Making Connections through Collections

I like writing (given the time), and sticking pictures in the text makes it all seem aesthetically pleasing. Yet, I wondered very briefly what it would be like to have some other media to ‘decorate’ the page. So I made some attempt at poking around the old internet to see what I might come across.

This piece from The Art Institute Chicago, was intriguing. This is a secretary cabinet by Giles Grendey (1693-1780) a cabinetmaker originally from Gloucestershire, England who on moving to London became a sought after craftsman through exceptional networking and involvement with the export trade. The secretary cabinet is in a style which sees a sort of marriage of Rococo and Chinoiserie in its scroll motifs and scarlet and gold lacquered decoration. The video offers a stunning view of how the piece functioned as well as allowing that all important view of the inside!

This piece is significant because it formed part of a now celebrated commission made during the 1730s by Grendey for the Duke of Infantado’s castle at Lazcano. The commission consisted of around 77 pieces of furniture, the majority of which remained in situ until the 1930s before being purchased directly by Adolph Loewi an art and antiques collector and dealer based in Venice. Loewi acquired 72 pieces – 50 single chairs and 12 armchairs; 2 day-beds; 2 pairs of mirrors; a pair of candlestands; a card table and a tripod tea table.

A late 19th century photograph of the salon at Lazcano (reproduced in Gilbert, Furniture at Temple Newsam House and Lotherton Hall)

Eventually these pieces were widely dispersed, however it is possible to track a great deal of them to public collections such as The Art Institute Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, Rosen’s Collection at Caramoor, and Temple Newsam House in Leeds.

Scarlet japanned armchair, part of the Infantado commission by Grendey. Temple Newsam House, Leeds (reproduced in Gilbert, Furniture at Temple Newsam House and Lotherton Hall)

Parts of the original commission and other pieces by Grendey appear in auction catalogues all over the world. Some of which have sprung from private collections. In April and December 1971, Antiques magazine listed the whereabouts of pieces from the Infantado commission. On failing miserably at finding affordable copies of these, my only consolation is that much of the provenance has changed anyway since then.

Giles Grendey

Giles Grendey practiced as an apprentice in London between 1709 and 1716, and by the 1730s was working independently from St John’s Square, Clerkenwell. While he did not publish a furniture pattern book, he is better known than many of his contemporaries because he frequently labelled his furniture. Craftsmen working for Grendey also left their initials on pieces.  Grendey’s tendency to label furniture is certainly a reflection of his active participation in the export market and the suite of furniture made for the Duke of Infantado is specially styled to appeal to someone with opulent taste. Pieces like the secretary cabinet for example have flat surfaces to allow for decorative treatment, but they also carry an awkward and perhaps archaic mixture of styles which were typical of native Spanish furniture of the time as seen in the heavy curved pediment and ‘bun’ feet.

They are stunning pieces of furniture and are worth looking at ‘in the flesh’ even if the now faded exterior colour still clashes with our understanding of fashionable modern (and often muted) interiors and appears rather brash to our modern eyes.

References.

Christopher Gilbert, Furniture at Temple Newsam House and Lotherton Hall (1978) Also, Gilbert lists the following as relevant literature:

Connoisseur, June 1964, p.120

Collector’s Guide, January 1971, p.68

‘Furniture by Giles Grendey for the Spanish Trade’, Antiques April 1971, pp.544-550

G. Wills, English Furniture 1550-1760, 1971, p. 130

Unions, Politics and Country Houses.

The Sunday Times for 21 April 2013

Whilst flicking through someone else’s copy of The Sunday Times late last week, I found this article (yes, that is my bad attempt at tearing). The link to it is here, but you have to subscribe to read it in full. Nevermind, I can give a brief summary of its finer points, even if the headline was disappointingly misleading.

Basically, the article writers – Isabel Oakeshott and Jack Grimston – report that some of Britain’s militant unions are ‘operating luxurious holiday accommodation and rural retreats where shop stewards and members can enjoy breaks’. ‘Militant unions’ are those with strong left-wing policies, seeking to support the fundamental rights of workers, usually those in low or average income roles typically found in the public sector. I worked in the public sector for a while and my own views of unions was, and still is, a bit of a confused indifference.

