Americans in Alliance with the National Trust of England, Wales, and Northern Ireland Focus on Buckinghamshire Celebrating Chippendale The Country House During World War I British Foodways Over the Centuries FALL/WINTER 2018 2 | From the Executive Director THE ROYAL OAK FOUNDATION 20 West 44th Street, Suite 606 New York, New York 10036-6603 Dear Members & Friends, 212.480.2889 | www.royal-oak.org Anniversaries are about Oddy. They help to provide perspective BOARD OF DIRECTORS on some of the long-term institutional remembering, recognition Chairman and renewal. relationships, such as those with the Lynne L. Rickabaugh Attingham Summer School. A few Vice Chairman As Royal Oak moves into the final months former Board members have joined with Prof. Susan S. Samuelson of its 45th Anniversary year, we have lots some current Board members to help Treasurer to remember. It was actually in October form the 45th Anniversary benefit event Renee Nichols Tucei 1973, as a newly established Host Committee. This Secretary foundation waiting for its Thomas M. Kelly celebration is intended tax-exempt status, that the Directors to bring old and new National Trust provided Betsy Shack Barbanell friends together to for our first three years Michael A. Boyd congratulate each other of funding—they were Prof. Sir David Cannadine on what they have our angel investors—and Constance M. Cincotta accomplished on behalf allowed Royal Oak to John Southerton Clark communicate with the of the National Trust. Robert C. Daum 3,000 Trust members living Tracey A. Dedrick We have also renewed in the United States. From Anne Blackwell Ervin the commitment to those valuable acorns Pamela K. Hull our membership by Linda A. Kelly we have grown to nearly providing a new Hilary McGrady 14,000 members today. Eric J. Nilson We also recently presented website. We know Kristyn Noeth $1,525,000 to the National there are improvements to make and will Susan A. Ollila Trust in support of the Timothy Parker Churchill’s Chartwell project: so funds are do so in the coming months. You are encouraged to give us feedback on Robert Sackville-West, Lord Sackville flowing in the direction that Royal Oak Laura Trevelyan founders hoped for decades ago. content and services you want to see from this increasingly critical medium. STAFF Earlier this year we lost two very In addition, this fall’s program season is important members of our Royal Oak our largest, in number of lectures and David Nathans | Executive Director & CEO [email protected] family. Lawrence Rich was the first tours, in four years. Member surveys tell Greg Joye | Director of Development National Trust employee to explore the us more programs are of interest in order [email protected] U.S. landscape, lecturing in 11 cities over to remain connected to the preservation Ian Murray | Chief Financial Officer two weeks. He returned to England and and conservation values represented in [email protected] then was sent back to organize a Board all of what the National Trust is doing. Winifred E. Cyrus of Directors, choose a name, and hire the We are also making efforts to diversify Director of Membership Services [email protected] first Executive Director in 1974. Rich later our offerings with events for families, became the Trust’s magazine editor: he Jan Lizza | Membership Services Associate for music lovers and for literary critics. [email protected] died this past summer. Drue Heinz (see Please see our Calendar (p. 14) or look on Jennie L. McCahey | Program Director opposite page) was patron of our lecture our website for an event happening near [email protected] series for 26 years and served as Honorary you. Christina de Gersdorff | Program Coordinator Chair until her death in April at 103. [email protected] Their contributions, as well as those of Thanks to all our members, donors and Kayla Smith hundreds of others in supporting our first friends. You are the thread that makes Program & Development Assistant 45 years, are gratefully recognized. Royal Oak a living and brilliant tapestry. [email protected] Branwynne Kennedy In this anniversary year we are renewing Development & Communications Associate Very best regards, [email protected] relationships with former Board members Jessie Walker | Foundation Volunteer and senior staff. Together they built this organization into a valued and respected June Price | Newsletter Designer one. It is personally very rewarding for The Royal Oak Newsletter is published me to have had great conversations with biannually and distributed to active members many of my predecessors, including David Nathans and contributors. ©ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Arete Warren, Damaris Horan and John Executive Director & CEO 212.480.2889 | www.royal-oak.org Cover Photo: The Pavilion, glowing in autumn sunshine at Montacute, Somerset. ©National Trust Images/John Miller Community | 3 Royal Oak News New Benefits Added for Members when Traveling We have added two new benefits this summer which we encourage you to take advantage of: You now will receive discounted membership at the Royal Over-Seas League Club and reduced prices at the Stafford, a premier hotel in London with an interesting historical connection to America. Samuel H. Kress A New Book on British Supports National Trust Country Houses Sculpture Project Royal Oak Launches This fall, we are proud to announce the a New Website Royal Oak is delighted to have recently publication of The Country House: Past, As many of you already know, Royal Oak received a grant of $20,000 to provide seed Present, Future: Great Houses of the British launched a new website and database in funding for the National Trust’s new four- Isles co-edited by scholars David Cannadine year Mapping Sculpture project. The goal of the final days of August. These upgrades and Jeremy Musson. The 432-page book, this project is to inspect all sculptures in the will allow us to better serve you and grow published by Rizzoli and cosponsored by Trust’s expansive collections, update records our membership. If you have not done so Royal Oak and the National Trust, features already, you will need to register for the new internally and online with high-quality many National Trust properties. The book website at www.Royal-Oak.org. We ask that photographs for each work, prioritize those you use the email you have used with us in sculptures most in need of conservation, explores changing perceptions of the rich the past as your username. You will find all and finally to publish the resulting records and complex heritage of the British country your member benefits in the section called on the National Trust Collections website as house both in highly visual photographic “Members’ Area,” including discounts on well as on website of Art U.K., a partner in essays and commentary by several leading travel and publications. the project. scholars and authors in the field. Remembering Drue Heinz Royal Oak mourns the passing of Drue Heinz, a long-time benefactor and our Honorary Chairman. A great patron of the literary arts and a philanthropist, Mrs. Heinz was born in Norfolk, England and was devoted to British arts and literature. One of the many institutions she supported was the National Trust of England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Her relationship with Royal Oak led to the establishment of the Drue Heinz Lecture Series, which the Drue Heinz Trust underwrote for 26 years. This enabled the Royal Oak Foundation to bring hundreds of scholars and authors to cities across the country. Royal Oak sincerely appreciates her generosity. She and her stewardship will be deeply missed. Fall/Winter 2018 4 | Access Soldiers and nurses at Great Dixter, East Sussex, 1918. The Country House at War Many country houses and grand estates were turned into hospitals and training grounds as part of the war effort by Jeremy Musson The war of 1914-18 had a devastating effect the first year of the war, around one in seven landowners’ unchanging world at the center on every aspect of British life. Today, it fell. Many landowning families lost more of their landed estates. Stourhead, its lakeside is rare to visit a village green or country than one son. Lord and Lady Desborough views studded with exquisite temples, had church without coming across a list of lost their two eldest sons in May and June been home to the Hoare family for 200 years those who died in that terrible conflict. 1915 respectively, a tragedy from which when their beloved and only son Harry Of the six million men who served in the Lady Desborough never recovered. With a joined up in 1915. He died in December British army, over 720,000 never returned third son dying in an accident after the war, 1917 from wounds received leading a charge to the cities, towns and villages that they her family home, Panshanger House, was on Mughar Ridge in Palestine. called home. left without an heir and demolished after her death. Newly wealthy men of commerce were still in The impact affected the country houses the early 1900s building new country houses of Britain and Ireland in many ways— Lady Desborough’s eldest son, Julian Grenfell, and creating new estates and dreamed not least the small, interconnected and was awarded the DSO (Distinguished of their sons inheriting, thus founding a interdependent world of the landed estate. Service Order) medal and is commemorated landed dynasty to rival the best old country Landowners and their sons, household at Westminster Abbey’s Poets’ Corner. His families. Julius Drewe, founder of Home and servants and estate workers, went off to most famous poem, Into Battle, was first Colonial stores, was building Castle Drogo, ‘do their bit’, often enlisting in the same published just the day after his death.