Touring and Publicizing England’s Country Houses in the Long Eighteenth Century 9781501334979, 9781501335006, 9781501334993

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Touring and Publicizing England’s Country Houses in the Long Eighteenth Century

Touring and Publicizing England’s Country Houses in the Long Eighteenth Century Jocelyn Anderson

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc N E W YO R K • LO N D O N • OX F O R D • N E W D E L H I • SY DN EY

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Inc 1385 Broadway New York NY 10018 USA

50 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP UK

www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2018 © Jocelyn Anderson, 2018 Supported by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, the Marc Fitch Fund and the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: 978-1-5013-3497-9 ePub: 978-1-5013-3498-6 ePDF: 978-1-5013-3499-3 Cover design: Irene Martinez Costa Cover image © Paul Fourdrinier, Blenheim House. Erected at the Publick Expence in Commemoration of the Victory at Blenheim, and setled on the Great Duke of Marlborough and his Descendents for ever, hand-colored engraving on Whatman wove paper, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection Typeset by Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com. Here you will find extracts, author interviews, details of forthcoming events, and the option to sign up for our newsletters.

For my parents

Contents Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction 1 2 3 4 5

‘For the Numerous Strangers Who Visit’: Tourists’ Itineraries and Practices ‘A Sumptuous Pile of Building’: Remaking the Sights and Spaces of the House ‘Eminent in Public Estimation’: The Transformation of Country Houses’ Paintings and Sculptures ‘A Degree of Taste and Elegance’: Commenting on Country Houses’ Interiors ‘The Beauties of Nature’: Descriptions of Country-House Gardens and Parks

Conclusion Appendix: Country-House Guidebooks

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25 59 91 127 159 195 201

Bibliography 206 Index228

Illustrations Figures 1.1 Luke Sullivan, A View of Wilton in Wiltshire the Seat of the Rt. Hon. Earl of Pembroke, 1759, engraving, 36.5 × 51.8 cm. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. A similar view was engraved for The Modern Universal British Traveller. 1.2 Frontispiece from Charles Burlington et al., The Modern Universal British Traveller, London: J. Cooke, 1779, engraving, 21.4 × 35.7 cm. © The British Library Board (10348.l.6). 1.3 Thomas Barber the Elder, Mrs Garnett in the Marble Hall, c. 1800, oil on canvas, 89.5 × 69 cm. © National Trust Images/John Hammond. Mrs Garnett was the housekeeper at Kedleston from 1766 until 1809, and she was well known as a guide to the house. She is holding a copy of the Kedleston guidebook. 1.4 The New Inn at Stowe. © National Trust Images/Chris Lacey. 1.5 W. Bowley, ‘Hawkstone Inn and Hotel’, illustration from T. Rodenhurst, A Description of Hawkstone, 10th edn, London: John Stockdale, 1811, engraving, 12 × 6.6 cm. Collection Centre Canadien d’Architecture/ Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal, gift of Phyllis Lambert. 1.6 William Mavor, New Description of Blenheim, 3rd edn, London: T. Cadell, 1793, 11.8 × 19 × 1.3 cm. Collection Centre Canadien d’Architecture/ Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal. 2.1 Francis Vivares after Thomas Smith of Derby, A South-West view of Chatsworth, 25 October 1744, engraving and etching, 39.4 x 54.3 cm. Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2017. 2.2 Francis Chesham after Paul Sandby, ‘Burleigh the Seat of the Earl of Exeter’, The Virtuosi’s Museum, 1 August 1780, etching and engraving, 16.3 × 20.7 cm. The Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto. 2.3 Francis Chesham after Lord Duncannon, ‘Alnwick-Castle, Looking up the River’, The Virtuosi’s Museum, 1 November 1780, etching and engraving, 16.4 × 20.5 cm. © The Trustees of the British Museum. 2.4 William Angus after William Marlow, ‘Castle Howard in Yorkshire, the Seat of the Earl of Carlisle’, The Seats of the Nobility and Gentry, 1 February

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Illustrations 1787, etching and engraving, 15.2 × 20.4 cm. The Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto. 2.5 William Angus after Lord Duncannon, ‘Blenheim in Oxfordshire the Seat of the Duke of Marlborough’, The Seats of the Nobility and Gentry, 1 September 1787, etching and engraving, 15.7 × 20.3 cm. The Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto. 2.6 J. C. Smith after J. Britton (above) and J. Roffe (below), ‘Corsham House, Wiltshire’, frontispiece from John Britton, An Historical Account of Corsham House, London: Printed for the Author, 1806, engraving, 16 × 10.6 cm. Collection Centre Canadien d’Architecture/Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal, gift of Phyllis Lambert. 2.7 James Gandon and M. Darly after Robert Adam, ‘Plan of the Principal Floor of Kedleston’, Vitruvius Britannicus, London: John Woolfe and James Gandon, 1767 (with modifications). Ultimately, the southeast and southwest wings and corridors and the rooms on the south side of the northeast corridor were not built. 2.8 ‘Plan of the principal floor of Blenheim’, Vitruvius Britannicus, London: Colen Campbell, 1715 (with modifications). 2.9 Plans from Thomas Blore, A Guide to Burghley, Stamford: John Drakard, 1815, engraving, 17.3 × 11.2 cm. Collection Centre Canadien d’Architecture/Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal, gift of Phyllis Lambert. This plate was included in both the abridged and extended versions of the guidebook. 2.10 ‘A Plan of the House & c. of the Right Hon.ble The Earl Temple at Stowe in Buckinghamshire’, from Benton Seeley’s Stowe: A Description of the Magnificent House and Gardens, Buckingham: B. Seeley, 1773, engraving, 27.7 × 51.6 cm. The Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto. 3.1 George Farington and William Sharp after Guido Reni, The Doctors of the Church, 1785, engraving, 64.3 × 42.8 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, gift of Georgiana W. Sargent, in memory of John Osborne Sargent, 1924. 3.2 George Farington and Valentine Green after Giovanni Battista Sassoferrato (formerly attributed to Domenichino), The Virgin and Child, 1774, mezzotint, 25 × 17.8 cm. © The Trustees of the British Museum. 3.3 The Double Cube Room at Wilton. © Country Life Picture Library. Anthony van Dyck’s Portrait of the fourth Earl of Pembroke and his Family/ Family Piece (c. 1635) is visible in the background.

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3.4 The Dog of Alcibiades, second century CE, marble, 105 cm (height). © The Trustees of the British Museum. 3.5 Illustration of the Diskophoros from Bartolomeo Cavaceppi, Raccolta D’Antiche Statue Busti Bassirilievi ed altre Sculture, 3 vols, Rome: Pietro Manna, 1768, engraving, 19.4 × 28.8 cm. © The British Library Board (1265.h.27). 3.6 Simon François Ravenet I and Richard Earlom after Luca Giordano, The Death of Seneca, 1768, engraving, 48.4 × 60.2 cm. © The Trustees of the British Museum. 3.7 Josiah Boydell and Richard Earlom after Peter Paul Rubens, Rubens’s Wife, 1782, mezzotint, 50.2 × 35.2 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. 3.8 John Alexander Gresse, ‘Pyrrhus’, frontispiece from James Kennedy, A New Description of the Pictures, Bustos, Statues, Basso-Relievos, and Other Curiosities at the Earl of Pembroke’s House at Wilton, 5th edn, Salisbury: E. Easton, 1771, engraving, 15.6 × 19.1 cm. Collection Centre Canadien d’Architecture/Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal, gift of Phyllis Lambert. 4.1 The Hall at Holkham. © Country Life Picture Library. 4.2 The Sabine Room at Chatsworth, painted by James Thornhill, 1706. © Country Life Picture Library. 4.3 Carved ornament in the state apartment at Chatsworth. © Country Life Picture Library. 4.4 The Pope’s Cabinet, Stourhead. © National Trust Images/James Dobson. 4.5 View of silver furniture and mirror in the King’s Room at Knole. © National Trust Images/Andreas von Einsiedel. 4.6 The State Bed at Holkham. © Country Life Picture Library. 5.1 James Mason after George Lambert and Samuel Scott, ‘A View of Plymouth Fort and St Nicholas’s Island, from Mt Edgcumbe’, Five Views of and from Mount Edgcumbe, Plymouth, 1755, engraving and etching, 38.6 × 62.8 cm. © The Trustees of the British Museum. 5.2 Anthony Walker, A View of the Reservoir & Artificial Mount, in ye Gardens of Studley ye Seat of William Aislabie Esqr. with a fine View of Fountains Abby, in ye West Riding of Yorkshire, 1758, etching and engraving, 28.3 × 43.8 cm. © The British Library Board (Maps K Top.45.27.3.d). 5.3 James Mason after Thomas Smith of Derby, A View in Virgil’s Grove, at the Leasows, in the County of Salop, 1781, etching, 13 × 18.5 cm. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

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Illustrations 5.4 ‘A Plan of the House & Gardens of the Right Honourable The Earl Temple at Stowe in Buckinghamshire’, from Benton Seeley’s Stowe: A Description of the Magnificent House and Gardens, Buckingham: B. Seeley, 1773, engraving, 36.8 × 28.7 cm. The Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto. 5.5 G. L. Smith after Benton Seeley, ‘The Gateway by Kent, The Doric Arch, A Ruin, The Temple of Antient Virtue, The Shell Bridge’, illustrations from Benton Seeley’s Stowe: A Description of the Magnificent House and Gardens, Buckingham: B. Seeley, 1769, engraving, 12.1 × 20.4 cm. RIBA Collections. 5.6 Michael Angelo Rooker after Paul Sandby, Seat of the Right Honorable, the Earl of Harcourt at Nuneham, with a Distant View of Oxford, 1 July 1775, engraving, 16.4 × 20.2 cm. Yale Center for British Art, gift of James Wilson, YCBA Docent. 5.7 ‘Hagley’, from A Companion to the Leasowes, Hagley, and Enville; with a Sketch of Fishwerwick, near Lichfield, Birmingham: Swinney & Hawkins, 1800, engraving, 12.6 × 7.8 cm (image). Collection Centre Canadien d’Architecture/Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal, gift of Phyllis Lambert. 5.8 George Hillis after J. C. Buckler, ‘North West View of Rievaulx Abbey, Yorkshire’, frontispiece from A Description of Duncombe Park and Rivalx Abbey &c. Attempted, Kirbymoorside: Harrison and Cooper, 1812, engraving, 10.2 × 17.9 cm (image). © The British Library Board (101.h.4). 5.9 William Watts after Paul Sandby, View of the Flower Garden at Nuneham, from the Statue of Hebe, to the Temple of Flora, 1781 (republication of 1777 print), etching, 16 × 20.9 cm. © The Trustees of the British Museum. 5.10 Letitia Byrne after Francis Nicholson, Hackfall Yorkshire, 2 January 1809, etching and engraving, 23.5 × 29.3 cm. © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Herschel Collection.

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Carlo Dolci, Our Lord Blessing the Bread and Wine, mid-seventeenth century, oil on canvas, 84 × 68.5 cm. Burghley House Collection, Lincolnshire, UK/Bridgeman Images. Salomon Koninck, Daniel before Nebuchadnezzar, 1630–56, oil on canvas, 165 × 165 cm. © National Trust Images/John Hammond. Annibale Carracci, The Three Maries/The Dead Christ Mourned, c. 1604, oil on canvas, 92.8 × 103.2 cm. © National Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY.

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Illustrations Rembrandt van Rijn, Man in Oriental Costume (‘The Noble Slav’), 1632, oil on canvas, 152.7 × 111.1 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, bequest of William K. Vanderbilt, 1920. The Picture Gallery at Corsham. Bridgeman Images. The Drawing Room at Kedleston. © National Trust Images/Nadia Mackenzie. S. J. Neele, fold-out plan of the park at Blenheim, 1797, from William Mavor, New Description of Blenheim, 6th edn, Oxford: Slatter and Munday, 1803, coloured engraving, 37.6 × 24.9 cm. Collection Centre Canadien d’Architecture/Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal, gift of Phyllis Lambert. John Emes, The Lake, Hawkstone Park, Shropshire, 1790, graphite, watercolour and pen with brown and black ink on smooth, medium, cream wove paper, 41.6 × 60.3 cm. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.

Tables 1.1 Country-house guidebook sizes 1.2 Country-house guidebook prices

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Acknowledgements This book is the culmination of several years of research and writing, and I am very grateful to everyone who has supported it. My first thanks are to Christine Stevenson, who has given me insightful advice at every stage of the project, from my initial interest in the presentation of country houses in the eighteenth century to the final editing of the manuscript. David Solkin, Kate Retford and John Bonehill gave me feedback which was extremely thoughtful, detailed and extensive, encouraging me to explore new directions and ask more questions as the project developed. Most recently, I have benefitted tremendously from anonymous reviewers’ suggestions and wonderful support from Margaret Michniewicz and Katherine De Chant at Bloomsbury Academic. Several institutions have contributed monetary support to this project, without which it would never have been completed. In 2012, I received grants from the Yale Center for British Art and the Canadian Centre for Architecture, and I thank the staff at both these research centres for warm welcomes then and on subsequent follow-up visits. In 2014, I received a postdoctoral grant from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art: their staff were exceptionally supportive and this time allowed me to conduct new research which has significantly expanded the parameters of this project. Finally, I was extremely fortunate to receive grants from the Marc Fitch Fund and the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain to support the cost of images for the book. The SAHGB has also generously allowed me to reprint some of the material in Chapter 2, which previously appeared in my article ‘Remaking the Space: The Plan and the Route in Country-House Guidebooks from 1770 to 1815’, Architectural History 54 (2011): 195–212. As a project primarily based on rare books and manuscripts, this book is deeply indebted to many librarians and archivists for their generous assistance over many years. Special thanks are due to Jon Culverhouse at Burghley House, Christopher Hunwick at Alnwick Castle, and Christopher Ridgway and Anna Louise Mason at Castle Howard, all of whom gave me invaluable assistance in navigating their respective archival collections. I am grateful for kind permission to examine and reproduce quotations from the numerous manuscripts which appear courtesy of Bedfordshire Archives & Records Service; Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University; British Library; Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford; the Syndics of Cambridge University Library; Cambridgeshire Archives; Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies; Cornwall Record Office; Devon Record Office; East Riding Archives and Local Studies; the County Archivist, East Sussex Record Office; Essex Record Office; Explore York Libraries and Archives; Gloucestershire Archives; Hampshire Record Office; Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies; Kent History & Library Centre; Lancashire Archives; Lincolnshire Archives; LSE Library; National Archives; National Library

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of Ireland; National Library of Scotland; Norfolk Record Office; Northamptonshire Archives Service; Northumberland Archives; Royal Academy of Ireland; the Earl of Dartmouth and the Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent Archive Service (where Dartmouth manuscripts are located); the University of Manchester Library; Warwickshire County Record Office; Wiltshire and Swindon Archives; and the Yale Center for British Art. Over the past nine years, I have had innumerable informal conversations about country houses with friends, colleagues and students, all of which have helped shape this project. While a complete list is impossible, I would particularly like to thank the following individuals: Alistair Fair and Jon Stobart, who were wonderful editors for related essays; Jake and Raffaella Duncombe and Jacqui and Ian Saggers for warm hospitality at Duncombe Park; Kate Retford, Susanna Avery-Quash, Amelia Smith and Craig Hanson for inviting me to participate in fascinating conference panels on country houses; Sarah Monks, whose teaching on country houses and heritage was very inspiring; John Harris, Giles Waterfield and Charles Hind for sharing their unique expertise on country houses; Jessica Feather and Laurel Peterson for thoughtful and helpful conversations about the project, especially as it approached completion. My family has been tremendously supportive and very patient throughout this work, in everything from early visits to country houses to final editing and proofreading: I will always be grateful for this and for the opportunity to write this book.

Introduction ‘Come Here for Entertainment and Instruction’: Country Houses Exhibited to the Public

We soon were ready for those beauties, which every account had given us reason to expect in the improvements of Stourton Park … At eleven o’clock, therefore, suppose us seated in our carriages, with a guide on horseback, who, having heard of our arrival, had planted himself in waiting early in the morning. Properly prepared, off then we set, opening to our view, almost immediately from the inn, a beautiful cross, transplanted from Bristol, an elegantly-winding river, with an airy bridge thrown across it; an obelisk erecting its head above the trees, and the pantheon, all charmingly disposed of to the right; while the left presented the Temple of Apollo, and an inspiring grove gently ascending to the summit of the hill.1 When Richard Joseph Sulivan visited Stourhead (Wiltshire) in July 1778, his visit was one defined by tourist practices: he knew what he expected to see, he was staying at an inn which catered to tourists, he was accompanied by a guide who specialized in offering tours of the grounds, and he was well informed about what he saw and how he might describe it. Sulivan was one of hundreds of British travellers who visited selected English country houses as tourists in the long eighteenth century. Between the late 1600s and the early 1800s, many country houses became increasingly known for their architecture, large art collections and landscape gardens and parks, and at the same time, the country’s road networks significantly improved and made it possible for people to travel with greater speed and comfort. These developments enabled more and more travellers to visit country houses every year, particularly in the second half of the eighteenth century; although there were no financial incentives for owners to allow tourists to visit their houses and grounds, granting tourists access was seen as indicative of an owner’s politeness. For tourists, this provided an opportunity to examine houses designed by architects both historic and contemporary, to view some of the country’s Richard Joseph Sulivan, A Tour through Parts of England, Scotland, and Wales, in 1778, 2nd edn, 2 vols (London: T. Becket, 1785), I, 131–2. The phrase in the chapter title is from ‘The Travel Journal of Philip Yorke, 1744–63’, in Joyce Godber, The Marchioness Grey of Wrest Park (Volume XLVII of The Bedfordshire Historical Record Society, 1968), 144.

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largest collections of Old Master paintings and antique sculptures and to tour gardens known for their ornamental temples and parks known for their extraordinary views. Tourism was expensive, but by the middle of the eighteenth century it was not confined to the aristocracy: lawyers, doctors, clergymen, army officers, merchants, artists, scholars and minor landowners made tours, and it was a popular activity for both men and women. By the early nineteenth century, country-house tourism was a critical cultural practice and as a phenomenon it demands further investigation.

* * * Today, country houses are a tremendous presence in British culture. The National Trust maintains over 350 historic houses, gardens and ancient monuments, and it has over 4.5 million members (over six times as many as the members of Britain’s main political parties put together) and 62,000 volunteers.2 Of the 1,600 houses, gardens and castles in the Historic Houses Association, an organization of privately and charitably owned properties, approximately 500 are accessible, and these sites attract 13 million visitors a year.3 In 2011, heritage tourism (which includes castles, churches and other historic sites as well as country houses) generated billions of pounds for the UK economy, representing 2 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).4 Country houses have been the subject of everything from multi-year research projects funded by national research councils to documentary series, and they have been the settings for countless novels, films and television programmes. They are also routinely cited in analyses of the connections between conservative politics and popular nostalgia for Britain’s imperial past (in which they are often discussed alongside the monarchy) and for rural England (in which they are often discussed in relation to wider estate communities), and, alongside other elements of the British heritage industry, they have been harshly criticized by historians, journalists and artists.5 Both as sites and as subjects, country houses’ prominence in contemporary British culture is extremely powerful. Scholars investigating heritage in Britain have long been fascinated by the concept of country houses as sites of national heritage. Commenting on public feeling about country houses in the 1980s, Robert Hewison declared that ‘The country house

The National Trust, ‘About the National Trust’, (accessed 30 January 2016). The National Trust, ‘Fascinating Facts and Figures’, (accessed 30 January 2016). 3 Historic Houses Association, ‘About the HHA’, (accessed 30 January 2016). 4 Historic England, ‘Heritage and the Economy’, (accessed 14 February 2016). 5 James Raven, ‘Introduction’, in Lost Mansions: Essays on the Destruction of the Country House, ed. James Raven (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 12. Raphael Samuel, Theatres of Memory: Past and Present in Contemporary Culture (London: Verso, 2012), 259–73. 2

Introduction

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is the most familiar symbol of our national heritage … By a mystical process of identification the country house becomes the nation.’6 Similarly, in discussing the debates sparked by the National Heritage Act (1980), Patrick Wright noted ‘the national past – “our” common heritage – seems indeed to be identifiable as the historicised image of an instinctively conservative establishment’; in Wright’s view, ‘the deft manoeuvring of historic house owners’ cannot fully explain this, and while there are certainly property interests at play, ‘the cultural motivation … is the important issue to understand’.7 More recently, Laurajane Smith has researched visitors’ reactions to country houses and determined that even though country houses are routinely associated with political conservatism and elitism, for many visitors, their experiences ‘engendered a sense of comfort, belonging and a reaffirming sense of social deference’.8 Variously conceived of as cultural treasures for the world or as powerful manifestations of social and racial inequalities, country houses’ role in the twentyfirst century is sometimes controversial, but it is clear that the positioning of country houses as sites of national heritage has been enormously successful, and deserves close critical examination.9 It is a process which can be linked to specific events – the exhibition ‘The Destruction of the Country House’, held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1974, strongly advocated for preservation and has since been identified as a significant turning point in twentieth-century attitudes to country houses – and yet it is often presented as a fundamentally perplexing, ‘mystical’ process.10 Although scholars have examined how country houses rose in prominence as national tourist attractions in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the increasing publicness of country houses in the eighteenth century has been a somewhat contentious issue.11 Studies of domestic tourism in eighteenth-century Britain have identified the period as the first era of modern country-house tourism. Esther Moir, for example, declared that ‘The publicity which has attended the opening of their country homes to sightseers by the aristocracy might lead one to believe that this was some new departure on their part’, but in fact, ‘Seeing round country houses has long been a popular English pastime.’12 Moir’s book was published in 1964, a moment when many country houses were being re-opened after years of closure, or opened for the first

Robert Hewison, The Heritage Industry: Britain in a Climate of Decline (London: A. Methuen, 1987), 53. 7 Patrick Wright, On Living in an Old Country: The National Past in Contemporary Britain, 2nd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 43. 8 Laurajane Smith, Uses of Heritage (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006), 158. 9 David Lowenthal, The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History (London: Viking, 1997), 91–2. For more on heritage in a post-imperial context, see Lucienne Loh, The Postcolonial Country in Contemporary Literature (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). 10 Ruth Adams, ‘The V&A, The Destruction of the Country House and the Creation of “English Heritage”’, Museum & Society 11, no. 1 (2013): 1–18. Hewison, The Heritage Industry, 53. 11 The most important study is Peter Mandler’s The Fall and Rise of the Stately Home (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997); see also Adrian Tinniswood, A History of Country House Visiting: Five Centuries of Tourism and Taste (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989), 130–93. 12 Esther Moir, The Discovery of Britain: The English Tourists, 1540 to 1840 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1964), 58. 6

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time. Decades later, the connection between historic and contemporary tourism was still being made: in The Englishman’s England (1990), Ian Ousby stated It is certainly mistaken to see the present fate of our country houses as a complete break with tradition, a dramatic shift forced on them by the Second World War and its aftermath. Attracting tourists has always been part of their function, and it has been a major function since the eighteenth century, when so many aspects of modern tourism first began to emerge.13

Referring to travellers’ accounts of their visits to Chatsworth (Derbyshire), Holkham (Norfolk), Castle Howard (North Yorkshire) and Blenheim Palace (Oxfordshire), to name only a few popular sites, Moir and Ousby had no difficulty in illustrating experiences of eighteenth-century country-house visiting. In contrast, some historians have argued that the emergence of country houses as sites of national heritage is a phenomenon of the early nineteenth century. Peter Mandler has examined how public attitudes to country houses shifted – sometimes to extreme degrees – throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and he positions the period before 1815 as a prelude, treating the first few decades of the nineteenth century as the first critical period for tourism. Similarly, in an analysis of the public position of the aristocracy in the long eighteenth century, Linda Colley has argued that in the early nineteenth century, most European aristocrats had to live with the risk that their property might be pillaged or confiscated. Only in Great Britain did it prove possible to float the idea that aristocratic property was in some magical and strictly intangible way the people’s property also. The fact that hundreds of thousands of men and women today are willing to accept that privately owned country houses and their contents are part of Britain’s national heritage is one more proof of how successfully the British élite reconstructed its cultural image in an age of revolutions.14

In making these arguments, both Mandler and Colley acknowledged that the eighteenth century must be considered. Mandler viewed eighteenth-century country-house tourism as a small, limited and élite practice, but he conceded that ‘The culture of connoisseurship must have been flexible enough to admit some outsiders of acquired cultivation’ and that owners were willing to admit people ‘who aspired only to spectatorship’.15 In Colley’s account, it was after the French Revolution that country-house art collections were presented as a public benefit by ‘opening … country houses to acceptable members of the public on a far more generous scale than before’.16 In both these explanations, the practices of eighteenth-century country-house tourism remain somewhat vague.

Ian Ousby, The Englishman’s England: Taste, Travel and the Rise of Tourism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 61. 14 Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992), 177. 15 Mandler, Fall and Rise, 9, 10. 16 Colley, Britons, 175. 13

Introduction

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Ultimately, the narratives presented by Moir and Ousby and by Mandler and Colley are not incompatible: country-house tourism was an important cultural practice in the eighteenth century, one which affected thousands of people, but its numbers remained limited in comparison to what was to come. Numbers aside, it is a mistake to treat eighteenth-century country-house tourism as unproblematic, as if the fact that country-house tourists in this period were comparatively wealthy themselves explains why they chose to visit country houses and how they reacted to them. No site can become a major tourist attraction spontaneously, particularly not a site which is legally a private property: it is a process which requires both publicity and infrastructure. The experience of the country-house tourist in the eighteenth century is important not because it was the first age of mass tourism, but because it was the era in which tourism grew to the point that it changed the mechanisms for visiting country houses and it revolutionized the public information about them. That the country house could be seen as an important site of national heritage in the early nineteenth century was only possible because the idea had already been ‘floated’ – and tested – by numerous tourists and travel writers. Mass tourism would not have developed had not previous generations already begun to treat country houses as sites of great import to the public.

* * * In some respects, country houses have always been public sites. Often used for staging enormous events, ranging from community meals for hundreds of local people to royal visits where the monarch was accompanied by dozens of courtiers and attendants, many country houses were designed and built to provide their owners with the ideal spaces, from great halls to state apartments, for entertaining. Yet while these events were often of considerable significance to an owner’s public identity, they reflected on the owner’s hospitable character more than on the publicness of the house itself; on these occasions, the house was accessible to people because the owner had invited them there, not because the house was functioning as a public site. By the end of the eighteenth century, however, some of the grandest country houses in England were routinely accessible, and they had public identities in their own right. Although they were usually continuing to serve as residences for landowners and their families and households, many country houses were increasingly known and celebrated as sites of national culture. In An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), Adam Smith stated: ‘Noble palaces, magnificent villas, great collections of books, statues, pictures, and other curiosities, are frequently both an ornament and an honour, not only to the neighbourhood, but to the whole country to which they belong. Versailles is an ornament and an honour to France, Stowe and Wilton to England.’17 Smith’s chosen examples and vocabulary carry important connotations. Stowe (Buckinghamshire) and Wilton (Wiltshire) were respectively known for an

Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 2 vols (London: W. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1776), I, 423.

