Country House History Research Papers (original) (raw)

Langs de rivieren IJssel en Berkel ligt een rijk landgoederenlandschap. Gelders Genootschap en de gemeenten Berkelland, Bronckhorst, Brummen, Lochem, Voorst en Zutphen hebben in 2014 en 2015 samengewerkt in het regionale landgoederenproject Langs IJssel en Berkel. Tijdens het project werd veel samengewerkt met de particuliere en institutionele landgoedeigenaren in het gebied, waaronder de familie Gelderman, eigenaren van landgoed Beekvliet.
Uitgangspunt van hun landgoedbeheer is het duurzaam in stand houden van hun familiebezit voor toekomstige generaties.
Gelders Genootschap werkt samen met de familie aan een landgoedvisie.

- by Elyze Storms-Smeets
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- History, Country House History, Landed estates, Landgoederen

My most recent list of publications

- by Elyze Storms-Smeets
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- History, Cultural Geography, Historical Geography, Landscape History

Alois Pichl (1782-1856), the court architect of the archducal family Este-Modena in Vienna, had also close ties with Hungary, in the first place due to Count János Keglevich’s patronage. Pichl built for him two remarkable country houses in Upper Hungary (now Slovakia), a neo-Classical one in Kistapolcsány (Topol’čianky) and a neo-Gothic one in Nagyugróc (Vel’ké Uherce). Alois Pichl also submitted a project for the competition of the Hungarian Parliament house in 1845, whose detailed description survives. His brother, Ferdinand Pichl, distinguished himself as the architect of the Malteserkirche in Vienna.

- by Patrick Baty
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- Country House History, England, United Kingdom, Color

De Veluwezoom, die strekt van Wageningen tot Spankeren (gemeente Rheden), wordt gekenmerkt door zijn vele landgoederen en buitenplaatsen. Langs de flank van de Veluwse stuwwal, op de overgang naar de rivieren de Rijn en de IJssel, is sinds de zeventiende eeuw een unieke landgoederenzone ontstaan met grote reliëfrijke landschapsparken, formeel aangelegde lanenstelsels, weidse panorama’s, gegraven sprengenbeken en bijzondere waterwerken als cascades en fonteinen. Deze landgoederenzone wordt aangeduid als Gelders Arcadië
en omvat de gemeenten Wageningen, Renkum, Arnhem, Rozendaal en Rheden. Dit boek is bedoeld als inspiratie en stimulans voor ruimtelijke ontwikkelingsmogelijkheden op de historische landgoederen en buitenplaatsen en voor de landschappelijke versterking van de grensoverschrijdende landgoederenzone.

- by Emile de Bruijn
- •
- Country House History, Chinoiserie, Orientalism, Chinese Print Culture
- by Emile de Bruijn
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- Country House History, Chinoiserie, European and Asian Lacquer, Asian Lacquer

This short article presents new information about the career of Gerrit Jensen, the leading cabinet-maker working in late Stuart England. It shows that Jensen was part of the circle of Catholic artisans around Queen Catherine of Braganza, for whom he was working by at least 1674, some five years earlier than previously thought. It also highlights Jensen's glass-making business and his supply of mirror glass to Devonshire House, London, in 1696.

- by Amy Lim
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- Eighteenth Century History, Portraiture, Decorative Arts, Garden History

Examining the skyspace by James Turrell, 'Seldom Seen' (2004) in Houghton Hall, Norfolk through the lense of Turrell's commissions and the international distribution of the skyspaces. How is it that he can reproduce the same thing but retain the individuality required to maintain its commercial appeal as an original? He remodels each skyspace to its location to become site-specific and thereby tailored to each commission. 'Seldom Seen' is bound with the history Charles Bridgeman's unrealised plans for Houghton Hall's gardens.

