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The history of Ham House
Built by the Thames in 1608, Ham House was initially started as a retirement home for naval captain Thomas Vavasour.

In 1626 it had been acquired by Scotsman and Charles I 'whipping boy' William Murray. He remained on the brink of the king, despite having to require a beating whenever he misbehaved.

A modernisation programme of Ham House was launched in 1637 – 9, to place it into the design of the French court. A grand ceremonial staircase was added, along side state rooms leading into the good Dining Room, North Drawing Room, Long Gallery and Green Closet.

Ham House, pictured from behind, was given to Elizabeth's father by Charles I. He knew the king as he served because the royal's scapegoat , meaning he was hit whenever the monarch-to-be did something wrong during his childhood

Upon the outbreak of English war in 1642, Stuart England was thrown into turmoil.

William supported the royalist cause but, after Charles i used to be beheaded in Horse Guards' Parade, London, he was exiled to Holland.

His wife Katherine Bruce stayed at Ham House taking care of her five daughters. After she died in 1649, the running of the house fell to her eldest daughter Elizabeth. William remained in exile until his death in 1653.

She had married Sir Lionel Tollemache in 1648, a year before her mother's death. that they had eleven children together who grew up at Helmington Hall in Suffolk.

When he died in 1669 Elizabeth married a second time to John Maitland, second Earl of Lauderdale, in 1672, an equivalent year he was made a duke. The couple set about transforming their home to at least one that might match his status – and at great expense.

Illness, however, forced the Duke's resignation from government in 1689 and two years later he was dead. Elizabeth lived alone within the home for an extra 17 years before she died and it had been passed to her eldest son from her first marriage, Lionel Tollemache.

He taken care of the house and cut out the ground of the dining room where Charles II once dined to make a grand anteroom before passing on the property to his grandson when he died in 1727.

The fourth Earl, after commissioning a survey, set about rebuilding and replacing windows within the house, also as spending large sums on new silver.

It then passed to the fifth Earl in 1770, who kept visitors cornered and refused entry to George III .

After Elizabeth lived within the house it passed to her son from her first marriage. Pictured above is that the dining room

When he died without children in 1779, the house then visited his younger brother, the sixth Earl. He also set about re-decorating the house by cleaning floors and buying 17th century replica chairs.

Also dying without issue, the house was bequeathed to his elderly sister Lady Louisa Manners in 1821.

The eighth Earl, who succeeded in 1840, preferred to measure in his London home meaning the house was made available for his son William, Lord Huntingtower, who died in 1872.

A group of cousins then taken care of the house for twelve years before it had been passed to the ninth Earl in 1884, who had watercolours commissioned to record the state of the house before it had been repaired.

Vital structural work was administered on the house while heating and electrics were also installed.

This Earl also died childless in 1935, meaning the house then visited his relative Sir Lyonel Tollemache.

It survived the wartime London bombing, which destroyed neighbouring Holland house, and was given to the National Trust in 1948.

The government bought its contents, which then leased them to the Victoria & Albert museum, before they got back to the house in 2002.