The room built for one birthday party

Here's a Powderham Castle story of a castle that has belonged to the same family, the Courtenays, for over 600 years, since building began on the Exe estuary in 1391, a run of unbroken ownership that's rare even by the standards of England's great houses.

In 1794, the flamboyant 3rd Viscount Courtenay decided that turning twenty-one deserved rather more than a party in an existing room. He commissioned the architect James Wyatt to design an entirely new one, the Music Room, painted in the same striking blue as the grand Staircase Hall beside it, giving the whole space a light, whimsical feel. It took two years to build. The birthday itself came and went in an evening, but the room outlasted it by well over two centuries, and it's still regarded as one of the finest Georgian interiors anywhere in the West Country, all built to mark a single coming-of-age.

I painted Powderham in watercolour and ink, that pale stone facade of a castle perched above the estuary. There's a poster with a letter home and a postcard if you'd like one.

Shop the poster here: Powderham Castle, Devon · Travel Poster