- by Charlotte Call
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- History, Cultural History, Art History, Landscape Architecture
- by Peter N Lindfield
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- Architecture, Furniture Design, Gothic Studies, Museums and Exhibition Design
- by Susan Gordon
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- Heraldry, Architectural History, History of Sculpture, Emblem studies

De zuidelijke Veluwezoom ontleent haar identiteit
en aantrekkingskracht in grote mate aan de vele
landgoederen en buitenplaatsen die hier vanaf
de late Middeleeuwen zijn ontstaan. Het is een
waar Gelders Arcadië. Deze landgoederenzone,
gelegen in het stuwwallandschap langs Rijn en
IJssel, omvat de gemeenten Arnhem, Renkum,
Rheden, Rozendaal en Wageningen. De
participerende gemeenten zetten zich samen in
voor het versterken van de ruimtelijke kwaliteit en
samenhang van Gelders Arcadië. Voorliggende
ruimtelijke visie van de landgoederenzone is
het resultaat van deze bovengemeentelijke
samenwerking.

This article explores the role played by the early-Victorian Whig aristocrat and politician, George Howard (1802–1864), seventh Earl of Carlisle, in improving his estate at Castle Howard in the North Riding of Yorkshire. Carlisle instigated numerous changes in the productive landscape of the estate, and attempted to reform the social and moral condition of his tenantry through a number of projects. The article places those developments in the context of Carlisle's political and religious values. In doing so, it poses a challenge to the existing historiography on both the history of Whiggery and of the country house.

This research accompanies a programme of cleaning of Sizergh Castle's tapestries undertaken by the property's National Trust Conservation Team in 2016. With the re-opening of the property the following spring, the Library was displayed to visitors for the first time, and thus the tapestries became accessible to the public. This combination of factors provided the opportunity for this long-overdue assessment of the significance of the tapestries at Sizergh, both in situ and lost, which reveals much about the history of the castle and the resident Strickland family. It offers new insights into the development of the castle over the centuries and the ways in which it was regarded by its occupants.

- by Richard Asquith
- •
- Art History, Early Modern History, Conservation, Tudor England

This article explores the functional elements of country-house design in post-Restoration Scotland through a close analysis of one house: Hopetoun, near Queensferry, ten miles northwest of Edinburgh.1 Scotland was a sovereign nation until 1707, and the unique history of its country houses needs to be considered independently from that of the rest of Great Britain. Baronial tower houses continued to exert an influence on their design, but there was also a surge of interest in classical models. This was sparked by the return en masse of the political exiles who fled Scotland during the Cromwellian regime, bringing back with them the latest fashions from Italy, France, and the Low Countries. They exerted a particularly strong influence on interior layouts, which derived heavily from the Baroque floor plans popularised by Louis XIV's court.

The paper discusses various aspects of Hungarian country houses in the period between 1840 and 1914: patronage, planning, building and equipping the house, style, configuration and massing, function, interior design, parks and... more

- by Jozsef Sisa
- •
- Architecture, Historicism, Interior Design, Life Style

Tussen
1900 en 2000 werden (een nog onbekend aantal) buitenhuizen herbestemd of zelfs gesloopt nadat de families het huis hadden verlaten. Complete inboedels werden geveild, tuinen en parken raakten in verval, eeuwenoude bossen werden gekapt voor snelle opbrengsten, landerijen verkaveld en bebouwd tot villawijk, moestuinen geasfalteerd tot parkeerterreinen. Deze processen van destructie en verval baarden de Nederlandse kunsthistoricus jonkheer Henri van der Wijck (1927-2001) veel zorgen: ‘Veel historische buitenplaatsen kwijnen weg door verwaarlozing of door planologisch ezelswerk!’ Slechts marginaal processen van verval en destructie van landhuizen, buitenplaatsen en
landgoederen in de twintigste eeuw onderwerp van empirisch onderzoek in Nederland geweest. Wat waren de onderliggende factoren van deze processen en welke aspecten van de Nederlandse buitenplaatscultuur zijn we kwijtgeraakt? Drie opvallende aspecten worden behandeld: verlies van het hoofdgebouw, verlies van het buitenplaatslandschap, verlies van familiecollecties.

