Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-29T02:00:13.408Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Remaking the Space: the Plan and the Route in Country-House Guidebooks from 1770 to 1815

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

Jocelyn Anderson
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, country-house tourism became increasingly popular in England. By 1770, hundreds of tourists were visiting the country’s greatest estates every summer. The nature of the attraction varied from house to house. Some, such as Kedleston Hall and Stowe, were considered ‘elegant’ modern buildings, while others, such as Blenheim Palace, were already seen as historical sites. Although country-house visiting as a concept dated back to the seventeenth century, there had never been so many tourists, nor such a variety of them. While one needed to be relatively wealthy and genteel in order to travel and gain admission to great houses, tourists included not only those who had their own estates but also those who could only be spectators. Early country-house tourists have been examined by a number of historians, but the ways in which the houses themselves were presented have hitherto been little studied. A better understanding of this manner of presentation illuminates the nature of tourists’ experiences and how the country house itself began to be identified as an attraction during this period. In essence, in an effort to cope with the influx of visitors, country-house owners began to formalize the terms under which their estates were open to the public. As part of this process, houses were metaphorically ‘remade’ in order to function as tourist attractions as well as private residences. It was not enough for owners simply to allow entry. They had to decide what would be shown to visitors, and how to provide visitors with information about the house and its contents. At first, these problems were solved by instructing housekeepers to guide visitors, but, as certain houses became exceptionally popular, a new practice developed: publishing guidebooks. This article considers the methodologies by which the interior spaces of country houses were remade in guidebooks (a type of re-presentation that can still be observed in many properties that are open to the public today), as well as the effects of this process.

Type
Research Article
Information
Architectural History , Volume 54 , 2011 , pp. 195 - 212
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

1 Brewer, John, The Pleasures of the Imagination (London, 1997), pp. 630–32 Google Scholar, 638–41. See also Kinsley, Zoë, Women Writing the Home Tour, 1682–1812 (Aldershot, 2008), pp. 4–6 Google Scholar.

2 Lewes, East Sussex Record Office, SHR / 1928, Journal of Frances Bridger and Mary Lewis, c. 1768–72; Norwich, Norfolk Record Office, WLS XLVIII/1/425x9, Letter from Thomas de Grey to his Parents, c. 1769; Mavor, William Fordyce, New Description of Blenheim, 2nd edn (London, 1789), p. 33 Google Scholar.

3 Mandler, Peter, The Fall and Rise of the Stately Home (London, 1997), pp. 9–10 Google Scholar.

4 For histories of eighteenth-century country-house tourism, see Moir, Esther, The Discovery of Britain: the English Tourists, 1540 to 1840 (London, 1964)Google Scholar; Tinniswood, Adrian, A History of Country House Visiting (London, 1989)Google Scholar; and Ousby, Ian, The Englishman’s England: Taste, Travel and the Rise of Tourism, 2nd edn (London, 2002)Google Scholar. Mandler’s The Fall and Rise of the Stately Home is the critical and comprehensive work on nineteenth-century country-house tourism.

5 Colley, Linda, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837 (London, 1994), pp. 175–77 Google Scholar.

6 Ousby, The Englishman’s England, pp. 59–60.

7 Blanton, Casey, Travel Writing: the Self and the World, 2nd edn (London, 2002), p. 122 Google Scholar. For an example of such a description, see Young, Arthur, A Six Weeks Tour, through the Southern Counties of England and Wales, 3rd edn (London, 1772), pp. 3–20 Google Scholar.

8 For an example of this kind of narration, see Bickham, George, Deliciæ Britannicæ; or, the Curiosities of Hampton-Court and Windsor-Castle (London, 1742)Google Scholar.

9 Curzon, Nathaniel, Scarsdale, Baron, Catalogue of the Pictures, Statues & c. At Kedleston; with Some Account of the Architecture, 1st edn (1769)Google Scholar; George Simon Harcourt, Earl Harcourt, Description of Nuneham-Courtenay, in the County of Oxford (1797).

10 Guilding, Ruth, ‘The Sculpture Gallery at Newby Hall’, in Drawing from the Past: William Weddell and the Transformation of Newby Hall (Leeds, 2005), pp. 73–92 Google Scholar (p. 101, n. 34); The Harcourt Papers, ed. Harcourt, Edward William, 14 vols (Oxford, 1884), III, p. 195 Google Scholar.

11 Britton, John, An Historical Account of Corsham House (London, 1806)Google Scholar, ‘Advertisement’ page; London, British Library, Add. MS 61674, Letter from William Mavor to Thomas Walker (the fourth Duke of Marlborough’s Agent), 9 September 1786.