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enormous landscape garden and for large collections of antique sculptures and Old Master paintings; like the adjectives ‘noble’, ‘magnificent’ and ‘great’, these examples indicate that Smith is concerned with the most exceptional places, and his claims are specific to them and comparable houses rather than to country houses in general. Even more significant here, however, are the ideas bound up in the phrase ‘an ornament and an honour’. To refer to great country houses as ornaments immediately suggests that these sites are somehow inherently beautiful, yet in addition, it suggests they are entwined with the rest of the country in some way; an ornament is always part of something larger than itself. By extension, therefore, the metaphor also indicates that these particular sites had a national public identity as such. For a country house to be ‘an honour’ to England suggests that it is not only somehow public, but that it possesses qualities which make it admirable to a wider community. For Stowe and Wilton to independently command international respect indicates that they were perceived as uniquely excellent, sites which were culturally important because of the exceptional design in their buildings and gardens and their displays of works by well-known artists and architects. Smith’s comparison with Versailles also indicates a willingness to acknowledge certain country houses as sites which somehow belonged to the nation. Versailles was the king of France’s residence but he was not a private citizen and his palace was an extremely public building, occupied by a large court and open to tourists; its political equivalent in Britain would be Windsor Castle or Kensington Palace, not a country house.18 Yet Smith chose to compare Versailles to residences of the élite, which implies that in his view, while legally they were private properties, on some level, places like Stowe and Wilton held considerable importance for the public. While Stowe and Wilton were certainly exceptional in their size and the extent of their displays of art and architecture, they were not unique: over the course of the eighteenth century, several houses were routinely described as properties of outstanding cultural merit. When Philip Yorke visited Houghton Hall (Norfolk) in 1750, he wrote ‘Those who would see a house fitted up in the most magnificent, convenient and substantial manner in all parts of it, or would study the manners of the different schools of painters to as great perfection as may be done almost anywhere on this side the Alps must come here for entertainment and instruction.’19 Famous for displaying Sir Robert Walpole’s art collection, Houghton was one of the most popular houses to visit in Norfolk. For tourists visiting the Peak District, Kedleston (Derbyshire) was one of the most celebrated attractions: after visiting in 1768, the Honourable James Bucknall Grimston claimed it was ‘the best worth seeing & the most agreeable Seat in this part of England’.20 The most famous house in the country was Blenheim: built with public money as a tribute to the first Duke Tony Spawforth, Versailles: A Biography of a Palace (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2008), 168–94. Robert W. Berger, ‘Tourists during the Reign of the Sun King: Access to the Louvre and Versailles and the Anatomy of Guidebooks and other Printed Aids’, in Paris, Center of Artistic Enlightenment, ed. George Mauner et al. (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University, 1988). 19 ‘Travel Journal of Philip Yorke’, 144. 20 Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies, D/EV/F13, ‘Journal of a Northern Tour’ [by Hon. James Bucknall Grimston, later 3rd Viscount Grimston], 1768. 18

Introduction

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of Marlborough’s victories against the French, it had always been intended that the building would be a monument as well as a house.21 Discussing Blenheim in 1789, the European Magazine declared: ‘Of all the palaces which this kingdom exhibits to public view, no one exceeds Blenheim either for splendor, magnificence, or beauty. It may vie with the most sumptuous mansion of any foreign potentate, and presents to view a monument of national valour and national gratitude.’22 Blenheim’s connection to the nation was unique, but the language used to praise it here echoes the praise for Stowe, Wilton, Houghton and Kedleston. In eighteenth-century accounts of these houses and a couple dozen others like them, there are clear indications that they were believed to merit national admiration. That country houses could be admired as sites of national significance indicates that these houses were not simply private residences, they were sites which were integrated into the public sphere. To treat country houses as sites in the public sphere is uncommon: Matthew Craske has argued that ‘The study of the country house and garden rarely refers to the culture of the “public sphere” … the story of the country house and garden has been strongly concerned with the very opposite of publicity – retirement’ and that this is a reflection of two parallel strands of scholarship in the history of British art, namely one rural and one urban.23 In this context, it is not surprising that country houses have typically been excluded from studies of the public sphere: in 1962, when Jürgen Habermas first outlined social structures of the public sphere, he emphasized the importance of coffee houses, theatres, public concert societies and public exhibitions – all urban spaces – and he contrasted it with a private, domestic sphere.24 Recent studies of the public spaces of eighteenthcentury Britain have also emphasized urban sites, often focusing on London, and, in studies of art and design, specifically on types of exhibition spaces and their impact on artists and on viewing art works.25 In contrast, country houses were undoubtedly domestic buildings, yet even Habermas recognized that houses could be somewhat problematic for his theory, noting that many people lived both privately and publicly within the same building, and that in the country, where the nobility often maintained older forms of communality which depended on openness, large households did not necessarily fit the distinction between public and private at all.26 Similarly, in The The Complete Works of Sir John Vanbrugh; The Fourth Volume containing the Letters, ed. Geoffrey Webb (London: Nonesuch Press, 1967), 45. 22 ‘[Review of] New Description of Blenheim, the Seat of His Grace the Duke of Marlborough’, The European Magazine and London Review 16 (1789): 341. 23 Matthew Craske, The Silent Rhetoric of the Body (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007), xii. 24 Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, trans. Thomas Burger (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989), 31–43. 25 See, for instance, David Solkin, Painting for Money: The Visual Arts and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century England (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1993), Art on the Line: The Royal Academy Exhibitions at Somerset House, 1780–1836, ed. David Solkin (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001), and Georgian Geographies: Essays on Space, Place and Landscape in the Eighteenth Century, ed. Miles Ogborn and Charles W. J. Withers (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004), 10. 26 Habermas, Structural, 45, 44. 21

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Production of Space (1991), Henri Lefebvre identified houses as spaces of ambiguous publicness, declaring Visible boundaries, such as walls or enclosures in general, give rise for their part to an appearance of separation between spaces where in fact what exists is an ambiguous continuity. The space of a room, bedroom, house or garden may be cut off in a sense from social space by barriers and walls, by all the signs of private property, yet still remain fundamentally part of that space.27

While there are certainly good reasons for treating country houses as set apart from the well-established urban spaces of the public sphere (many country houses were in fact surrounded by walls), to exclude them altogether is highly problematic. Great events at country houses could welcome hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people, and these occasions were sometimes described in leading newspapers, effectively making them virtually accessible to a national audience. Praise for houses’ architecture, art collections and gardens implies an even greater level of publicness: when country houses are viewed solely as spaces of élite retreat and residence, there is no apparent reason as to why they would be relevant to the nation at all. For a country house to achieve significant fame, it had to be known beyond élite circles and local communities. Examining country houses as institutions within, albeit on the margins of, the public sphere of eighteenth-century Britain requires a constructive use of the tensions Habermas and Lefebvre identified. A binary distinction between public and private is not appropriate; many houses were required to be both, sometimes simultaneously and sometimes at different times, sometimes within the same spaces and sometimes through separate ones. Lawrence Stone has claimed that for eighteenth-century country-house owners, there was ‘a clear conflict between two simultaneously held ideals: that of the house as a museum for display, in order to enhance prestige, and therefore open to the educated and genteel public; and that of the house as a private home’.28 On a practical level, it is true that at many houses there was a tension between the family’s use of the house, and the extent to which the house was accessible to the public. It is not clear, however, that this would have necessarily been a conflict of ideals: few owners actively cultivated the public accessibility of their house, and even fewer resisted giving tourists access; given the tremendous social and political power of landowners during this period, resistance would have been easy to achieve had they chosen to attempt it. In all likelihood, many owners simply permitted increasing access to their houses and grounds because these buildings had never been truly private; Lawrence Klein has argued that in the eighteenth century, what was meant by ‘private’ was ‘solitary’, and many spaces in country houses were not designed for solitary activities.29 The grandest

Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991), 86–7. 28 Lawrence Stone, ‘The Public and the Private in the Stately Homes of England, 1500–1990’, Social Research 58, no. 1 (1991): 249. 29 Lawrence E. Klein, ‘Gender and the Public/Private Distinction in the Eighteenth Century: Some Questions about Evidence and Analytic Procedure’, Eighteenth-Century Studies 29, no. 1 (1995): 104. 27

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spaces in and around country houses, spaces often designed to host events of enormous size and political significance, had always had the potential to be public. As sites, country houses were increasingly accessible to travellers, and over the course of the eighteenth century, they began to welcome a much wider range of visitors than they would have been likely to welcome as guests. The extent to which country houses were physically accessible to tourists changed dramatically: in the early 1700s, very few people undertook extended tours of country houses, and those who did often had personal connections to country-house owners; by the early nineteenth century, many properties frequently welcomed hundreds of visitors a summer. Although this was not mass tourism of the kind that would be possible once country houses could be reached by railway, it was a substantial phenomenon and one which required country-house owners and their servants to develop ways of accommodating visitors. Many houses had standard opening hours, for example, and there were routine procedures, such as the signing of a visitors’ book, in place to regularize admission. As Richard Sulivan’s experience at Stourhead demonstrates, there were also standard practices for showing people around, and sometimes there were specific spaces where they could be accommodated. This ease of access was fundamental to country houses’ ability to function as public sites. Not only were country houses widely accepted as places of public interest, they were also accepted as subjects of public interest. Habermas and later writers have stressed that the emergence of public urban spaces (such as the exhibition room) was accompanied by public discourse (such as the rise of the art critic).30 Though they were not nearly as easy to visit, country houses were also subject to public commentary and criticism. By the end of the eighteenth century, descriptions of country houses were being published in travel narratives, regional and site-specific guidebooks, periodicals and newspapers, and images of country houses were increasingly available as prints. All these sources, as well as descriptions which circulated in manuscript, offered people a form of virtual tourism and this further enhanced houses’ fame; writing about a visit to Hagley and the Leasowes (West Midlands and Shropshire) in 1781, the Honourable John Byng hypothesized that ‘it is from writing they are become so celebrated’.31 In his analysis of the collecting and display of sculptures at Wilton, Malcolm Baker has argued that guidebooks and other publications which describe that collection ‘constitute a mode of interpretation that operated independently of the physical displays’ and illustrate ‘how a collection might be perceived and “viewed” beyond the confines of its actual location’.32 Similarly, Elizabeth Helsinger has Habermas, Structural, 40. Mark Hallett, ‘“The Business of Criticism”: The Press and the Royal Academy Exhibition in Eighteenth-Century London’, in Art on the Line: The Royal Academy Exhibitions at Somerset House, 1780–1836, ed. David Solkin (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001). 31 Carole Fabricant, ‘The Literature of Domestic Tourism and the Public Consumption of Private Property’, in The New Eighteenth Century, ed. Felicity Nussbaum and Laura Brown (London: Methuen, 1987), 259. The Torrington Diaries: Containing the Tours through England and Wales of the Hon. John Byng (Later Fifth Viscount Torrington) between the Years 1781 and 1794, ed. C. Bruyn Andrews, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1934–38), I, 47. 32 Malcolm Baker, ‘“For Pembroke Statues, Dirty Gods and Coins”: The Collecting, Display, and Uses of Sculpture at Wilton House’, in Collecting Sculpture in Early Modern Europe, ed. Nicholas Penny and Eike D. Schmidt (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2008), 379. 30

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noted that drawings and paintings of country houses, ‘initially commissioned by owners for their own viewing, developed into a business… books reproducing views of England’s landscape sights addressed an audience of potential or vicarious tourists’.33 Sometimes sponsored by their owners, prints of country houses seem to have sold well, and they would have stimulated further tourism.34 The proliferation of these texts and images played an important role in establishing the country house as a site of public culture, both for those who might be planning to make tours and for those who never would. By the middle of the eighteenth century, the increase in travel and the increase in texts were intertwined to the point that they began to enhance each other. In his survey of country-house visiting, Adrian Tinniswood associated the significant increase in country-house tourism in the period between 1770 and 1800 with publications, declaring it was once polite society was ‘armed with the critical apparatus supplied by Burke’s Philosophical Inquiry, its appetite whetted by the printed topographical views of Grose, Bickham and Angus and the flood of published tours and travel journals’ that tourism became noticeably more popular.35 In tourists’ diaries, there are often indications that they were consulting a book – most likely a travel book or a country-house guidebook – while writing about their own experiences. There can be no question that both the opportunity to visit houses in person and the chance to read about them were fundamental to how country houses were understood by people. The increasing publicity attached to the country houses which were popular with tourists had important political implications. Although Smith was discussing goods rather than politics when he compared Versailles with country houses, his analogy can also be read as an analogy of power: since the Glorious Revolution in 1688, the balance of power in Britain had rested with the landed élite rather than the monarch, and this power was particularly strong in the communities surrounding country houses; writing about England in the 1720s, one Frenchman went so far as to claim that when in the country, landowners were ‘like little kings’.36 Country-house tourism placed this power on display, and travel writers and tourists were well aware of landowners’ status; for example, in an entry about Woburn Abbey (Bedfordshire), The Complete English Traveller (1771) declared ‘every part of this noble palace and gardens… is a proof of the vast riches of some of our noblemen, who are able to lay out more on their houses and gardens, than would purchase the territories of one of the little German princes’.37 Though the power of landowners as a group is beyond dispute, the political ambitions and successes of the owners of the houses most popular with tourists varied a great deal: at Wilton, the Earl of Pembroke attempted to exert influence over a local election in 1772 and was indignantly defeated; at Chatsworth, Elizabeth Helsinger, ‘Turner and the Representation of England’, in Landscape and Power, ed. W. J. T. Mitchell (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 105. 34 Tim Clayton, ‘Publishing Houses: Prints of Country Seats’, in The Georgian Country House, ed. Dana Arnold (Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1998), 59, 60. 35 Tinniswood, Country, 88. 36 C. de Saussure, A Foreign View of England in the Reigns of George I and George II (London: John Murray, 1902), quoted in Lawrence Stone and Jeanne C. Fawtier Stone, An Open Elite? England 1540–1880 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), 299. 37 Robert Sanders, The Complete English Traveller (London: J. Cooke, 1771), 247. 33

Introduction

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the Cavendish family was content with controlling one county seat and stayed out of a local political contest in 1768; at Stowe, Viscount Cobham successfully cultivated an opposition party (the gardens were an important part of his efforts, but in political terms they were most effective when hosting prestigious guests rather than tourists).38 What these men had in common was tremendous certainty in their own authority and in the system that they derived it from: E. P. Thompson has argued that while there was social unrest in eighteenthcentury Britain, before the French Revolution, there is nothing to suggest that ‘the rulers of England conceived that their whole social order might be endangered’ and that everything from politics and rhetoric to commissions in architecture and the decorative arts ‘all seem to proclaim stability, self-confidence, a habit of managing all threats to their hegemony’.39 Although there were significant riots and protests, the government remained in control; at the same time, poets published works praising rural contentment in estate communities and artists painted views of country houses which implicitly celebrated ‘the social supremacy of the landed interest’.40 Country-house tourism was another of the many ways in which this confidence was placed on display, and thus it can be seen as a subliminal promotion of landowners’ power. Though often distant from political events, country houses’ publicity allowed a wide range of people to become familiar with the materiality of landowners’ wealth, and by extension, with a political system which valued property and stability. Although all country-house tourists were comparatively wealthy, the estates they were visiting usually belonged to the highest of the country’s élite, and this group was tiny: at the end of the eighteenth century, there were only 267 English peers, and even when combined with peers from Ireland and Scotland and Baronets and Knights, the group only amounted to 0.0000857 per cent of the population.41 Tourists’ access to country houses was one of many subtle connections between that élite and minor landowners, wealthy professionals and businessmen which promoted a sense of shared culture, even while tourists remained very conscious of differences in rank. This was an affinity of general political values rather than specific ones, and where these values wielded most influence was in connecting countryhouse owners to the nation itself. John Bonehill has described Johannes Kip and Leonard Knyff ’s Britannia Illustrata (1707), a volume of images of country houses, as ‘a project of national imagining’ whereby ‘the interests and achievements of men of landed property, in terms of their collective authority over and impact on a series of local landscapes, were conflated with those of the country as a whole’.42 The myriad texts and practices of countryhouse tourism were similarly contributory to this project throughout the eighteenth century, and thus naturalized élite wealth and local power as part of the image of the Paul Langford, A Polite and Commercial People: England 1727–1783 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 591, 592. 39 E. P. Thompson, ‘Patrician Society, Plebian Culture’, Journal of Social History 7, no. 4 (1974): 387–8. 40 David Solkin, Richard Wilson: The Landscape of Reaction (London: The Tate Gallery, 1982), 25, 24, 115. 41 John Cannon, Aristocratic Century: The Peerage of Eighteenth-Century England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 32, 33. 42 John Bonehill, ‘The View from the Gentleman’s Seat’, in Court, Country, City: British Art and Architecture, 1660–1735, ed. Mark Hallett, Nigel Llewellyn and Martin Myrone (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2016), 404. 38

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nation. By the 1790s, it was possible to identify the country house as a manifestation of shared national prosperity: in a guidebook to Burghley House (Lincolnshire), J. Horn declared that ‘It is past dispute, that some of the most magnificent structures, the most magnificently embellished, are to be found in the free and commercial kingdom of Great Britain; for, where can magnificence so boldly exalt her head, as in a land of opulence and freedom?’43 Horn’s statement was published in the 1790s at a time when Britain was at war with France in a conflict driven in part by a desire to defend property and rank; by then, however, Burghley was already well established as a site on the national stage, and Horn was merely adding an additional gloss to a decades-old discourse.44 Tying the cultural prestige of country houses to British politics was rarely made this explicit in travel literature, but in all likelihood, the association had long been a latent element of country-house tourism.

* * * Despite its significant cultural consequences and underlying political connotations, hardly any studies have examined eighteenth-century country-house tourism. This lacuna undoubtedly stems from many reasons, perhaps most importantly from the significant differences between studies of foreign and domestic travel. In the eighteenth century, travelling abroad was more prestigious: going on the Grand Tour enhanced a gentleman’s status by virtue of the sheer distance he would go (normally to Rome at a minimum, often further south and possibly further east), the length of time he would spend in Europe (possibly years), the connections between the attractions he would visit and classical history and literature (highly prestigious in their own right) and the extraordinary objects and art works he could purchase and commission. Domestic tourism was more modest in every respect: itineraries were highly flexible and might only last a few weeks, there was no intellectual canon which determined which sights ought to be seen and tourists’ ambitions were usually to see, not to accumulate. These differences alone suggest why many scholars have prioritized the foreign over the domestic, but there is also a crucial difference in methodological questions: both literary and art historians have become increasingly interested in travel texts and practices since the growth of colonial studies, and many projects have been concerned with the construction of otherness; even within scholarship on travel writing in Britain and Ireland, many leading studies have had a regional focus, specifically on Scotland, Ireland or the Lake District.45 To investigate tourism within England is to explore the images people were developing of their own nation and themselves. Public viewing of and information about country houses was a crucial element of this, but it has rarely been a priority for scholars working on country houses. J. Horn, A History or Description, General and Circumstantial, of Burghley House (Shrewsbury: J. and W. Eddowes, 1797), 12. 44 Colley, Britons, 150. 45 Chloe Chard, ‘Introduction’, in Transports: Travel, Pleasure, and Imaginative Geography, 1600–1830, ed. Chloe Chard and Helen Langdon (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1996), 20. Benjamin Colbert, ‘Introduction: Home Tourism’, in Travel Writing and Tourism in Britain and Ireland, ed. Benjamin Colbert (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 3. 43

Introduction

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Studies of country houses as buildings often focus on the architect who designed the house or the architectural style the house was built in, an approach which can limit discussion of a house’s public meanings. In her analysis of how architectural historians treat country houses, Dana Arnold has concluded that when the house’s architect is the primary focus, the tendency is to determine how the country house relates ‘to his architectural practice’ and the trajectory of his career, and that when stylistic motifs are prioritized, houses are tied to given periods of time and style labels.46 Sir John Summerson, for example, proclaimed that Blenheim ‘represents the whole varied mind of its creator [Sir John Vanbrugh] – and of Hawksmoor his collaborator’ and that it was there that ‘the English Baroque culminates’.47 In this type of analysis, the emphasis is entirely on the moment of creation: subsequent alterations to the house are set aside, and there is limited scope to discuss how people reacted to it, particularly in the decades following its completion. Another approach to the study of country houses is to focus on their significance to their owners and residents, an approach epitomized by Mark Girouard’s Life in the English Country House (1978). Girouard’s book treats the country house as a site where owners, their families and their servants lived and worked, and although it is not without its limitations, many subsequent studies have relied on a similar approach to investigate how country-house owners and residents used their houses to shape their own identities.48 Charles Saumarez Smith, for instance, examined the building of Castle Howard in light of the third Earl of Carlisle’s political and social ambitions, his income and his religious beliefs.49 Judith Lewis has argued that many histories of country houses have marginalized women, and through an investigation of élite women’s experiences, she explored the extent to which country houses, often used as venues for grand political and social events, functioned as more domestic, private spaces.50 In analysing the relationship between slavery and cultural patronage in Britain, Simon Gikandi has argued that the art for and architecture of houses were important conduits ‘for laundering a self produced by slave money into a civic, virtuous subject’; more broadly, Stephanie Barczewski has demonstrated that imperial wealth throughout the British Empire had a tremendous impact on country houses.51 These studies and numerous others offer the historian invaluable insights as to the social significance Dana Arnold, ‘The Country House: Form, Function and Meaning’, in The Georgian Country House, 1, 9. 47 John Summerson, Architecture in Britain, 1530 to 1830, 9th edn (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1993), 265. 48 One important limitation is the choice of houses: one review noted that the book gave ‘overwhelming emphasis to the houses of the very wealthy and very aristocratic’. (F. M. L. Thompson, ‘[Review of Life in the English Country House]’, The English Historical Review 95, no. 376 (1980): 644.) 49 Charles Saumarez Smith, The Building of Castle Howard, 2nd edn (London: Pimlico, 1997), 1–32, 72–84 and 159–68. 50 Judith Lewis, ‘When a House Is Not a Home: Elite English Women and the Eighteenth-Century Country House’, Journal of British Studies 48, no. 2 (2009): 336–63. 51 Simon Gikandi, Slavery and the Culture of Taste (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011), 119. Stephanie Barczewski, Country Houses and the British Empire, 1700–1930 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2014). 46

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of country houses, but at the same time, when approached from the viewpoint of the owner or his household, the narratives of country houses remain tied to individuals, and tourists are often excluded. As a result, they can only offer limited insights as to how country houses’ public meanings emerged. One study which has prioritized the viewpoint of the visitor is Peter De Bolla’s work on Kedleston. In his book on the activity of looking and visual culture in eighteenthcentury Britain, De Bolla attempted ‘to determine how different practices of looking, and different inflections of the same practice, determine … how historical agents in the past looked’.52 His project led him to discuss the experience of viewing Kedleston, and of moving through it: he examined how a visitor would have approached the house through the park, entered the hall and moved through the house, considering both the design of the space and the type of spectatorial activity it invited. These are critical questions, but De Bolla’s arguments still rest primarily on the house, his analysis of viewing it, its owner and its architect, and not on the experiences of the people who visited it in the second half of the eighteenth century. To thoroughly investigate the historic viewer implicitly demands the historian consider the different ways spaces can be made, and, by extension, interrogate what types of texts can contribute to their creation. Both Michel de Certeau and Henri Lefebvre have argued that spaces are not merely physical locations, they are created through different forms of activity, or practices, and their arguments have been fundamental to recent research on houses.53 Lefebvre’s concept of social space as a social product, for example, influenced a series of essays on eighteenth-century interiors which considered how spaces ‘not only functioned as a site to display an idealized self, but also as a continuum within which the self might be discerned or crafted’.54 Examining how a space enabled its owner to represent themselves is only one approach to the production of space: spaces can also be produced by outsiders, those who are not designing, commissioning for or living at a site, but those who are simply viewing it. A focus on the outsider is rare, however: in general, and unlike art historians concerned with paintings and sculptures, architectural historians have been noticeably slow to examine the role of buildings in the public sphere in the eighteenth century.55 The experience of the viewer has received more attention from scholars who are particularly concerned with how art was collected for and displayed in country houses. In Placing Faces: The Portrait and the English Country House in the Long Eighteenth Century (2013), Gill Perry, Kate Retford and Jordan Vibert argued that a portrait’s Peter De Bolla, The Education of the Eye: Painting, Landscape, and Architecture in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003), 7. 53 Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. Steven Rendall (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 117. Lefebvre, Production, 38–9. 54 Denise Amy Baxter, ‘Introduction: Constructing Space and Identity in the Eighteenth-Century Interior’, in Architectural Space in Eighteenth-Century Europe: Constructing Identities and Interiors, ed. Denise Amy Baxter and Meredith Martin (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010), 3. 55 Matthew Craske, ‘From Burlington Gate to Billingsgate: James Ralph’s Attempt to Impose Burlingtonian Classicism as a Canon of Public Taste’, in Articulating British Classicism: New Approaches to Eighteenth-Century Architecture, ed. Barbara Arciszewska and Elizabeth McKellar (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 97–8. 52

Introduction

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meanings ‘are clearly affected by (and affect) the location in which it is displayed: by architecture and adjacent décor; by other pictures and surrounding objects’, thus demonstrating the importance of analysing portraits’ positions in country houses, and they noted that although country houses were not public in the sense that exhibitions of paintings in London were, they were not private either.56 Examining how a painting was viewed in a country house can be critical to determining its meaning, especially if the painting was commissioned or purchased for a specific location, as many of the portraits, landscapes and still life paintings displayed in country houses were, and the same is true for sculptures. In addition to his work on the sculpture collections at Wilton, perhaps the most famous collection in England in the eighteenth century, Malcolm Baker has explored the display of sculpture in domestic interiors more broadly, arguing that although sculpture was traditionally understood as a public art, that publicness did not make it incompatible with the domestic interior.57 Above all, it is scholars investigating the meanings of landscape gardens in the eighteenth century who have stressed the importance of studying viewing. In Observations on Modern Gardening (1770), Thomas Whately argued that gardens with architectural ornaments, statues, inscriptions and other devices, gardens he labelled emblematical, need to be ‘examined, compared, perhaps explained’ before they could be understood, and he distinguished those gardens from ‘expressive’ gardens, gardens which did not contain these types of devices.58 Widely read in the eighteenth century, Whately’s concept of emblematical and expressive gardens has been taken up by a number of garden historians. John Dixon Hunt has suggested that the two modes of design anticipated different approaches to viewing, one which required ‘learned attention to detailed meaning’ and one which ‘makes no claim upon our intellect’, instead allowing ‘a unique and individual response’.59 For Stephen Bending, however, expressive landscape gardens did have coherent programmes, programmes which contemporary visitors would have understood because ‘coercive literary texts’, such as William Mason’s The English Garden (1771–83), had trained them in the art of reading the garden.60 In both studies, the viewer’s experience is paramount to the garden’s significance. All these projects offer important insights into how specific art works and garden spaces were viewed, but for the strongest analysis of how country houses were viewed in the eighteenth century, the historian must approach country houses with attention to their building fabric, their art collections, their interior decorations and furnishings and Placing Faces: The Portrait and the English Country House in the Long Eighteenth Century, ed. Gill Perry, Kate Retford and Jordan Vibert, with Hannah Lyons (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013), 2. 57 Malcolm Baker, ‘Public Images for Private Spaces? The Place of Sculpture in the Georgian Domestic Interior’, Journal of Design History 20, no. 4 (2007): 312. See also Ruth Guilding, Owning the Past: Why the English Collected Antique Sculpture, 1640–1840 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2014). 58 Thomas Whately, Observations on Modern Gardening (London: T. Payne, 1770), 151. 59 John Dixon Hunt, Gardens and the Picturesque: Studies in the History of Landscape Architecture (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992), 87. 60 Stephen Bending, ‘Re-reading the Eighteenth-Century English Landscape Garden’, Huntington Library Quarterly 55, no. 3 (1992): 380, 393. 56

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their gardens. Although this approach encompasses an enormous range of objects and spaces, all of which might be studied in greater detail if considered separately, this was how numerous country-house owners treated their houses. Holkham, for example, was created by Thomas Coke, first Earl of Leicester, and it was a lifelong project shaped by multiple objects and media. As a young man, Lord Leicester had travelled through Europe from 1712 to 1718, during which time he purchased numerous paintings and statues, most likely in anticipation of building a house which would display them.61 Although construction did not begin until 1734, the planning for the house was extensive, and Lord Leicester worked on the designs himself, alongside William Kent, Lord Burlington and Matthew Brettingham. When Lord Leicester died, the house was still not finished, but he left his wife a trust to fund the work, and he specified that it was to be ‘compleatley finished according to the Plan and Design which I have made’.62 The importance of his all-encompassing vision for the estate is commemorated in a plaque, currently hanging in the hall at Holkham, which reads: ‘This seat, on an open barren Estate was planned, planted, built, decorated and inhabited the middle of the XVIIIth Century by Thos Coke Earl of Leicester.’ This inscription implies that Lord Leicester saw his improvement of the Holkham estate, the planting of the gardens, the construction of the house and its decoration with art works and specially commissioned furniture as parts of a single project. The extent of his work was exceptional, the result of immense financial resources and an estate which had lacked a great house, but the interests behind it were shared by many other eighteenth-century country-house owners including the owners of Stourhead, Kedleston and Blenheim, to name only a few. The results of extensive and diverse purchases and commissions were houses which some historians have described as examples of the ‘collective work of art’.63 For tourists visiting these houses and others, the idea of the country house as a site where one could view great architecture, art works and gardens was of utmost importance: tourists could view and reflect on everything at once, and the vast majority of written accounts from the eighteenth century describe and discuss houses accordingly. This is true of both manuscript accounts and popular travel narratives, texts which together enable detailed examination of the perspectives of country-house tourists rather than owners and residents, and, by extension, analysis of how houses’ identities as tourist attractions emerged.