However, the things that intrigued me most about this article were the notions of luxury and exuberance which somehow have party political connotations. The views of those mentioned in the article seemed to assume that only those with extensive private wealth independent of employed work should be permitted the enjoyment of large architectural structures with plush décor and coffee machines. Apparently, those who claim to have the needs of the working man as their top priority should not be able to justify the use of such accommodation; they become ‘champagne socialists’. Now, that may be true, and it did make me laugh out loud! But these are terms which get bandied about by opposing parties whenever the time is right to test political convictions. That an article like this has popped up is simply due to the muddle of political ideas in Britain today. A muddle within which we see political commentators attempt to define terms like ‘divisive’ for a week after Margaret Thatcher died.

While it seems absurd that the union representative – the shop steward – should be staying at a 5 star hotel at a discounted rate whilst their fellow colleagues slug it out for 8 hours and endure the commute home, it only serves to show how ridiculous politics can be in Britain. But interestingly, the country house has a role in this too. The article gives four sites as retreats, but only one is a ‘country home’ in the truest sense, that being Stoke Rochford Hall in Lincolnshire which is owned by the National Union of Teachers (NUT), run by Christine Blower.

Stoke Rochford, Lincolnshire

Stoke Rochford is entirely commercial and sells itself as a state of the art, hotel, conference and banqueting facility. Finding any meaty historical facts about the place is rather difficult, but the website at least says it was built in the 1840s and has recently undergone a £12million transformation thanks to English Heritage.

So, the question here is not so much about political convictions, but about perceptions of heritage and its accessibility. Certainly this is one of the most regular features of debates surrounding heritage and museums, but I am somehow comforted that a place like Stoke Rochford is still in use. There is the feeling that the ordinary folk still remain excluded though when full rate prices start at £59 for a standard room. I do not know what the solution is since heritage still insists on conjuring up images of class distinction and cultural capital, especially in Britain. Who has access, or who has rights to heritage? It would require a massive shake up of these deep-rooted attitudes in our culture whatever an individual’s financial background and party political stance.

Only days before this article was published did debates over the possibilities of reinstating charges to the national museums begin again. That too was concerned with class and accessibility, and whether the middle classes were making up the visitor numbers by going back more than once rather than the museum attracting new visitors every time.

I’d like to come back to this argument again when economies are brighter and the value of culture is not being undermined.

In the meantime though, there is something I am sure of, and that’s a good old fashioned plot! Many a country house has been host to successful or failed attempts to rid the country of its monarch or particularly unsavoury policymakers. Many were highly destructive volatile acts. The Gunpowder Plot for one got as far as it did because of the links its conspirators had with the elite. Calling like-minded individuals under one roof is a sure fire way of moving things along quicker. Today, those ‘militant unions’ are discussing workers’ strikes and trying to protect pensions, but the sought-after arena has altered little.

 

Contractors and Craftsmen- Now and Then

Reblogged from Attingham Park:

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The contractors who will be working on the Through the Roof Project for the next 46 weeks or so have arrived on site. They have begun the preparations for the project which will see a glazed secondary roof inserted into the heart of the Mansion to protect the leaking John Nash cast iron roof over the Picture Gallery. Their storage compounds are being set up (luckily the sun is out for them) and they will begin to move materials into selected areas of the Mansion from tomorrow.

Read more… 648 more words

Some lovely archival material mentions here, so certainly worth a share!

Genre: Country House Poetry

The country house genre: put simply, this literary genre places the country house within the main narrative as an essential piece of subject matter. Its varied history is as old as the country house itself. Based on G. R. Hibbard’s article (see references below), the scholarly view is that the country house poem (or country estate poem) of the seventeenth century which praised the houses and estates of the landed elite was the early form of this genre. By the end of the eighteenth century, the genre had taken on different characteristics, and the house itself became the focus. It was no longer the subject of direct admiration and instead became a symbol of the ‘other’; of foreignness and the gothic.  Throughout the nineteenth century the genre evolved further and has since become recognisable in recent decades in works of historical fiction.

The genre’s ability to adapt is a consequence of contested views about town and country, about wealth or the lack of it, and about active and passive ownership. The literary country house is then either a part of a nostalgic vision surrounding an imaginary stable society or a symbol of England’s imperial past. No matter how simplified, these constructions are ever present throughout the genre right up to the present day.

The country house has therefore been cast in different literary interpretations, but themes of social and political hierarchies, the roles and responsibilities of man, and notions of spatial definitions have always provided continuity. This post is one of three which offers an overview of the country house genre from its early incarnation in the seventeenth century to its development into mainstream literature today.

