What Can Victorian Country-House Planning Tell Us About English Social Values?

What can Victorian country-house planning tell us about English social values? The nineteenth-century remains one of the greatest periods of country-house building to date. The concept of ‘Young England’, a romanticised reverence to Medieval, Elizabethan, Jacobean and Baroque themes, accrued popularity among a growing landed gentry, with fortunes in industry and commerce. Country Life publications and literature, including Heir of Redclyffe and Tom Brown, perpetuated gentlemanly lifestyles. Etiquette books meanwhile emulated Queen Victoria’s own ‘model’ family, inspiring new landowners investing in the most influential of status symbols - the country house. Whether grand, leisurely sites or modest family homes, this work aims to link such typically English social values as ambition, pride, originality, comfort, privacy, morality and technological innovation with their architectural counterparts. To the modern eye, Victorian country houses noticeably appeared ambitious in scale, the £120,000i spent on Bearwood, Berkshire giving testament to this. Mr Gregory’s "fancy to build a magnificent house in the Elizabethan style"ii became evident at Lincolnshire’s Harlaxton Manoriii, the grand piers and arches of its preceding gateways further evoking a sense of grandiose most becoming to a gentleman. Such flights of fancy were taken further at Cragside, Northumberland where Lord Armstrong's fortune accrued via engineering works enabled Richard Norman Shaw’s design that incorporated several vernacular period styles. Of traditional aristocracy, commented industrialist Hippolyte Taine in the 1860s: "let them govern, but let them be fit to govern."iv William Burges’ implementation of stairs behind a screens passage at Knightshayes Court, Devonshirev showed the patron's intention in seeking comparison to a medieval lord surveying his estate, dutifully dispensing hospitality to guests. 1 Additionally, A.W. Pugin’s great hall sketch for Scarisbrick Hall, Lancashirevi also fits ideas of ancestral lineage, despite how its patron "spends all his time at the secluded hall...and sees nobody, not even his steward."vii The aspiring, self-made man could gain greater authority by traditional investments in land whereupon "no false modesty should deter him from expressing this, quietly and gravely, in the character of his house."viii W.M. Teulon’s work on Overstone Hall, Northamptonshireix however regrettably exemplified "neither taste, comfort nor convenience. I am utterly ashamed of it."x Gothic revival, unlike classical, provided an element of truth amidst English fantasy: Peckforton Castle’s crenellations reminiscent of medieval privilege; Capesthorne’s Jacobean entranceway reflecting self-made confidence; Kelham Hall’s plentiful chimney stacks creating a busy Elizabethan skyline. This free adaptation of pre-existing plan forms, like Elizabethan ‘E’/‘H’ shapes or classical double-pile that gained popularity in the mid to late nineteenth-century, largely depended upon functional routes "necessary for convenience, construction or propriety"xi - strict principles refined by William Burn from the 1840s at properties like Lynford Hall, Norfolk "that were the last word in organisation and efficiency."xii Stowe, Huntington had "nine water-closets, a shower-bath and four bathrooms"xiii in 1844, demonstrating the sort of luxury capable of impressing visiting foreign guests. Indeed the "skilful architect could deploy gateways, covered walks, clock- towers, game larders...to suggest the lively and complex life that was going on beneath them."xiv Room compartmentalisation according to function, class, marital status and gender suggests over-organisation opposed to innovation in Victorian country-house plans that, Dr Franklin 2 advocates, "ensured that the dinner route was noble, the servants invisible and the boiled cabbage kept at bay."xv The consideration of servants’ quarters in plans identifies both a social distinction and dependency characteristic of the upper classes, as relayed at Lynford Hallxvi where most of its basement services (outnumbering ground-floor family rooms) were reserved for food preparation in kitchens with "the character of a complicated laboratory"xvii – something indicative of a wealthy household of several cooks capable of providing lavish dining. Peckforton Castle’sxviii placing of its kitchen sixty yards from its dining-room, while commonplace, paralleled kinked corridor designs for deterring meal scents; a distant serving- room providing hot trays to reheat courses. "Under no circumstances, of course, should the servants overlook the private life of the family"xix – whilst such advice maintained privacy, it also curbed family fears of gentlemen seducing housemaids. Furthermore, Lynford Hall’s sloped