- by Elyze Storms-Smeets
- •
- Geography, Cultural Heritage, Heritage Studies, Cultural Landscapes

Medieval and early modern great houses had a three-fold identity as house, garden and farm. The manorial curia was made up of enclosures, buildings and rooms with residential, service, agricultural and horticultural functions. The enclosures can be defined by the nature of their perimeter, and by their situation in relation to the hall, which was central to the complex, and the line of approach to it. The layout of houses developed as fashionable new ones were built and older ones were modernised. The number of indoor and outdoor spaces with a specific function increased; houses become more outward-looking, symmetrical and compact, and extensive gardens were laid out. Subsequently the enclosures and low-status buildings surrounding great houses were swept away, leaving the domestic part standing alone, but often leaving little or no trace of their former existence.

- by Jane Croom
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- History, Medieval History, Landscape Archaeology, Landscape History
- by Philip W Deans
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- Museum Studies, Heritage Studies, Collections Management, War Studies

The central decades of the eighteenth century in Britain were crucial to the history of European taste and design. One of the period’s most important campaigns of patronage and collecting was that of the 1st Duke and Duchess of Northumberland: Sir Hugh Smithson (1712–86) and Lady Elizabeth Seymour Percy (1716–76). This book examines four houses they refurbished in eclectic architectural styles—Stanwick Hall, Northumberland House, Syon House, and Alnwick Castle—alongside the innumerable objects they collected, their funerary monuments, and their persistent engagement in Georgian London’s public sphere. Over the years, their commissions embraced or pioneered styles as varied as Palladianism, rococo, neoclassicism, and Gothic revival. Patrons of many artists and architects, they are revealed, particularly, as the greatest supporters of Robert Adam. In every instance, minute details contributed to large-scale projects expressing the Northumberlands’ various aesthetic and cultural allegiances. Their development sheds light on the eclectic taste of Georgian Britain, the emergence of neoclassicism and historicism, and the cultures of the Grand Tour and the Enlightenment.

The thesis presents new insights into the development, organisation and spatial distribution of country estates established between 1800 and 1950 in the province of Utrecht and the region of Twente in the Netherlands. During this time period numerous country estates were built: in Utrecht almost 100 and in Twente over 80, the majority of which were built for newly wealthy whose origins lay in commerce, finance and industry. In Utrecht the new landowners were largely financial businessmen from Amsterdam, while in Twente the majority were textile industrialists from the region itself. The emergence of such a group of ‘nouveaux riches’ who chose to invest parts of their new money in the acquisition of land was not confined to the Netherlands, but was apparent in many western European countries, including Britain, Belgium and Germany. The study of Dutch individuals thus represents a particular dimension of a broader change in European society during the nineteenth century, a society that was increasingly marked by processes of industrialisation and urbanisation. The thesis therefore incorporates an international comparison between the textile industrialists in Twente and their counterparts in West Yorkshire, England. Three key themes structure this thesis, namely ‘landownership’, ‘estate building’ and ‘landscape design’. The first theme deals with who the new landowners were, what enabled them to invest in land and what their motivations have been for such investments. The second theme focuses on the spatial patterning of the new country estates and the manner in which they have been established. The third theme is related to the use made of the land and how the new landowners laid out their properties. Through a geographical approach this thesis aims to bring new insights into the themes and reveal the ways in which they have influenced each other. This geographical approach is largely based on Dutch and Anglo-American historical geographical traditions of landscape study, incorporating a variety of methods, techniques and ways of seeing. This meant that the estate landscapes have been studied both as physical entities that can be mapped and as representations of a culture group or individuals. As such the thesis also presents a framework for future research on country estates.