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Thou hast no porter at thy doore

T’examine or keep back the poore;

Nor lock nor bolts: thy gates have bin

Made onely to let strangers in;…

Thomas Carew (1595-1640), ‘To Saxham’ (ll. 49-52)

Country house poetry is a form of ‘courtly compliment’ which idealised particular elite estates and patronage, but also celebrated man’s participation in the natural world. Classed as country house panegyrics, works like Ben Jonson’s ‘To Penshurst’ (1616), Thomas Carew’s ‘To Saxham’ (1640) or Andrew Marvell’s ‘Upon Appleton House’ (1681) act as descriptions of elite splendour as well as philosophical statements upon natural and artificial social constructions.  Indicative of their early education, writers were much influenced by Horace, Martial and Statius and themes of man as a moral being and landownership as a metaphor for the state are heavily embedded in the country house poem.

Thomas Carew (National Portrait Gallery, London)

The seventeenth-century country house poem is both commemorative and quixotic, and academic criticism of the genre’s tradition and longevity is divided. What is certain is that its poetic version was founded upon a heritage of patronage poetry and pastoral discourse. How the genre has survived since has much to do with perception of the country house at any given time, but especially in the context of wider economic developments.

Such theorising makes the genre appear fusty and somehow exclusive. Yet, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were a time of great social and political upheaval in England. The country house poem in this instance provided a snapshot of a time when the rural landscape, the seasons and nature’s bounty were the vision of an English idyll. The country house poem made its subject a real-life Arcadia which was simultaneously idealistic and tangible. This was the nostalgic vision.

No forraigne gums, nor essence fetcht from farre,

No volatile spirits, nor compounds that are

Adulterate; but, at Nature’s cheap expence,

With farre more genuine sweetes refresh the sense.

Such pure and uncompounded beauties blesse

This mansion with an usefull comelinesse,

Devoide of art, for here the architect

Did not with curious skill a pile erect

Of carved marble, touch, or porpherie,

But built a house for hospitalitie…

‘To My Friend G. N. from Wrest’ (1640?), Thomas Carew (ll. 15-24)

The hospitality of the country house is what connects the dweller to the wider world. For the poet, the dweller (the landlord) represents the fertility of nature. By sharing and dividing their wealth and the abundance of nature, the dweller fulfils their moral obligations. The country house estate is part of a hierarchy which therefore relies upon the co-operation of many in order to succeed – like a quasi-commonwealth, ‘They’re reared with no man’s ruin, no man’s groan’ (‘To Penshurst’, l. 46). If the landlord is not wasteful, then he is celebrated, if he hankers after ostentation and conspicuous consumption, then he is to be reminded of his natural role and responsibilities. Either way, the pastoral ideal is the platform for persuasion and the model to which man must adhere.  Appreciation of life and the correct use of possessions have Classical resonance. Assimilation with the natural order of things underlines most Biblical teachings.

Ben Jonson (National Portrait Gallery, London)

At least this is the stylistic formula of the country house poem. To a great extent it is the landscape which is the main focus; a mythical Arcadian world where lasting relationships are formed. The house itself is the accumulation of this natural order and substance;

Thou joy’st in better marks, of soil, of air,

Of wood, of water; therein thou art fair.

Thou hast thy walks for health, as well as sport;

Thy mount, to which the dryads do resort,

Where Pan and Bacchus their high feasts have made,

Beneath the broad beech and the chestnut shade;

That taller tree, which of a nut was set

At his great birth where all the Muses met.

‘To Penshurst’ (1616), Ben Jonson, (ll. 7-14).

All is green and ripe, plump and rosy; pike, partridge, cherries, figs, pears, ‘The blushing apricot and woolly peach.’ Such hospitality is the product of civility and gentility, but also of a virtuous life.  This metaphor is also something Milton utilises in Paradise Lost in which Eden represents the very first ‘landed’ estate. The sensuality of nature’s bounty is further alluded to, particularly by Jonson, in the context of patrilineal inheritance with the family itself a representation of the fruit of the virtuous lord and lady.

The style of country house poetry changed over the seventeenth century, and developed what have been identified as sub-genres. Poems of appreciation, as an example, suit Jonson’s ‘To Penshurst,’ and what is known as the retirement poem best describes ‘Upon Appleton House’. The latter was probably penned in the 1650s when Andrew Marvell stayed at Nun Appleton in Yorkshire, to tutor Mary Fairfax, the daughter of parliamentarian general Thomas Fairfax. Here the country house and estate are places of retreat from a disruptive world. For Fairfax, his Yorkshire home was the private sphere from to which he could escape the chaos of the English Civil War.

