Houghton Hall
No other stately home in the east of England combines heritage, history and tradition with contemporary art like Houghton Hall. If you loved Chatsworth and Blenheim Palace, you will also swoon for Houghton Hall. Go when one of their staggering summer sculpture exhibitions is installed on the grounds.
Built in the eighteenth century as the seat of Britain's first Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, Houghton Hall matters today for far more than its celebrated Palladian architecture. Walpole's fabled collection of Old Master paintings - with works by Rubens, Van Dyck, Rembrandt and Poussin - was sold to the Hermitage Museum in the same century, yet the estate has since reinvented itself as one of Britain's leading destinations for contemporary art.
Spread across its extensive grounds, the permanent Sculpture Park holds major large-scale pieces by internationally renowned artists - among them James Turrell, Richard Long, Anish Kapoor, Stephen Cox and Antony Gormley - striking up a remarkable exchange between landscape, architecture and contemporary sculpture. The estate has also staged significant exhibitions by artists such as Damien Hirst and Henry Moore, earning a reputation that now rivals many purpose-built contemporary art institutions. Few places in East Anglia marry historic grandeur with contemporary art on such an ambitious scale.
