The history of Sudley House begins in the first decade of the 19th century. Today Sudley House is one of the few period homes decorated in a Victorian style that still has many of its original features. It is also the only surviving Victorian merchant art collection in Britain still hanging in its original location.
Holt the collector
George Holt began collecting seriously in middle age, around the late1860s. Holt did not collect art simply as a status symbol, as some merchant collectors may have done. He paid a great deal of attention to the presentation of his works, from framing to glazing, and his early buying concentrated on English landscapes and genre pieces, prints and Chinese porcelain.