Andrew Marvell (National Portrait Gallery, London)

Crucially, emphasis upon the right use of life and possessions morphed into an exploration of man’s role in life. Rather than being purely didactic pieces, themes of experience and the impact of surroundings played a larger part in the country house poem of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

Of men Recorded or who then Exceed

To urdge their Virtue and exalt their Fame

Whilest their own Weymouth stands their noblest Aime.

But we Presume, and ne’re must hope to trace

His Worth profound, his Daughters matchlesse Grace

Or draw paternall Witt deriv’d into her Face

Though from his Presence and her Charms did grow

The Joys Ardelia att Long-leat did know.

‘To the Honourable Lady Worsley at Longleat’ (after 1690) Anne Finch, Countess of Winchelsea (ll. 91-98)

Themes of virtuosity remained strong but with emphasis on more give and take. Writers were sure to allow their protagonist thoughts of resourcefulness and pragmatism but also stated the benefits of retreat upon such a mind, body and soul. In many secondary sources it has been suggested that this literary device stemmed from the changing economic landscape; a shift from a feudal system to that based on capital and monetary values. The country house was an administrative base for the estate, but its owner had shifted his attention to the city with its attractive financial and parliamentary offices. The old halls were being replaced with ‘carved marble’ and filled with foreign goods from the East India Company, land was enclosed and smooth uninterrupted parkland rolled over acres of fertile soil.

Land was an exchangeable commodity and the country house was now a decorative item in the distance. The dweller used it as an alternative site for conducting business, but it was no longer perceived as the tangible vision of Arcadian mythology. It was now the retreat of the few, to be admired from afar and provide respite for those locked in matters of national importance. Virtue was the outcome of an individual’s own experience and quality of life from which he was to influence those less fortunate. The literary country house was a private domain, and one which symbolised the contested views of town and country, of private ownership and public office. If the pastoral was the seventeenth-century fantasy, then the mysterious other was to be the eighteenth-century fantasy.

Suggested poems:

Geoffrey Whitney, ‘To R. Cotton Esq.’ and To Richard Cotton Esq.’ (1586)

Aemilia Lanyer, ‘The Description of Cookham’ (1611)

Ben Jonson, ‘To Penshurst’ and ‘To Sir Robert Wroth’ (1616)

Thomas Carew, ‘To Saxham’ and ‘To My Friend G. N. from Wrest’ (1640)

Robert Herrick ‘A Panegyric to Sir Lewis Pemberton’ (1648)

Richard Lovelace ‘Amyntor’s Grove’ (1649)

Andrew Marvell, ‘Upon Appleton House’ (1681)

Charles Cotton ‘Wonders of the Peak’ (c.1681)

Anne Finch ‘To the Honourable Lady Worsley at Longleat’ (after 1690)

Mildmay Fane, ‘To Sir John Wentworth’ (unknown ?)

References:

Alastair Fowler. The Country House Poem: a Cabinet of Seventeenth-Century Estate Poems and Related Items . Edinburgh (1994)

Richard Gill. Happy Rural Seat; the English Country House and the Literary Imagination. New Haven (1972)

G. R. Hibbard: ‘The Country House Poem in the Seventeenth Century’ Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XIX (1956), 159-74.

Malcolm Miles Kelsall. The Great Good Place: the Country House and English literature. New York (1993)

Malcolm Miles Kelsall. Literary Representations of the Irish Country House: civilisation and savagery under the Union. New York (2003)

Gervase Jackson-Stops et al. The Fashioning and Functioining of the British Country House (1989)

Hugh Jenkins. Feigned Commonwealths: The Country-House Poem and the Fashioning of the Ideal Community. Pittsburgh (1998)

Virginia C. Kenny. The Country-House Ethos in English literature, 1688-1750: themes of personal retreat and national expansion. New York (1984)

Kari Boyd McBride: Country House Discourse in Early Modern England (2001)

D. M. Rosenberg. ‘Paradise Lost and the Country Estate poem’ (no year given) http://tiny.cc/4gb7tw

Don E. Wayne, Penshurst: the Semiotics of Place and the Poetics of History (1984)

Raymond Williams: The Country and the City (1973)

Links:

Literary links to Penshurst http://www.penshurstplace.com/page/3053/Literary-Links-to-Penshurst-Place

Bibliographies for the nineteenth-century country house and related themes http://www.victorianweb.org/art/architecture/bibliography4.html

Tom Lockwood (2008) ‘All Hayle to Hatfeild’: a New series of country house poems from Leeds University Library, Brotherton Collection http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-6757.2008.00124.x/full

Judith Dundas ‘The Country House Poem Revisited’ http://www.connotations.uni-tuebingen.de/dundas00801.htm

Guest post: Famine and the Country House and Estate, Dr Ciarán Reilly.

