History of Ham

Ham House was built in 1610 for Sir Thomas Vavasour, Knight Marshal to James I.

On Sir Thomas's death in 1620, the house passed briefly to the Earl of Holdernesse, before becoming the home of William Murray in 1626.

Murray had been the 'whipping boy' for the future Charles I. He took punishment on behalf of the young prince, and formed a close bond with him, growing up to share his taste in art and architecture.

Between 1637 and 1639, Murray remodelled the interior of Ham. He created the Great Staircase and a suite of sumptuous rooms on the first floor: the Great Dining Room (now the Hall Gallery), the North Drawing Room, and the Long Gallery with its adjoining picture closet.

The decoration is intact in most of these rooms. The remaining part of Murray's art collection gives us a rare picture of fashions under Charles I.

When the Civil War broke out in 1642, Murray naturally joined the Royalist cause, and was created 1st Earl of Dysart for his loyalty. He died in Edinburgh in 1655.

The Duchess of Lauderdale
Ham passed to Murray’s eldest daughter, Elizabeth. Her father’s titles were conferred upon her in 1655, after his death, when she became the Countess of Dysart.

She was described by contemporaries as beautiful, ambitious and greedy. In 1648, she married Sir Lionel Tollemache, 3rd Baronet, of Helmingham Hall in Suffolk, a wealthy and cultivated squire. They had eleven children, of whom five survived to adulthood.

Renowned as a political schemer, she is said to have belonged to the Sealed Knot, the secret organisation supporting the exiled King. Even before Tollemache's death in 1669, Lady Dysart was rumoured to have formed an attachment to the ambitious John Maitland, 1st Duke of Lauderdale, Secretary of State for Scotland.

Following their marriage in 1672, they extended and refurnished Ham as a palatial villa reflecting the Duke's status as one of the most powerful ministers of Charles II. Much of this luxurious interior decoration survives today, along with rare textiles, furniture and paintings.

The Tollemache dynasty
After the Duke's death in 1682, the Duchess had to curb her extravagance and was eventually reduced to pawning her favourite pictures and jewellery. Elizabeth died at Ham in 1698. Ham House and the Dysart title then passed to her eldest son from her first marriage: Lionel Tollemache, 3rd Earl of Dysart (1649-1727).

Lionel took little interest in the house but by contrast, the 3rd Earl's grandson and heir, another Lionel, the 4th Earl, carried out major structural repairs in the 1740s. He filled many of the rooms with new furniture and paintings.

Most notably, the Queen's Bedchamber, furnished by the Lauderdales for Charles’ Queen, Catherine of Braganza, was converted into a first-floor drawing room. The mahogany chairs, gilt pier-glasses and tables, and tapestries after Watteau survive in situ.

The 5th Earl partially re-landscaped the garden and was succeeded in 1799 by his brother, Wilbraham, who immediately made improvements inside and outside the house. The 6th Earl was a generous patron of Reynolds and Gainsborough. He created the striking Yellow Satin Bedroom, but most of his changes were antiquarian in spirit, enhancing Ham's 17th-century character.

Restoration and renewal
Little changed at Ham between the 6th Earl's death in 1821 and 1884, when William, 9th Earl of Dysart came of age. Sixty years of benign neglect had left the house and its contents in urgent need of repair and Lord Dysart embarked on a thorough restoration campaign.

The roof was renewed, electricity and heating installed, and much of the 17th-century furniture repaired. The 9th Earl died in 1935, when Ham passed to his second cousin, Sir Lyonel Tollemache.

Sir Lyonel and his son, Cecil, gave Ham to the National Trust in 1948.