Burghley House, Lincolnshire The Attingham Trust 60th Anniversary Looking Ahead: The Future of the Country House Conference Papers 12 & 13th OCTOBER 2012 ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY, LONDON Edited by Giles Waterfield and Rebecca Parker Transcribed by Mia Jackson - Contents - Foreword John Lewis, Chairman, The Attingham Trust Friday 12 October Page Welcome and Introduction Annabel Westman, Executive Director, The Attingham Trust 6 Confessions of a Country House Snooper: Tim Knox interviews John Harris Tim Knox, Director, The Sir John Soane’s Museum; John Harris, Architectural Historian 8 Session One: Changing Perceptions of the Country House in Britain Chair: Martin Postle, Assistant Director, Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art Studying the Country House: Views from the Academy Giles Waterfield, The Attingham Trust 18 The Country House in The Buildings of England 1951-2011 Charles O’Brien, Series Editor, Pevsner Architectural Guides 25 Country House Collections: What Do They Mean Today? Dr. Christopher Ridgway, Curator, Castle Howard 33 Session Two: New Visions for Old Houses: The Private Perspective Chair: Edward Harley, President of the Historic Houses Association (2008-2012) Introduction Edward Harley, President of the Historic Houses Association 44 The Buccleuch Estates The Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry 48 Burghley House in the Twenty-First Century Miranda Rock, Burghley House 57 Perspectives on the Historic House: Giles Waterfield interviews Julian Fellowes Lord Fellowes of West Stafford, Writer, Actor and Broadcaster; Giles Waterfield 64 2 Saturday 13 October Page Session Three: Houses in Trust: The Country House in Public/Charitable Ownership Chair: Giles Waterfield, The Attingham Trust The Crisis of the Country House in Local Government Care Jeremy Musson, Architectural Historian 72 The National Trust and its Country Houses Lisa White, Chairman of the National Trust Arts Panel 84 Presenting the Historic House Anna Keay, Director, The Landmark Trust 92 Session For: The Irish Country House Chair: John Redmill, Irish Georgian Society “Tombstones of a departed ascendancy”: The Irish country house since independence Terence Dooely, Director of CSHIHE, National University of Ireland, Maynooth 100 The Work of the Irish Heritage Trust Kevin Baird, Director, Irish Heritage Trust 109 Session Five: Time to Rethink? The House Museum in the United States Chair: Peter Trippi, Editor, Fine Art Connoisseur The American House Museum in Historical Perspective Craig Hanson, Associate Professor, Calvin College, Michigan 116 Newport: A Case Study in Preserving Great Houses, Great Landscapes and a Great City John Tschirch, Director of Museum Affairs, Newport Preservation Society 129 Falling Down: The Current State of the Historic House in America Sean Sawyer, Executive Director, The Royal Oak Foundation 138 Select Bibliography 149 3 - Foreword - John Lewis Chairman, The Attingham Trust It is a great pleasure to thank the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, who kick-started our planning for the conference with their kind offer of support, following the success of our fiftieth anniversary conference in 2002. Brian Allen, the former Director, and his colleague Martin Postle were especially encouraging and helpful. The Centre’s generous grant allowed us to invite speakers from the United States and the Republic of Ireland, and to offer bursaries for postgraduate and undergraduate students to attend the conference. I would also like to thank Lowell Libson, who in memory of our founder Helen Lowenthal provided assistance to allow a group of Central European alumni to attend. A further generous donor prefers to remain anonymous. This conference would not have occurred without the inspiration of Giles Waterfield, who has gathered together an international group of excellent speakers. Giles has been involved with the Attingham Trust for many years and continues to direct Royal Collection Studies, which he founded with Sir Hugh Roberts seventeen years ago. Giles has been ably assisted in the planning of the conference by Rebecca Parker, who with inimitable spirit and good cheer held it all together. Considerable thanks are also due to Annabel Westman and Kate Morgan, both of the Attingham Trust, for all their work, while Mia Jackson admirably transcribed the proceedings for publication. If any of our readers think that the conference addresses a subject that could conceivably be regarded as esoteric, I would emphasise that tourism is the United Kingdom’s third largest foreign exchange earner. Visit Britain has established that the vast majority of overseas visitors come to Britain because of our heritage and in particular our country houses. The National Trust, the Historic Houses Association and English Heritage, which were all represented at the conference, between them have over 1250 properties open to the public. This comparatively unsung area of the British economy is exceptionally important in the UK, especially in the current economic climate. We are very proud of the Attingham Trust and all that it has achieved in offering professionals – whether curators, academics, architects, or art dealers and auctioneers – in the field of art and 4 architectural history the opportunity to study historic buildings and their contents, in this country and overseas. The work of the Trust has expanded greatly since the first summer school took place in 1952, but I believe it remains true to its original ideals. It is my great pleasure as Chairman to introduce the proceedings of this conference. I believe that they reflect the continuing liveliness and vigour of the Trust’s achievement. 