Understanding the English Country House / Servants, Technology and Servicing

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: Servants, Technology and Servicing

The country house was defined not just by the nature of its architecture, decoration and furnishing, but by the smooth running of its daily life and functioning as a place of entertainment; until the mid twentieth century this depended on a large, resident and highly trained population of servants, devoted to the daily ritual, care and comfort of the landowner’s family, the maintenance of the house and contents; we will explore the evolution of the story of country house servants, and set it in the illuminating context of evolving country house technology, lighting, heating and related transport.