- by Elodie Goëssant, PhD
- •
- Art History, Romanticism, Victorian Studies, Painting

Langs de rivieren IJssel en Berkel ligt een rijk landgoederenlandschap. Vele kastelen, buitenplaatsen en landgoederen, waaronder Ampsen, Verwolde, Hackfort, Vorden, Enghuizen, De Lathmer, Ruurlo en ’t Waliën, zijn in grote mate bepalend geweest voor de ontwikkeling van het cultuurlandschap en vormden vanouds een prachtige overgang van het verstedelijkt landschap rond Zutphen en de dorpen langs de rivieren naar de natuurlijke en agrarische landschappen van de Achterhoek en Veluwerand. Daarbij is de stad-plattelandverhouding tussen Zutphen en de omliggende gebieden een belangrijke factor geweest. Zo zijn vanuit Zutphen diverse buitens gecreëerd in de huidige gemeenten Voorst, Lochem en Brummen. Tegenwoordig dragen de landgoederen en buitenplaatsen dankzij hun omvang, ligging, bijzondere uitstraling en cultuurhistorische en landschappelijke waarden in hoge mate bij aan het karakter van deze Gelderse regio en de afzonderlijke gemeenten. De handreikingen geven eigenaren en overheden tips en advies over actuele thema’s, die hopelijk hulp bieden bij de instandhouding van het prachtige landgoederenlandschap Langs IJssel en Berkel. De Handreikingen geven tips en adviezen over: het opstellen van landgoedvisies, uitvoeringsprocessen (incl. vergunningen en fondsenwerving), ruimtelijk beleid, en werken met vrijwilligers.

- by Elyze Storms-Smeets and +2
- •
- Country House History, Cultuurhistorisch Landschap, Buitenplaatsen, Kastelen

This article is about the uses of history and the relationship to the historical heritage in the manorial culture of the late 19th century. We show how the history and ancestors in the later part of the 19th century were made a vital part of the identity of the Finnish mansion Sarvlaks and the family von Born, and argue that the owner Baron Viktor Magnus von Born (1851–1917) strenghtened his identity and position as a Finnish nobleman and statesman – locally and on a national level – by emphasising himself as a link in grand family history and a continuity of noblemen. His engaged work with the mansion Sarvlaks, the interior and furnishing of the main building, the estate and family archive, the art collections were part of this material and intellectual endeavour.

- by Henrika Tandefelt
- •
- Nobility, 19th Century (History), Country House History, Material Culture
- by Gianpaolo Angelini and +1
- •
- Iconography, Art History, Eighteenth Century History, Country House History

L’architettura tradizionale di Premia, come del resto quella antigoriana, è contraddistinta da una grande varietà dei tipi.
Le tecniche costruttive, siano esse in muratura, a telaio o a castello, utilizzano tuttavia gli stessi materiali e sono condizionate dallo stesso ambiente.
L’impressione generale è così di armonia e continuità e vede l’uomo e le sue opere integrarsi con
la natura ed il paesaggio circostante.

My PhD explored the architectural patronage of elite women in eighteenth-century Britain. I am currently converting it into a monograph.

At the end of the eighteenth century, Eaton Hall was a substantial nine-bay house, originally designed by William Samwell for Sir Thomas Grosvenor and built from 1675 to 1682, surrounded by gardens, partly formal and partly landscaped. The house’s initial enlargement and transformation in the years from 1803 to 1814 reflected a wish to demonstrate the wealth and nobility of its new owner, the second Earl Grosvenor, who had inherited it in 1802, and to stress the antiquity of his family by employing the Gothic style with its manifold historical associations. This phase, however, was obscured by modifications made to the hall between 1821 and 1825 when it was remodelled and extended to become a sprawling complex even more covered with ‘prickly’ ornament. Although Eaton has been recognised as a pre-eminent example of early nineteenth-century domestic Gothic Revival architecture, little detailed research into its furnishing has been undertaken. This article directly addresses the early nineteenth-century furnishing of Eaton Hall, and confirms that the architect, William Porden, played a decisive role in the design of its furniture. It considers some of the pieces supplied by Gillows of Lancaster, and explores the furnishing programme undertaken between 1822 and 1824 by the relatively obscure upholder, John Davis of 20 Lower Brook Street, London.

