Belsay Hall in Northumberland is a Greek Revival property under the care of English Heritage. The house is described as being “maintained in a state of arrested decline”. It is in effect a shell, in some places taken back to the stone of the walls, but mercifully with some of the Joinery including window casings intact. While the Neoclassicism may be suspect, in it’s half clothed state it is a strangely powerful place. The lack of ornamentation no doubt helps; the spareness of the design and a sense of the monumental (Sir Charles Monck who designed and built the house modelled it on the Theseion in Athens).
Belsay Hall is North West of Newcastle upon Tyne and from May to September hosted Extraordinary Measures, an exhibition of various artists including Slinkachu and (in thehouse itself) Ron Mueck. These extraordinarily lifelike figures, somewhat distended,played very well against the austerity of the disrobed condition of the building.
Best of all though was the north side of the house, originally the service spaces, where triple height spaces had been created with the removal of floors – something gloriously surreal about fireplaces high up on a wall.
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