* * * Tracing country houses’ public identities requires a method which is attentive to the structures of tourism. As a social phenomenon, tourism creates a unique form of viewing, and John Urry has argued for the existence of a specific ‘Tourist Gaze’. James Lees-Milne, Earls of Creation: Five Great Patrons of Eighteenth-Century Art (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1962), 229. 62 HA, DD/FD 65B (1) Will of Thomas Earl of Leicester, quoted in Amy Boyington, ‘The Countess of Leicester and Her Contribution to Holkham Hall’, The Georgian Group Journal 22 (2014): 53. 63 Gervase Jackson-Stops, ‘Temples of the Arts’, in The Treasure Houses of Britain, ed. Gervase JacksonStops (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1985), 15. John Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century (London: HarperCollins, 1997), 628–9. 61

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In Urry’s argument, the ‘Tourist Gaze’ depends on certain minimum characteristics: tourists visit places which ‘are chosen to be gazed upon because there is anticipation … of intense pleasures’; tourists require new socialized systems to be developed in order to accommodate their numbers, and ‘The tourist gaze is directed to features of landscape and townscape which separate them off from everyday experience.’64 In other words, the tourist’s gaze is constructed by the information which inspires them to visit a site and by the systems and information developed to accommodate and direct them at the site. Urry’s project is primarily concerned with the twentieth century, but these conditions are not unique to tourism in the modern era. Historians of eighteenth-century tourism have long recognized that while tourism in Britain in this period might be difficult to quantify, the number of people making tours was significant enough that new socialized systems were developed for them.65 Guidebooks to the Lake District, for example, offered tourists advice on how to select and sketch scenes at specific viewpoints, and how to articulate their appreciation of what they saw by drawing on picturesque discourse.66 A similar set of texts and practices was created to accommodate tourists interested in country houses. While the tourist gaze depends on publicity and infrastructure, tourists’ accounts offer an alternative, complementary perspective for understanding how country houses became established as tourist attractions. Though more concerned with spatial stories in general than with tourists in particular, Michel de Certeau has stressed the importance of travel narratives for understanding spaces, arguing that if places are distinct locations, spaces are practiced places, ‘composed of intersections of mobile elements… actuated by the ensemble of movements deployed within it’ and that ‘Every story is a travel story – a spatial practice’.67 He also posited that stories describing places are based on ‘seeing (the knowledge of an order of places) or going (spatializing actions)’.68 Critically the two modes can be intertwined, such that a story describes both what can be seen at a place and how the storyteller moved around the place.69 Many narratives of visits to country houses exemplify the combination of ‘seeing’ and ‘going’, and they are crucial to the spaces constructed: though often treated simply as records of an individual’s experience at or reaction to a country house, travel diaries and letters must be recognized as collectively contributing to the development of the country house as a public practiced place. The combination of Urry’s and Certeau’s arguments about tourism and travel experiences creates a framework in which to position the extraordinary array of accounts of visiting country houses in the eighteenth century and to recognize the different roles these accounts played in cultivating country houses’ public identities. To date, writers have John Urry, The Tourist Gaze, 2nd edn (London: SAGE Publications, 2002), 3. Zoë Kinsley, Women Writing the Home Tour, 1682–1812 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), 130, 3–7. 66 Sarah Rutherford, ‘Claife Station and the Picturesque in the Lakes’, in The Making of a Cultural Landscape: The English Lake District as Tourist Destination, 1750–2010 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), 206. 67 Certeau, Practice, 117, 115. 68 Certeau, Practice, 119. 69 Certeau, Practice, 121. 64 65

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treated eighteenth-century travellers’ accounts of country houses as records of tourists’ itineraries and experiences, as evidence of how people thought about touring Britain, but this approach does not necessarily require the writer to distinguish between those accounts which were published, and those which were not. Esther Moir, for example, has noted that although they wrote about their experiences in quite different ways, Celia Fiennes and Daniel Defoe had ‘a surprising amount in common, their greatest bond being a strong determination to see contemporary England’.70 This may be true, but Fiennes and Defoe played very different roles in establishing country houses as tourist attractions: Fiennes’s writings were not published until 1888, whereas Defoe’s Tour (1724) of Great Britain ran to several editions within a few decades. When it comes to determining how select country houses came to be celebrated as tourist attractions, Defoe’s text clearly played a critical role, and undoubtedly had a much greater significance than Fiennes’s. Defoe’s Tour was one of the earliest travel books to place descriptions of select country houses in print, thus ensuring that they became better known. As a document of a traveller’s experiences, it is in fact quite problematic: scholars have struggled to determine when Defoe made all the journeys he presents in his Tour, or if he even made them at all; he had certainly travelled widely, but it is also clear that he relied on numerous books when writing.71 In addition, Defoe’s Tour remained a popular text long after his death in 1731, so much of its content did not reflect his experiences; new editions were published in 1738, 1742, 1748, 1753, 1762, 1769, 1778 and 1779, and each one incorporated revised and new material. Country houses had been part of the Tour since the first edition: it praised Burghley, for instance, for its ‘Set of fine Apartments, with Rooms of State, fitting for the Entertainment of a Prince’ and for great paintings, and Wilton, for being not only a ‘fine Palace’ but one with so many paintings and sculptures it was a ‘Musæum, or a Chamber of Rarities’.72 Comments like these meant that houses and art collections which had originally been intended as displays for the owner and his peers could be presented to thousands of readers, and Defoe was one of the earliest of a number of professional writers who did this. Writing forty years later, Arthur Young, the author of a series of agricultural tours, declared that he included the descriptions of houses because they were of public interest: in his first book (1768), he claimed that although he had set out to examine agriculture, ‘it would have been great stupidity to pass very near a celebrated house without viewing it; and when seen, there are so many things worthy of mentioning’; in his second (1769/70), he explained he had included ‘so many descriptions of houses, paintings, ornamented parks, lakes, &c.’ because there is ‘an utility in their being known. They are a proof, and a very important one, of the riches and the happiness of this kingdom’.73 Offering Moir, Discovery, 36. Daniel Defoe, A Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain, ed. P. N. Furbank and W. R. Owens (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1991), viii–ix. 72 Daniel Defoe, A Tour Thro’ the Whole Island of Great Britain, Divided into Circuits or Journies, 3 vols (London: G. Strahan, 1724), II, Letter IV, 161, I, Letter III, 37. 73 Arthur Young, A Six Weeks Tour through the Southern Counties of England and Wales (London: W. Nicoll, 1768), 2. Arthur Young, A Six Months Tour through the North of England, 4 vols (London: W. Strahan, 1769/70), I, xi. 70 71

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descriptions that were rich in detail, Young’s accounts of country houses provided his readers with unprecedented information. Travel books like these were critical to publicizing country houses and to encouraging people to appreciate them as tourist attractions. Fiennes’s role in establishing country houses as tourist attractions was limited in comparison to Defoe’s or Young’s, and her diaries provide a very different insight into country-house tourism. Many travel diaries, including hers, were intended to circulate in manuscript, and as a result, some may have become somewhat well known; they were an important mode of literary dissemination for both men and women.74 In analysing how sites became known and functioned as tourist attractions, however, diaries are of greater value for the evidence they provide about the experiences and reactions people had; Fiennes, for example, noted that when she visited Mount Edgcumbe (Cornwall) in 1698, she spent time riding around the park, and subsequently concluded that its grounds and situation on the side of a hill on the coast, near Plymouth, made it ‘the finest seat I have seen’.75 Later tourists commented on everything from the inns and guides available to them to which paintings they particularly admired at a house, and the patterns in their accounts are critical evidence of how houses functioned as tourist attractions. Scholars have relied extensively on the travel diaries written by Fiennes, the Honourable John Byng, Caroline Powys and Horace Walpole, but while these diarists offer invaluable accounts, they are also a small sample. Dozens of travel diaries have survived in manuscript in local archives: in order to incorporate as many tourists’ voices as possible, this book draws on over a hundred tourist diaries as well as several letters and published travel journals. A final category of critical sources is the country-house guidebook: less than twenty houses had their own guidebooks published before 1815 (see Appendix), but every guidebook provides valuable evidence both as to how houses were publicized and how visits were expected to unfold. Guidebooks were normally published after houses had become popular places to visit, but they still contributed to the growing fame of houses: they ensured accurate information about the house could be taken home as a souvenir and be made available to others, and some guidebooks could be purchased in London. Guidebooks also codified the experience tourists were expected to have while visiting a house, indicating the routes they were expected to take, the objects they should look out for and the reasons they should admire key spaces within and beyond the house. Finally, while some guidebooks were written by owners, others by local scholars and others by professional writers, the vast majority were published with the owner’s approval. As products, then, they signify owners’ tolerance of tourists’ presence in houses and gardens. Professional travel writers, tourists and guidebook writers described country houses from quite different perspectives, but all their works were part of a burgeoning tourist culture. Relying on similar sources of information and in some respects fulfilling Kinsley, Women, 60–2, 12. Celia Fiennes, The Illustrated Journeys of Celia Fiennes, 1685–c. 1712, ed. Christopher Morris (London and Sydney: Macdonald & Co, 1982), 203.

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similar purposes, these texts often overlap, and numerous patterns emerge from them. Travel writers published descriptions of houses which read as records of personal visits, tourists writing travel diaries drew on travel books and guidebooks for information and even descriptive language about houses, and guidebooks sometimes echoed travel writers’ praise for specific points of interest at a house: it is the coalescence of patterns in these sources which best illustrates how country houses’ identities as tourist attractions were developing. In all these works, the majority of descriptions of country houses celebrate them as sites of cultural importance which merit attention on account of their architecture, art works and/or gardens. This book will treat these texts (traditionally consulted for records of the appearances of individual houses) as a category of discourse: its goal is not to reveal how individual owners displayed their art collections or what they commissioned to adorn their houses and gardens, but to demonstrate how a phenomenon of viewing houses emerged in the long eighteenth century and what these houses offered to the people who made visits. The history of country-house tourism between the early 1700s, when a handful of country houses welcomed tourists’ visits, and 1815, an historical turning point that has been linked to the beginnings of modern mass tourism to country houses, encompasses dramatic shifts in touring practices. In a study of domestic travel within early modern England, Andrew McRae argued that until the early 1700s, ‘there were no obvious and authoritative models for domestic tourism’ and the few who undertook tours in the 1600s faced significant challenges.76 Fiennes, often treated as one of the earliest modern tourists, made many journeys and visits in the years between 1685 and 1703, and while undoubtedly radical for her time, she did benefit from personal connections she had as granddaughter of the Viscount Saye and Sele. In contrast, tourists travelling in the early 1800s were used to a much more sophisticated tourism infrastructure, and few had connections to country-house owners. The century had also witnessed dramatic changes in the country’s artistic communities and in Britain’s position on the global stage, especially towards the end of the 1700s. While all of these changes affected tourism, overall, the trajectory of tourism in this period is one of gradual developments rather than ruptures and turning points. For this reason, this book prioritises tracing and analysing tourists’ experiences according to the most common stages of a visit to a country house, and it considers specific historical developments through these parameters. The first and in many ways the most critical aspect of a visit to a country house was its incorporation into a broader itinerary. Drawing on the evidence of known travellers as well as travellers in novels, Chapter 1 explores country-house tourists’ reasons for making tours. In doing so, it discusses how the travel practices of tourists changed over the course of the eighteenth century as travel became easier and a wide range of sites, including antiquities, landscapes and even factories, became increasingly well known. Many of England’s country houses were part of this network of attractions, and as numbers of tourists grew, country-house owners began to formalize visiting Andrew McRae, Literature and Domestic Travel in Early Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 177.

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arrangements, setting the terms under which a traveller could visit a given site. At the same time, the literature about country houses grew, ensuring that people were well aware of the places they could visit if they were so inclined and able, and that they had a range of texts to draw on while travelling, both for information and as models for writing their own accounts. Once a tourist arrived at an estate, the first stage of a visit was normally the sight of the house itself, followed by an approach to it and, very often, entry. Chapter 2 analyses how tourists reacted to and experienced country houses as works of architecture. Very often, the initial experience of the sight of a house led travel writers and tourists to analyse the house’s visual impact, a mode of viewing which numerous texts about and prints of country houses prepared them for. As they approached the house, they considered its situation, its effect from a distance and the ‘naturalness’ of its appearance within the landscape, all qualities which were distinct from its architectural design. Some houses, however, were recognized as notable works of architecture, either due to the architect involved or the distinct historical models at work, and in these instances, the house became an object to be carefully examined. The associations could be either positive, as at Wilton and Kedleston, or negative, as at Blenheim and Castle Howard, but all these houses were integrated into narratives of architectural history, whether they were admired or notorious. Both effect and architectural analysis were set aside once the tourist entered the house, however, where their experiences of the space were normally shaped not by the house’s design, but by the routes housekeepers used to guide people around. These routes often dominated tourists’ reflections on the interiors of houses, structuring their comments on everything they subsequently saw. Inside country houses, the most important attraction was usually the art works on display, whether they were recent acquisitions or large collections the family had accumulated over generations. Chapter 3 begins by considering the significance of providing people with catalogue-like lists of art works, lists which appear straightforward to readers today but were a major intervention in how the eighteenthcentury tourist experienced a collection. In travel publications and in private diaries, tourists often commented on their desire for accurate information about the art works; the need to provide this eventually became one of the main rationales for publishing country-house guidebooks. As valuable as lists of all the art works were, however, many houses became known for specific pieces, and praise for these works appears in travel publications, tourist diaries and guidebooks, indicating that the admiration was widespread. At some houses, the prestige of the collection as a whole led to guidebooks which framed the experience of viewing the house as an opportunity to study the history of art; these texts helpfully offered readers historical essays, explanations of iconography, artists’ biographies and commentaries on style. Ultimately, the extraordinary attention to art collections dominated the presentation and experience of the interior of the country house. In contrast, descriptions and analyses of houses’ interior decorations and furnishings were far less common, particularly in publications. Early travel publications which described country houses normally provided comparatively little information about furnishings: often, if an author described a room beyond its size and the paintings or

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sculptures displayed in it, it was only to mention extremely prominent architectural features, such as columns, or paintings which had been commissioned for the ceilings or walls. Those writers who did describe wall hangings, pier glasses and beds were very unusual, and the relatively limited information about furnishings suggests that very few houses were well known solely for that reason. Tourists’ own writings, however, demonstrate that the furnishings of a house could be of great interest, and these are the focus of Chapter 4. While there were clear codes of viewing art collections in country houses, exemplified by the demands for consistent information and the creation of art historical narratives which surrounded the collections, interior decorations were viewed quite differently: there are no records of tourists requesting information, and no houses actively presented their collections of furnishings as objects which deserved special attention. This allowed for a much greater scope for tourists’ descriptions: repeated praise for specific items at houses indicates that certain objects routinely received attention, but, more broadly, visitors were sometimes prepared to describe rooms in great detail, with attention to colours, materials, textures and quality. In their own writings, tourists felt free to assess interiors as they saw fit, and many were comfortable in deeming things to be in good or bad taste. Country-house tourists often visited gardens after they had toured the interior of the house, unless they were visiting an estate where the garden itself was the chief attraction, in which case they might not visit the house at all. Chapter 5 explores the different approaches in tourist literature to gardens at country houses, from the descriptions offered by travel writers to the sections on gardens in country-house guidebooks. Just as descriptions of houses’ interiors recorded routes through houses, descriptions of gardens often outlined a circuit for visitors to follow. In the earlier decades of the eighteenth century, some of the country’s most famous gardens were emblematical, and a rich literature of guidebooks and travel books offered tourists guidance in examining what they saw. Later in the eighteenth century, travel books describing country-house gardens were no less prescriptive, but they now prioritized offering readers interpretations of views, using terminology and ideas associated with the picturesque movement to describe views tourists should see during their visits. Alongside these descriptions of gardens’ aesthetic possibilities, poetry about gardens and descriptions which invoked the romantic and/or the sublime encouraged visitors to embrace gardens as sites of feeling as well as design. For country-house tourists, the experience of visiting and the public importance of country houses derived from the combination of these facets of a visit. Whether for their magnificent architecture, exceptional collections of paintings and statues or extensive and elaborate gardens, in eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century Britain, certain country houses were considered extraordinary, not because of their owners, but because of what they offered viewers. Writing in 1801, the Rev. C. Cruttwell declared that Wilton is one of the principal objects in a history of the arts and belles lettres … When you are entered these grand apartments, such variety strikes upon you every way, that you scarce know to which hand to turn yourself first. On one side you

Introduction

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see several rooms filled with paintings, all so curious and various, that it is with reluctance you leave them; and, looking another way, you are called off by a vast collection of busts, and pieces of the greatest antiquity of the kind.77

For Cruttwell, as for Adam Smith, Wilton was far more than a country house: it was a site where the public could experience some of the country’s greatest art treasures, and it was a site of national culture. That it and many other houses had become so is a reflection of the growth of the discourse and infrastructure of country-house tourism in the long eighteenth century.

Rev. C. Cruttwell, A Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain, 6 vols (London: G. and J. Robinson, 1801), II, 269–70.

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1

‘For the Numerous Strangers Who Visit’: Tourists’ Itineraries and Practices

Lady Wilson, whose passion for making annual Tours to different parts of England, Scotland and Wales, in search of the various beauties with which Nature and Art have so abundantly stored this happy Country and its sister Kingdom and dependencies, increases with her age … resolved to make a Journey. – Millicent Bant, 18081 No country house attracts significant numbers of tourists without some form of publicity: if it is not well known as a site which is unusual in its monumentality, beauty, history, modernity, possession of great rarities or some other extraordinary quality, there is simply no good reason for travellers to attempt to visit it. In 1971, the Duke of Bedford jokingly claimed that the majority of people visited stately homes because they possessed cars and they needed somewhere to go: while he was no doubt correct about the importance of transportation, it is always a house’s public reputation which ensures it is chosen as a destination.2 In the eighteenth century, the English countryside was filled with country houses, but many would never have attracted tourists; those that did were sites where people expected to see something significant. To attempt to view a house with no advance knowledge of it was certainly possible, but there was considerable risk of disappointment. Describing a visit to Euston Hall (Suffolk) in 1775, a house which was not typically included on tourists’ itineraries, William Drake wrote with great exasperation ‘what did you see there? a noble Suite of Apartments, no. – Magnificent Furniture? – no. – Elegance of Ornaments? no. – Capital Paintings? – nemin de – in short Sir what did you see? – that there was nothing, literally nothing, worth seeing’.3 Drake’s letter not only reveals his frustration on this occasion, it also indicates what his expectations of the country houses he was visiting were: he was interested in the magnificent, the elegant and the prestigious. What he considered

Essex Record Office, D/DFr F4, ‘Journal’, 1808–12. The phrase in the chapter title is from A Walk Round Mount-Edgcumbe, 3rd edn (Plymouth-Dock: L. Congdon, 1812), 3. 2 John Russell, 13th Duke of Bedford, How to Run a Stately Home (London: André Deutsch, 1971), 13. 3 Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies, D/DR/8/8, ‘Letter from William Drake to His Father, Describing Tour of East Anglia’, 2 July 1775. 1

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‘worth seeing’ was not merely a reflection of his personal preferences, it was something which was cultivated by a growing tourist industry. Like Lady Wilson, most eighteenth-century tourists undertook their travels because of general interests rather than a goal of viewing country houses. Travel literature introduced them to a myriad of sites, and the promotion of a specific country house’s architecture, art collection, interior decorations or gardens depended in part on how that house might be drawn into tourists’ networks. As travel became more straightforward in practical terms, country-house tourism increasingly began to fuel itself: travel writers wrote extensively about country houses such that many houses became widely known, tourists visited in such significant numbers that owners created formal systems for dealing with them, thus making it easier to accommodate more visitors, and as visitor numbers increased, so too did the books written for them. Touring Britain was celebrated as a pleasurable and informative activity, and tourists’ desires to seek out what was educational, novel and unusual shaped their visits to country houses.

Touring Britain in the long eighteenth century Eighteenth-century Britain witnessed a tremendous growth in tourism: by the early 1800s, there were books for tourists, inns for tourists, guides for tourists, souvenirs for tourists and, above all, popular itineraries for tourists. Country-house tourism depended on and strengthened this nascent industry: many estates were attractive in part because they could be integrated into plans for long journeys, while at the same time they were expected to enrich the experience; this symbiosis was critical to the establishment of specific houses as popular attractions and to visitors’ motivations. On a practical level, as innovations in transport made travelling around Britain easier, faster and more comfortable, travelling for leisure became more and more popular. The opportunity to visit country houses was one of several pleasures a tourist might anticipate: other attractions included antiquities, regions of natural beauty, cities, spa towns and factories. All of these destinations were easily accessible through the improved road networks, and they were widely written about, both by professional travel writers and by tourists themselves. Descriptions of country houses appeared alongside descriptions of ecclesiastical ruins, churches and castles, of the wonders of the Peak and the Lake Districts, of Bath and London and of the growing textile, ceramic and manufacturing industries. As more and more accounts of travelling in Britain circulated, the collective attractions of these sites acquired an enhanced significance, and touring was increasingly treated as an activity which was not only pleasurable, but also patriotic. The popularity of tourism depended above all on the feasibility and convenience of travelling by road. In the early 1700s, many areas of the country remained relatively difficult and time-consuming to access, and while there were some intrepid travellers who made the journey anyway, it was only when the infrastructure improved that tourist numbers rose sharply. Celia Fiennes, for instance, visited Chatsworth in 1697,

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but by the time Philip Yorke visited in 1763, he could confidently state that ‘The roads newly made through the Peak are so good that this part of the kingdom is now as accessible as Hertfordshire or Surrey.’4 Even a site as monumental and extraordinary as Stonehenge owed at least some of its appeal to tourists to its convenient location (in between London and Bath) and ease of access.5 Critically, in the mid-eighteenth century, there was a major increase in the number of turnpike roads (toll roads which were well maintained): the government passed 25 turnpike acts in the 1730s, 37 in the 1740s, 170 in the 1750s and 170 again in the 1760s, 75 in the 1770s and 34 in the 1780s.6 The quality of these new roads enabled travellers to complete their journeys in less than half the time: in 1754, it took 230 hours to travel from Edinburgh to London but by 1780, the journey took a little over eighty hours.7 All tourists would have been aware of the advantages of these roads, and some commented on them; for example, during a tour in 1799, Dr William George Maton noted ‘a good lime-stone turnpike road’ from Newport Pagnell to Northampton, and ‘A pleasing drive on a broad level turnpike road’ between Loughborough and Derby.8 In addition to the improvements in roads, the design and technology of carriages became much more sophisticated; for example, stage coaches began to rely on steel springs, which enabled them to drive faster more safely. Competition between providers led to increases in the available transport services, and there were improvements in milestones, signposts and route maps.9 Once travel had become less time-consuming and unpredictable, it also became less expensive, and as such, many more people could travel for pleasure. One of the earliest types of attractions to become popular was antiquities, an eighteenth-century historical umbrella which could encompass everything from ancient British ruins to sixteenth-century paintings. Official interest in antiquities grew over the course of the eighteenth century: the Society of Antiquaries began meeting in 1707, began sponsoring the publication of Vetusta Monumenta (a series of engravings of ancient monuments) in 1747, received a royal charter in 1751 and began publishing a journal, Archaeologia, in 1770. From the very beginning, one of the Society’s priorities had been to generate greater enthusiasm for and awareness of antiquities, and many leading antiquarians not only made extensive tours of Britain as part of their research, they went on to publish accounts of the places they had visited.10 In 1724, William Stukeley ‘The Travel Journal of Philip Yorke, 1744–63’, in Joyce Godber, The Marchioness Grey of Wrest Park (Volume XLVII of The Bedfordshire Historical Record Society, 1968), 162. 5 Rosemary Sweet, Antiquaries: The Discovery of the Past in Eighteenth-Century Britain (London and New York: Hambledon and London, 2004), 134. 6 Paul Langford, A Polite and Commercial People: England 1727–1783 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 391. 7 Eric Pawson, Transport and Economy: The Turnpike Roads of Eighteenth Century Britain (London: Academic Press, 1977), 288. 8 British Library, Add MS 32442, ‘Dr W. G. Maton, Tours’, 1799–1829. 9 Pawson, Transport, 285. John Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century (London: HarperCollins, 1997), 640. 10 Arthur MacGregor, ‘Forming an Identity: The Early Society and Its Context, 1707–1751’, in Visions of Antiquity: The Society of Antiquaries of London 1707–2007, ed. Susan Pearce (London: The Society of Antiquaries of London, 2007), 49, 61–2. 4

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published Itinerarium Curiosum, or, An Account of the Antiquitys and Remarkable Curiositys in Nature or Art, Observ’d in Travels thro’ Great Brittan, a work which describes a journey to Wales, a tour from London to Lincoln and back and a series of excursions in Wiltshire, among others. Texts like the Itinerarium helped establish tourism as a patriotic pursuit: in a study of antiquaries’ activities, Rosemary Sweet observed that visiting and recording antiquities was ‘firmly grounded in a patriotic agenda because antiquities cast light upon history, and a nation’s history was its identity’.11 Throughout the eighteenth century, cathedrals, monastic ruins, notable churches, castle ruins and prehistoric remains all attracted visitors, often the same visitors who were touring country houses on other days of their trips. Craven Ord, for example, was a keen antiquarian, and in his tour of Norfolk (c. 1781) he visited country houses, including Narford, Rainham, Houghton and Holkham, but the majority of his journal discusses medieval religious buildings, ranging from small parish churches to Norwich Cathedral and the ruins of Castle Acre Priory.12 Antiquarian enthusiasts were not necessarily the same as countryhouse tourists – some of the former were infamous for their lack of interest in nonmedieval art works – but in general, their interest in pursuing ‘research on antiquity in their spare time and for their own entertainment’ was fundamental to the emergence of what might be called educational sightseeing.13 This aspect of tourism would quickly become essential for country-house visiting, particularly at houses known for displaying collections of paintings, sculptures or other rarities. Opportunities to view art collections were highly valuable not simply for their novelty, but because of the tremendous importance attached to being a person of taste. To be recognized as having good taste was an important sign of social distinction in the eighteenth century; John Styles and Amanda Vickery have described it as ‘an obsession of the genteel classes’.14 Although the term was notoriously difficult to define and signified slightly different things depending on the context, in general, to be a person of taste was to be a sophisticated observer of culture, a person who appreciated the fine arts and could articulate their thoughts about them in a manner which was well informed and critical.15 Cultivating this expertise was a matter of reading and experience, and this made travelling to sites where one could view grand buildings and art collections highly beneficial as well as pleasurable. London is often overlooked in histories of eighteenth-century British tourism, but it played a critical role: while many tourists travelled from London on tours, others Sweet, Antiquaries, 36. British Library, Add MS 14823, ‘Journal of Tours by Craven Ord in the Counties of Norfolk and Suffolk’, 1781–97. 13 Maria Grazia Lolla, ‘Ceci n’est pas un monument: Vetusta Monumenta and Antiquarian Aesthetics’, in Producing the Past: Aspects of Antiquarian Culture and Practice, 1700–1850, ed. Martin Myrone and Lucy Peltz (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999), 27. 14 John Styles and Amanda Vickery, ‘Introduction’, in Gender, Taste, and Material Culture in Britain and North America, 1700–1830, ed. John Styles and Amanda Vickery (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2006), 15. For more on the relationship between taste and status, see Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, trans. Richard Nice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), especially 11–96. 15 Brewer, Pleasures, 92–3. 11 12