5 - Welcome and Introduction - Annabel Westman Executive Director, The Attingham Trust The vision of our founders in 1952 was reflected in the subject of this conference. The study of the historic house, its collections and estates is central to all the Trust’s activities and remains as clear today as it did in the 1950s. As many of you know, the courses we run - the Attingham Summer School, the Attingham Study Programme, Royal Collections Studies and latterly, the London House programme - all promote this core theme and it seems the message is still pertinent. To quote from the opening paragraph of one report submitted by the English Heritage scholar this year, The experience of the Attingham Summer School was for me in all respects rewarding: challenging, stimulating, a great learning environment and enjoyable. The areas in which I benefitted most are subject knowledge, professional skills and professional development. Ten years ago at the Royal Geographical Society, the Attingham Trust held a conference on the European Country House with speakers from Britain, France, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Poland. Its success encouraged us to consider the future of the country house by spreading our net over three continents with speakers from America, Australia as well as Britain and Ireland. America is highly important to our success. The Attingham Summer School was originally founded for American curators and today, through the invaluable efforts of the American Friends, 50% of members on the Summer School and Study Programmes and a good number on Royal Collection Studies come from the States, often funded by the American Friends. This year the American Friends celebrated their fiftieth anniversary with activities including the Attingham Study Programme in New York and the Hudson River Valley, and a lecture given by David Cannadine, also a patron of the Attingham Trust. Our links with the southern hemisphere are also important to us. In Australia, the Copland Foundation celebrates its fifth anniversary and provides two scholarships in perpetuity for Australians to attend the courses. The Foundation is holding a conference in Adelaide on a similar theme in late November, and we are delighted that there are delegates here from New 6 Zealand who have benefitted from the Clark Collection/Creative New Zealand scholarship, which has been running for some ten years. We are indebted to the generosity of our benefactors. I would like to single out The Monument Trust which has supported dozens of scholars since the 1980s. Its support and that of many other donors - private individuals, institutions and charitable bodies - enable us to maintain an academic standard integral to our purpose of continual professional development and education within the heritage field. 7 - Confessions of a Country House Snooper: Tim Knox interviews John Harris - Tim Knox Director, Sir John Soane’s Museum John Harris Architectural Historian TIM KNOX: John Harris needs no introduction; he is one of greatest architectural historians and certainly our greatest architectural maverick. Born in 1931, he’s had a variegated career, which extends from national service in Malaysia to being honorary curator of the Schweppes Grotto, which was a Festival of Britain attraction in Battersea Park. He then went on to survey Lincolnshire for the Buildings of England Pevsner series, something we’ll hear about later. He became Curator of the RIBA Drawings Collection and presided over a great revival of that institution in Portman Square. It became the dynamo of architectural history of its time. Not only was it a fantastic source of gossip round that little coffee table, but the catalogues, the exhibitions, John was at the forefront of all of that, as well as advising other collectors such as Paul Mellon - the distinguished collection at the Yale Center for British Art was formed partly under John’s advice. Since his retirement from the RIBA, John has been writing book after book: Chambers, Inigo Jones, Lord Burlington, Talman, Moving Rooms which is a study of period rooms, and indeed a chapter in the new William Kent catalogue. But in a way the two books that are most personal are No Voice from the Hall, which came out in 1998, and Echoing Voices of 2002. These wistful elegiac memoirs chart his explorations in the Thames Valley and in Lincolnshire just after the Second World War. If anything they are the coda to the great exhibition that John co-organized, The Destruction of the Country House, held at the V & A in 1974.