales, wedding dresses for Paula Yates and Lady Sarah Chatto and costumes for the Royal Ballet, sold his apartment last year. Not just any apartment, one within the spectacular Palladian mansion designed by the architect James Paine with additions by Giacomo Quarenghi, the lead architect behind Saint Petersburg in Russia. It’s quite a place that appeals to the discerning eye of a designer and New Wardour Castle did just that, occupying a space as arguably Wiltshire’s grandest property.
Now, the new owner of the apartment – that sold for £4 million last year – will be able to buy up each of the individual pieces to make it an exact replica of Conran’s domestic haven should they wish. For Conran is auctioning the entire contents of his exquisite English palace with Christie’s. The two-part auction, Jasper Conran: The Collection Parts I and II, which will be conducted both in the sale room and online this month, will surely be one of the highlights of the auction house’s calendar.
The sale, which has just officially launched, will be made up of 500-lots and will offer an array of captivating objects, vases and pieces of furniture showcasing Conran’s encyclopaedic knowledge of 18th century artistry and his meticulous eye. One of the most prized lots is likely to be a George I chintz-cotton and velvet tester bed, dating from 1725, which is expected to fetch £80,000.
Other items of note will be three pairs of George III giltwood open armchairs embellished with needlework representations of Aesop's fables, each pair bearing an £18,000 estimate, and a George II heraldic console table, with an estimate of £20,000-30,000. But for those with an appetite for something a little older, there are four Chinese blue and white Kraak porcelain items believed to date from the 16th or 17th century, which are expected to sell for £4,000.
New Wardour Castle is widely recognised as one of England’s finest country houses. It was originally built for the Arundell family, but one and a half miles from Old Wardour Castle, the aristocratic family’s former home before it was besieged during the English Civil War and rendered uninhabitable. Now, Old Wardour Castle exists as a Grade I listed folly, a feature in the landscape of New Wardour Castle. Both castles have made their way into popular culture; New Wardour Castle as the dance school in Billy Elliot and Old Wardour Castle in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.
Jasper Conran’s very apartment, the principal apartment in the building, a characteristically elegant, high ceilinged, tall-widowed abode (and all 23,000 sq ft of it) went on sale for £3.95 million last August. The six-bedroom property is currently furnished with a mix of modern and 18th century classical English furniture; Conran told the Times last year: ‘It has an extraordinary atmosphere of calm about it,’ which is easy to believe. The mansion was built for the 8th Lord Arundell in 1770 but the estate dates all the way back to the Domesday Book. The eminent minimalist architect John Pawson converted the place into apartments 20 years ago, before Conran bought his apartment ten years ago.
For Conran’s wedding, he entertained friends in the apartment’s eight reception rooms, which are arranged in a circle around a piano nobile at the top of a 60ft rotunda that rises to a magnificent glazed dome supported by eight composite columns, it’s what Conran calls ‘possibly the best staircase in England, if not the world’.
You may wonder why on earth Conran has sold such an unparalleled beauty of a place – and it’s because he travels too much to be able to make good use of the apartment. In 2019, Conran acquired Villa Mabrouka, Yves Saint Laurent’s old house in Tangier on the country’s Mediterranean coast, which he plans to transform into a wonderfully chic hotel. It will be his second foray into the Moroccan hotel market following the opening of a hotel in the Medina of Marrakech five years ago. Villa Mabrouka is where Saint Laurent lived in the last decades of his life and it is utterly entrancing – in Conran’s capable hands, it will no doubt be all the more so in time to come.
Jasper Conran: The Collection Part I : Tuesday 14 September 2021 (Live Auction)
Jasper Conran: The Collection Part II : Wednesday 1 September – Tuesday 21 September 2021 (Online Auction)
Exhibition Viewing Dates: Wednesday 8 September – Monday 13 September (inclusive)
To register your interest in Jasper Conran: The Collection sale, or to request to pre-order a sale catalogue please e mail: jasperconrancollection@christies.com
Savills1/10Main grand staircase
Savills2/10The white sitting room
Savills3/10Kitchen
Savills4/10The guest bedroom
Savills5/10Dining room
Savills6/10Garden room
RDImages / Epics / Getty Images7/10The decorative ceiling of the central staircase
Savills8/10Boot room
Savills9/10The gallery
Richard Walker / Getty Images10/10Old Wardour Castle, New Wardour Castle's very own folly but one and a half miles away