12 A Description of Holkham House, in Norfolk (Norwich, 1775)Google Scholar, title page.

13 Langford, Paul, Public Life and the Propertied Englishman, 1689–1798 (Oxford, 1991), pp. 63–64 Google Scholar.

14 Solkin, David, Richard Wilson: the Landscape of Reaction (London, 1982), pp. 22–23 Google Scholar; Raven, James, Judging New Wealth: Popular Publishing and Responses to Commerce in England, 1750–1800 (Oxford, 1992), p. 209 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tinniswood, Country House Visiting, p. 89.

15 Heal, Felicity, Hospitality in Early Modern England (Oxford, 1990), pp. 3 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 32–33.

16 Martyn, Thomas, The English Connoisseur, 2 vols (Dublin, 1767), 1, p. iv Google Scholar; Byng, Hon. John, The Torrington Diaries: Containing the Tours Through England and Wales of the Hon. John Byng, ed. Bruyn Andrews, C., 4 vols (London, 1934–38), I, p. 231 Google Scholar.

17 Langford, Public Life and the Propertied Englishman, p. 549.

18 Girouard, Mark, Life in the English Country House (New Haven, 1978), pp. 230–31 Google Scholar; Retford, Kate, The Art of Domestic Life: Family Portraiture in Eighteenth-Century England (New Haven, 2006), pp. 8–9 Google Scholar.

19 Tinniswood, Country House Visiting, p. 89; Bayne-Powell, Rosamond, Housekeeping in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1956), p. 16 Google Scholar.

20 Green, David, The Churchills of Blenheim (London, 1984), p. 93 Google Scholar.

21 Chambers, Ephraim, Cyclopædia: or, an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, 5th edn. (Dublin, 1742), 11 Google Scholar.

22 Philo-Architectus, ‘The Architect’s Mirror’, The Morning Post, 3 May 1776, British Newspapers 1600–1900, at http://find.galegroup.com/bncn/infomark.do?contentSet=LTO&docType=LTO&type=multipage&tabID=To12&prodId=BNWS&docId=Z2000930090&userGroupName=cioa&version=i.o&docLevel=FASCIMILE&d ocPage=article&source=gale (accessed on 15 February 2011). I was referred to this article by Savage, Nicholas, ‘Exhibiting Architecture: Strategies of Representation in English Architectural Exhibition Drawings, 1760–1836’, in Art on the Line: The Royal Academy Exhibitions at Somerset House, 1780–1836, ed. Solkin, David (London, 2001), pp. 201–16 Google Scholar (p. 201).

23 Britton, Corsham House, ‘Advertisement’ page.

24 Bott, William, A Description of Buxton, and the Adjacent Country, 2nd edn (Manchester, 1795), p. 31 Google Scholar.

25 Curzon, Kedleston.

26 Description of Holkham House, p. 3.

27 Ibid., p. 3.

28 Harcourt, Description of Nuneham-Courtenay, pp. 21, 23.

29 Britton, Corsham House, ‘Advertisement’ page.

30 Helsinger, Elizabeth, ‘Turner and the Representation of England’, in Landscape and Power, ed. Mitchell, W. J. T. (Chicago, 2002), pp. 103–25 Google Scholar (p. 105); Fabricant, Carole, ‘The Literature of Domestic Tourism’, in The New Eighteenth Century, ed. Nussbaum, Felicity and Brown, Laura (London, 1987), pp. 254–75 Google Scholar (p. 257).

31 Wall, Cynthia Sundberg, The Prose of Things (Chicago, 2006), p. 194 Google Scholar.

32 Beatniffe, R., The Norfolk Tour, 4th edn (Norwich, 1786), p. 109 Google Scholar.

33 Bray, William, Sketch of a Tour into Derbyshire and Yorkshire (London, 1778), p. 72 Google Scholar.

34 Shaw, Stebbing, A Tour to the West of England, in 1788 (London, 1789), p. 70 Google Scholar.

35 Richard Beatniffe was a wealthy publisher in Norwich and had published the first edition of The Norfolk Tour in 1772; after he published Description of Holkham House, his subsequent editions of The Norfolk Tour included many additional details about the plan. See also David Stoker, ‘Beatniffe, Richard (bap. 1739, d. 1818)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, at http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/1822 (accessed on 31 March 2010); Woking, Surrey History Centre, G52/2/14, William Bray’s copy of Nathaniel Curzon, Catalogue of the Pictures, Statues & c. At Kedleston (1769); Shaw, Tour to the West of England, p. 72.

36 Forthampton Court, Glos., Letters from Lady Beauchamp Proctor to her Sister, Mrs. Charles Yorke, 1764–72, quoted in Schmidt, Leo, Keller, Christian and Feversham, Polly, Holkham (London, 2005), p. 220 Google Scholar.