services provided a basement while restricting private garden views; its other zones split between the butler, housekeeper and laundry-maid - avoidance of these low-level/winged services in Victorian photographs adding to "the affectation of the time that work was done by magic."xx The multiple staircases present in plans of Bearwood and Kinmel Park, Denbighshirexxi highlight the separation of routes, sexes and occupants’ restrictions. The further dehumanisation of rooms for specific functions corresponding to the owner’s priorities, such as the brushing-room and lamp-room, suggests a continued medieval feudalism, adhered to by the gentry, present among servants. A family's trust of upper servants is evident in the designation of personal offices to the steward and housekeeper, located nearer to principal rooms to protect family safes and provide space for entertaining visitors’ servants. The idea of families visiting servants for tea gains credibility when considering the "very comfortable"xxii housekeeper’s room at Merevale Hall, Warwickshirexxiii lodging its resident family during building work. Robert Kerr aptly 3 observed how "family constitutes one community: the servants another...On both sides this privacy is highly valued."xxiv The proximity of principal rooms to service ones exhibits itself in Standen’s ‘L’ shaped Sussex planxxv, its central facade drawing one’s focus whilst retaining an element of convenience reminiscent of Burn’s "last word in organisation and efficiency."xxvi Continuing affluent notions, one contemporary recalled how purchasing "a pair of stag’s heads made of plaster-of-Paris...will look just the thing for little hall, and give it style."xxvii The presence of real taxidermy as trophies in Cragside’s gun-roomxxviii typifies the wealth and skill of the sporting gentleman, alongside foresight for wall hangings seen in its sombre oak panelling. Anthony Salvin’s Peckforton Castle saw the mid-century introduction of men’s cloakrooms so that visitors could "always find their way to the Entrance Hall without trouble."xxix Smoking-rooms (later paired with billiard-rooms as smoking became a social norm from the 1850s) and business-rooms aided weekend gatherings, where political discussion in leisurely yet sophisticated manner befitting stereotypes of masculine ascendancy. Meanwhile, the library’s disappearance as "a sort of Morning Room for Gentlemen"xxx post-1870 implies the redundancy of intellectual pursuits for aesthetic reasoning. Furthermore, Henry James of Mellows noted how English talk demonstrated "wonderfully little reading."xxxi An interest in novelty becomes apparent in "the extension of the orangerie"xxxii at Wotton House, Surrey alongside Robinson & Jekyll’s floral/herbaceous 1890s furnishings at Barrington Court, Somerset. The emergence of conservatories "always steeped in a curious, jungle romance"xxxiii additionally allowed guests to view rare, exotic plants – a fashion derived from Chatsworth House. The value of materialistic well-being becomes clear from 4 "books of prints and other things to amuse the company"xxxiv at Beaumanor Park’s drawing- roomxxxv, its ornamental cluttering of photograph collections supposedly glorifying the home. Drawing-room functionality in permitting affable conversation and the serving of afternoon tea to the female company ultimately influenced its architecture. A fashionable south-easterly facing brightened dull Victorian aesthetics: optimum sunlight illuminating the room "by the time the first carriage callers came"xxxvi; the degree of discernible rays eased during afternoon tea. The centrality of halls and ballrooms as mixed social spaces throughout the century perhaps best conveys the moral Christian family ideal where servants’ balls and local society parties took place. Cliffe Castle’s expenditure on tracery and stained glassxxxvii added to notions of Englishness and respectability that encouraged such inscriptions as "except the Lord buildeth the house they labour in vain that build it"xxxviii – a reminder perhaps for modest constructions using honest, localised materials. Evidence of religious revival can be seen in Pugin’s family chapel at Alton Towers, Staffordshire which rivalled a small church in size. French critic Hippolyte Taine acknowledged drawing-room substitutes for similar purposes, a father becoming the family’s "spiritual guide, their chaplain; they may be seen entering in a row, the women in front, the men behind, with seriousness, gravity and taking their places."xxxix Something of this Christian unity presents itself in ‘family planned’ homes like Eaton Hall, Cheshire with its schoolroom situated between the duke’s study and the duchess’ boudoir, while Lechlade Manor, Gloucestershirexl inferred the organisation of children into private,

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