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travelled to the city, visiting numerous attractions on their way and then staying for weeks at a time. The Rev. William MacRitchie, for example, lived in Clunie (Perthshire) and in 1795, he set out from home on 22 June, arrived in London on 21 July having visited several places during his journey, stayed in London until 10 August and then returned to Scotland; his diary ends on 6 September.16 Similarly, Amelia Clark’s tour of 1796 began and ended in York, and included a three-week visit to London, which she described as a ‘Magnificent City’.17 Every tourist who visited London undoubtedly had a unique itinerary, but most had numerous opportunities to tour the city’s most impressive buildings and to view paintings and sculptures, thus developing a greater familiarity with art and architecture. One critical opportunity was the public art exhibitions: a group of artists organized the first in 1760, and exhibitions were held annually thereafter, with the Royal Academy holding its first summer exhibition in 1769; from the beginning, these events routinely attracted thousands of visitors.18 The city also had plenty of other more permanent attractions: MacRitchie made two visits to Greenwich Hospital, calling it ‘the first piece of architecture in Britain’, and three visits to Westminster Abbey, which led him to note ‘the Tombs that seem to display most originality of genius’.19 In the area around the city, there were several extraordinary residences which attracted tourists, including palaces, such as Hampton Court and Windsor Castle, and villas, such as Chiswick and Strawberry Hill. These sites presented visitors with displays of art and architecture not unlike what they found in country houses, but these were fundamentally different types of buildings and are beyond the remit of this book. The attraction of royal residences cannot be separated from public interest in the royal family, whereas individual owners had relatively little to do with tourists’ attractions to country houses. As properties which were personal rather than dynastic, villas were not subject to the same expectations as country houses, nor did they have the same stability as sites; to give an extreme example, in 1807, the Countess Howe was so annoyed by the number of people who were coming to view Pope’s villa that she had it torn down, an action which would have been unthinkable at a country house.20 With all these possibilities, however, for those who set out with a view to seeing notable architecture or art works, London was clearly an essential destination and worthy of a few weeks’ journey through the countryside. More pleasurable opportunities were to be found in spa towns, particularly Bath. Because of its mineral-rich waters, visitors were originally drawn to Bath because it was seen as a place to restore one’s health. The town’s popularity increased dramatically in the early eighteenth century (Beau Nash, the town’s Master of Ceremonies from 1704, is usually credited with transforming Bath’s social environment) and it quickly became famous as a place for fashionable society. A visitor to Bath could bathe in or drink the waters (an activity that was as much a social opportunity as a medical one), William MacRitchie, Diary of a Tour through Great Britain in 1795 (London: Elliot Stock, 1897). Uncle John Carr: The Diaries of His Great-nieces, Harriet and Amelia Clark, ed. Corita Myerscough (York: York Georgian Society, 2000), 57. 18 For visitor statistics, see Brewer, Pleasures, 237. 19 MacRitchie, Diary, 80, 96. 20 The English Garden, ed. Michael Charlesworth, 3 vols (The Banks: Helm Information, 1993), II, 29. 16 17

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consult doctors, tour luxury shops, have new clothes made, visit coffee houses, view art works, attend concerts and plays, stroll in brand new building developments or gardens and, most importantly, attend public assemblies which were known for their relaxation of etiquette. Thanks to the multitude of activities and the informality, the city was famous for networking and forming engagements: writing in 1754, Richard Pococke claimed ‘there is no place in the world so fit for the necessary and honourable business of making alliances’.21 Although Bath was unique, the spas at Tunbridge Wells, Buxton and Harrogate were also popular with travellers, who sometimes planned extended visits to them to break up longer journeys. Many tourists were as interested in sites of industry as they were in history and the arts, and their accounts suggest that the attraction was both the complexity of the mechanical processes underway and the excitement and drama of the powerful machines and fires. Harriet Clark, for example, travelling in 1795, visited several industrial sites, and after seeing the Carron Iron Works, she wrote ‘the infernal regions I had read of seem’d realiz’d by the roaring of the bellows and the dreadful fires, out of which the liquid metal issued & was cast into various forms by such figures of Men as I had never before seen’; while in Manchester, she ‘saw several of the Manufactorys, particularly the printing of the Cottons, and the drawing of their Velvets and other fine goods over an exceeding hot Iron Roller is very curious & surprising’.22 A tourist travelling in July 1809 described visiting Birmingham factories for paper tea boards (‘It was curious to observe with what neat machinery the small pieces of the manufactured paper which could not be used in the tea board were shaped into buttons’), whips (‘we … were shewn the whole process’) and pins (‘shewn us by an intelligent man’).23 Evidently, many factories were used to accommodating the curiosity of tourists, many of whom would have purchased examples of the goods they had seen being made. Finally, in the second half of the eighteenth century, among the most popular tourist attractions were regions of the country which had become known for natural beauty. One of the most famous was the Lake District, where it was not uncommon for travellers to spend several days visiting the different lakes. When Maton visited the region, he described its attractions as follows: Every lake has its peculiar character, & tho’ perhaps it be impossible for language to pourtray it, the most inexperienced eye will discover it. Comparisons therefore cannot be made between things so essentially differing from each other. From the varied magnificence of Windermere, – from the terrific grandeur of Derwentwater, from the broad & cheerful Bassenthwaite, from the romantic solitudes of Ulleswater, we parted with equal regret.24

The Travels through England of Dr. Richard Pococke, ed. James Joel Cartwright, 2 vols (London: Camden Society, 1888–89), II, 32. 22 Uncle John Carr, 15, 27. 23 British Library, Add MS 59867, ‘Travel Journal of an Anonymous Englishman in the Lake District’, 1809. 24 British Library, Add MS 32442. 21

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These lakes inspired a proliferation of travellers’ accounts which promoted them as a destination: William Hutchinson, for example, published (anonymously) An Excursion to the Lakes, in Westmoreland and Cumberland, August 1773 in 1774; Thomas West’s A Guide to the Lakes, the first Lake District guidebook, appeared in 1778. The most well known writer to visit the lakes was the Rev. William Gilpin, who published his Observations, Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty, Made in the Year 1772, on Several Parts of England; Particularly the Mountains, and Lakes of Cumberland, and Westmoreland in 1786 (before publication, it had been circulating widely in manuscript).25 Gilpin’s influence was one of the main reasons that places where one could see picturesque views were increasingly visited; in addition to the Lake District, other popular regions were the Wye Valley (Gilpin’s book on this region was published in 1782 and four more editions appeared before 1800), Northern Wales and the Scottish Highlands.26 All these places collectively inspired more people to tour Britain because in reality, most itineraries incorporated several or all of these types of attractions. A tourist writing in 1802, for example, noted that ‘People travel for various purposes to explore the culture of soils [i.e. agriculture] to view the curiosities of art, to survey the beauties of nature & to improve their minds by what they observe.’27 In his description of a tour he made in 1782, the Rev. Samuel Viner recorded a wide range of interests: at Derby on Wednesday Curiosity led us to Bennetts Silk Mills which is the most complicated Machine I ever saw … from thence we proceeded towards Matlock … Nature exhibits the greatest Curiosity for here we entered a most delightful Vale through which runs the Derwent whose Banks exhibit the most striking Beauties of Nature – tremendous Precipices of Rock intermingled with beautiful Woods of various tints + fertile little meadows … from this beautiful Scene we advanced to Chesterfield + from thence to Sheffield … this part of Yorkshire for above thirty miles extremely pleasant to the Traveller for he can scarce pass a Mile without a Noblemans or Gentlemans seat Wentworth House on one side of the Road + Wentworth Castle on the other the Situation of the Hill Top extremely beautiful. Ld Staffords seat in front surrounded with beautiful Woods + the whole Country highly cultivated.28

In expressing interest in manufacturing/industry, in natural scenery, in houses and in cultivation, Viner is not unusual. Dorothy Richardson’s tours also exemplify this Stephen Hebron, ‘A Practised Pencil, and an Eloquent Pen’, in Savage Grandeur and Noblest Thoughts: Discovering the Lake District 1750–1820, ed. Cecelia Powell and Stephen Hebron (Grasmere: Wordsworth Trust, 2010), 30. 26 For more on these regions, see Malcolm Andrews, The Search for the Picturesque: Landscape Aesthetics and Tourism in Britain, 1760–1800 (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1989). 27 Devon Record Office, 152M/C1802/F69, ‘Journal of a Tour – Enfield to York’, 1802. This tourist is using phrases from William Gilpin, Observations on the River Wye, 5th edn (London: T. Cadell Junior and W. Davies, 1800), 1. 28 Gloucestershire Archives, D2227/30, ‘Notebooks of Tours in N. England and Scotland’, 1781–1801. 25

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diversity: her travel diaries include accounts of the landscapes she saw, the art works she viewed, descriptions of the interior furnishings of houses she visited and extensive histories of the medieval sites she went to.29 For all three of these travellers, country houses were part of rich, multifaceted itineraries that covered long distances relatively slowly and included visits to attractions which were convenient as well as interesting. By the middle of the eighteenth century, specific regions of Britain were becoming particularly well known as tourist destinations. In Norfolk, tourists could visit several country houses as well as a number of medieval sites and travellers began to write of undertaking ‘the Norfolk Tour’; an eponymous guidebook was published in 1772.30 Similarly, visitors to Wiltshire could view several houses, including Wilton, Stourhead, Corsham, Fonthill and Longford Castle, and they could visit Stonehenge; the area was also highly convenient for tourists travelling to Bath, where people often undertook daytrips out of the city. In Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey (begun 1798, published 1818), for example, the main characters plan an expedition to Bristol, Kings Weston and Blaise Castle; from the early 1780s, The New Bath Guide helpfully included descriptions of many attractions in the vicinity, including several country houses.31 Travellers in Derbyshire were often intent on seeing the so-called ‘wonders of the Peak’, a group of attractions which had been admired since the seventeenth century. Poole’s Hole (a cave), St. Anne’s Well, Tydes Well, Elden Hole (a deep pot hole, or chasm), Mam Tor (a mountain) and Peak’s Hole (another cave, often referred to as the Devil’s Arse) were all natural wonders; Chatsworth was the seventh wonder, and in The Wonders of the Peake (first published in 1681), a poem by Charles Cotton, it was described as ‘a stately, and stupendious Pile/Like the proud Regent of the British Isle’.32 Finally, in addition to their picturesque landscapes, both Wales and Scotland had numerous other attractions, including antiquities and some country houses, and although these countries were seen as distinctly different from England and thus their respective tourist attractions are not strictly comparable, like London, they could easily be designated the ultimate destination of a tour. One popular itinerary was a journey from London to Scotland, punctuated with visits to sites in the Midlands and northern England: in The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771), an epistolary novel by Tobias Smollett, Matthew Bramble and his companions tour Britain for over four months, visiting Bath, London, York, Scarborough, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Carlisle; towards the end of the novel, in planning their journey on from Manchester, Bramble reports that ‘We propose to visit Chatsworth, the Peak, and Buxton, from which last place we shall proceed directly homewards.’33 Although Bramble’s itinerary is fictional, its The University of Manchester Library, GB 133 Eng MSS 1122–1125, ‘Travel Journals of Dorothy Richardson’, 1767–75. 30 Cambridgeshire Archives, 408/F2/1, ‘Letter to Agneta Yorke, the Writer’s Sister, from Langley Park’, 14 July 1764. British Library, Add MS 80764, ‘Travel Journal’, 1770. The Norfolk Tour (Norwich: R. Beatniffe, 1772). 31 Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, ed. John Davies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 62–3. The New Bath Guide (Bath: R. Cruttwell, 1782). 32 Charles Cotton, The Wonders of the Peake, 2nd edn (London: J. Wallis for Joanna Brome, 1683), 72. 33 Tobias Smollett, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, ed. James L. Thorson (London: W. W. Norton & Company, 1983), 252. 29

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route and destinations reflect widespread trends from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The popularity of specific regions, itineraries and sites was due to publicity as well as convenience. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, travel literature was one of the most popular genres of publication in the country, second only to theology.34 By the 1750s, there were two types of travel publications which included descriptions of country houses and other domestic tourist attractions: narrative tours framed as a single individual’s journey, and comprehensive volumes describing the entirety of England or Britain. These texts differed both in terms of their content – most narrative tours, for instance, did not cover the entire country, whereas comprehensive volumes did – and also in terms of their forms – typically narratives were published in small octavo editions, whereas comprehensive volumes were much larger. Both types were ideal for readers who wanted a sense of what touring Britain involved, even if they did not actually plan to go travelling. Narrative tours were published both by professional authors and by gentlemen and ladies who simply wished to publish their own observations. Prominent early examples include John Macky’s A Journey through England (1714, 1722), Stukeley’s Itinerarium and three Tours by Arthur Young (1768, 1769/70, 1771). The revised editions of Daniel Defoe’s Tour remained popular for decades: when the 1778 edition was published, the Monthly Review declared that The additions and improvements are really numerous, and the particulars are curious, useful and entertaining … we are so well pleased with this edition of a favourite book, that we scruple not to pronounce the Tour through Great Britain, in its improved state, to be the most complete and satisfactory work, of the kind, that hath yet appeared in Europe.35

The expansions to the Tour were substantial; for example, this edition included a page on Kedleston, a house which had been entirely rebuilt in the years since Defoe’s book was first published.36 In the late eighteenth century, narrative tours had become so popular that writing them (and reissuing them) could be a financial opportunity; one reviewer even speculated that ‘In this tour-making age, different travellers are excited by different motives’ such as curiosity, business, health and amusement, but that some travellers ‘industriously go forth in search of materials to make a book.’37 In 1780, the Critical Review described ‘the different denominations of Travels, Tours, &c’ about Britain and foreign countries as ‘numerous’, and it claimed ‘There is indeed no species G. R. Crone and R. A. Skelton, ‘English Collections of Voyages and Travels, 1625–1846’, in Richard Hakluyt & His Successors, ed. Edward Lynam (London: The Hakluyt Society, 1946), 78. 35 ‘Art. 49. [Review of] A Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain’, The Monthly Review 59 (1778): 396. 36 Daniel Defoe, A Tour through the Island of Great Britain, 8th edn, 4 vols (London: W. Strahan, 1778), III, 75. 37 ‘Art. IV. [Review of] Observations Made during a Tour through Parts of England, Scotland, and Wales’, The Monthly Review 63 (1780): 24. 34

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of literary manufacture which is either more easily executed, or appears to be at present more vendible.’38 It was certainly true that several tours were published in the 1770s and 1780s, including William Bray’s Sketch of a Tour into Derbyshire and Yorkshire (1778, second edition 1783), A Journal of First Thoughts, Observations, Characters, and Anecdotes Which Occurred in a Journey from London to Scarborough (1781), Richard Sulivan’s Observations Made during a Tour through Parts of England, Scotland, and Wales (1780; rev. edition with amended title, 1785) and Rev. Stebbing Shaw’s A Tour to the West of England, in 1788 (1789). More were published in the 1790s and at the turn of the century, William Mavor reissued several in a six-volume set entitled The British Tourists (1798–1800). All these books played a role in enhancing the fame of specific sites, and they were regularly read by travellers. As a genre, these tours were distinguished by having personal voices. Often presented as a series of informal letters in which the author describes the journey to a friend, these were clearly texts which were meant to be as enjoyable as they were informative. In his study of eighteenth-century travel literature, Charles L. Batten argued that ‘the travel account directed at the general reader, the one in search of something more than assistance in preparing for his own travels, always aimed at blending pleasure with instruction in order to achieve an artistically pleasing literary experience’; in the early decades of the nineteenth century more distinct categories of travel books for entertainment versus for instruction emerged, but until then most publications entwined the two.39 To that end, narrative tours about Britain usually combined descriptions of sights with personal reactions, such as delight or disgust at a site, and experiences, such as encounters with guides and servants. Despite the importance of a personal angle, they were not always original throughout, nor were they necessarily expected to be: it was not uncommon for a writer to incorporate passages or information from other travel books into his own. Bray, for instance, reprinted Young’s account of Wentworth Castle; when Sulivan’s Tour was published, the Critical Review claimed that he had ‘frequently given the more interesting parts of the narratives of former travellers’.40 Whether or not they offered original information, these tours were admired as engaging texts: in introducing The British Tourists, Mavor claimed that a well-written tour excited lively interest in the reader because ‘We enter into all the views and sentiments … we see as he sees; we participate in his delights; we sympathize in his disappointments; and the impression he leaves on our minds is permanent and strong.’41 Given that his anthology ran to three editions, Mavor’s assessment was clearly a successful one. The authors of narrative tours had a wide array of backgrounds. Young was a struggling gentleman farmer who had no previous experience in writing about art

‘[Review of] Observations Made during a Tour through Parts of England, Scotland, and Wales’, The Critical Review 49 (1780): 117. 39 Charles L. Batten, Jr., Pleasurable Instruction: Form and Convention in Eighteenth-Century Travel Literature (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), 25, 29–30. 40 ‘[Review of] Observations Made during a Tour through Parts of England, Scotland, and Wales’, 122. 41 William Mavor, The British Tourists, 6 vols (London: E. Newbery, 1798–1800), I, x–xi. 38

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and architecture, but nonetheless had a great deal of confidence in presenting his judgements on the designs of and art collections in country houses. Sulivan made his tour shortly after returning from a period in India (he seems to have had family connections to the East India Company), and published Analysis of the Political History of India (1779) just before his Tour.42 Richard Warner was a clergyman, but he was also a prolific author, and an ambitious one: in his Literary Recollections, he noted that when he published his first travel book, he had hoped it would be ‘the associate of every traveller … and a stock-book in the shops of all the best bibliopolists in the kingdom’ (though that book did not sell well, some of his later works were more successful).43 Despite their different backgrounds, the tours these men wrote shared many similarities in how they approached describing country houses. Given the popularity of the genre, narrative tours were undoubtedly read both by potential travellers and by those who could not (or would not) go travelling themselves. Though they did not necessarily include details such as road directions or information on inns, if taken travelling, they could still be treated as guides; a review of Bray’s Tour concluded that ‘this book may be used with advantage, as a pocket companion, by those who make the same excursion’.44 The relative cost of these books versus the cost of tourism itself, however, demonstrates that the books were far more accessible than the sites. Sulivan’s Tour sold for 10s. 6d., a price which was substantial at a time when many labourers were paid less than £20 a year, but in contrast, when a Mr Bawtree made a tour of Oxfordshire and the west of England in 1807, he recorded spending a total of £91 6d. (not including purchases of china, trinkets, toys, gloves, etc.), with £1 2s. for servants at Blenheim alone.45 Not only were narrative tours significantly less expensive than travelling, they were also routinely excerpted in periodicals and sometimes even in newspapers, ensuring that at least some of their descriptions had an even wider audience. Comprehensive accounts of the country were larger publications, with greater information and higher costs. England Displayed (1769), for instance, was published as a series of weekly numbers for which subscribers paid 6d. each; the final project amounted to two folio volumes with dozens of copper-plate illustrations.46 Volumes like these were normally organized by county first, and then by subcategories such as natural history, topographical description (including descriptions of any notable

Thompson Cooper, ‘Sullivan, Sir Richard Joseph, first baronet (1752–1806)’, rev. Rebecca Mills, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, January 2008) (accessed 14 June 2016). 43 Richard Warner, Literary Recollections, 2 vols (London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1830), I, 189, 196. 44 ‘Art. V. [Review of] Sketch of a Tour into Derbyshire and Yorkshire, Including Part of Buckingham, Warwick, Leicester, Nottingham, Northampton, Bedford, and Hertford-Shires’, The Monthly Review 58 (1778): 212. 45 ‘Art. IV. [Review of] Observations Made during a Tour through Parts of England, Scotland, and Wales’, 24. Essex Record Office, D/DU 161/587, ‘Travel Notebook, Containing Particulars of Mr. Bawtree’s Tour’, c. 1807. 46 Lloyd’s Evening Post, 30 March–3 April 1769 (Issue 1832). 42

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country houses) and biographies of historical figures who came from the area.47 In this context, many descriptions of houses were quite brief, but some houses were discussed with more details; The Modern Universal British Traveller (1779), for instance, devoted three pages to Stowe and four pages to Wilton.48 Like narrative tours, these books often reprinted other texts, and their illustrations of country houses were often based on previously published images (Figure 1.1). Despite the limitations, the encyclopaedic natures of these books ultimately demanded readers recognize country houses as important sites within a broader definition of national culture because they were not personal travels, but rather impersonal assessments of the entire country which were attempting to define a canon of tourist attractions. England Displayed optimistically promised its readers ‘A full description of all the natural and artificial Curiosities of this Kingdom; such as Rocks, Mines, Caverns, Lakes, Grottos, Fossils, Minerals, Abbeys, Cathedrals, Churches, Palaces, and the Seats of the Nobility and Gentry’.49 A New Display of the Beauties of England (1777) explicitly integrated country houses into its vision of a richly idealized countryside, declaring ‘no country in the world can equal the cultivated parts of England for the great number of beautiful scenes with which it is adorned … the corn and meadow ground, the intermixtures of inclosures and plantations, the noble seats, comfortable houses, chearful villages, and well-stocked farms … afford an inexpressible pleasure’.50 In this account, ‘noble seats’ are part of an exceptionally harmonious and beautiful pastoral economy; the reality of rural Britain was quite different, but the potential tourist was clearly being encouraged to view their destinations as a source of national pride. This was not a unique position, and in some of these books, the associations between patriotism and tourism were visual as well as verbal. Instead of one of the numerous tourist attractions it describes, the frontispiece of The Complete English Traveller (1771) shows the four corners of the world bringing gifts to Britannia, proudly indicating the global status of the country the reader would be touring. Similarly, the frontispiece of The Modern Universal British Traveller (Figure 1.2) shows Britannia enthroned before a group of travellers to whom she is ‘Explaining the Necessity and proving the Utility of Making a Tour through our own Country before we Visit foreign Ones’. As introductions to books about travel, these images clearly implied that for people to truly appreciate Britain’s increasing imperial wealth and the strength of her power, they needed to be familiar with places throughout the country. Some writers represented the value of domestic tourism as an opportunity for learning, for self-improvement and for cultivating patriotism by contrasting touring Europe with touring Britain. Writing in 1767, an author for the Monthly Review queried ‘Would not a tour round the islands of Great Britain and Ireland furnish a Briton with more useful, proper and entertaining knowledge, than what is called the grand tour of

Charles Burlington, David Llewellyn Rees and Alexander Murray, The Modern Universal British Traveller (London: J. Cooke, 1779). 48 Burlington et al., Modern, 221–3, 386–9. 49 P. Russell and Owen Price, England Displayed, 2 vols (London: Printed for the Authors, 1769), title page. 50 A New Display of the Beauties of England, 3rd edn, 2 vols (London: R. Goadby, 1777), I, 4. 47

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Figure 1.1  Luke Sullivan, A View of Wilton in Wiltshire the Seat of the Rt. Hon. Earl of Pembroke, 1759, engraving, 36.5 × 51.8 cm. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. A similar view was engraved for The Modern Universal British Traveller.

Europe?’51 Thirty-one years later, in introducing The British Tourists, Mavor noted that ‘we have, of late years, seen some of our most enlightened countrymen, as eager to explore the remotest parts of Britain, as they formerly were to cross the Channel, and to pass the Alps’ and that ‘While gratifying their own curiosity, or enlarging their own ideas, they appear to have been zealous to benefit and inform their country.’52 By the time Mavor was writing, Britain was at war with France and many people likely chose to tour Britain in part because of the difficulties in travelling to Europe, but ultimately, the war’s impact was to strengthen a pre-existing pattern: tourism’s popularity was on the rise long before war broke out. In Humphry Clinker, when he explains his intention to make ‘an expedition to the North’, Bramble claims he not only hopes the tour ‘will afford some agreeable pastime’, he believes ‘it is a reproach upon me, as a British freeholder, to have lived so long without making an excursion to the other side of the Tweed [River]’.53 Through claims like these – in magazines, in travel books and in novels – the opportunity to visit Britain’s greatest country houses was increasingly drawn into a discourse about patriotic travel. ‘[Review of] Hibernia Curiosa’, The Monthly Review 37 (1767): 281–2. Mavor, British, I, vi. 53 Smollett, Humphry, 62. 51 52

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Figure 1.2  Frontispiece from Charles Burlington et al., The Modern Universal British Traveller, London: J. Cooke, 1779, engraving, 21.4 × 35.7 cm. © The British Library Board (10348.l.6).