37 Oxford, Trinity College, Trinity Old Library, A.3.30, Richardson, George, Ædes Pembrochianæ: a New Account and Description of the Antiquities and Curiosities in Wilton-House (Salisbury, 1798), pp. 45–47 Google Scholar, through Eighteenth Century Collections Online at http://find.galegroup.com/ecco/infomark.do?&contentSet=ECCOArticles&type=multipage&tabID=Tooi&prodId=ECCO&docId=CB63036573o&source=gale&userGroupName=cioa&version=1.o&docLevel=FASCI MILE (accessed on 15 February 2011).

38 It is worth noting that Corsham was not alone in being altered during this time. For example, new rooms were built at Wilton c. 1810, but, unlike at Corsham, these alterations were primarily driven not by a desire to create a display for tourists, but by the owner’s desire for modern conveniences for his family ( Robinson, John Martin, ‘Gothic Rage’, Country Life, 204 [2010], pp. 42–47 Google Scholar).

39 Harcourt, Leslie, Mr. Methuen’s House (Slough, Berkshire, 1981), p. 57 Google Scholar.

40 Ladd, Frederick J., Architects at Corsham Court: a Study in Revival Style Architecture and Landscaping, 1749–1849 (Bradford-on-Avon, 1978), p. 99 Google Scholar.

41 Ibid., p. 99.

42 Harcourt, Mr. Methuen’s House, pp. 85, 81, 78 and 74.

43 Britton, Corsham House, ‘Advertisement’ page.

44 Hillier, Bill and Hanson, Julienne, The Social Logic of Space (Cambridge, 1984), p. 176 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

45 Ibid., p. 11, also Description of Holkham House, p. 3.

46 Ibid., p. 11, also Description of Holkham House, p. 3.

47 Ibid., p. 146.

48 Ibid., p. 183.

49 Matheson, C. S., ‘“A Shilling Well Laid Out”: the Royal Academy’s Early Public’, in Art on the Line, ed. Solkin, David (London, 2001), pp. 38–53 Google Scholar (p. 40).

50 Britton, Corsham House, ‘Advertisement’ page.

51 Curzon, Kedleston, pp. 1–16.

52 Fabricant, ‘The Literature of Domestic Tourism’, p. 260.

53 London, British Library, Add. MS 30172, Journals of Tours in the Midland and Western Counties of England and Wales in 1794, 1794.

54 Stafford, Staffordshire Record Office, D(W)1778/V/1110, Journal of Tour of North of England, 1787, Vol. 1.

55 Bott, Description of Buxton, p. 27.

56 Girouard, English Country House, p. 154.

57 SirSummerson, John, ‘The Classical Country House’, in The Unromantic Castle and Other Essays, ed. SirSummerson, John (London, 1990), pp. 79–120 Google Scholar (p. 92); Girouard, English Country House, p. 145.

58 At Blenheim, Vanbrugh collaborated with Nicholas Hawksmoor; Hawksmoor was responsible for interior details in several rooms on the south front and the library ( Downes, Kerry, Hawksmoor, 2nd edn [London, 1979], p. 282 Google Scholar).

59 Downes, Kerry, Sir John Vanbrugh: a Biography (London, 1987), p. 284 Google Scholar.

60 London, British Library, Add. MS 61354, Blenheim Papers, Vol. CCLIV, 1705–37, f. 95. I was directed to this document by Alan Crossley, ‘Blenheim’, in A History of the County of Oxford, ed. Crossley, Alan, 15 vols (Oxford, 1990), XII, pp. 430–70 Google Scholar (p. 455, n. 57).

61 Mavor, Blenheim, p. 47.

62 Clarke, Edward Daniel, A Tour Through the South of England, Wales, and Part of Ireland, Made During the Summer of 1791 (London, 1793), pp. 392–93 Google Scholar.

63 Shaw, Tour to the West of England, p. 86.

64 Harris, Leslie, Robert Adam and Kedleston: the Making of a Neo-Classical Masterpiece (London, 1987), p. 58 Google Scholar.

65 Garnett, Oliver, Kedleston Hall (London, 2006), pp. 8–9 Google Scholar,16.

66 de Bolla, Peter, The Education of the Eye: Painting, Landscape and Architecture in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Stanford, 2003), p. 195 Google Scholar.

67 Preziosi, Donald, ‘Seeing Soane Seeing You’, in Compelling Visuality, ed. Farago, Claire and Zwijnenberg, Robert (Minneapolis, 2003), pp. 211–36 Google Scholar (p. 225).

68 Psarra, Sophia, Architecture and Narrative: the Formation of Space and Cultural Meaning (London, 2009), p. 125 Google Scholar.

69 Seeley, B., Stowe: a Description of the Magnificent House and Gardens (Buckingham, 1777), p. 34 Google Scholar. Note: this book was available in different bindings, not all of which included the engraved plan of the house.

70 Barry, Peter, Beginning Theory: an Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory (Manchester, 2009), p. 215 Google Scholar.