Castle Howard, the grand North Yorkshire estate long synonymous with English heritage and cinematic splendour, has scooped two major awards for its ambitious interior restoration project — Castle Howard’s 21st Century Renaissance. The work, which reopened to the public in April 2025, has been recognised with the Historic Houses Restoration Award, sponsored by Sotheby’s, and The Georgian Group’s Architecture Award for Best Restoration of a Georgian Interior, sponsored by Savills.
The accolades mark a significant milestone in a decades-long effort to restore what was once thought to be lost forever. The project’s centrepiece, the newly reimagined Tapestry Drawing Room, has been resurrected from the burnt-out shell left by the devastating 1940 fire. Visitors can now step into a luminous space designed in full 18th-century Baroque splendour, complete with its original 1706 Vanderbank tapestries — “The Four Seasons” — glowing with colour and depth. It’s a resurrection not only of design but of spirit.
Elsewhere, the Long Gallery and Grand Staircase have been meticulously refurbished, their gilt and stonework renewed, and the entire collection of paintings, sculptures, and tapestries re-curated. The timing feels apt: 2026 will mark the 300th anniversary of Sir John Vanbrugh’s death, Castle Howard’s original architect and one of Britain’s great theatrical visionaries.
Castle Howard hardly needs an introduction. Its silhouette — the dome, the stately avenues, the gardens — has become closely associated with English grandeur, its image immortalised through Brideshead Revisited and, more recently, Bridgerton. Yet, despite the cinematic gloss, the estate remains a working family home — one that has survived fire, war, and shifting fortunes.
When flames tore through the house in 1940, destroying the dome and twenty rooms, the future looked bleak. But George Howard’s postwar decision to keep the house in family hands — and his steady, almost stubborn commitment to repair — set the tone for every generation that followed. He reopened Castle Howard to the public in 1952, rebuilt the dome in 1962, and, with the help of Brideshead Revisited’s film crew in the 1980s, restored the Garden Hall and New Library.
This new phase, under the current custodians, Nicholas and Victoria Howard, feels like both a homage and an evolution. Architect Francis Terry and designers Remy Renzullo and Alec Cobbe have struck a rare balance: reverence for history without slipping into pastiche. It’s craftsmanship with conviction — classical yet undeniably alive.
In a joint statement, Nicholas and Victoria Howard said, “We are delighted to receive these two prestigious and long-established awards, and would like to thank the judging panels, as well as the extraordinary array of architects, designers and craftspeople who all contributed to the success of this once-in-a-generation project.”
The results speak for themselves. Castle Howard’s interiors, long frozen in memory and old photographs, now breathe again — not as a museum but as a lived-in masterpiece. The restoration shows what can happen when care, money, and imagination align — when history isn’t embalmed but reborn.
In an age where so many stately homes are fading into ruin or repurposed into luxury hotels, Castle Howard’s renewal feels almost defiant. A reminder that beauty, properly tended, can survive catastrophe. And sometimes, as the Howards have shown for over three centuries, it can even rise from the ashes.