The Isham family is associated with several noteworthy homes in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia. Following is information about each home’s history, its connections with the family, and links to other online information about the house.
Homes in the United Kingdom
LAMPORT HALL AND GARDENS
Lamport, Northamptonshire
Lamport Hall was the seat of the Isham family from 1560 when it was acquired by John Isham (grandfather of Sir John, 1st Baronet) to 1976 when the 12th Baronet, Sir Gyles died. To escape ruinous taxation, he left the estate to the Lamport Hall Preservation Trust. Sir Norman’s daughter Libby Brayshaw and elder son Richard Isham serve as Trustees.
Of Grade I importance, Lamport Hall has been hailed as one of the country’s architectural treasures by many, including Richard Jenkins in England’s Thousand Best Houses. The house contains rare collections of furniture, paintings, and books brought back from a Grand Tour of Europe by the 2nd Baronet, Sir Justinian I.
During the Commonwealth era, it was transformed from Tudor (pictured) to Classical style. Begun by John Webb in 1655, the work was finished in the 18th century, to the design of Francis Smith of Warwick. (Notably, Smith was also the builder of Kelmarsh Hall, once home of Nancy Lancaster, renowned interior designer and gardener–and Isham and Randolph descendant.)
Among its most beautiful rooms are
Lamport Hall also offers sumptuous and extensive gardens, including the rockery of 10th Baronet, Sir Charles, who is credited for introducing garden gnomes to England. (Pictured is a replica of “Lampy”, the last of Sir Charles’s original gnomes.) The Lamport estate is conveniently situated in the Northamptonshire countryside, a short drive from motorways and A14.
In an article entitled A House of Personalities, John Goodall offers a splendid profile of Lamport Hall–the estate, the house, and its family. The now-archived article appeared in the 7 October 2015 issue of Country Life (pages 48 to 52).
Click here for links to a list of other websites offering information about Lamport Hall.
See Facebook for photos and news.
See Flickr for amateur photos of the Hall’s exteriors, grounds, and gardens as well as All Hallows Church, Lamport.
See YouTube for amateur videos of visitors touring the grounds as well as attending events on the property.
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PYTCHLEY VILLAGE (former site of Pytchley Hall, demolished 1824)
Northamptonshire, UK
Pytchley Hall was built south of the surviving Pytchley Church during the reign of Elizabeth I (more precisely, 1580-90) for Sir Euseby Isham.
Earl Spencer (ancestor of Diana, Princess of Wales) took over the Hall in 1752 and started a hunting club now known as the Pytchley Hunt. Around 1830, gambler George Payne–a one-time Master of the Pytchley Hounds–acquired the Hall, but later had to have it razed and sell the land to settle his debts.
Information about the church, All Saints Pytchley, including who to contact before a visit, is available on the 5churches website. The former gatehouse of Pytchley Hall is a short walk from the church, and is now a private home.
Information about the village, its organizations, and their activities is available on the Pytchley Village website.
See Facebook for photos and news.
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NEW HILL
New Hill, near Alton, was the unmistakably 21st century home of Libby and Richard Brayshaw, daughter and son-in-law of Sir Norman and Joan, Lady Isham.
It is a seeming contradiction in terms: a Modernist country house. Its steel and glass pavilions linked by grey brick walls give it a sense of cool and calm. Like few other homes, it offers the option of opening its glass walls wide to eliminate the barrier between indoors and outdoors. An expansive chipped slate terrace runs the length of the house.
How, one might wonder, was it possible to obtain planning permission for such a house from the tweedy local authority? They had only one requirement: the house could not be visible from the road! The Brayshaws sold New Hill in 2018.
New Hill is the subject of a photo-illustrated chapter of Jeremy Melvin’s book, Country Houses Today (2006), pages 172-79.
Homes in the United States
DOGHAM FARM
Charles City, Virginia, USA
Dogham Farm was patented in 1642 by Joseph Royall. He and his wife Katherine Banks had a son and several daughters, and consequently have many descendants today.