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Whereas travel books provide the best evidence as to how tourism was publicized, tourists’ diaries reveal how people conceived of the value of travelling, and how they approached writing about their experiences. Taken together, the multitude of attractions tourists could visit offered them a unique opportunity to enhance their knowledge of history, geography, science and the arts, and thus to strengthen their position in a society where to be well informed was crucial to being recognized as polite and sophisticated. Writing was integral to tourists’ experiences because it allowed them to record and reflect on what they had seen, but there were different modes of writing tourists could adopt: some people wrote briefly jotted notes and phrases, almost more like lists than diaries; some wrote informal, lengthy accounts in small books that they most likely had with them; and some wrote formal journals, most likely created after the trip had ended using notes from their travels.54 This last approach could be quite elaborate: Richardson, for instance, took ‘minutes’ during her travels and then wrote them up ‘at leisure in neat handwriting and backed up with information from published sources where appropriate’; she also wrote indexes and appendices, provided cross-references and drew illustrations.55 In all these approaches, tourists’ remarks could be strictly factual or highly opinionated, but they were not necessarily private: in 1793, one tourist began writing observations by noting that There is no great need of prefatory Introduction to the following desultory pages, which are at most intended to ‘circulate in Manuscript’; they were merely written to amuse myself and the much esteemed companion of my way, in our journey from London to Elgin; they are made by no Standard, and subject to no Rule; they are rather the offspring of momentary Impulse, than of regular description.56

Writing in 1786, Eliza Dawson was more expansive about why she had chosen to write a diary, and who might eventually read it: It is natural to suppose a Girl of sixteen, who has never been above thirty miles from home, should form sanguine expectations from a journey of eight hundred, as for me who answer that description I anticipate a prodigious deal of pleasure from it – and therefore have determined to set down every trifling circumstance, that affords me the least momentary entertainment, – two good reasons induce me to do it – first as they might probably slip my memory, and by that means I should lose the satisfaction of reciting them to those from whose indulgence For more on travel diaries written on the road, see Zoë Kinsley, Women Writing the Home Tour, 1682–1812 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), 59. 55 The University of Manchester Library, GB 133 Eng MSS 1122–1125. Marcia Pointon, ‘Abundant Leisure and Extensive Knowledge: Dorothy Richardson Delineates’, in Strategies for Showing: Women, Possession, and Representation in English Visual Culture, 1665–1800 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 98. See also Zoë Kinsley, ‘Dorothy Richardson’s Manuscript Travel Journals (1761–1801) and the Possibilities of Picturesque Aesthetics’, The Review of English Studies 56, no. 226 (2005): 611–31. 56 National Library of Scotland, MS 29492, ‘Observations on a Tour through Part of Scotland’, 28 June– July 1793. 54

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Touring and Publicizing England’s Country Houses every pleasure I experience is deriv’d, – and surely our enjoyments would be all imperfect were we denied the superior gratification of communicating them to others. – The second inducement is that doubtless in course of time, Fortune may be less lavish of her favours than she has been hitherto, and as we are too apt to lose all remembrance of the former bounties we have enjoy’d, I may cast an eye upon this journal and recollect I have no reason to repine, since this will prove I have had my portion of happiness.57

Although both these travellers were relatively informal in their journals, Richardson was not the only tourist to take creating her travel diary quite seriously: during her annual tours in the early 1800s, Lady Wilson went so far as to travel with a ‘journalist’, namely Millicent Bant, who kept a formal diary for her.58 Given that many tourists were writing with a view to sharing their works, it is perhaps not surprising that they drew on travel books for information and descriptions. Some references are relatively oblique, but nonetheless indicative of an awareness of travel literature: in 1767, James Coldham noted that as Chatsworth ‘has been so Describ’d, I shall only say of it yt it is a fine House of the Last Age’; when he went to Houghton in 1757, the Rev. John Price, instead of writing a lengthy description as he did for Holkham and Rainham, simply noted ‘vide Printed Account’.59 Other tourists referred to specific texts, presumably with the intention of directing their reader to descriptions they deemed particularly well written in view of what they had seen when they visited the house in question. When Robert Andrew visited Wilton in 1752, he noted that ‘There is an ample description of it in the Compleat Sytem [sic] of Geography, which cannot be expected in this Book, and it wd. be needless for me to do it when there are printed accounts of it, given to all those that have the curiosite to see the Place.’60 At Burghley, a 1793 visitor declared ‘the whole Thing is so scientifically depicted by Gilpin that those who wish to know more of the matter are requested to turn to him’.61 Peter Oliver’s diaries from the late 1770s refer to a number of books which described houses: in his account of Wilton, he declared ‘The best Description of this, as well as many other of the Seats of the Nobility & Gentry of the Kingdom … may be seen well executed in a Folio Volume published by Russele & Price, entitled England displayed’; he referred to England Displayed again in his account of Blenheim, while in his account of Hagley he noted that it was ‘well described in the Tour thro’ Great Britain [i.e. Defoe’s Tour]’.62 Beyond these explicit references, many country-house tourists’ diaries record so many details that it seems extremely unlikely they only derive from National Library of Scotland, Acc 12017, ‘Journal of Eliza Dawson Made on a Tour through the North of England and Scotland’, 1786. 58 Essex Record Office, D/DFr F4. 59 Norfolk Record Office, MC 40/103/1, ‘Journal of a Tour in England’, 1767. Norfolk Record Office, COL/7/11, ‘Diary of the Revd John Price’, 1757. 60 Northamptonshire Archives Service, A 280, ‘Diary of Robert Andrew’, 1752. 61 National Library of Scotland, MS 29492. 62 British Library, Egerton MS 2673, ‘Voyages and Travels: Journal of Voyage from America to England, and Various Tours, by P. Oliver’, 1776–80 (1777). 57

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observations, however recent the visits; for example, Maria Cubitt recorded that when she visited Burghley in 1814, she was impressed by no fewer than forty-seven paintings, all of which she identified by title and artist.63 In this context, travel books (and where available, country-house guidebooks) could clearly be extremely useful, not only during visits to houses, but also after a visit, possibly a tour, had ended and tourists were recording reflections on their journeys; tourist diaries could then further circulate detailed descriptions of country houses and gardens. The combination of modern roads, comfortable carriages, a rich and varied network of potential destinations, a multitude of travel books to choose from and increasing familiarity with other people’s travels ensured that by the middle of the eighteenth century, travelling around Britain was a popular activity. It remained an expensive and time-consuming one, but it was not confined to the aristocracy. For anyone who wished to participate in polite society, tourism offered them a chance to enrich their knowledge of British history, of both historic and contemporary art and architecture, of the modern industries which were transforming the British economy and of the country’s natural wonders – and, of course, to have a wonderful time. It was in this context that many country houses were first transformed into sites which welcomed tourists.

The tourist at the country house The great conundrum of eighteenth-century country-house tourism is that, in fact, houses did not need to become tourist attractions. The owners of country houses simply did not have to welcome tourists: they chose to, for reasons which can usually only be guessed at. There was no financial incentive and no potential source of income to develop; owners did not charge admission. Admitting tourists did enable an owner to display his family history and any acquisitions or improvements he had made to his estate, but there were more effective ways to do this for one’s peers. All in all, there do not seem to have been obvious reasons for owners to make their houses accessible to tourists: that they did so anyway reflects a combination of the social expectations of polite landowners and the minimal effort that was required to make a house welcoming to tourists without inconveniencing the owner and his family. For the earliest country-house tourists, there were usually no special arrangements, but as visitor numbers grew, owners began to formalize how tourists could visit their houses. While normally distinguished by small changes, such as routine tours and opening hours, the formalizing process marked a distinct transformation whereby a house clearly developed a public identity as a tourist attraction alongside its identity as a residence. Historically, owners of country houses were expected to offer a hospitable welcome to all guests, including travellers, and the eighteenth-century expectation that a house Norfolk Record Office, MC233/16, 680x5, ‘Journal of a Tour’ (apparently by Maria Cubitt … through south and midlands of England), 1814.

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should be accessible to visitors likely stemmed in part from a long tradition of idealizing the country house as a site of hospitality. Seventeenth-century country-house poems not only celebrated the role of hospitality and how it exemplified the societal order within the country house, they often treated lavish architectural decorative features as symbolic of values that were detrimental to this hospitality; for example, in ‘To Penshurst’ (c. 1616), Ben Jonson criticized houses ‘built to envious show’ and praised Penshurst (Kent) for offering guests ‘all that hospitality doth know’ at its table.64 While many of these poems are nostalgic (the communal dining celebrated in ‘To Penshurst’ was already rare when the poem was written), other seventeenth-century writers emphasized hospitality not simply as a nostalgic ideal, but as a principle to be upheld. Sir Henry Wotton, one of the keenest art enthusiasts of the period, argued that in designing a house, ‘the naturall Hospitalitie of England’ needed to be considered in relation to the size and arrangement of the kitchen, buttery and dining room, and that it was partly because a man’s country house was the ‘Theater of his Hospitality’ that it might deserve to be ‘decently and delightfully adorned’.65 In a study of hospitality in early modern England, Felicity Heal has concluded there was ‘an honour code which obliged the landed élite to represent themselves as given to largess’.66 To some extent, the connection between honourable generosity and landownership continued into the eighteenth century, and many landowners held community gatherings on special occasions, such as the harvest or Christmas. By the middle of the eighteenth century, however, this tradition of hospitality was evolving into an expectation that a landowner would not simply extend hospitality to travellers, but permit people to tour his house. Beyond the well-established forms of hospitality, it was increasingly important for any gentleman, whether of aristocratic or modest status, to exemplify politeness, defined (in 1768) as ‘natural Refinement … the happy Mixture of Greatness with Benignity’.67 Significantly, politeness and refinement were qualities that ‘had little value unless they were shared; they had to be put on display, to be shown to others’.68 For those men who were landowners, one of the ways they were expected to display their polite character was by opening their houses to tourists.69 The evidence for this expectation is largely negative in that there are accounts of visitors castigating landowners who refused to open their houses. For instance, while many tourists had no difficulty in getting access to Burghley, when Alexandre de La Rochefoucauld went there in 1786, his party was ‘unable to enter, for

Ben Jonson, ‘To Penshurst’, in Alastair Fowler, The Country House Poem: A Cabinet of SeventeenthCentury Estate Poems and Related Items (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1994), 53–6, lines 1 and 60. For more on this genre, see G. R. Hibbard, ‘The Country House Poem of the Seventeenth Century’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 19, no. 1/2 (1956): 159–74. 65 Henry Wotton, The Elements of Architecture (London: John Bill, 1624), 71, 82. 66 Felicity Heal, Hospitality in Early Modern England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 390. 67 The Polite Academy, or School of Behaviour for Young Gentlemen and Ladies (London: R. Baldwin, 1768), 1–2. 68 Brewer, Pleasures, 107. 69 Paul Langford, Public Life and the Propertied Englishman, 1689–1798 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 549. 64

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no one may see the house without Lord Exeter’s permission … We had seen nothing, and felt resentful and affronted at the meanness of that Lord in not allowing strangers to admire so beautiful a house’.70 More positively, Arthur Young, after describing a visit to Wentworth Castle, commented ‘in no great house which I have seen, have I met with more agreeable treatment’, describing it as ‘an instance of general and undistinguishing politeness, a striking contrast to that unpopular and affected dignity in which some great people think proper to cloud their houses’ by limiting travellers’ access.71 Many people felt especially entitled to have access to Blenheim because that house had been partly built at public expense.72 Although it was regularly open, Blenheim had a reputation for being exorbitantly expensive to visit: in 1809, one tourist complained that ‘It cost us a Guinea to satisfy the servants who like sharks were watching for prey. It is a shame that the nation which paid for building Blenheim should pay also for looking at it’; nine years earlier Robert French had griped about ‘the impudence of the Porter in asking for money’.73 These visitors’ conviction that they had a right to visit is some of the earliest evidence that some country houses had already come to be seen as part of a shared heritage. They remained privately owned, however, and how to accommodate tourists was becoming more and more challenging. In the first half of the eighteenth century, country-house tourists were few in number and many were people who could reasonably have been acquaintances or friends of the owner and by extension, could be treated as guests (whether or not they were expected). Celia Fiennes was the granddaughter of the Viscount Saye and Sele, and her travel diaries make multiple references to visiting, and sometimes staying with, ‘relations’ at country houses she stopped at during her travels.74 Edward Harley, the second Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer and owner of Wimpole Hall (Cambridgeshire), made several notable tours of country houses (1723, 1725, 1732), but when he set out on a tour, his ‘ostensible objective was the inspection of his wife’s scattered and distant estates’, not the examination of other families’ estates.75 Cassandra Willoughby, sister of Sir Thomas Willoughby, owner of Wollaton Hall (Nottinghamshire), made several journeys between 1695 and 1713 which included visits to houses; during this period she was also ‘actively involved with her brother’s restoration of Wollaton and its grounds and … she presumably stored away ideas for her own use’.76 In terms of Alexandre de La Rochefoucauld, To the Highlands in 1786: The Inquisitive Journey of a Young French Aristocrat, ed. Norman Scarfe (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2001), 17–18. 71 Arthur Young, A Six Months Tour through the North of England, 4 vols (London: W. Strahan, 1769/70), I, 148. 72 In fact, the Treasury contributed £240,000 to the project while the Duke of Marlborough paid £60,000 (Paul Duffie et al., Blenheim Palace (Norwich: Jarrold Publishing, 2006), 6). 73 British Library, Add MS 59867. National Library of Ireland, Ms. 7380, ‘Observations on a Tour through Part of Ireland and England in the Summer of 1800, by Robert French’, 1800. 74 For references to relations, see Celia Fiennes, The Illustrated Journeys of Celia Fiennes, 1685–c. 1712, ed. Christopher Morris (London and Sydney: Macdonald & Co, 1982), 40–2, 51, 58, 62, 64–6, 111, 158. 75 James Lees-Milne, Earls of Creation: Five Great Patrons of Eighteenth-Century Art (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1962), 206. 76 Elizabeth Hagglund, ‘Cassandra Willoughby’s Visits to Country Houses’, The Georgian Group Journal 11 (2001): 191. 70

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overall itineraries, the journeys made by these travellers are sometimes similar to those made by later eighteenth-century tourists, but Fiennes, Harley and Willoughby visited country houses as people who were already very familiar with the type, and who lived in country houses themselves. Unlike many late-eighteenth-century visitors, these tourists were clearly country-house owners’ peers; for them the relationship between owner and visitor ‘was still essentially one of host and guest’.77 Those who visited country houses in the seventeenth and first half of the eighteenth centuries were often offered a drink during their visit, a gesture which was an echo of older traditions of hospitality.78 Fiennes, for example, often noted being given refreshments: at Woburn Abbey in 1697, she ate ‘a great quantety of the Red Coralina goosbery’; at Bretby (Derbyshire), the Earl of Chesterfield’s estate, in 1698, she rested in ‘a coole roome … where I dranke a glass of wine’; and in 1697, when her party found themselves delayed late in the day, the owner of Shuggbery Hall (Warwickshire, now known as Shuckburgh Hall) ‘tooke compassion on us and treated us very handsomly that night, a good supper serv’d in plaite and very good wine, and good beds’.79 Early visitors to Holkham were habitually offered drinks, and tourists’ visits were recorded in the wine book: on 10 June 1748, a ‘Mrs. Powditch & Company’ came to see the house and gardens and were offered glasses of Lisbon, a fortified wine; later that summer, Lord Carr, Sir William Gage, Sir John Burle and eight of their friends came to visit the house and were served Calcavella, a Portuguese sweet wine.80 In recounting his visit to Burghley in 1763, Horace Walpole described a visit which was clearly a cordial meeting between host and guest, not merely a tour: ‘Lord Exeter, whom I had prepared for our intentions, came to us, and made every door and every lock fly open, even of his magazines … In return for his civilities, I made my Lord Exeter a present of a glorious cabinet, whose drawers and sides are all painted by Rubens.’81 These anecdotes suggest that at many houses, in the early eighteenth century, owners were still happy to welcome tourists as if they were guests, or to have servants welcome them on their behalf, acting as if visits were social occasions. This personal approach was only feasible, however, if the visitor numbers were relatively small. By the late eighteenth century, the number of people able to tour country houses had risen considerably, and many country houses were routinely welcoming hundreds of visitors every summer. The visitor book for Wentworth Woodhouse (South Yorkshire) indicates that about 140 people came to see the house in 1773, approximately three-quarters of them in June, July and August.82 Yet while Wentworth Woodhouse was very grand, it was by no means a popular house (possibly because of the poor roads leading to it).83 At Adrian Tinniswood, A History of Country House Visiting: Five Centuries of Tourism and Taste (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989), 65. 78 Heal, Hospitality, 209. 79 Fiennes, Illustrated Journeys, 117, 154, 116. 80 Leo Schmidt, Christian Keller and Polly Feversham, Holkham (London: Prestel, 2005), 218. 81 Horace Walpole, ‘864. To George Montagu, Esq.’, in The Letters of Horace Walpole, Fourth Earl of Orford, Volume 4 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1903), 101. 82 Sheffield Archives, WWM/A/1530, ‘Memoranda Book’, 1773. 83 Plymouth and West Devon Record Office, 308/47, ‘Travel Diary of a Journey around Britain as Far North as the Lake District and Yorkshire’, 1808. 77

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popular sites, visitor numbers could be much higher: Caroline Powys visited Wilton in 1776 and wrote that ‘at the porter’s lodge, where he desired us to set down our names and the number of our company, we saw by the book that there had been to see it the last year 2324 persons’.84 Almost thirty years later, the visitors’ book at Knole (Kent) recorded over 625 visitors.85 At least 550 people went to Nuneham-Courtenay (Oxfordshire) in 1815, some of whom wrote their thanks in the Visitors’ Book; for example, on 23 August, a visiting commodore noted that his party ‘enjoyed a delightful day the enjoyments of which were considerably heightened by Lord & Lady Harcourt’s kind attention to strangers’.86 Blenheim could attract dozens of people on a single day: when Thomas de Grey visited in 1769, he reported there were forty or fifty people who ‘all crowded in together without respect of persons, Gentlemen servants … Apprentices, Whisky Drinkers & all kinds of people’.87 The assortment de Grey found at Blenheim is somewhat extreme, but the diversity of visitors was undoubtedly changing: of the 140 people who visited Wentworth Woodhouse in 1773, only 5 had noble titles; the 1805 visitors’ book for Knole records many visitors from places in the London area, including Islington, Southwark, the Adelphi, Pentonville and Hampstead; at Nuneham-Courtenay, visitors included many people from local towns, such as Abingdon, and groups of students from Oxford colleges.88 Touring Britain was seen as an activity suitable for men and women, and tourists came from a wide array of professional backgrounds: Caroline Powys and Dorothy Richardson were respectively the daughters of a surgeon and a clergyman, Peter Oliver and Samuel Curwen were American Loyalists displaced by the Revolution, Edward Pigott was an astronomer, John Carr was an architect, James Plumptre and William MacRitchie were clergymen, and William and Jonathan Gray were attorneys. Perhaps the most famous evidence of this change in visitors’ status is a section in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (1813) in which Elizabeth Bennet, the heroine, accompanies her uncle, Mr Gardiner, and his wife on a tour of Derbyshire. Although Mr Gardiner is a London merchant and some of the wealthier characters in the novel are unimpressed by the Gardiners’s position in society, the party visits great houses, such as Blenheim, without any difficulty of access. Austen’s decision to not describe the ‘remarkable places’ Elizabeth and the Gardiners visit during their tour because they were ‘sufficiently known’ to her readers is also indicative of the extent to which people were touring and descriptions of tours were circulating by the end of the eighteenth century.89 The diverse nature of tourists, and even more significantly, their growing number, made it impossible for the old pattern of informal, social touring

Passages from the Diaries of Mrs. Philip Lybbe Powys of Hardwick House, Oxon. AD 1756 to 1808, ed. Emily J. Climenson (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1899), 166. 85 Kent History & Library Centre, U269/E19, ‘Visitors’ Books’, 1805. 86 Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, Mss. D.D. Harcourt c 288, ‘Visitors’ Book, Nuneham Park’, 1815–25. What the ‘kind attention’ consisted of is not recorded; it is possible that his rank led to a better welcome, but he may simply be referring to the access granted. 87 Norfolk Record Office, WLS/XLVIII/1/425 × 9, ‘Letters [from Thomas de Grey (later Lord Walsingham) to his parents describing a tour in the West Country]’, 1769. 88 Sheffield Archives, WWM/A/1530. Kent History & Library Centre, U269/E19. Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, Mss. D.D. Harcourt c 288. 89 Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, ed. James Kinsley (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 213. 84

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to continue. An aristocratic tourist might still receive a personal welcome – in describing a visit to Hagley in 1799, Thomas Philip, 3rd Lord Grantham, noted ‘Upon entering the House & writing our Names we were met by Lady Lyttelton who was extremely civil & offered us any refreshment’ – but ultimately, when confronted with so many visitors, visitors who were no longer potential guests of the owner, the old formula of treating tourists as unexpected guests had to change.90 Faced with high visitor numbers, a country-house owner had two possible options. The first was simply to deny access, albeit at the risk of being declared rude, and some owners did this. The majority, however, opted to formalize, and by extension control, the ways in which tourists visited their estates; naturally, houses with fewer visitors were much slower to do this than those which attracted hundreds of people annually. In most cases, owners did this by instituting new protocols for visiting their houses, the implementation of which was left up to servants. It was through these practices that country houses were remade to function as tourist attractions. Perhaps the most important remaking practice was the development of routines for showing visitors around. At most houses, the housekeeper would lead a tour of the interior, and then invite visitors to view the gardens either alone or guided by a gardener. These servants expected to receive a tip for their time, regardless of the quality of the information they had, which ranged from quite good, which was the case at Kedleston (Figure 1.3), to very poor. They were entitled to keep their tips: writing in 1802, Charles Dibdin observed that tourists at Alnwick provided ‘a pretty snug sinecure to the servants’.91 Owners did not receive any of the money; Young speculated that some noblemen were unaware of the exorbitant fees their servants were demanding, but in all likelihood many were simply indifferent.92 As the number of visitors grew, most houses established a tourists’ route through the house and settled on specific information which housekeepers would provide. Although there is little evidence of how these routines were created, visitors’ accounts of their experiences indicate that they must have been: it is the only explanation for the efficiency with which tours were conducted. In his letter, de Grey reported ‘After waiting till 3 o’clock at Blenheim, we were ushered in to that noble mansion: but how? Walk in gentlemen & ladies walk in – are you all in’; he went on to complain that this was the introduction to a tour which had lasted about half an hour, such that no one ‘could make any observations’.93 Similarly, in recounting a visit to Duncombe Park (North Yorkshire) in 1796, John Eyre wrote that although the house had some exceptional antique sculptures and paintings, ‘We were hurried thro’ with a rapidity which did not allow time for dwelling on any.’94 Given that some Bedfordshire Archives & Records Service, L31/114/2, ‘Tour in England’ [made by Thomas Philip, 3rd Lord Grantham, later Earl de Grey], 1799. 91 Charles Dibdin, Observations on a Tour through Almost the Whole of England, and a Considerable Part of Scotland, in a Series of Letters, 2 vols (London: G. Goulding, 1801–2), II, 236. 92 Arthur Young, A Six Weeks Tour through the Southern Counties of England and Wales (London: W. Nicoll, 1768), 97. 93 Norfolk Record Office, WLS/XLVIII/1/425 × 9. 94 National Archives, PRO 30/46/1/4, ‘Diary’ [kept by the Ven. John Eyre, Archdeacon of Nottingham], 1796–7. 90

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Figure 1.3  Thomas Barber the Elder, Mrs Garnett in the Marble Hall, c. 1800, oil on canvas, 89.5 × 69 cm. © National Trust Images/John Hammond. Mrs Garnett was the housekeeper at Kedleston from 1766 until 1809, and she was well known as a guide to the house. She is holding a copy of the Kedleston guidebook.

housekeepers were managing to conduct tours so quickly, it is highly likely that they had developed a routine for showing people around. These servants were effectively acting as tour guides (though they would have had more traditional responsibilities

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as well), and their approach could have a marked effect on tourists’ responses. In The British Tourists, William Mavor noted he had frequently observed that the impression visiters [sic] receive from the view of a place, is as frequently conveyed by the mode in which it is shewn, as by its native beauties or defects. A gentleman meets with a surly porter, an avaricious housekeeper, or a begging, insolent gardener: he is at once disgusted; and retorts very unjustly, the faults of the servants on the owner, or his seat.95

Although it is difficult to say how much involvement owners had with establishing protocols for welcoming tourists and showing them around, they were most likely aware of how their servants typically received visitors. Another effective technique for controlling visitors was the establishment of regular opening hours. In his Tour, Richard Sulivan noted that while he was touring Derbyshire in 1778, his guide told him that ‘if you have a mind “to see Lord Scarsdale’s [i.e. Kedleston], you must go “directly; it is now noon, and travellers “have admittance but from ten till two’; according to another tourist, this was because ‘of the family dining at 3 o’clock’.96 An edition of the guidebook to Blenheim (1789) gives the following information: ‘BLENHEIM may be seen every afternoon from three to five o’clock, except on Sundays … The Park and Gardens, on proper application, will be shewn at any hour of the day, except during the time of divine service on Sunday.’97 As at Kedleston, these opening hours suited the family’s schedule: Richardson noted that when she visited in 1770, ‘the Family were at Home & at Dinner (the only time the House is allow’d to be seen)’.98 At Corsham, the regular days for showing the picture collection were Tuesdays and Fridays, and visitors were advised that ‘the best time for seeing them is between the hours of ten and four’.99 Arrangements like these were not set in stone, however: although at Blenheim the house could supposedly be seen on Sundays only ‘by particular favour’, when Amelia Clark visited in 1796, she and her party were initially told that the house was never shown on a Sunday, but they ‘wrote to the duke to desire he would permit us to see the house, along with some foreigners that were there, and he very politely gave us leave to see the whole inside’.100 Similarly, Johanna Schopenhauer found that Woburn Abbey ‘is open to the public on Mondays only and we were lucky on this occasion to be admitted’.101 Exceptions notwithstanding, by determining that tourists could usually only visit at certain times, owners emphasized the impersonal nature of the practice. Mavor, British, II, 318. Richard Joseph Sulivan, A Tour through Parts of England, Scotland, and Wales, in 1778, 2nd edn, 2 vols (London: T. Becket, 1785), II, 38. Devon Record Office, 961M-1/F/12, ‘Journal, Tour of Scotland’, 1795. 97 William Mavor, New Description of Blenheim, 2nd edn (London: T. Cadell, 1789), x. 98 The University of Manchester Library, GB 133 Eng MSS 1123. 99 John Britton, An Historical Account of Corsham House (London: Printed for the Author, 1806), ‘ADVERTISEMENT’ page. 100 National Library of Ireland, Ms 20, 885, ‘Journal of a Tour by Rev. William Bruce in Ireland and England’, June–August 1784. Uncle John Carr, 56. 101 A Lady Travels: Journeys in England and Scotland from the Diaries of Johanna Schopenhauer, trans. Ruth Michaelis-Jena and Willy Merson (London: Routledge, 1988), 7. 95 96

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Some houses also had rules about tourists’ behaviour. Describing a visit to Stourhead, Louis Simond reported that when he and one of his companions sat down to get a better look at a painting, ‘a young girl who showed the house, told us as civilly as she could, that it was the rule of the house not to allow visitors to sit down’; this was a rule he had not encountered anywhere else, though it seems likely that houses known for fast tours did not allow visitors to sit either.102 Popular gardens also had rules: when Catherine Hutton went to Studley Royal (North Yorkshire; commonly referred to as Studley in the eighteenth century) in 1806, she found that ‘no horse or carriage is allowed’, and that the promise of money had no effect on the gardener; it was only on sending a note to the house that she was eventually granted permission to ride, and discovered that the garden walks were ‘as smooth as a floor … every trace of wheel or horse must be speedily effaced by the gardener and his assistants’.103 The institution of rules like these was something of an extreme measure, one which suggests that the number of tourists had the potential to be disruptive. At some houses, owners elected to have inns built to accommodate visitors. One of the earliest was at Stowe (Figure 1.4), where Viscount Cobham had an inn built in 1717; when one visitor arrived there in 1815, he not only found the inn a good one, he observed that in addition, ‘parties are allowed to take picnic dinners as they please in any of them [i.e. the garden temples] & in this aspect the Marquis is particularly liberal, as he allows the house & grounds to be seen at any time.’104 The inn at Stowe was exceptional for its time, but later in the eighteenth century, inns became more common. In 1756, the Earl of Carlisle had the architect Sir Thomas Robinson build wings on to either side of the massive arch Vanbrugh had designed for the approach to Castle Howard in order to create an inn.105 Nathaniel Curzon, first Baron Scarsdale, the owner of Kedleston, chose to build an inn near the gate to his park.106 In 1802, Mary Russell praised the inn at Hawkstone (Shropshire) for exceptional comfort and elegance (Figure 1.5): we found the inn very pleasantly situated close to the park so that it seemed to stand in it – It had more the appearance of a Gentlemans house than an Inn & we found it equally neat & well furnished within as its outward appearance seemed to indicate – we had a very comfortable pleasant sitting room up stairs which to the back looked to a bowling green.107 Louis Simond, Journal of a Tour and Residence in Great Britain, 2 vols (Edinburgh: George Ramsay and Company, 1815), I, 199. 103 Reminiscences of a Gentlewoman of the Last Century: Letters of Catherine Hutton, ed. Catherine Hutton Beale (Birmingham: Cornish Brothers, 1891), 151. 104 Essex Record Office, D/DLu 7/1, ‘Journal […] Description of Excursions to Cambridge and Yorkshire’, c. 1815. 105 Ian Ousby, The Englishman’s England: Taste, Travel and the Rise of Tourism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 54. 106 John Britton and Edward Wedlake Brayley, The Beauties of England and Wales, Volume III (London: Vernor & Hood, 1802), 410. 107 Gloucestershire Archives, D388/F1-10, ‘M.S. Journals of Mary Russell [“A Journal of a Tour … through Cheshire, Shropshire and Denbighshire”]’, c. 1802. 102

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Figure 1.4  The New Inn at Stowe. © National Trust Images/Chris Lacey.

Figure 1.5  W. Bowley, ‘Hawkstone Inn and Hotel’, illustration from T. Rodenhurst, A Description of Hawkstone, 10th edn, London: John Stockdale, 1811, engraving, 12 × 6.6 cm. Collection Centre Canadien d’Architecture/Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal, gift of Phyllis Lambert.

