Final step in the restoration of Grange Park’s central staircase (From Daily Echo)

Final step in the restoration of Grange Park’s central staircase

5:43pm Monday 8th June 2009 in

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IT HAS taken almost 40 years but a 19th century staircase has finally been returned to its Hampshire home.

In 1972 there was a great sale of interiors at The Grange mansion in the tiny village of Northington prior to its demolition.

The staircase was bought by conservation architect Donald Insall who hoped to reuse it but never got the chance.

English Heritage bought the staircase back and stored it at Fort Brockhurst in Gosport for almost four decades awaiting better times.

But the majestic mansion was never demolished and in the summer of 1998 Grange Park Opera started using the derelict building for their summer productions.

Now, thanks to a donation of £100,000 by the opera company, and three months of hard labouring, the staircase has been restored to its former glory.

Each step will bear the names of sponsors in ascending order according to the amount each paid. The bottom step starts at £1,500 and rises £500 at each step to £8,000 at the top.

David Brock, Team Leader at the South East Region of English Heritage, said: “We are delighted to have helped put this major feature back into one of the most astonishing houses in Hampshire, and are enormously grateful to Grange Park Opera for making it possible. The builders did a wonderful job and the finished staircase brings back a sense of the scale and ambition of this magnificent property.”

The semi-derelict mansion is nestled a couple of miles north of Alresford and was largely rotting away until Grange Park Opera spotted its potential as a venue for an upmarket opera festival.

The mansion dates back to the 17th century but the reason it is so highly regarded was the work of architect William Wilkins, who enclosed it in a neo-classical style, adding a portico of 12 columns in the early 19th century.

Wasfi Kani, founder and Chief Executive of The Grange Park Opera said: “The opera festival has the feel of those glamorous house parties for which The Grange was famous. Just think of the people who have walked up that staircase.”

The Grange Park Opera uses the house for two months every summer for their performances. The interior of the house is not open to the general public but guided tours are given during Heritage Open Days.

For more information visit english-heritage.org.uk