The Country House Between the Wars

The Country House Between the Wars A one-day conference at Lamport Hall 10.00-4.30, 15 June 2018 Programme 10.00 Coffee and registration 10.30 Adrian Tinniswood (University of Buckingham) “The Old Order is Doomed? New Perspectives on the Country House Between the Wars” 11.00 Dr Oliver Cox (University of Oxford) “Christopher Hussey, Dorothy Stroud and Capability Brown: Writing Country House Histories Between the Wars” 11.45 Professor Jane Stevenson (University of Oxford) “Inter-War Baroque and the English Country House” 12.30 Panel discussion 1.00 Lunch 2.00 Simon Murray (The National Trust) “The Rescue of the Country House: the Role of the National Trust and its Country Houses Scheme” 2.45 Dr Alan Powers (London School of Architecture) “Caves of Ice: Dining Rooms and Bathrooms in Inter-War Houses” 3.30 Panel discussion 4.00 Tea and depart Adrian Tinniswood: “The Old Order is Doomed? New Perspectives on the Country House Between the Wars” The old order was doomed, complained the Duke of Marlborough in 1919, and the English country house along with it. What would replace it, he asked? “Are these historic houses, the abiding memorials of events which live in the hearts of Englishmen, to be converted into museums, bare relics of a dead past?” Adrian Tinniswood argues that on the contrary, a new order brought new money, new manners and new life to the country house between the wars. Adrian Tinniswood is the author of fifteen books on social and architectural history, including The Long Weekend: Life in the English Country House Between the Wars, and His Invention So Fertile: A Life of Christopher Wren. He works with heritage organisations including the Heritage Lottery Fund and the National Trust, and is Senior Research Fellow in Architectural History at the University of Buckingham and Visiting Fellow in Heritage and History at Bath Spa University. Dr Oliver Cox: “Christopher Hussey, Dorothy Stroud and Capability Brown: Writing Country House Histories Between the Wars” This paper explores the writing of country house histories between the wars through the lens of Dorothy Stroud’s Capability Brown (1950). This book emerged out of articles in The Architectural Review and Country Life, and reflects the thinking of a group of scholars, architects and country house owners described recently as “Romantic Moderns”. The paper will also use aspects of Christopher Hussey’s archive in the care of the National Trust at Scotney Castle to explore what motivated and preoccupied historians of the country house between the wars. It will show how these fascinations shaped the first full length biography of Lancelot “Capability” Brown, and it will suggest the next generation of country house historians might take inspiration from this group. Oliver Cox created the Thames Valley Country House Partnership (www.tvchp.org) in 2013 as a way of linking entrepreneurial ideas in the heritage sector with researchers in the University of Oxford. In his position as Heritage Engagement Fellow he co-ordinates a range of collaborative projects with the UK and international heritage sector, co- supervises the flagship Trusted Source Knowledge Transfer Partnership with the National Trust, and is responsible for developing long term strategic partnerships for the University of Oxford. He has published widely on Gothic Revival architecture, landscape gardening, patriotism, and the country house. Professor Jane Stevenson: “Interwar Baroque and the English Country House” Hermann Schrijver wrote in 1939, “What is surprising to me is the terrific effort which the advocates of modernism have to make to remain in existence. Never since the struggle to be modern has there been such an interest in the public at large in the antique.” Though we think of the period as dominated by modernism, interwar fashionable decor was profoundly eclectic, and in dialogue with the past. Jane Stevenson has taught at the universities of Cambridge, Sheffield, Warwick and Aberdeen, and is currently Senior Research Fellow at Campion Hall, Oxford. Among her publications are a biography of the painter Edward Burra, Edward Burra: Twentieth Century Eye (2007), and Baroque Between the Wars (2018), and she has also published a variety of fiction and journalism. Simon Murray: “The Rescue of the Country House: the role of the National Trust and its Country Houses Scheme” At the National Trust AGM on 19 July 1934 Philip Kerr, 11th Marquess of Lothian and owner of Blickling Hall in Norfolk, described the crisis facing the English country house, but he also described the bones of a plan to save “this treasure of quiet beauty…quite unrivalled in any other land”. And thus, the Country Houses Scheme was born and became embedded in law through the 1937 and 1939 National Trust Acts of Parliament. In his talk, Simon Murray will describe the background to the Scheme, how it worked and, by looking at the transfers of both Blickling Hall and Knole in Kent, will capture the tone of a truly British compromise that secured for future generations many of this country’s most important buildings and changed attitudes towards our cultural heritage preservation. Simon Murray is the National Trust’s Senior Director and during a career spanning thirty years has run a property, curated some of its finest houses and has been both Chief Operating Officer and Director of Strategy and Curatorship. He was the principal architect behind the Going Local strategy that has driven the growth of the National Trust which today has 5 million members. Simon has long promoted a broader understanding of what constitutes national heritage. He writes and lectures extensively, here and abroad, and is currently supporting efforts to preserve historic buildings in Russia and Saudi Arabia. Dr Alan Powers: “Caves of Ice: Dining Rooms and Bathrooms in Inter-War Houses” It is a peculiarity of the interwar decades that two of the rooms most associated with the pleasures of the senses were transformed, preferably with marble, into chilly echoing chambers resembling chapels or tombs, in which the rituals of eating and bathing were respectively conducted with considerable ceremony. Alan Powers will look at a range of examples to ask why this might have been so, and what this phase might tell us more generally about fashion, lifestyle and the psychology of mind and matter in these years. Alan Powers teaches the history of architecture in a variety of places, including the London School of Architecture and New York University. He has a long association with the Twentieth Century Society and its work in conservation of buildings after 1914 and educating the public. His books include Twentieth Century Houses from the Archives of Country Life (Aurum, 2004), Modern, the Modern Movement in Britain (Merrell, 2005), Enid Marx, the pleasures of pattern (Lund Humphries, 2018) and Bauhaus Goes West (Thames and Hudson, autumn 2018). The Isham family lived at Lamport for over 400 years, until Sir Gyles Isham, the 12th Baronet, died in 1976. In his will he bequeathed the Hall with its contents and estate to the Lamport Hall Preservation Trust, ensuring Lamport’s survival for the enjoyment of visitors and as a centre of culture and education. .

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