- by Mikolaj Getka-Kenig
- •
- Architecture, Early Modern History, Polish History, Architectural History

A plan deposited in Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies is shown to be Repton's "missing" plan of Lamer House from 1790. The footprint of the surviving coach house matches the plan precisely providing a secure terminus ante quem for the building and showing that its current configuration dates to prior to 1790. Please contact the author for the published version.

- by Kris Lockyear
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- Archives, Country House History, Historical Landscape, Hertfordshire History

"In 'A Roman Road in the Dutch Republic', Jaap Evert Abrahamse investigates the origins, design, and realization of a long forgotten 'grand projet', which was undertaken in the Dutch Republic during its Golden Age. Amersfoortseweg (“Amersfoort Road”) was a large-scale road project, which, on the one hand, aimed to improve infrastructure in the province of Utrecht and, on the other, to transform a large wasteland area into an elegant estate landscape with one gracious gesture. The main element in this new landscape consisted of a lavishly planted, spacious roadway over 60 meters wide, with mansions on both sides. In this article, it is pointed out that the project’s designer was Jacob van Campen, the most distinguished architect of the Dutch Republic, and the designer of Amsterdam’s City Hall.
In the project, that was realized from 1652 onward, Van Campen and his clients combined the common practice of large-scale interventions in the Dutch landscape, such as the land reclamation projects, with contemporary architectural theory, which embodied knowledge of Roman roads. Thus, Amersfoortsweg is presumably the first public roadway in Northern Europe that was designed according to the principles described in Renaissance architectural theory.
"

- by Jaap Evert Abrahamse
- •
- History, Art History, Forestry, Renaissance History

In the early 1840s unusual ripples disturbed the placid universe of neoclassical architecture in the western and northern fringes of historical Hungary: one after the other, country houses ﬁtted with picturesque battlements, pointed windows and curious mouldings began to appear. Two of them, those at Rusovce (Oroszvár) and Veľké Uherce (Nagyugróc), went up in the area of today’s Slovakia, the third one at Vép in Vas County of modern Hungary. Apart from a predilection for a style reminiscent of Windsor Castle, their builders shared some other interests, which, in one way or another, bound them to England.

- by Jozsef Sisa
- •
- Architecture, 19th Century (History), Country House History, Hungary

Tüköry Mansion in Dioš (Diósszentpál), Croatia, was designed by architects Ernő Foerk and Gyula Sándy in 1904. It is situated near the Central Slavonian town of Končanica and in close proximity of Daruvar, on an estate that belonged to Tüköry family. The late-historicist country house was commissioned by Paula von Falkenberg, a widow of Alajos Tüköry de Algyest, as a permanent residence for her and her three children. It was built in the eclectic late-historicist style of fin-de-siècle Hungary, highly inspired by the late-mediaeval art and architecture of northern Italy. Those stylistic influences were strongly manifested in the architectural design of the mansion, but even more its great hall, the focal point of its layout, designed in 1904-05. Based on both archival and terrain research, this paper aims to determine the main factors of cultural and architectural identity of the mansion by elucidating its history and stylistic genealogy.

- by Boris Dundović
- •
- Architecture, Historicism, Architectural History, Croatian History

No period of architecture demonstrates more clearly than the mid-eighteenth century that the home is organized according to particular architectural and social systems. At that time, the design of a town mansion or a country retreat was regulated bv clearly articulated rules of organization and composition. This essay explores those rules by focusing on a manuscript manual (c. 1740) conserved in the Bibliothèque Mazarine, Paris.