In December last year, I included a guest post by Professor Terence Dooley about the establishment of a Centre for the Study of Historic Irish Houses and Estates (CSHIHE) at the National University of Ireland (NUI), Maynooth. Here is a wonderful follow up to that which highlights a particular project currently underway concerning the Great Irish Famine by Dr Ciarán Reilly.

The subject of the Famine is something of which I know very little within the context of the country house. Aspects of Irish history are discussed in English schools as part of GCSE level history, but that’s probably as far as most people take it, and any specialisms only surface at a later stage with further or higher education.  The following certainly pulls the wider histories of the country house into view. As the piece suggests, a great many public outcomes have so far come about because of the project, and it is hoped that the research will have far reaching effects even when the project has been completed, both academically and socially.

Strokestown Park House

Dr Ciarán Reilly is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Historic Irish Houses & Estates at the Dept of History, NUI Maynooth.

At the Centre for the Study of Historic Irish Houses & Estates at NUI Maynooth of the most exciting projects on the Great Irish Famine is being undertaken. Paying particular attention to how the Famine impacted on the Country House & Estate, Dr Ciarán Reilly is presenting groundbreaking findings on how the Famine impacted and unfolded. This research is the result of  the collaboration between the Irish National Famine Museum at Strokestown Park House and the CSHIHE. In 2008 the archive was transferred on loan to the Office of Public Works (OPW)/NUI Maynooth Archive and Research Centre at Castletown House, county Kildare.

The Strokestown Park House Archive is one of the most important and extensive nineteenth-century estate collections in Ireland comprising over 50,000 documents, including rentals, accounts, correspondence, maps and plans, property deeds, rent books, labour returns, pamphlets, press cuttings and even photographs. Of particular importance are the papers relating to the Great Famine of Ireland, 1845-51. Given the paucity of Famine records in a great many other estate collections, the Strokestown Archive has thus an added significance because of the microcosmic insight it offers into the Famine at local level. To date an in-depth analysis has been carried out on what can now be described as Ireland’s most important collection of documents relating to the Great Famine. While the archive details the running of the Mahon (and later Pakenham Mahon) estate from the 1600s until 1979, the majority of the papers relate to the tenantry on the estate. In the case of the Great Famine of the 1840s, the archive reveals the very people for whom Famine was a living nightmare. Here, through daily petitions for food and relief, we see the ‘forgotten voices’ of the Great Famine. It is through the study of such local estates that a greater understanding of how the Famine unfolded and impacted upon local communities can be fully understood. Through themes such as blight, eviction, emigration, murder and the struggle for land, a picture of Ireland in the 1840s and early 1850s is clearly identifiable. Significantly, the archive challenges long held assumptions about the Great Famine.

To date a number of public outcomes have resulted from the project including the annual International Famine Conference at Strokestown Park House. In July 2013 the third annual conference will take place organised by the Department of History, NUI Maynooth (a call for papers will shortly be advertised). In addition, the Strokestown Winter/Spring Lecture Series is also in its third year. The project has also seen an ambitious search for the location of more than 5,000 Famine emigrants from Strokestown who settled in Britain, Australia, America and Canada.

Major Denis Mahon

In the summer months of 1847 more than 1,400 people were assisted by the owner of the estate, Major Denis Mahon, in emigration to Canada.  It has been estimated that more than 600 never made it ashore in Canada, having succumbed to fever at sea or died in the quarantine station at Grosse Ile. More than sixty children were orphaned at Grosse Ile and through the generosity of the Catholic Church and local people, they were adopted. It is hoped that the descendents of these children and others will return to Strokestown Park in July 2013 as part of the Gathering. 