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Similarly, when Richard Fenton visited Stourhead in 1807, he wrote ‘I had often heard of the inn … being delightfully situated, and well conducted; but I found it exceed every expectation that could have been raised; for when I opened my windows in the morning, it was like magic.’108 Like the formalizing of visitors’ experiences and opening times, an inn distanced tourists from the family, in this case by ensuring that tourists no longer rested or took refreshments within the house itself. At the same time, it was also a significant commitment to welcoming tourists to the estate. All of these choices are fundamentally methods of accommodation, but there is also limited evidence to suggest that some owners had begun to consider their houses and art collections as objects held in keeping for the public, as opposed to merely personal property. One of the most revealing anecdotes in this regard is the Duke of Marlborough’s acquisition of Samuel Spalding’s porcelain collection. In 1793, Spalding, who had formed ‘an immense collection’ of pieces from China and Japan, wrote to the Duchess of Marlborough about the possibility of selling his collection to the duke.109 He specified a number of conditions in relation to this offer, such as the construction of a special gallery in which to display the collection, the most interesting of which was a request that the duke ‘so order it that his Heirs may never impair the collection or remove it from Blenheim, unless to give it to some public Museum, Corporation, University or any Body of Men in a public character who will preserve it in the same manner for the Admiration of Posterity’.110 In writing this letter, Spalding was behaving as if Blenheim was equivalent to a major museum; that the duke chose to acquire the collection on these terms indicates that he was willing to act in this capacity. Similarly, when James Plumptre went to Oakover (now known as Okeover Hall, Staffordshire) to see the house’s famous Raphael painting, he noted ‘the fine painting above mentioned was left by the late Mr Oakover to the family, with this condition, that it should be shewn to whoever came to see it.’111 As with the Duke of Marlborough’s response to the porcelain, this anecdote suggests that this family viewed tourists’ visits to their house as a permanent practice. When a house was firmly established as a tourist attraction, either the owner or an opportunistic writer or publisher might publish a guidebook to it. Because people normally waited until visitor numbers made it advantageous to have a guidebook, few were published before 1760, and at most houses, when they were published, they codified and expanded on existing remaking practices (such as routines developed by housekeepers). Today, these guidebooks allow us to explore more precisely what tourists viewed when they toured these houses: by presenting what was effectively an idealized, official account of a house, they reveal what tourists were typically shown Richard Fenton, A Tour in Quest of Genealogy (London: Sherwood, Neely, and Jones, 1811), 179. British Library, Add MS 61672, ‘Correspondence and Papers of the 4th Duke of Marlborough and His Wife’, 1761–1814 (letter dated 20 December 1793), f. 177. I was directed to this letter by Jeri Bapasola, Mr. Spalding’s Gift: The Oriental Porcelain Collection at Blenheim Palace (Oxford: Alden Press, 2003), 3. 110 British Library, Add MS 61672, f. 177. 111 James Plumptre’s Britain: The Journals of a Tourist in the 1790s, ed. Ian Ousby (London: Hutchinson, 1992), 63. 108 109

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during their visits, what they were expected to admire and even what they were encouraged to ignore. The site-specific guidebook was a new type of travel publication in the eighteenth century so there are numerous differences between country-house guidebooks from the period, but they do share important characteristics in terms of their authorship, purpose and form. Most early guidebook authors likely had a close connection to the owners of the houses they were writing about. Practical issues ensured that the owner was a strong presence within the text: realistically, almost no one could write a guidebook without some assistance from the owner, such as access to a private catalogue which identified paintings. Furthermore, even if an author did not require the owner’s help, which might have been the case if an author had decided to rely heavily on passages from other publications, it was hardly advisable to publish without the owner’s permission; after all, guidebooks were most useful if they were sold at or near the country house itself, and such a business depended on the cooperation of the owner and/or his tenants. Some guidebook authors were in fact owners, often men who were exceptionally interested in their houses and art collections; Kedleston (first published 1769), for example, was written by Lord Scarsdale, who was responsible for purchasing many of the art works on display and for rebuilding Kedleston itself.112 Other guidebook authors were professional writers, and two of these men have left more detailed evidence of their relationships with the owners of the houses they were writing about. Mavor, who was the author of Blenheim (first published 1787) as well as the editor of The British Tourists, relied heavily on the patronage of the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough and their friends to further his career, and he appears to have consulted the Marlborough family about the text of his book, which he first published as a supplement to a lengthy poem about the house.113 As he prepared his manuscript, he wrote to the duke’s agent in September 1786 to seek his advice on the duke’s feelings about the dedication. [I] have taken the Liberty to submit the Inscription to your Inspection, which I hope will appear unexceptionable. Should you be of Opinion I have presumed too far in thinking that I might say in the Title Page, ‘Inscribed, by Permission, to their Graces the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough’. [I] hope you will be pleased to signify it: but if on the Contrary, you see no Impropriety in what I intend, I shall rest satisfied without troubling you for an Answer. I am truly ashamed to apply so frequently about my trifling Concerns; but I am too well convinced of your Benevolence, to doubt your readiness to direct the unexperienced.114

Mavor evidently wanted to ensure that his book met with the Marlboroughs’ approval, and moreover that his readers knew that it had. More importantly, the phrase ‘to apply Leslie Harris, ‘The Picture Collection at Kedleston Hall’, The Connoisseur 198, no. 797 (1978): 217. Elizabeth Mavor, ‘Mavor, William Fordyce (1758–1837)’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edn, ed. Lawrence Goldman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), (accessed 30 June 2010). 114 British Library, Add MS 61674, ‘Letter from William Mavor to Thomas Walker [the fourth Duke of Marlborough’s Agent]’, 9 September 1786. 112 113

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so frequently’ suggests that although this is the only surviving letter from Mavor which deals with his book, he may have written several over the course of its preparation, and the recipient’s ‘readiness to direct’ suggests that Mavor did receive some advice, almost as if the duke and his agent acted as editors. Given their contributions and Mavor’s other professional connections to the family, we can safely assume that Blenheim is, if not a direct transcription of the duke’s views on his house, collections and estate, certainly nothing he would have taken issue with. John Britton, the author of Corsham (1806), had a somewhat different relationship with the owner of that house, Paul Cobb Methuen. Corsham and Methuen were not nearly as exalted as Blenheim and the Duke of Marlborough, and Britton’s connection to the family was temporary. His motivations for preparing the Corsham guide were relatively straightforward: ‘Familiar with the Gallery [at Corsham], and observing the success which had attended the Catalogues, or Guides, to the still more famous collections at Blenheim, and at Wilton, it occurred to Mr. Britton that some account of Corsham House, with a Descriptive Catalogue of the pictures, would be interesting to the public, and remunerative to the author.’115 In this excerpt from his autobiography, Britton describes the Corsham guidebook as the result of his own initiative, a response to and a desire to take advantage of a growing market for a new kind of book. Nonetheless, in the guidebook he acknowledged that while writing, he had been ‘regulated by the catalogue made out by Sir Paul Methuen’, the owner’s father.116 In fact, when the book was published, one reviewer claimed that ‘The proprietor has, with much good sense, prompted no doubt by a liberal attention to the convenience of his visitors, employed Mr. Britton, in drawing up a catalogue.’117 However the project began, Corsham is a perfect demonstration of how even the most professional writer was forced to rely on an owner’s goodwill in order for his book to appear to have accurate information. In their presentation, many guidebooks were explicit about their intention to be useful to travellers. It is worth quoting the introduction to the Mount Edgcumbe guidebook (1812) at length: The following pages were written, not so much with a design of giving a full and accurate description of Mount-Edgcumbe, as to furnish a Guide for the numerous strangers who visit that celebrated spot, and who may wish to take a complete survey of the various beauties in which it abounds. Many persons of real taste and curiosity, for want of a conductor to direct them in their walk round the grounds, and to explain the different views, arrive at only a small portion of the place, see they know not what, and feel dissatisfied at last with having seen and known so little. To supply that deficiency, is the object of this book.118 John Britton, Auto-Biography, Part Second, ed. T. E. Jones (London: Printed for the Author, 1849), 17. 116 Britton, Corsham, ‘ADVERTISEMENT’ page. 117 ‘Art. XX. [Review of] An Historical Account of Corsham House’, The Annual Review, and History of Literature 5 (1807): 480. 118 Mount-Edgcumbe, 3. 115

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This passage outlines a programme implicit in the content of most eighteenthcentury country-house guidebooks. Firstly, it declares itself to be for strangers, establishing that the prospective visitor need not have any particular connection to the house or its residents; it is not a book published solely for the pleasure of the owner and his friends. It claims it will act as a conductor, describing the spaces of the gardens. It emphasizes that it is concerned with providing visitors with information about the site that is both accurate and comprehensive. It indicates that it will ‘explain the different views’, preparing the reader to expect description and discussion beyond simple identifications of objects. Finally, it identifies its readers as people of ‘taste and curiosity’, two qualities which justify the inclusion of as much information about and discussion of the site as the author is inclined to provide. Similar principles guided the vast majority of country-house guidebooks published in the long eighteenth century, albeit with adaptations for books which described the insides of houses. Given their shared purpose, country-house guidebooks typically also shared physical characteristics. It was because so many guidebooks were compact, relatively cheap and available to purchase locally that tourists were able to read them while visiting houses and to relate the text to the objects they saw. In terms of their size, they tended to be reasonably small; Table 1.1 gives some indication of the limited range of sizes they came in. With their small size, even the longest and most elaborate guidebooks were relatively lightweight; surviving original bindings indicate that at least some (and likely many) guidebooks were bound in paper or cardboard, making them very lightweight (Figure 1.6). Because guidebooks were small and (usually) un-precious, they would have been convenient for travellers to carry around. These physical qualities also made guidebooks cheaper. The tacit entrance fee to a country house, specifically the tip for the housekeeper, was theoretically at a tourist’s discretion, but the usual expectation was that they would offer a tip somewhere between a shilling and half a crown (any additional guide, such as a gardener, would expect their own tip).119 The price of a guidebook was often about the same (see Table 1.2). Stowe’s immense popularity enabled its guidebook to be offered in different bindings, and therefore, at different prices: Stowe: A Description

Table 1.1  Country-house guidebook sizes Guidebook Stowe: A Description of the Magnificent House and Gardens (1769) New Description of Blenheim (1800) A Description of the House and Gardens at Stourhead (1800) A Walk Round Mount-Edgcumbe (1812) A Descriptive Catalogue of the Pictures at Castle-Howard (1814)

Tinniswood, Country, 97.

119

Dimensions (cm) 11.4 × 18.0 × 0.8 9.8 × 16.8 × 0.9 10.0 × 17.0 × 0.3 10.0 × 16.9 × 0.3 9.8 × 15.8 × 0.2

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Figure 1.6  William Mavor, New Description of Blenheim, 3rd edn, London: T. Cadell, 1793, 11.8 × 19 × 1.3 cm. Collection Centre Canadien d’Architecture/Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal.

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Table 1.2  Country-house guidebook prices Guidebook A Description of the House and Gardens at Stourhead (1800) A Description of Hawkstone (1799) A Catalogue of the Pictures at Cowdray-House (1777) A New Description of the Pictures, Statues, Bustos, Basso-Relievos, and Other Curiosities in the Earl of Pembroke’s House, at Wilton (1774) New Description of Blenheim (1789) A Walk Round Mount-Edgcumbe (1807)

Price (a) 1s. 1s. 6d. 2s. 2s. 6d. 3s. 1s.

(a) Sir Richard Colt Hoare, A Description of the House and Gardens at Stourhead (Salisbury: J. Easton, 1800), page preceding title page. T. Rodenhurst, A Description of Hawkstone, 6th edn (London: John Stockdale, 1799), title page. A Catalogue of the Pictures at Cowdray-House (Portsmouth: R. Carr, 1777), title page. James Kennedy, A New Description of the Pictures, Statues, Bustos, Basso-Relievos, and Other Curiosities in the Earl of Pembroke’s House, at Wilton, 6th edn (Salisbury: E. Easton, 1774), title page. ‘Art. 15. [Review of] New Description of Blenheim’, The English Review 14 (1789): 309. ‘Monthly List of New Publications’, The Athenaeum 2 (1807): 628.

of the Magnificent House and Gardens (1777) was available text only for 6d., with a plan of the gardens for 1s., with plans of the gardens and house for 1s. 6d., with all the plans and illustrations of views half bound for 4s. and with all the plans and views, bound and gilt, for 5s.120 While these prices placed guidebooks beyond many people’s means, they were not prohibitively expensive for the people who could afford to visit the house. Not surprisingly, most country-house guidebooks were sold relatively close to the houses themselves. On his visit to Wilton in July 1778, Sulivan described buying one on arrival at the house, recalling that ‘after the purchase of a catalogue, and the entrance of our names in the porter’s book, we proceeded’; in 1795, John Ferrar found that at Blenheim, ‘A good description of the place, with a view and ground plan is sold’.121 Other popular houses, such as Hawkstone and Stowe, relied on the nearby inns to sell guidebooks.122 Tellingly, some of the larger guidebooks, including the guides to Stowe, Wilton, Blenheim, Burghley and Corsham, were also sold in London at shops such as those of Cadell and Davies on the Strand, and John Stockdale in Piccadilly. Both of these stores were extremely successful and prestigious bookshops that catered to the wealthy, and many of their customers were people who might have made or been planning to make a tour; at the same time, like travel narratives, these guidebooks may also have been purchased by people who never intended to visit the houses in question.123

Benton Seeley, Stowe: A Description of the Magnificent House and Gardens, 17th edn (Buckingham: B. Seeley, 1777), 3. 121 Sulivan, Tour, I, 169. John Ferrar, A Tour from Dublin to London, in 1795 (Dublin: s. n., 1796), 44. 122 T. Rodenhurst, A Description of Hawkstone, 6th edn (London: John Stockdale, 1799), title page. Seeley, Stowe, 1777, title page. 123 James Raven, The Business of Books (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007), 159, 189. 120

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The clearest evidence of how people responded to guidebooks comes from publications: several of the longer and more ambitious guidebooks were discussed in monthly and annual literary reviews. Although these reviews only cover a select few of the guidebooks, their comments indicate how they expected readers to use them, and they frequently commented on the general usefulness of guidebooks to travellers. In discussing Stourhead (1800), a writer for the Critical Review declared that as these gardens were now considered ‘well worthy the attention of the curious traveller’, ‘In order to render a visit … more agreeable, the present little manual is submitted to the public.’124 Similarly, a reviewer commenting on Burghley (1797) in the Analytical Review argued that ‘This little volume will prove a very serviceable companion to such as may be disposed to visit the noble mansion, the treasures of which are here circumstantially enumerated.’125 Another reviewer of this book, this one writing for the New Annual Register, claimed that although he was ‘frequently disgusted by his [i.e. Horn’s] affectation in sentiment and language’, he could ‘recommend it as an useful companion to those who may visit’.126 In 1818, in a book on Shropshire, Joseph Nightingale referred his readers to Hawkstone and recounted that the book had ‘gone through nine editions, and … is in general request by all strangers visiting Hawkstone’.127 Taken together, these reviews strongly suggest that however unlike their modern equivalents, eighteenth-century guidebooks fulfilled essentially the same function: they were meant to be carried around houses and to provide information during and after visits. Tourists’ own writings further indicate that guidebooks were both souvenirs and informative aides. When the Honourable James Bucknall Grimston visited Stowe in 1769, he recorded that ‘a mean and incomplete description of this Place would be unworthy of it, a proper one is out of my Power to give I therefore must refer my reader to a small Book we purchas’d at Buckingham which will give an adequate Idea of the unparall’d Chain of natural and artificial Beauties of this Place’.128 When he went to Stowe in 1777, Oliver also consulted the guidebook, for similar reasons: To give a particular Detail of the Beauties of this Seat … is too arduous a Task for a Spectator, who hath had but a few Hours of Observation: the whole hath been already done by those who have had not only Taste but Time to describe them minutely. – a very descriptive Account is given in a Book, entitled Stowe: a Description & c., where the House, Gardens & all their Objects are well engraved & convey a compleat Idea of the whole.129 ‘Art. 56. [Review of] A Description of the House and Gardens at Stourhead’, The Critical Review 32 (1801): 358. 125 ‘Art. X. [Review of] A History or Description, General and Circumstantial, of Burghley House’, The Analytical Review 26 (1797): 119. 126 ‘Domestic Literature of the Year 1797’, The New Annual Register 18 (1798): 272. 127 Joseph Nightingale, Shropshire; or Original Delineations, Topographical, Historical, and Descriptive, of that County (London: J. Harris, 1818), 292. 128 Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies, D/EV/F15, ‘Journal of a Tour to Wales’ [by Hon. James Bucknall Grimston, later 3rd Viscount Grimston], 1769. 129 British Library, Egerton MS 2673. 124

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In 1802, as she was describing her visit to Hawkstone, Russell recorded in her journal that ‘As we now procured a description of everything worth notice in these grounds lately published I shall only slightly mention what we saw, as the book may any time be referred to’; for her, the guidebook was as much a souvenir as it was a guide for the visit.130 Apart from the pleasures of a personal memento, all of these writers imply that they intended to share their guidebooks alongside their diaries, a function which further reveals the extent to which a guidebook could circulate its description of a country house.

* * * Eighteenth-century country-house tourists were not simply travellers who happened to visit a country house and admire its architecture, art works or gardens. They would usually have been people of wide-ranging interests, committed to seeking out experiences that were both educational and entertaining. They would not necessarily have had any expert knowledge of art, architecture or design, but thanks to the increasing number of travel books available, they would have had some idea of what to expect from each house they went to. They expected to be admitted to and shown around country houses, and they understood that there were expectations of them as well: they had to arrive at the appropriate time, they had to tip the servants and they might have to obey rules. If they were fortunate, there would be an inn where they could have dinner or stay the night, and there would be a guidebook which offered accurate and detailed information about the house and grounds. Familiarity with all these procedures and possibilities would have ensured that tourists arrived at a house deeply conscious of their position in relation to it: neither resident nor guest, they came to country houses as spectators, and this unique position was at the heart of their encounters with everything they saw.

Gloucestershire Archives, D388/F1-10.

130

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‘A Sumptuous Pile of Building’: Remaking the Sights and Spaces of the House

The house has a considerable extent of front; the body is large, & there are four wings. The whole is remarkably light, especially the south front, which is adorned with a handsome portico; in the north front are a great number of Venetian windows. – Sir Robert D’Arcy Hildyard, at Holkham in 17811 At any estate, the country house itself is the focal centre of the site, and it demands visitors’ attention no matter what other attractions the estate might have. Today, visitors to country houses often take it as a given that the buildings they are touring have some architectural significance: the vast majority are listed by Historic England, and it is reasonably common to inform visitors when the house was built, which architect designed it, which architectural style it represents and whether or not the building has had substantial alterations. In the eighteenth century, however, this type of information was far less familiar to travel writers and tourists. It was not necessarily publicized in travel books or provided by the guides to the house, and the extent to which travel writers and tourists were even interested in the architectural possibilities presented by the country house as a building type varied far more than interests in art collections and gardens. At one extreme were those with a special interest in architecture: for example, in his Tour through the Southern Counties, Arthur Young concluded that no house I have yet seen is perfect by many degrees. Suppose one was to be formed out of all these; take the shell of Holkham, and imagine it to contain Blenheim hall and library, Wilton saloon, Wanstead ball-room and large dining-room; besides every thing it has already, it would be infinitely finer than it is; but still it would want a music-room and a picture-gallery.2

East Riding Archives and Local Studies, ERALS DDHI/58/19/4, ‘England and Scotland Journal of Sir Robert D’Arcy Hildyard’, 1781–83 (1781). The phrase in the chapter title is from Staffordshire Record Office, D(W)1778/V/1110, ‘Journal of a Tour of the North of England by the Hon. H. Legge’, 3 vols, 1787, I. 2 Arthur Young, A Six Weeks Tour through the Southern Counties of England and Wales (London: W. Nicoll, 1768), 281–2. 1

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In attempting to construct the ideal house, Young was very unusual. William Ord’s approach was the complete opposite: after visiting Kedleston in 1812, he and his party came to the resolution ‘that it appears to this company that a great House unless there are the additional attractions of Pictures or other works of art is not worth the trouble of going to see’.3 Many visitors took a position somewhere between these two extremes: most travel writers made some sort of comment about the houses they went to, and many tourists made brief remarks about their impressions of the building. Treating the country house as an architectural subject presented something of a challenge for travel writers because unlike the art collections which became popular with tourists, the buildings themselves were highly heterogeneous, making it difficult to adopt consistent modes of describing them. By the middle of the eighteenth century, the country houses which had become popular with tourists consisted of a group of houses which had relatively little in common as works of architecture. Knole had been built in the early 1600s and was already recognized as an historic site; the construction of Houghton had only begun c. 1722. Castle Howard and Blenheim were normally acknowledged to have been designed by Sir John Vanbrugh, whose work was not much admired by the middle of the eighteenth century; Kedleston and Stowe were only occasionally acknowledged as displaying designs by Robert Adam, whose work was highly popular in the 1760s and 1770s. The design of Stourhead was fairly straightforward and could theoretically be described very easily; the design of Burghley was so complicated, it seemed to defy description altogether. Hardly any tourists deliberately sought out country houses according to a specific date, architect or style: they visited houses for a multitude of reasons, and they had to engage with whatever architecture they happened to encounter. The heterogeneity of the country houses which were popular with tourists also presented something of a problem in that one thing which united many of them was their scale. For eighteenth-century travel writers and tourists, Blenheim was not the only house which might be referred to as a palace. The Complete English Traveller (1771), for example, described Chatsworth as ‘the noble and magnificent palace of his Grace the Duke of Devonshire’.4 The eighth edition of Daniel Defoe’s Tour (1778) described Holkham as ‘the seat, or rather palace, of Thomas Wenman Coke’.5 In 1795, in recounting a visit to Alnwick, Henry Skrine labelled it ‘the most superb palace any country can boast’.6 Visiting Burghley in 1775, Anthony Hamond referred to it as ‘The noble Palace of the Earl of Exeter’.7 Still another, travelling in 1786, recounted that ‘in spite of Weather we contriv’d to see Lord Scarsdale’s celebrated Palace [i.e. Kedleston]’.8 Even more tellingly than these individual examples, some works spoke of Northumberland Archives, NRO 324/A.10, ‘Tour thro’ Oxfordshire, Derbyshire &c.’, 1812. Robert Sanders, The Complete English Traveller (London: J. Cooke, 1771), 499. 5 Daniel Defoe, A Tour through the Island of Great Britain, 8th edn, 4 vols (London: W. Strahan, 1778), I, 63. 6 Henry Skrine, Three Successive Tours in the North of England (London: W. Bulmer and Co., 1795), 75. 7 Norfolk Record Office, HMN 4/36, ‘Diary (First Volume Only) Starting from Cambridge of Tour in Yorkshire, Durham, Northumberland, the Lake District and North Wales’, 1775. 8 Gloucestershire Archives, D421/F18, ‘The Western and Northern Tour of 1786’. 3 4

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palaces as a category; for example, the subtitle of Defoe’s Tour promised observations on ‘The Publick Edifices, Seats, and Palaces of the Nobility and Gentry’.9 Most of these houses were very large buildings, and some travel writers routinely reminded readers of their scale by noting measurements of rooms and other building dimensions: A Complete System of Geography (1747), for instance, described Houghton as ‘a House of State and Conveniency fit for a Prince. The general Plan and Front of the House, and Offices, extend to four hundred and fifty Feet. The great Hall is a Circle of forty Feet; the Salon forty Feet by thirty, and all the other Rooms in the four great Apartments are eighteen Foot high’.10 Yet despite the clear attraction of grand buildings, a tourist could not praise a house purely on the grounds that it was large. Overwhelming expenditure alone was not admirable; travelling in Norfolk in 1742, Joanna Carter observed that although Houghton was richer, Holkham was ‘in a much better taste’.11 Similarly, Richard Sulivan, on seeing Wentworth Woodhouse, concluded that ‘though large, and of a fair appearance, [it] has nothing above the common stile to recommend it to consideration’.12 Clearly, some aesthetic criteria were necessary – and the more malleable the better. The most prominent eighteenth-century publications to be promoting the aesthetic significance of country houses were illustrated volumes published by architects. Colen Campbell published the first volume of Vitruvius Britannicus in 1715, and it included elevations and plans of Chatsworth, Blenheim and Castle Howard; subsequent volumes, published by Campbell in 1717 and 1725 and by James Gandon and John Woolfe in 1767 and 1771 included many more houses. The first monograph on the architecture of a single country house was Isaac Ware’s The Plans, Elevations, and Sections; ChimneyPieces, and Cielings of Houghton in Norfolk (1735): likely initiated by Thomas Ripley, one of the architects who had worked on Houghton and Ware’s former master, it featured twenty-eight illustrations of Sir Robert Walpole’s magnificent new residence.13 By the middle of the eighteenth century, more architects were publishing volumes of their own designs: James Paine’s Plans, Elevations and Sections, of Noblemen and Gentlemen’s Houses appeared in 1767 and The Works in Architecture of Robert and James Adam began appearing in 1773. While all these books certainly contributed to the fame of the houses they represented, they would have had limited relevance for many tourists: they were all expensive books (often sold through subscriptions), they were all large folio volumes which would have been highly impractical to travel with and, perhaps most significantly, as books of orthographic engravings, they often contained relatively little Daniel Defoe, A Tour Thro’ the Whole Island of Great Britain, 3rd edn, 4 vols (London: J. Osborn, 1742), title page. 10 Emanuel Bowen, A Complete System of Geography, 2 vols (London: William Innys, 1747), I, 169. 11 Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies, D/X1069/2/119, ‘Letter by Joanna Carter’, 3 October 1742. 12 Richard Joseph Sulivan, A Tour through Parts of England, Scotland, and Wales, in 1778, 2nd edn, 2 vols (London: T. Becket, 1785), II, 258. 13 John Harris, ‘The Architecture of the House’, in Houghton Hall: The Prime Minister, the Empress and the Heritage, ed. Andrew Moore (London: Philip Wilson Publishers, 1996), 24. Eileen Harris, British Architectural Books and Writers, 1556–1785 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 468. The Mark J. Millard Architectural Collection, Volume II: British Books, Seventeenth through Nineteenth Centuries (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1998), 332. 9

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verbal description of the houses. Ultimately, these books appear to have had relatively little influence on how travel writers and tourists understood and reflected on the architecture of country houses. Instead, when visitors to country houses focused their attention on the buildings they were viewing, a wide range of more informal approaches emerged. On a practical level, the house was usually one of the first sights a tourist saw, whether they were entering it to view the interior or going straight to the gardens, and a multitude of texts and images prepared tourists to admire the sight of the house, a mode of viewing which was different from consideration of its architectural design and history. The latter topics were presented to tourists less frequently, and when they were, they were normally written about in relation to the idea of good taste. Although what good taste looked like proved difficult to define in many cases, when it came to public buildings and grand country houses, polite society had largely reached a consensus: architecture inspired by classical antiquity was in good taste, and it signified social distinction and élite knowledge; alternative styles, such as Gothic Revival, were normally considered more appropriate for smaller buildings and spaces, such as villas, garden temples or interiors, or for restorations of Gothic buildings.14 Yet even in this context, information about façades of country houses could be framed in any number of ways to encourage the tourist to view a house as a building of good taste. When it came to describing the inside of the house, the visitor’s experience was paramount, and tourists’ knowledge of the arrangement of space and the architectural planning was normally defined by the routes they took around the space rather than by any architectural goals which had defined the plan of the house. By celebrating the sight of the house, by pointing out its architectural features selectively and by zeroing in on the visitor’s route through the interior, descriptions of country houses written for and by tourists transformed country houses as spaces and deftly remade their public identities such that they became legible for visitors.

Striking at a distance: The tourist’s view of the country house Throughout the eighteenth century, many travel writers encouraged their readers to appreciate the view of the house within the landscape. In the descriptions they provided, they often emphasized how the house appeared from a distance, surrounded by its gardens and/or park. In all such passages, the reader is expected to enjoy the visual pleasure of the sight of the building, a mode of viewing which is quite different than one which encourages architectural analysis: it was entirely possible for a house to be admired as an impressive sight and at the same time be strongly criticized for its architectural design. This was particularly significant for country houses designed by Sir John Vanbrugh: the architecture of these houses was often criticized in the strongest possible terms, but even his harshest attackers Viccy Coltman, Fabricating the Antique: Neoclassicism in Britain, 1760–1800 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 39–64.

