Understanding the English Country House, Architecture & Planning

THE COURSE offers innovative and exciting lectures in Art History, Literature, Music and Opera.

‘Of all the great things that the English have invented and made part of the credit of the national character, the most perfect, the most characteristic, the only one they have mastered completely in all its details, so that it becomes a compendious illustration of their social genius and their manners, is the well-appointed, well-administered, well-filled country house.’ Henry James

Jeremy Musson has spent over twenty years visiting and studying English country houses, and in this new specially designed course, takes some different approaches to understanding how the ‘well-appointed, well-administered, well-filled country house’ was planned, designed, built and used. Above all, he brings the architectural story to life by exploring the history of people in the country house, through domestic service, evolving technology, as well as the significant social life and ritual of the English country house from the mid sixteenth century.

The Country House: Architecture and Planning c.1550 – 1900

The country house represented one of the most ambitious building types of English architecture from the later sixteenth century onwards; the residence of the landowner of an estate, it was a centre of administration and hospitality, and the careful planning of the principal apartments reveals much about the practical needs and social ambitions of every age. This lecture explores the evolution from the traditional great house planning, through new ideals of classical inspiration, symmetrical planning and design, to the more fluid ‘circuit’ planning of the later eighteenth-century country house, as well as the elaborate zoning and specialisations of the nineteenth century country house. The latter was designed for extensive hospitality and display, supported by specialised service areas.