Links: 

Staff profile, http://historicirishhouses.ie/people/dr-ciaran-reilly

Project overview, http://historicirishhouses.ie/research/postdoctoral/strokestown-famine-project

Strokestown Park & Irish National Famine Museum http://www.strokestownpark.ie/

Putting the Great Famine into perspective http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/famine_01.shtml

Atlas of the Great Irish Famine book with links http://greatirishfamine.ie/

Exploration of the Famine by Professor Cormac O’Grada for the Economic History Society 1992 http://www.ehs.org.uk/ehs/refresh/assets/OGrada15b.pdf

A heavily referenced overview on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)

References:

The Strokestown Park House Archive: What it tells us about the Great Famine in county Roscommon’ in Journal of the Roscommon Historical and Archaeological Society (forthcoming, 2011)

The Strokestown Park House Archive: Offering new perspectives on the Great Irish Famine’ in The Bonfire: Newsletter of the Ballykilcline Society, vol 13, no 2 (Fall, 2011)

James Donnelly, The Great Irish Potato Famine (Sutton Publishing, 2002)

Review: Great Houses with Julian Fellowes

Before settling down to watch Great Houses with Julian Fellowes, I read the reviews. There’s a mixture of responses to last night’s programme it would seem (especially on Twitter), and after watching it for myself, I can see why.

Fellowes is probably the best frontman for an ITV programme about the people who lived and worked in (large) country houses. Great Houses is a two-part series which shares its stories of Burghley House and Goodwood House between episode one and two respectively. It is a pity that more were not included, but being allowed glimpses of Burghley and Goodwood should please some people. Julian Alexander Kitchener-Fellowes, Baron Fellowes of West Stafford DL to give him his full name and title is an actor, writer, novelist, film director and screenwriter, as well as a Conservative Life Peer. His most popular works to date are Gosford Park, The Young Victoria, of course, ITV’s Downton Abbey.

Burghley House, Stamford, Lincolnshire.

1. Burghley House, Lincolnshire.

Great houses, according to Fellowes are not ‘for posh people to live in – their history belongs to all of us’. This is partly true, as the landed estate and its corresponding pile accommodated a vast number of jobs before the Industrial Revolution. And yet, the programme seemed to highlight the lofty presence of the owners and their sometimes unforgiving influence over the rest of society. The owners of Burghley being explored by Fellowes were William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley (1520-98) and his role in the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, Henry Cecil, 1st Marquess of Exeter (1754-1804) and his relationship with his second wife Sarah Hoggins. Behind the green baize door, Fellowes looked at, amongst others, the ‘savage’ treatment of the Burghley undercook Thomas Brincknell* and his wife, and dairymaid Harriet Clark who concealed her newborn baby in an outbuilding.

Most people according to the world of Fellowes were at the mercy of the Lord or the Marquess. He was quick to add early on however that these were the people governing the country whilst their servants were the ones ‘making the whole thing work’. His mission was therefore not to establish stories we could all relate to, but to pursue a means to an end in enhancing his own fictional characters; in his own words,  ’I'm trying to find the real Lord Grantham, the real Lady Mary… the real Bates, the real Anna’.

Apart from the lack of investigation into Burghley’s architectural fabric or its collections, this, I think is where many viewers were split in their opinions because Fellowes appears to have two personas. There is the bumbling British peer who is mildly opinionated, highly educated, and polite. Then there is the contemplative, imaginative and sincere version. Put them together, and it is a recipe for a speculative narrative. Time and again, Fellowes was seen conversing with academics, archivists or librarians in a jolly manner. It was bad enough that no-one seemed bothered about handling the odd document without white gloves, but his jovial indifference was beginning to grate. The unconvinced looks thrown up by those he met with seemed to prove this effect. Fellowes had clearly set out to find snippets of country house history which would support his own ideals, where this wasn’t the case, then why not bend the facts or provide a bit of guess work and go with that?

Admittedly, I am being harsh, because Fellowes is not a historian. Nowhere was this clearer than the moment Fellowes found himself feeling deeply uncomfortable in the local library whilst trying to carry out simple searches. But the programme was no worse for this because Fellowes remained both enthusiastic and charismatic. I like to see history made more accessible, and ITV seems to be leading the way with its popular period dramas. Where the country house fits in with this is something I discussed in an earlier post. Great Houses simply adds a little background to the storytelling, and at least we were able to make the short virtual trips to the house, the archives and the libraries with Fellowes as our guide.