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sometimes allowed that the houses were impressive at a distance. These assessments are indicative of the extent to which viewers’ reactions were informed by the contemporary taste for antique-inspired architecture, and of how the idea of the sight of the house could render taste less important, making it possible for tourists to admire a house even if they did not believe its design was in good taste. Well prepared by both travel books’ and artists’ depictions of country houses, many travellers simply wanted to see a house. The pleasure of the sight of a house within its situation in a landscape setting was routinely celebrated by travel writers. For those who presented their texts as personal narratives, the approach to a house was a convenient, and sometimes dramatic, way to begin a description of a visit. Daniel Defoe’s Tour, for instance, provides readers with a succinct history of Chatsworth before quickly moving to the situation of the house: ‘Nothing can be more surprising of its Kind, to a Traveler … when, after a tedious Progress thro’ such a dismal Desert, on a sudden the Guide brings him to this Precipice, where he looks down from a comfortless, barren, and, as he thought, endless Moor, into the most delightful Valley, and sees a beautiful Palace.’15 In this account, it is several paragraphs before the reader is given any information about what the house actually looks like. Similarly, in describing Nuneham-Courtenay, Rev. Stebbing Shaw noted it was on ‘the side of a rich hill, and encompassed with an extensive park well wooded, the softly flowing Isis meandering at a proper distance in the meadows below. A sweeter situation could scarce be found for such a piece of architecture’; he then commented that the approach ‘gives an idea of nothing more than a small plain gentleman’s seat’, but he made no further remarks about the exterior of the building.16 When Richard Sulivan wrote about Fonthill, he also stressed the process of arrival: ‘On entering these grounds, there is nothing remarkable that strikes a traveller … you suddenly turn to the left, which leads you to the back-front of the house. The appearance of this building, when you approach it, is certainly grand.’17 For Sulivan, the first sight of a house was so important to the narratives of his visits that he often referred to it as the ‘open’.18 While it is certainly rational for a personal narrative to emphasize the moment of arrival, it is critical that in all these passages, attention to the specific architectural features or the overall design of the house in question is entirely subordinated to the effect of house and setting. Tourists’ expectations of the sights of houses were also informed by imagery, and images of country houses could seamlessly elide house and estate more powerfully than any text, be they paintings or prints. By the middle of the eighteenth century, painters depicting country houses were increasingly creating images based on a single viewpoint looking towards a house rather than a bird’s eye view over it. In the 1730s, the artist George Lambert introduced an innovative mode of portraying country houses Daniel Defoe, A Tour thro’ the Whole Island of Great Britain, 4th edn, 4 vols (London: S. Birt, 1748), III, 93. 16 Stebbing Shaw, A Tour to the West of England, in 1788 (London: Robson and Clarke, 1789), 96–7. 17 Sulivan, Tour, I, 126–7. 18 See, for example, Sulivan, Tour, I, 91. 15

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in which the scene took precedence over the house itself, such that the house might be a small part of the composition, even if it was the nominal subject, and this strategy would remain popular well into the nineteenth century.19 These types of depictions of country houses often showed a house from a distance, such that it was pushed to the middle of the composition, or from an angle, such that it became a framing device for a view of the estate. In most instances, these images showed parks filled with lush trees and greenery, and rich blue skies with mellow light and clouds; some artists seem to have adapted motifs and lighting from Italian landscapes, such as those by Gaspard Dughet.20 The idyllic nature of these scenes could be further emphasized by including landowners or a couple estate workers in the foreground, more as pastoral staffage than as actual depictions of estate work. These types of paintings were often commissioned by landowners for their own collections, but they were also well known to the public. Some were shown in exhibitions: Paul Sandby exhibited a view of NunehamCourtenay in 1760, George Barret exhibited a view of Welbeck (Nottinghamshire) in 1766 and William Marlow exhibited a view of Chatsworth in 1770 and four views of Castle Howard in 1772, all at the Society of Artists.21 Far more, however, were engraved as prints. Prints of views of country houses were published in sets, in series and as illustrations in books and periodicals. A single composition might appear in a number of these modes; for example, Thomas Smith of Derby’s view of Chatsworth was first offered as part of a subscription in 1744 when Francis Vivares (also known as François Vivarez) published proposals for a pair of views (of Chatsworth and Haddon, another wellknown house in Derbyshire) for 7s. 6d. (Figure 2.1); it was reissued in 1766 and 1786, and similar views were engraved for The Complete English Traveller and A New Display of the Beauties of England (1776).22 Given that some of the period’s most successful printsellers acquired views of country houses, they most likely sold well, and the re-use of compositions ensured that they circulated widely.23 For those who could afford prints, they were relatively inexpensive: when John Boydell published four views of Blenheim in 1752, they sold for 4s.24 Views in series were marketed as reasonably priced luxury products: the advertisement for The Virtuosi’s Museum

John Harris, The Artist and the Country House from the Fifteenth Century to the Present Day (London: Sotheby’s, 1995), 16. 20 John Harris, The Artist and the Country House: A History of Country House and Garden View Painting in Britain, 1540–1870 (London: Sotheby Parke Bernet, 1979), 246. 21 A Catalogue of the Pictures, Sculptures, Models, Drawings, Prints, &c. of the Present Artists (London: s. n., 1760), 7. A Catalogue of the Pictures, Sculptures, Designs in Architecture, Models, Drawings, Prints, &c. Exhibited by the Society of Artists of Great-Britain (London: William Bunce, 1766), 3. A Catalogue of the Pictures, Sculptures, Models, Designs in Architecture, Drawings, Prints, &c. Exhibited at the Great Room, in Spring-Garden, Charing-Cross (London: s. n., 1770), 8. A Catalogue of the Pictures, Sculptures, Models, Designs in Architecture, Drawings, Prints, &c. … By the Society of Artists of Great-Britain (London: Harriot Bunce, 1772), 18. 22 London Evening Post, 29–31 May 1744 (Issue 2584). 23 Tim Clayton, ‘Publishing Houses: Prints of Country Seats’, in The Georgian Country House, ed. Dana Arnold (Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1998), 59–60. 24 London Evening Post, 21–23 April 1752 (Issue 3824). 19

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Figure 2.1  Francis Vivares after Thomas Smith of Derby, A South-West view of Chatsworth, 25 October 1744, engraving and etching, 39.4 x 54.3 cm. Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2017.

series (issued in 1777), which included views of Burghley and Alnwick (Figures 2.2 and 2.3), announced that the series would cost one shilling a plate and exclaimed ‘What a cheap and rational amusement then will these Gentlemen possess monthly, for the same consideration that is given for one night’s admittance to the pit of a theatre! And in the course of a year, what a beautiful addition will be made to the furniture of their apartments, for less than the value of a masquerade ticket!’25 People who were able to conduct tours of country houses could easily have been – and undoubtedly sometimes were – the same people who purchased prints of houses, either before or after they visited the sites depicted. Many prints depicted country houses which were popular with tourists: William Watts’s The Seats of the Nobility and Gentry (1779–86) included views of Kedleston, Corsham, Holkham, Houghton, Rainham, Alnwick, Chatsworth, Wilton and two of Burghley; William Angus’s The Seats of the Nobility and Gentry (1787–1815) included Castle Howard (Figure 2.4), Blenheim (Figure 2.5), Nuneham-Courtenay and Fonthill. Even magazines occasionally published views of country houses, particularly in the later eighteenth ‘Proposals for Publishing … Number I. of the Virtuosi’s Museum’, The Copper Plate Magazine (London: G. Kearsly, 1777).

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Figure 2.2  Francis Chesham after Paul Sandby, ‘Burleigh the Seat of the Earl of Exeter’, The Virtuosi’s Museum, 1 August 1780, etching and engraving, 16.3 × 20.7 cm. The Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto.

Figure 2.3  Francis Chesham after Lord Duncannon, ‘Alnwick-Castle, Looking up the River’, The Virtuosi’s Museum, 1 November 1780, etching and engraving, 16.4 × 20.5 cm. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

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Figure 2.4  William Angus after William Marlow, ‘Castle Howard in Yorkshire, the Seat of the Earl of Carlisle’, The Seats of the Nobility and Gentry, 1 February 1787, etching and engraving, 15.2 × 20.4 cm. The Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto.

Figure 2.5  William Angus after Lord Duncannon, ‘Blenheim in Oxfordshire the Seat of the Duke of Marlborough’, The Seats of the Nobility and Gentry, 1 September 1787, etching and engraving, 15.7 × 20.3 cm. The Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto.

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century: in 1783, the British Magazine published four views of Blenheim after drawings by Conrad Martin Metz (north, west, east and south); a series in the Lady’s Magazine included views of Mount Edgcumbe in 1789, of Castle Howard in 1791, of Wilton in 1792 and of Chatsworth in 1789 (another version of Smith of Derby’s view), 1794 and 1797. These images were small, and often compressed in ways that compromised the depiction of their architectural details, but they did ensure that views of country houses were circulating widely. As a genre of imagery, these paintings and prints invited viewers – both potential tourists and non-travellers – not to analyse these houses as architectural connoisseurs, but simply to imagine they were approaching them. Having been prepared by travel texts and images, and drawing on their own experiences as visitors, several tourists wrote about their reactions to the sight of a house: many emphasized how impressed they were by the view (often their initial one). In describing Burghley’s appearance in 1775, Anthony Hamond not only declared it was a ‘noble palace’, he specifically admired the distant view of the house, comparing its towers and pinnacles to a view of parish church towers and a cathedral spire in a town (nor was he the only visitor to make this comparison; the analogy had been published in Defoe’s Tour).26 At most sites, tourists focused on the relationship between the house and the grounds. On arriving at Stowe in 1797, for instance, John Machell wrote that the first view from the great portal was ‘very striking – it appears at a considerable distance over the summit of a fine green eminence richly wooded on either side down to the water at the foot of it which is pleasingly indented with Clumps of Wood’.27 A tourist at Kedleston in 1807 described the sight of the house in detail, observing it was ‘situated on a gently declining hill, with woods and lawns diversified, and a winding rivulet running in front … the scene is render[ed] still more lovely by many herd of Deer, browsing in different parts of the Park’ – but when he finally came to comment on the exterior of the building itself, he simply described it as a ‘noble mansion, a modern stone building’.28 The choice of vocabulary here is particularly interesting: in travellers’ diaries and letters, one of the most frequent adjectives used to describe houses is ‘noble’, which in reference to a building means ‘Distinguished by virtue of splendour, magnificence, or stateliness of appearance’.29 Evidently, many tourists’ reflections on country houses as buildings were dominated by their enjoyment of houses’ visual force and consideration of situation. Norfolk Record Office, HMN 4/36. For another example of a tourist comparing the sight of Burghley to a town, see Essex Record Office, D/DLu 7/1, ‘Journal […] Description of Excursions to Cambridge and Yorkshire’, c. 1815. Defoe, Tour, 1742, III, 36–7. 27 Lancashire Archives, DDMC 34/46, ‘Diary of a Tour’, 1797. 28 Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, Osborn d433, ‘[Journal]’, June–August 1807. 29 Lincolnshire Archives, MON 15/C/1, ‘A Journey to the Lakes, written by the Hon. Mrs. William Monson’, 1793; Wiltshire and Swindon Archives, 1300/6584, ‘An Account of a Tour of North England and Scotland by Charles Lord Bruce and Mr. Brand’, 1789; and Norfolk Record Office, HMN 4/36. Oxford English Dictionary Online, s. v. ‘noble, adj. and n.1’, (accessed 30 May 2017). 26

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Focusing on the view, the situation and the approach was a significant choice because both travel writers and tourists made distinctions between their judgements of the sight of a house and of its architecture. To consider the latter was to consider all of a house’s façades, its ornamental details and how it appeared to function, all elements which were concealed at a distance. For many writers, the disparity between distant effect and close analysis was most acute in houses designed by Vanbrugh. The 1748 edition of Defoe’s Tour, for instance, declared that Castle Howard was of a vast Extent; and tho’ it makes a fine Appearance at a Distance, yet will it not bear a critical Examination of the Architecture, when viewed near. There goes a Story, That the Architect was so sensible of his Errors in one of the Fronts, that he would fain have persuaded the late Earl of Carlisle to pull it down again.30

Although it may very well be apocryphal, this story is indicative of how Vanbrugh’s designs were being viewed in the mid-eighteenth century. Several tourists made similar comments about this house in their diaries; for example, in 1725 Charles Perry declared that the house was ‘a huge Pile of Building’ and that it ‘looks best at some Distance’.31 In 1752, James Coldham was particularly critical of the discrepancy between the grandeur of the house and the size of the interior, commenting that although ‘The House itself makes a very grand Appearance, Consisting of a Body & four Wings, with a large Octagon on ye top of it’, ‘ye Hall tho. Extremely Adorn’d with fine painting … falls much Short of Expectation from the Littleness of it, which indeed is ye General fault throughout ye Whole House.’32 Thirty years later the design of the house remained controversial: when Edward Pigott visited in 1781, he observed that ‘the house which is certainly a very Noble one, and one of the largest I have ever seen did not please me so much as Ld. Scarsdels [Kedleston]’, a house which he had visited earlier and praised for its elegance; this indirect criticism of Castle Howard indicates its design was found wanting, no matter how spectacular the sight it presented.33 Similar distinctions were made in descriptions of Blenheim. During his 1812 visit, William Ord claimed that ‘the first view on entering the Park [is] very fine – there is a richness & variety in the building that produces a great effect tho’ in its details it is no doubt liable to great objections’.34 Mary Kerr also identified a tension between effect and design, commenting that while the building appeared ‘stupendous’ and ‘beautiful’, ‘many have thought it too low … independently of the Ornaments it certainly would be so, and probably to a critical eye, perfect as they are individually, in regard to workmanship they may be too small, & light, and form too great a contrast to the Mass beneath them, to create a consistant

Defoe, Tour, 1748, III, 181. Norfolk Record Office, MC 150/49/625 × 3, ‘A Journal of a Tour to the North of England’, 1725. 32 Norfolk Record Office, MC 40/101, 485 × 9, ‘Journal of a Tour in England’, 1752. 33 Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, Osborn fc80, Box 1, ‘Edward Pigott, [Diary]’, 1770–83. 34 Northumberland Archives, NRO 324/A.10. 30 31

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and perfect Elevation’.35 Kerr’s comments echo the claim in Defoe’s Tour that Castle Howard simply would not stand up to a critical examination, a type of weakness that is most elegantly articulated by a travel writer identified as A. Walker. In his Remarks Made in a Tour (1792), he wrote that ‘Blenheim is certainly a magnificent seat at a distance, viewed en gros; we become undeceived in the approach; the incongruous parts jumble into a vast but not a pleasing whole.’36 Walker’s contention that the first sight of Blenheim gives visitors a deceptive impression of its architecture is a clear demarcation of the distinction between visual pleasure and architectural significance. Even The New Oxford Guide (1759) commented that it was when visitors entered the park at Blenheim through the portal that they would see the most impressive view: ‘a noble prospect is opened to the Palace, the Bridge, the Lake with it’s Valley, and other beautiful scenes of the Park. The House in particular, which we survey from this point obliquely, is probably no where viewed to greater advantage’; the clear implication is that the view of the house would not be nearly as good when the visitor was standing right in front of it.37 While many tourists appear to have made a critical distinction between judging a house’s appearance and judging its significance as a work of architecture, for later eighteenth-century tourists in particular, this may have been a matter of viewing a house according to the ideas of the picturesque. Tourists were often interested in how the picturesque related to landscape scenes, but it was also possible to apply it to buildings. This was how Samuel Curwen recorded his initial impression of Kedleston, for instance: ‘we came to the lawn terminated by the house, making a noble appearance … On the lawn, on every side of the house, are large single oaks, also many clumps and rows, which with the great herds of horned cattle make a most picturesque view.’38 Once again, this is a description which focuses on the visual appearance of the building as opposed to more abstract characteristics, such as the authenticity of its architectural details or the principles governing its planning, some of the characteristics which defined good neoclassical buildings (though as Curwen enters the house, he does mention the identities of the statues on the portico).39 It was a fundamental difference in criteria: when he published Anecdotes of the Arts in England (1800), James Dallaway advised his readers not to confound ‘architectural merit with … picturesque effect’, indicating that one could appreciate a building as an object within a scene which pleased the eye even if it failed to display any of the other criteria for a good modern building.40 The sight of the building, then, was a particularly appropriate emphasis when the house itself was Baroque, Elizabethan or even Gothic. Yale Center for British Art, DA11 .K47 1789, ‘Notes on Visits to Various Country Houses and Towns in Great Britain’ [by Mary Kerr], 1789–1826 (Paul Mellon Collection). 36 A. Walker, Remarks Made in a Tour from London to the Lakes (London: G. Nicol, 1792), 14. 37 The New Oxford Guide (Oxford: J. Fletcher, 1759), 79. 38 George Atkinson Ward, Journal and Letters of the Late Samuel Curwen (London: Wiley and Putnam, 1842), 127. 39 John Macarthur, The Picturesque: Architecture, Disgust and Other Irregularities (London: Routledge, 2007), 52. 40 James Dallaway, Anecdotes of the Arts in England (London: T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1800), 145. 35

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Although they very rarely criticized the designs of houses, and certainly never did so with the vigour travel writers sometimes applied, country-house guidebooks also encouraged their readers to enjoy the sights of houses. One of the guidebooks to Burghley, for example, argues that on first seeing the house, one is confronted with ‘grandeur; and the variety of turrets, towers, and cupolas, with which it is adorned on all sides, seem rather to bespeak the solemn decorations of a Gothic temple’, a metaphor which skirts around the issue of the legibility of the different parts; the writer also claims that as he approached the house, he had seen a young artist making a drawing, and states ‘Here it may be well to pause for some time; and, while the artist is intent on his pencil, to contemplate’ the house – a fairly explicit directive to admire the view.41 In addition to descriptions like these, by the end of the eighteenth century, some countryhouse guidebooks had begun to feature frontispieces, and these too often showed the house at a distance. The frontispiece of Corsham (1806), for example, shows the house from across a large lawn and with trees and plants on either side of it (Figure 2.6). Similarly, a guide to Knole (1795) depicts the house against the sky, framed by trees and a shallow foreground, and the 1793 edition of Blenheim shows the house from across the water and from such an angle that the viewer looks across the house’s Great Court instead of into it. An illustration in the Guide to Burghley (1815) shows the house set against clouds, surrounded by trees and from the opposite side of a river in front of it. All of these images are relatively uninformative as architectural representations: they each show the house in question at a distance too great to properly see the details, and, in some cases, from unusual angles or partially obscured by trees. As mementos, these images are clearly intended to commemorate the visual pleasure visitors had from the sight of the building rather than any insights they had about architecture during their visits. Whatever tourists might conclude about the architecture of a country house they were visiting, the impact of the sight of the building was clearly critical. The view constituted their first encounter, one which they would have anticipated from numerous travel texts and images, and it could be a source of great delight regardless of the architectural style of the building itself. It could also help tourists make connections between the different types of grand houses they visited: during a visit to Alnwick in 1793, Mrs William Monson declared it was ‘the most remarkable structure we have yet seen for Splendour & singularity & it would be impossible to do justice to it by a minute description – it is different from Blenheim tho’ Seeming equally Grand’.42 Alnwick and Blenheim were two houses with nothing in common in architectural style or period, but admiring houses on account of their singularity and magnificence at a distance enabled tourists to praise an extraordinary array of buildings with minimal reference to them as works of architecture. It was the ideal approach for tourists who were not architectural connoisseurs, and whose chief motivations for visiting a house were its other attractions. J. Horn, A History or Description, General and Circumstantial, of Burghley House (Shrewsbury: J. and W. Eddowes, 1797), 14, 15. 42 Lincolnshire Archives, MON 15/C/1. 41

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Figure 2.6  J. C. Smith after J. Britton (above) and J. Roffe (below), ‘Corsham House, Wiltshire’, frontispiece from John Britton, An Historical Account of Corsham House, London: Printed for the Author, 1806, engraving, 16 × 10.6 cm. Collection Centre Canadien d’Architecture/Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal, gift of Phyllis Lambert.

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From magnificent to disgusting: The architecture of the country house Once closer to the house, in order for a traveller to consider it as a work of architecture, he either needed to have some familiarity with architectural history and theory such that he could conduct his own analysis of the building in question, or he needed to be provided with some information about the façade. Whereas the pleasure to be felt on the first sight of the house was primarily a matter of opinion, any discussion of a façade’s architecture required, at a minimum, a good knowledge of architectural terminology. For many travel writers, this was not a problem, and they could easily identify the forms they saw; for example, after describing the power of the sight of Chatsworth, Daniel Defoe’s Tour eventually noted that the façade the traveller was approaching was Ionic, and that the whole was ‘a Square of a single Order, but every Side of a different Model’.43 This type of analysis did not, however, give tourists any rationale for why the house they were visiting merited their attention in its own right, regardless of what might be on display within it or around it. The descriptions which did offer such justifications drew attention to how the architectural features of a house’s exterior were unique or at least distinctive, and therefore exceptional. Some travel writers incorporated this type of information into their accounts of houses, but it was somewhat unusual; it was relatively rare, for instance, for a travel writer to name the architect who had designed a house, a type of omission which is indicative of how few architects were considered to be of national significance in the eighteenth century. In contrast, guidebook authors – who had no other destinations to turn their attention to – were more likely to draw readers’ attention to the elements of the design which were of special interest because of their distinctive historical origins or models. Every design, whether it was centuries old or recently completed, was effectively considered against the trajectory of the country’s most contemporary architecture and unique features were highlighted accordingly. In travel books, while it was not unusual for a description of a house to include some attention to the date it was built and the owner who had built it, this was often more relevant to the house’s history than to the significance of its architectural fabric. A Complete System of Geography, for example, informed readers that Althorp (Northamptonshire) ‘was rebuilt with great Improvement by the late Earl of Sunderland’, but it says nothing about the external appearance of the building or its architectural style.44 For travellers with an interest in antiquities, older properties, such as castles and houses which had been built on the sites of abbeys, might be of particular interest; for instance, in The Antiquities of England and Wales (1772–6), Francis Grose wrote a description of Alnwick which later became the basis for the Alnwick guidebook.45 Antiquarian interests often influenced travel books: A New Display of the Beauties of Defoe, Tour, 1748, III, 95. Bowen, Complete, I, 155. 45 Francis Grose, The Antiquities of England and Wales, Volume IV (London: Hooper and Wigstead, 1772–6), 39–49. 43 44

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England frequently noted the original builders, and it provided brief histories of former monastic properties such as Woburn Abbey, Welbeck, Newstead Abbey and Wilton.46 Even for antiquarians, however, historic buildings were not necessarily of interest on account of their architecture: when William Stukeley went to Burghley, one of the country’s largest Elizabethan houses, he noted that it was ‘worth a traveller’s view’, but mentioned only the wall paintings by Antonio Verrio and the collection of paintings.47 Like the sight of the house, all this information was not necessarily relevant to the house as a work of architecture: many descriptions did not refer to the architect at all, even if the architect was celebrated, and the age of the building did not necessarily make it architecturally important. What could make it important was a distinctive connection to classicism. The rise of country-house tourism coincided with an increasingly strong attachment to architecture inspired by antiquity: both for Palladian architecture as developed under the leadership of Lord Burlington and William Kent in the 1720s and for neoclassical architecture as developed by James ‘Athenian’ Stuart, Sir William Chambers and Robert Adam in the 1760s, the antique was the most important touchstone for modern buildings, though the two generations defined the antique slightly differently.48 Variations of classical architecture dominated what constituted good taste well into the nineteenth century, and tourists brought these interests with them when they considered the architecture of country houses; for example, on seeing Stowe in 1815, one tourist described it as ‘extremely magnificent … Grecian architecture within and without’.49 Some tourists may have been familiar with texts of architectural connoisseurship, such as Palladio’s Quattro libri (translated into English by Giacomo Leoni in 1715), Robert Castell’s Villas of the Ancients (a book which attempted to reconstruct Pliny’s villas, published in 1729) and the various volumes published by British architects, and they may have drawn on these sources in analysing the architectural designs they saw in the houses they were touring.50 Valuing architecture inspired by classical antiquity was not merely an aesthetic preference, it was also a matter of politics and morality: for country-house owners, the style was an opportunity to display their good taste and to remind people of their political and social affinity with ancient Romans, whose virtues and achievements they sought to be identified with.51 This made antique-inspired architecture a powerful force against which descriptions of houses were regularly positioned, either in order to praise or distinguish the house, or to defend it. Simply having been inspired by classical antiquity could not make a house famous: the style was too widespread and too easily created to merit a traveller’s attention. One A New Display of the Beauties of England, 3rd edn, 2 vols (London: R. Goadby, 1777), I, 290, II, 91, 294. 47 William Stukeley, Itinerarium Curiosum (London: Printed for the Author, 1724), 33. 48 Giles Worsley, Classical Architecture in Britain: The Heroic Age (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995), 151, 245. 49 Essex Record Office, D/DFr F6, ‘Journal’, 1815. 50 Pierre de la Ruffinière du Prey, The Villas of Pliny: From Antiquity to Posterity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 131–42. 51 Philip Ayres, Classical Culture and the Idea of Rome in Eighteenth-Century England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 126, 130. 46

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particularly common design was that of a tripartite house in which a central block was ornamented with a prominent pediment and flanked by two pavilions connected to it with corridors. This was the basic template for the design of the north front of Kedleston and the south front of Stowe, two houses which were highly celebrated as tourist attractions, but at the same time, it was also used for more modest country houses: examples of houses for which John Carr of York adapted it include Basildon Park (Berkshire), begun in 1776 for Sir Francis Sykes, and Thornes House (West Yorkshire), begun in 1779 for James Milnes.52 The ease with which the basic design could be adapted indicates that in some respects, classical architecture had become something which was publicly available and could be purchased by anyone with sufficient funds.53 It was a style that was well known through pattern books, many of which were not particularly expensive, and these books helped ensure that by the late eighteenth century, public awareness of contemporary architecture ‘was broader than ever before, thanks to commercialization’, though ‘the discourse was not particularly deep’.54 In effect, the vast majority of tourists would have been able to recognize that country houses like Kedleston and Stowe were in good taste – but if tourists were to recognize them as sites which deserved special attention, they required greater information. Few houses can be said to have achieved fame on account of a wide recognition of the excellence (not to be confused with notoriety) of their architecture: two houses which did were specifically admired for their modern construction, and for the extent to which their owners had been involved in their designs. Holkham became famous as a country house which was both beautifully and intelligently designed, and its architecture was celebrated in a number of publications. Firstly and perhaps most importantly, Matthew Brettingham, one of the architects who worked on the house, had published a book on it. The Plans, Elevations and Sections, of Holkham, in Norfolk (1761, 2nd edn, 1773) presented readers with several orthographic images of the house, prefaced by a detailed explanation of the house’s history which names the Earls of Burlington and Leicester and William Kent as the men responsible for the architectural design, discusses the interests and experiences which influenced the owner, summarizes how the design evolved during the construction of the house, describes the elevations, notes architectural sources (both literary and archaeological) and even identifies the building materials.55 Brettingham’s book was a folio volume for the connoisseur, but some tourists were familiar with it; Letitia Beauchamp Proctor, for example, while describing the house in a letter to her sister in 1764, noted that she would not go into detail about the building because her sister could ‘discover the

Brian Wragg, The Life and Works of John Carr of York (York: Oblong, 2000), 111, 213. Peter De Bolla, The Education of the Eye: Painting, Landscape, and Architecture in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003), 159. 54 Daniel Abramson, ‘Commercialization and Backlash in Late Georgian Architecture’, in Articulating British Classicism: New Approaches to Eighteenth-Century Architecture, ed. Barbara Arciszewska and Elizabeth McKellar (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 154. 55 Matthew Brettingham, The Plans, Elevations and Sections, of Holkham in Norfolk, 2nd edn (London: T. Spilsbury, 1773), v–vi. 52 53