- by Richard Etlin
- •
- French History, Architecture, Enlightenment, Architectural History

Reconnecting Standen with Beale family history has taken many forms since the house was bequeathed to the Trust, from the recording of memories of visiting descendants in 1999 to the staging of a family reunion in 2006. As my project has progressed, general interest in the social and cultural context of the Beales’ life at the house has grown, more donations of family archives have come back and another family
reunion held this summer welcomed over 170 guests.

- by Anne F Stutchbury
- •
- Art History, Photography, Material Culture Studies, Country House History

The First World War history of the Stopford Sackvilles of Drayton House.

- by Karey L . Draper
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- History, Cultural Studies, British History, War Studies

El presente artículo sondea el poema
de Andrés de Uztarroz titulado Descripción de las
antigüedades y jardines de don Vincencio Juan de
Lastanosa (1647). Para ello, se divide en tres secciones: en primer lugar, se examinan algunas de
las características de Vincencio Juan de Lastanosa
y de su mansión oscense a la luz de las últimas
aportaciones. A continuación se estudia con detalle la descripción lírica de Uztarroz, atendiendo
especialmente a su género, estructura, lenguaje y
relación con otros textos. Por fin, se analiza su catálogo floral como una manifestación particular de
un motivo que gozó de gran fortuna en el Barroco

- by Alberto Fadón Duarte
- •
- Country House History, Barocco, Flowers, Barroco

This presentation explores the background to changes in ownership of country estates & houses in Devon in the 1920s. It examines the legislative & governmental background, then gives a brief overview of the amount of turnover of country houses in the county in the 1920s, and explores these trends by considering two examples of country estates/houses in more detail. Talk given to Devon Gardens Trust/Devon History Society 11th Jan. 2022.

This is the first full-length critical study of country house entertainment, a genre central to late Elizabethan politics. It shows how the short plays staged for the Queen at country estates like Kenilworth Castle and Elvetham shaped literary trends and intervened in political debates, including whether women made good politicians and what roles the church and local culture should play in definitions of England. In performance and print, country house entertainments facilitated political negotiations, rethought gender roles, and crafted regional and national identities. In its investigation of how the hosts used performances to negotiate local and national politics, the book also sheds light on how and why such entertainments enabled female performance and authorship at a time when English women did not write or perform commercial plays. Written in a lively and accessible style, this is fascinating reading for scholars and students of early modern literature, theatre, and women's history.

- by Elizabeth Z Kolkovich
- •
- Theatre History, Women's History, Renaissance, Renaissance drama
- by Philip W Deans
- •
- History, Museum Studies, War Studies, History of Museums

This paper re-publishes and interprets an unknown description of Dég from 1812, about the estate and the newly built residence of Antal Festetics. It is clear from this description that the residence - one of the earliest and most beautiful neoclassical country houses and landscape parks in Hungary - was built from the first decade of the 19th century and was almost finished in 1812. (Earlier it was assumed that it was started to be built only after 1810.) Antal Festetics was one of the leading personalities in agricultural modernization, especially of breeding merino sheep. His residence was built in the centre of a vast estate, a deserted landscape that he turned to a flourishing and complex agricultural establishment.
The residence was one of the most modern in terms of style and its 700-acre park was the largest one in the country and also the most modern one, following 'Capability' Brown's Arcadian style. This unsigned description was originally published in the most important agricultural periodical in Central Europe of the time: Oekonomische Neuigkeiten and Verhandlungen, as part of a lengthy travel report focussing on agriculture and garden design. The description of the estate is written with an eager interest of the owner and also of the author in merinos: the method of breeding (numbering the sheep and planning/controlling the copulations as well as the most modern way of washing the sheep before shearing). The unnamed author of the description has been identified by Gábor Alföldy in the next part of this series of articles dedicated to new findings about the history of the residence complex at Dég, in 2019 (see there). He was Bernhard Petri, one of the leading figures both in the fields of agriculture and garden design of the time. Petri, according to another contemporary author, also took part in the creation of this landscape park.