Overall, it’s difficult to place Great Houses with Julian Fellowes. A great deal of what was explored can be found easily on the internet and Burghley’s episodes surrounding Thomas Brincknell in the 16th century or the 1st Marquess in the 18th century have been written about by scholars. It may be a case of simply pointing the way in the quickest way possible and to as many people as possible. There may have been moments where I cringed or was left wanting more, but I will certainly watch the second part about Goodwood. Hopefully, by then, I will have formed a more comprehensive view of the ‘great’ country house and its social history according to Julian Fellowes.

* The murder/manslaughter of Thomas Brincknell actually took place in the yard of Cecil’s London house, and not at Burghley House which was still unfinished at the date of the incident in 1567.

References:

Stephen Alford, Burghley: William Cecil at the Court of Elizabeth I, (2011)

Andrew Harris, The Vernons of Hanbury Hall, (2012).

Elisabeth Inglis-Jones, The Lord of Burghley, (1964).

Alan H. Nelson, Monstrous Adversary: The Life of Edward De Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, (2003).

Daphne Pearson, Edward De Vere (1550-1604): The Crisis And Consequences Of Wardship, (2005).

Hank Whittemore, Shakepeare’s Sonnets Never Before Imprinted, (2005).

See also, ‘The Cottage Countess’ by Tennyson (first published 1842), which tells the story of Sarah Hoggins.

Links:

An honest, down-to-earth review by Veronica Lee at The Arts Desk http://www.theartsdesk.com/tv/great-houses-julian-fellowes-itv1

Radio Times Review (with interesting comments) http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2013-01-22/julian-fellowes-tracks-down-a-country-house-scandal-worthy-of-downton-abbey

A disappointingly childish review from The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2013/jan/22/tv-review-great-houses-julian-fellowes

A short review of the first programme from Burghley in The Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/9819146/Great-Houses-with-Julian-Fellowes-ITV-review.html

General review from The Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/artsandculture/9818183/Great-Houses-with-Julian-Fellowes-small-stories-for-stately-homes.html#

The News for the New Year: an Exhibition for Nostell Priory.

Sir Rowland Winn, 5th Baronet and his wife Sabine Louise Winn in the library at Nostell Priory, 1770 (copyright National Trust Collection).

Over three years ago the archive of the Winn family of Nostell Priory, Yorkshire were put into the ownership of the West Yorkshire Archives Service* under the jurisdiction of Wakefield Metropolitan Council as part of an Acceptance in Lieu grant.

I was still floating about in a post doctoral haze and was in need of something new to get my claws into.

I had written about Nostell Priory, especially Sabine Winn, the wife of the 5th Baronet (both pictured above) and her role as household manager including her relationship with the Nostell servants. So, wherever I went, whoever I spoke with, whatever I wanted to research, Nostell Priory was always there – looming.

Not surprisingly, the thought of being able to make a complete fuss about the importance of keeping the Winn family papers in Yorkshire was going to be very high on my agenda.

Together with the expertise of a senior academic from the University of Leeds, in May 2010 research began for an exhibition (and book) to be held at the house commencing in 2015. The working title for this is ‘From House to Home’, and will focus on two generations of the family – Sir Rowland Winn, 4th Baronet and his son the 5th Baronet and his wife.

Our ambitions are grand, to be sure, and we are hoping to show how rich these papers are. Nostell Priory is associated with famous names in architecture and design including Thomas Chippendale, the Adam Brothers, James Paine, as well as fine art by Kauffman, Zucchi and Brueghel. Yet, the Winn family papers also reveal several interesting layers in social and cultural history. The exhibition will therefore highlight many themes associated with country house living in the eighteenth century and attempt to show the relationships the Winns had with their architects, suppliers, extended family, and staff, as well as demonstrate the eccentricities of particular family members and how they came to be perceived by society.

Ultimately, the exhibition will encourage visitors to think about how an elite family like the Winns made their mark in the cultural landscape of the period at regional and national levels through their consumer tastes, shopping habits, sociability, and of course, their house.

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My intention is to provide updates here as the project progresses, and any comments and questions are welcome, so long as they’re constructive!

*The papers are of great importance to the nation, their location at the West Yorkshire Archives Service (WYAS) however is something the region is understandably proud of given the associations with well-known names. The papers were recently voted as one of the Archives’ treasures by the public and archive staff, and in May 2012 the WYAS received a £37,000 grant to complete and improve the Winn family papers.