After being widowed, Katherine married Capt. Henry Isham of Bermuda Hundred, and they had a family, including two surviving daughters with many accomplished descendants. Thanks to the Royalls, Harrisons, and Mitchells, it is Dogham’s good fortune to have been continuously occupied by Katherine Royall Isham’s descendants for over 370 years.
Dogham is a typical Virginia vernacular three-bay I-house with three dormer windows on each side of a gable roof between exterior end chimneys. The plan is the familiar center stair hall with a room on either side.
As is typical of long-inhabited sites in Virginia, the frame dwelling has evolved over the generations. The original house has been dated to sometime between the late 1600s and early 1700s. Because building materials were often reused during the Colonial era, it is difficult to date it more precisely. That the original home consisted of the area spanning the front door and right window (pictured above)–today’s center hall and dining room–is certain, as the original basement is under this portion of the house only.
In the 1930s and 1940s, new kitchen and bedroom wings were added in the Colonial Revival style consistent with, though easily distinguished from, the original architecture. The Dogham Farm garden is located across the front lawn, opposite the older part of the house.
In that garden, there is a sundial placed there in 2005 in honor of Sir Ian Isham, 13th Baronet, for re-uniting the English family and their Virginia cousins.
Dogham Farm remains, as ever, a private family home, owned today by the Mitchell family, who can claim five lines of descent from Capt. Henry Isham and his wife Katherine Banks (widow of Joseph Royall). They open it to the public for one Saturday in September every few years as part of the Westover Church Autumn Pilgrimage.
Dogham appears in at least two books: Emmie Ferguson Farrar’s Old Virginia Houses Along the James (1957), pages 80-84, and Anne M. Faulconer’s The Virginia House: A Home for Three Hundred Years (1984), pages 56-57.
See Facebook for photos and news.
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GEORGE S. ISHAM MANSION
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Dr. George Snow Isham, like his father Dr. Ralph N. Isham, was one of Chicago’s most socially prominent physicians and surgeons as well as a descendant of John Isham of Barnstable, Massachusetts. The Gold Coast French chateau-esque mansion at 1340 North State Parkway—designed at the turn of the 20th century by architect James Gamble Rogers—saw many dramatic changes over less than a century.
During their all-too-short tenure in the home, the Ishams entertained President Theodore Roosevelt and arctic explorer Admiral Robert Peary among others. Isham died in 1926, and during the Great Depression the home was divided into apartments.
In the 1940s and ‘50s, it was restored to its former splendor as a home for 2 consecutive owner families.
From its purchase by Hugh Hefner in 1959 until his move to California in 1974, it gained fame (or infamy, depending on one’s point of view) as the original Playboy Mansion.
After Hefner moved to the west coast, the home became known as Hefner Hall, when it was a dormitory and studios for the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
In 1993, the mansion was again sold, gutted, and converted into 4 multi-million-dollar condominiums by architect David Adler. One of the units occupies an entire floor.
A collection of historic photographs of the home can be seen at (and copies possibly obtained from) the Chicago History Museum. The collection also includes a portrait of Dr. George Snow Isham and his wife Katherine Porter.
The house is one of many covered in Susan Benjamin’s and Stuart Cohen’s Great Houses of Chicago, 1871-1921 (Acanthus Press, 2008), pages 204-211.
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HERMAN ISHAM HOUSE
Barnstable, Massachusetts, USA
Herman Isham House is a historic house at 1322 Main Street in Barnstable, Massachusetts.
Typical of New England Cape Cod style homes of such age, it has a central chimney. The house was built in 1747 for a descendant of John Isham of Barnstable, and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.
Its ownership status is unknown, and there is no evidence that it is open to the public.
See Facebook for photos and news.
Home in Australia
BARNSTABLE
Margate, Tasmania, Australia
Steve and Marion Isham live in Tasmania on a property they call Barnstable to recall Steve’s ancestor John‘s first home in Massachusetts.
They built their house from local timber, adobe brick and stone from the property. Barnstable is also home to chickens, a few sheep and a kitchen garden.
It is a private home, but also houses Bandicoot Books, through which Marion and Steve author, illustrate, and publish children’s books, and the studio from which Steve paints portraits on commission.