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proportions of the Rooms in Mr. Bretinghams plans & elevations’.56 Many more tourists would have been familiar with the description of Holkham’s architecture offered by The Norfolk Tour (which seems to have drawn on information Brettingham had published), which claimed that although there was a lack of unity in the façade, the centre was ‘elegantly magnificent’ and inside ‘lies the forte of Holkham … for so convenient a house does not exist – so admirably adapted to the English way of living’.57 It was perhaps for this reason that the Holkham guidebook explained the use of the different wings and how the house was supported by offices, all information tourists do not appear to have been provided with often at other houses.58 Kedleston was also celebrated as an exemplar of contemporary architecture, a house which showcased the impressive taste of the owner and the achievement of a fashionable architect. It began to attract attention while it was still being built: Philip Yorke visited in 1763 and observed that the house would be ‘on the general plan of Holkham: a corps de logis and 4 pavilions … It will certainly be one of the finest houses in Gt. Britain when completed. Mr. Adams is the architect’.59 In The English Connoisseur (1766), Thomas Martyn noted that the house was still under construction, and informed readers that ‘The Architect is Mr. Adams, the well-known Editor of the Ruins of Dioclesian’s Palace. Every thing is fitting up in the most sumptuous manner, and finishing in the highest taste.’60 When Frances Bridger and Mary Lewis went to the house in 1768, they described it as ‘a remarkably elegant structure just finished, in the finest style’.61 By the time William Bray visited in 1777, the house was largely complete, and Bray not only declared that the façade was magnificent and beautiful, he described it as ‘the glory of Derbyshire, eclipsing Chatsworth, the ancient boast of the county’.62 Similarly, in his account of his visit in 1787, the Honourable H. Legge noted that although the grounds were admirable, it was the new house which ‘has given so much fame to the place. Ld S possessed the best house in Derbyshire, with an exception to Chatsworth; not content with that, he pulled down the old mansion & built what is now standing’.63 Given its celebrity as a highly contemporary country house, it is very striking that the Kedleston guidebook does not mention Adam at all. Instead, it celebrates the house for its references to classical antiquity and provides readers with additional information about the ornament on the façade. The columns supporting the portico on the north front were, the guidebook notes, ‘proportioned from those in the Pantheon at Rome; they are thirty feet high, three feet diameter; several of them in one Stone’; it also informs readers that the ‘Idea’ of the garden front ‘was taken from the Cambridgeshire Archives, 408/F2/1, ‘Letter to Agneta Yorke, the Writer’s Sister, from Langley Park’, 14 July 1764. 57 The Norfolk Tour (Norwich: R. Beatniffe, 1772), 13. 58 A Description of Holkham House, in Norfolk (Norwich: R. Beatniffe, 1775), 3. 59 ‘The Travel Journal of Philip Yorke, 1744–63’, in Joyce Godber, The Marchioness Grey of Wrest Park (Volume XLVII of The Bedfordshire Historical Record Society, 1968), 161–2. 60 Thomas Martyn, The English Connoisseur, 2 vols (London: L. Davis and C. Reymers, 1766), II, 96. 61 East Sussex Record Office, SHR/1928, ‘Journal of Frances Bridger and Mary Lewis Giving a Conventional Account of Houses’, 1768–89. 62 William Bray, Sketch of a Tour into Derbyshire and Yorkshire (London: B. White, 1778), 66. 63 Staffordshire Record Office, D(W)1778/V/1110, III. 56

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Arch of Constantine’.64 Replicating motifs from specific ancient structures was highly fashionable among mid-eighteenth-century neoclassical architects, and by offering this information the guide emphasizes Kedleston’s place at the centre of architectural fashion. It also identifies several sculptures, including figures in and above the portico and on the garden front; for example, it notes that the medallions on the garden front show Apollo and Diana, two deities who oppose and complement each other, and by extension, convey balance.65 By encouraging readers to regard the external decorative sculpture as comprising a legible programme rather than mere fashionable ornament, much in the same way that the statues on display as art works inside the house were legible, the guidebook emphasizes that the exterior sculptures had been selected and installed thoughtfully, as if what Lord Scarsdale had done was to bring antique art out of the sculpture gallery and onto the walls of the house. The extent to which architectural excellence was perceived to be on display at Holkham and Kedleston, however, was rare, and at other houses, excellence in architecture was noted more quietly. At Wilton, for instance, relatively little was said about the appearance of the exterior of the house, but considerable attention was given to specific architects’ involvement. The state rooms and south front were celebrated as the work of Inigo Jones; today, this design is recognized as the work of Isaac de Caus and the extent of Jones’s involvement in the project is unclear, but in the eighteenth century there was none of this ambiguity. Jones’s involvement was routinely highlighted in accounts of the house: England Displayed (1769) noted that not only had he designed it, he had also designed a piazza (actually the front of the stables) and an arcade (formerly a grotto), both of which were visible from the house; Britannica Curiosa (1776) informed readers that the ‘famous’ Inigo Jones had designed the seventeenthcentury additions to the house and declared the state rooms ‘are the noblest pieces of architecture that have been hitherto produced’; and The Modern Universal British Traveller (1779) declared that ‘Great part of this stately edifice was finished under the direction of Inigo Jones, and remains a lasting monument of the ingenuity of that celebrated artist.’66 Beyond Jones’s works, there was also another feature at Wilton considered sufficiently exceptional to warrant tourists’ attention, specifically a porch leading into the vestibule that was believed to have been designed by Hans Holbein. According to an article published in the Gentleman’s Magazine in 1812, this porch supposedly ‘possessed much novel detail at the time, comprehending … Basement tier, double Ionic columns and pedestals; second tier, double Corinthian columns’.67 Both Jones and Holbein were significant figures in what was rapidly becoming the canon Nathaniel Curzon, first Baron Scarsdale, Catalogue of the Pictures, Statues, & c. at Kedleston. With Some Account of the Architecture, [5th edn] (s. l.: s. n., c. 1810), 3, 4. Curzon, Kedleston, 3, 4. 66 P. Russell and Owen Price, England Displayed, 2 vols (London: Printed for the Authors, 1769), I, 82. Britannica Curiosa: Or, A Description of the Most Remarkable Curiosities, Natural and Artificial, of the Island of Great Britain, 6 vols (London: R. Snagg, 1776), 123, 124. Charles Burlington, David Llewellyn Rees and Alexander Murray, The Modern Universal British Traveller (London: J. Cooke, 1779), 386. 67 ‘Architectural Innovation, No. CLXI’, The Gentleman’s Magazine 82 (1812): 340. 64 65

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of English architectural history. Early-eighteenth-century architectural connoisseurs, such as Lords Burlington and Leicester, had embraced Jones’s work and it continued to be widely respected later in the eighteenth century: in 1800, James Dallaway stated unequivocally that ‘To the genius of Inigo Jones, who had imbibed the true spirit of Palladio, we are indebted for the reformation of the national taste,’ and that Jones’s later buildings were ‘the summit of English architecture’.68 Although appreciation of sixteenth-century architecture was very unusual, Ædes Pembrochianæ (1774), one of the Wilton guides, praises Holbein’s porch by claiming that Holbein ‘was the first reformer of the Gothic style of architecture in England’, and in making such an argument, it essentially asks readers to see the porch as one of the country’s earliest examples of classical design and as the work of a man who transformed the arts.69 In effect, both travel writers and guidebook authors were encouraging tourists to view Wilton as a key site in the development of Britain’s contemporary taste for antiqueinspired architecture. The dominance of classical taste not only affected how people praised country houses, it also led guidebook authors to write texts which attempted to rehabilitate those houses which were decidedly unclassical. Published criticism of country houses was socially risky: while no author would want to be accused of failing to appreciate good design or recognize bad design, it was not entirely socially acceptable to criticize a gentleman’s residence. Matthew Craske has argued that before James Ralph published A Critical Review of the Publick Buildings, Statues and Ornaments in and around London and Westminster (1734), ‘a gentleman … could expect to erect a building in London’s streets without there being any published public comment as to whether that building constituted an improvement to the public realm’.70 Ralph was one of the first to criticize the patronage of his social superiors publicly, and in language that is at times quite rude. Although later travel writers were certainly prepared to be harsh, even sixty years later, when Uvedale Price published his An Essay on the Picturesque (1794), he noted ‘As Blenheim is the only place I have criticised by name, an apology is due to the noble possessor of it … for the freedom I have taken.’71 Given this tradition of deference (even when the current owner had not been personally involved in the construction of the house) and their close ties to the owners of houses, it is not surprising that when a house was strongly criticized elsewhere, guidebook authors attempted to defend it. As the accounts discussed above indicate, Sir John Vanbrugh’s architecture was routinely being criticized by the middle of the eighteenth century. In a discussion of country houses’ architectural beauty, Arthur Young boldly stated that Blenheim was Dallaway, Anecdotes, 63–64, 100. Ædes Pembrochianæ: Or a Critical Account of the Statues, Bustos, Relievos, Paintings, Medals, and other Antiquities and Curiosities at Wilton-House (London: R. Baldwin, 1774), 2. 70 Matthew Craske, ‘From Burlington Gate to Billingsgate: James Ralph’s Attempt to Impose Burlingtonian Classicism as a Canon of Public Taste’, in Articulating British Classicism: New Approaches to Eighteenth-Century Architecture, ed. Barbara Arciszewska and Elizabeth McKellar (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 100. 71 Uvedale Price, An Essay on the Picturesque (London: J. Robson, 1794), 265. 68 69

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‘a quarry, and yet consists of such innumerable and trifling parts, that one would think them the fragments of a rock jumbled together by an earthquake’; writing of the entrance front specifically, he claimed it was ‘a clutter of parts, so distinct, that a Gothic church has as much unity; and, withal, a heaviness in each part, which is infinitely disgusting’.72 Similarly, in her Tour (1795) Mary Morgan noted that when analysing Blenheim, some people ‘object to the great quantity of military ornaments, the mixture of architecture, and the disproportion and largeness of some of the parts’; although her own opinion was not quite so harsh, she ultimately concluded that Blenheim had several ‘defects’.73 Critiques like these were potent, and many travellers likely visited Blenheim with them in mind; the tourist Robert French, for example, commented in 1800 that given that Vanbrugh had been responsible for Blenheim, ‘it would be damned hard for the place to be even liberally decent’.74 The Blenheim guidebook attempted to present counter arguments, asking readers to recognize specific features as appropriate to the house’s history if not to more commonly invoked standards of taste. William Mavor tried to defend the house by invoking the virtues of its first resident: he acknowledged that Vanbrugh had been censured for heaviness, but argued that he ‘must at least stand acquitted in this instance [i.e. at Blenheim], when it is considered that strength and durability were principal objects to be regarded, in a pile intended to remain a monument of British valour and British generosity’.75 He encouraged readers to see Blenheim’s architecture as evoking ‘the ideas of defence and security’, ideas which would also be associated with the first Duke of Marlborough’s defeat of the French, and pointed out the looted bust of Louis XIV installed on the south front.76 Some tourists did accept this reading of the façade: Morgan, for example, conceded that ‘martial ornaments become the palace of a martial man’.77 This was a matter of historical association rather than a straightforward defence of Vanbrugh’s style; tellingly, the Castle Howard guide confined itself to the art collection and avoided mentioning Vanbrugh at all. Elizabethan architecture was also subject to criticism, and this had a noticeable impact on how the guidebooks to Burghley described its architecture. Built in the late 1500s, Burghley’s significant age was striking to many tourists; for example, William Wyndham commented that ‘Nothing can give a greater idea of ancient magnificence, or inspire one more with thoughts of a hundred years ago.’78 Its age alone, however, did not make it admirable as a building: in 1773, William and Thomas Drake described it as a ‘venerable, tho’ not very pleasing pile of Building’; more bluntly, in 1787 the Honourable H. Legge wrote that it ‘is a sumptuous pile of building of the Gothic stile Arthur Young, A Six Weeks Tour, through the Southern Counties of England and Wales, 2nd edn (London: W. Strahan, 1769), 337, 123. 73 Mary Morgan, A Tour to Milford Haven, in the Year 1791 (London: John Stockdale, 1795), 74, 75. 74 National Library of Ireland, Ms. 7380, ‘Observations on a Tour through Part of Ireland and England in the Summer of 1800, by Robert French’, 1800. 75 William Mavor, New Description of Blenheim, 2nd edn (London: T. Cadell, 1789), 33. 76 Mavor, Blenheim, 1789, 34, 45. 77 Morgan, Tour, 74. 78 Robert Wyndham Ketton-Cremer, The Early Life and Diaries of William Wyndham (London: Faber & Faber, 1930), 142. 72

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but the degenerated kind of which the buildings in the days of Elizabeth were always composed’.79 These attitudes were not restricted to tourists’ diaries and, as at Blenheim, it seems likely that these tourists’ views stemmed from other sources. In Anecdotes of Painting in England (first published 1762), Horace Walpole identified Burghley as one of the houses designed by the sixteenth-century architect John Thorpe and declared that ‘The taste of all these stately mansions was that bastard style which intervened between Gothic and Grecian architecture’; he also denounced Thorpe for ornaments which were ‘barbarous and ungracefull’.80 Walpole was one of the most prominent fierce critics, but he was not alone in his views; in An Essay on Architecture (1776), Thomas Lowth declared that until Inigo Jones, English architecture was enslaved by ‘Gothic barbarity’.81 What is especially damning about these comments is that they imply that Burghley not only fails to display (classical) taste, it is its antithesis, it is barbarous. In the extended edition of Burghley (1815), Thomas Blore attempted to defend the house through a connection between its architecture and its builder, much in the way that Mavor had defended Blenheim. Blore’s preface argues that it is not possible to visit Burghley without thinking of ‘the venerated character of the illustrious founder of the palace … a statesman of the most solid and useful talents, to whose prudent and judicious counsels, England owes much, perhaps, even of her present grandeur and security’; in his Burghley (1797), J. Horn also connected the house to the Lord Treasurer’s achievements and virtues.82 Both authors were encouraging their readers to view Burghley as evocative of a great political moment in English history, one so great that its architecture merited respect. In addition, referring to Walpole’s identification of the architect, Horn praised Thorpe’s practical organization of the spaces within the house and his use of classical ornament, noting, for example, that the east side of the middle court ‘exhibits three distinct orders of architecture, the Doric, the Ionic, and the Corinthian, rising one above the other’, reminding readers that Thorpe too had played a role in bringing classical architecture to Britain.83 The difficulty with relying on these kinds of arguments to distract the reader from criticism of the house was that they were by no means conclusive: it was ultimately up to the viewer to determine whether or not the houses’ historical associations were of sufficient importance to exculpate the perceived weaknesses in their designs. By the middle of the eighteenth century, the prevailing taste for classical architecture not only dominated the construction of country houses, it also shaped travel writers’ descriptions of them and tourists’ reactions. Houses which were specifically recognized Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies, D/DR/8/7/1, ‘Letter from William and Thomas Drake to Their Father, Describing Their Tour of Northern England’, 1773. Staffordshire Record Office, D(W)1778/V/1110, I. 80 Horace Walpole, Anecdotes of Painting in England, 4 vols, 3rd edn (2nd edn of ‘The History of the Modern Taste in Gardening’) (London: J. Dodsley, 1782), I, ‘Supplement’, 2, 3. 81 Thomas Lowth, An Essay on Architecture (Oxford: s. n., 1776), 14. 82 Thomas Blore, A Guide to Burghley House (Stamford: John Drakard, 1815), vi–vii. This book was available in an abridged version, so all subsequent references will include a classmark: British Library, 10358.ccc.3, for the abridged edition, and British Library, 578.e.19, for the full text. Horn, Burghley, 5–6, 10, 173–81. 83 Horn, Burghley, 19. 79

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for architectural excellence were unusual, and there were almost as many houses where the architecture was notorious rather than admired. With relatively few sites being known as architectural destinations and in view of the amount of information a traveller needed for a thorough analysis, close examinations of the exteriors of country houses were relatively rare. For tourists, after the sight of it, the most important aspect of a building was its interior, and the arrangement of the rooms within a house was paramount to their overall impressions of the building.

Rooms shown in order: The tourist’s route Attention to the arrangements of houses’ interior spaces was crucial to descriptions in travel books, in tourists’ writings and in guidebooks, and many of these texts included information about which rooms tourists could view, and what route tourists were expected to take as they moved around. The routes in particular were tremendously important, not only because they reflected how housekeepers guided visitors’ movements, but because they often structured any subsequent description of the interior. They also represented an underlying tension in contemporary attitudes towards country-house visiting: throughout the eighteenth century, country houses were private property, but in everyday life, they were not entirely private spaces; as discussed in Chapter 1, there was a societal pressure on owners to open their houses to tourists. At those houses where the family was normally in residence during the summer, opening the house generally meant sacrificing some privacy and comfort; with the exception of occasional ‘open days’, when owners would personally welcome visitors, they and their families usually avoided encountering tourists. Establishing prescribed routes for tourists ensured that owners met the requirements of polite behaviour and indirectly welcomed tourists into their homes, but ultimately did so without compromising their control over their privacy. Underpinning all manner of descriptions, these routes became critical to both the promotion and the presentation of the interior spaces of country houses. Before any route around a country house could be created, it was essential to establish which rooms would be open to visitors: at most houses, there were specific rooms which were shown to the public on a regular basis. The selection of rooms was wholly at the discretion of the owner (or, in his absence, a designated servant), and broadly tended to correspond to the grandeur of the space: state rooms were normally part of tours, but viewing functional rooms such as kitchens or laundries was relatively unusual, though these spaces were of interest to tourists. When visitors toured houses, they were not always able to see the family’s rooms: in a copy of Ædes Pembrochianæ from 1798, a tourist has written ‘not shown’ next to the descriptions of ‘Lord Herbert’s Dressing-Room and Closet’, ‘Lady Pembroke’s Summer Dressing-Room’, and ‘Lord Pembroke’s Dressing-Room and Bed-Chamber’, comments which suggest the family desired greater privacy, at least on that occasion; similarly, tourists visiting Stowe in 1815 recorded that they ‘saw fourteen rooms … should have seen sixteen if the family

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had not been at home’.84 Routes through the interiors of country houses were often a reflection of the most efficient path which avoided the family’s personal space. Though rare, there are examples of houses where the desire to accommodate both the family and tourists was not simply a matter of use of the space, but something that began to shape the design of the house itself. The distinction between rooms shown to tourists and private rooms for the family and their guests is particularly evident at Corsham, where the house underwent major alterations in the late 1790s. In 1795, Corsham’s owner died and his son, Paul Cobb Methuen, inherited the estate and the family’s art collection, then housed at Corsham and at a townhouse in London; the will instructed Methuen to consolidate the collection in their country house.85 Corsham, however, was simply not big enough for this kind of display, so Methuen hired John Nash to design extensions to the house. When Nash began altering Corsham, tourists had been visiting the house for over twenty years: they were well established as a presence there. It was in this context that Methuen chose to divide the alterations into distinct stages: in 1796, he had Nash convert an old library in the west wing into a breakfast room and the adjoining parlour into a new library; it was only in late 1797, after these rooms were completed, that Methuen began altering the central block of the house, constructing a new hall, dining room, saloon and music room.86 These two sets of rooms comprised essentially separate building projects and, more significantly, they had very different styles of decoration. Unlike those in the west wing, the later rooms were open to tourists and they were lavishly decorated: the music room had stainedglass windows, the octagonal saloon was inspired by Henry VII’s Chapel at Westminster Abbey, the dining room had specially designed Gothic mahogany furniture and the hall had elaborate tracery decorations, including a screen dividing the hall proper from the staircases.87 By contrast, the library was relatively plain; neither it, nor the breakfast room were among the rooms which were ‘usually shewn to strangers’.88 Corsham was altered at a time when tourists’ visits were customary, and the concern in creating two distinct spaces, both during the construction process and later on the plan in the guidebook (Figure 2.6), demonstrates conscious attention to the contrast between the spaces shown to tourists and those reserved for the family. To a lesser extent, the accommodation of tourists had also been factored into the design of Kedleston, specifically in the design of the kitchen, a room which was grander than necessary and designed for viewing: according to an 1807 visitor ‘it is a noble one indeed … a gallery at one end, is supported by Doric pillars, into which the company viewing the house are taken, to survey the luxurious proportions!’89 The presence of the gallery, as Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, G.A. Gen. top. 8Â ° 901 (2), ‘Annotated copy of Ædes Pembrochianæ: A New Account and Description of the Antiquities and Curiosities in Wilton-House’, c. 1798, 45–7. Essex Record Office, D/DFr F6. 85 Leslie Harcourt, Mr. Methuen’s House (Slough, Berkshire: Hollen Street Press, 1981), 57. 86 Frederick J. Ladd, Architects at Corsham Court: A Study in Revival Style Architecture and Landscaping, 1749–1849 (Bradford-on-Avon: Moonraker Press, 1978), 99. 87 Britton acknowledges the inspiration of the Henry VII Chapel, but does not mention the other Gothic-inspired decorations. (John Britton, An Historical Account of Corsham House (London: Printed for the Author, 1806), 107.) Harcourt, Mr. Methuen’s, 85, 78 and 74. 88 Britton, Corsham, ‘ADVERTISEMENT’ page. 89 Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, Osborn d433. 84

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well as ornamental details such as a plaque reading ‘Waste not, want not’, encouraged tourists to assume that the house’s kitchen (and by extension, its management) was as elegant and polite as the formal rooms. As an attraction, the kitchen appears to have been something of a mixed success, with Dorothy Richardson observing in 1770 that it was ‘excessively neat, so much so that I imagine it is never used’, and an 1809 tourist claiming it evoked thoughts of ‘old English hospitality’.90 Overall, both Kedleston and Corsham were unusual in factoring tourists’ routes into their designs: at most houses the route was created after the house had been finished. A route determined how tourists were expected to walk around the house, and it shaped how they perceived the design of the interior space and how they described their visits. Whoever designed a route, the general rule was normally that it was desirable to ensure tourists saw a specific group of rooms without doubling back – in effect, to move around the house via a single loop. In many cases, the desire for efficiency was likely the sole determining factor, but whatever the rationale behind them, routes had a tremendous impact. Once established, they were well publicized: by the middle of the eighteenth century, many travel books, including regional guidebooks such as The New Oxford Guide and The Norfolk Tour, narrative tours such as Arthur Young’s books, and even some comprehensive volumes such as A New Display of the Beauties of England, were describing houses’ interiors according to tourists’ routes; these routes were integral to the arrangement of information in country-house guidebooks. As a device, routes helped define what it meant to be a tourist at a country house. The impact of describing the order of rooms through text is most evident in a comparison of different accounts of the same house’s arrangement. At Kedleston, the main entrance was on the north front, where a portico supported by six columns led into a grand hall. Kedleston (first published c. 1769) begins by describing the hall, followed by the music room, withdrawing room, library, saloon, anti-chamber, principal dressing room, state bedchamber, wardrobe and dining room, representing the interior as if the house had been designed to be walked around in this sequence (Figure 2.7; on this plan, Kedleston’s sequence of rooms would be A, E, D, C, B, G, H, I, F). In contrast, William Bott described Kedleston as if he had a bird’s-eye view of it: ‘Behind the Hall, is a circular Saloon … On the left of the Saloon are a music room, a drawing room, and library’ and ‘on the right are the dining room [and] the state dressing room.’91 This bird’s-eye-view approach recognized that many country houses were organized not according to a loop comprising a fixed sequence of spaces, but in variations of what Mark Girouard has labelled the ‘standard formal plan’, a type of arrangement which consisted of a hall and saloon on a central axis and distinct apartments on either side of the saloon, designed to provide an ‘orderly setting for meetings between gentlemen, lords, and princes’.92 Ideally, in a house such The University of Manchester Library, GB 133 Eng MSS 1123, ‘Travel Journals of Dorothy Richardson’, 1767–75. British Library, Add MS 59867, ‘Travel Journal of an Anonymous Englishman in the Lake District’, 1809. 91 William Bott, A Description of Buxton, and the Adjacent Country (Manchester: J. Harrop, 1800), 30. 92 Mark Girouard, Life in the English Country House (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1978), 154, 145. 90

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Figure 2.7  James Gandon and M. Darly after Robert Adam, ‘Plan of the Principal Floor of Kedleston’, Vitruvius Britannicus, London: John Woolfe and James Gandon, 1767 (with modifications). Ultimately, the southeast and southwest wings and corridors and the rooms on the south side of the northeast corridor were not built.

as Blenheim, a guest of the owner would arrive in the hall before being escorted into one of the state apartments; within an apartment, each room was more exclusive than the last, and so the depth a visitor penetrated into it indicated his social status. The ‘formal plan’ arose at the end of the seventeenth century to meet the needs of this kind of formal entertaining and is most apparent in houses built during that period, but even in the later eighteenth century, some new buildings, such as Kedleston, were still roughly adhering to it. Routes, however, reflected how owners wanted tourists to walk through houses, whether or not those movements clashed with formal arrangements of spaces. Though houses were not, of course, designed solely with a view to formal entertaining, architects usually intended them to appear to their best advantage when one walked through them according to the routes used for formal occasions, and tourist routes did not usually correspond to those paths. Visitors to Blenheim moved through the house on a route that wrecked the intended effect of the plan. Sir John Vanbrugh had created an exceptionally ceremonial interior, known for its elaborately painted hall and saloon, state apartments with gilded ceilings and tapestries, and a grand library, a room which was distinguished from the others by its all-white plasterwork and panelling. Ideally, visitors would have walked

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Figure 2.8  ‘Plan of the principal floor of Blenheim’, Vitruvius Britannicus, London: Colen Campbell, 1715 (with modifications).

through the house according to the ‘formal plan’, entering through the north front to arrive in the hall and then proceeding into the saloon before turning right or left into state apartments (Figure 2.8). The library could be entered through a vaulted corridor extending from the hall: opening into the centre of the room, its doorway was extremely grand, costing £156 for workmanship alone, a singular expense which suggests the doorway was expected to be a major entrance.93 Normally, however, visitors did not tour Blenheim according to the expectations implied by Vanbrugh’s design: instead, they moved from the hall to the eastern side of the house’s apartments, proceeded to walk back to the centre of the house (where they viewed the saloon), and then entered the house’s western half, where the climax of the tour was the enormous library (on Figure 2.8, this sequence of rooms is A, N, H, I, K, G, F, E, D, C, D, E, F, M). This itinerary was efficient, and a shortened version of it is used to guide visitors at Blenheim today. Yet because visitors walked through the house as if it had one long series of rooms instead of distinct sets of rooms, or apartments, what was meant to appear formal and increasingly exclusive appeared lengthy and increasingly repetitive. According to Edward Daniel Clarke, who visited Blenheim in 1791, ‘you are British Library, Add MS 61354, ‘Blenheim Papers, Volume CCLIV’, 1705–37, f. 95. I was directed to this document by ‘Blenheim: Blenheim Palace’, A History of the County of Oxford, Volume 12, Wootton Hundred (South) including Woodstock, 1990, 448–60, (accessed 25 April 2010).

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conducted through a suit [sic] of apartments, that naturally appear insignificant, into that spacious room, the library, which forming a striking contrast to the others makes them appear smaller than before.’94 The Rev. Stebbing Shaw wrote a similar account of visiting Blenheim in 1788: ‘After passing this interior suite of apartments, we were next suddenly surprized [sic] with the most magnificent library.’95 The contrast that these men identified was conspicuous because of the route they had followed: the problem was not that Vanbrugh’s design was bad, but that visitors were walking through the rooms in the wrong order. At Kedleston the route was less problematic, but it was still blatantly apparent that it did not accord with the formal arrangement of the house. As noted above, visitors walked around the house in a clockwise direction. Again, the design itself indicated this was not really what had been intended: the hall and saloon, arranged on a north– south axis through the middle of the house, are intended to complement each other; Leslie Harris has argued that they ‘are the equivalent of the “atrium” and “vestibulum” in a Roman palace or villa’.96 Even if visitors were unfamiliar with the specific Roman buildings to which these rooms’ forms and decorations alluded – the coffered dome of the Pantheon, for example, inspired that of the saloon – they could still see the relationship because the hall and saloon shared distinctive features such as high ceilings and skylights, while the rest of the rooms on the tour were smaller, with much lower ceilings. The apartments on either side of the hall–saloon axis had their own themes: on the east side of the house, the music room, withdrawing room and library were meant to be read as a suite devoted to the arts of music, painting and literature; on the west side of the house, most of the rooms formed part of a formal state apartment.97 Although the Kedleston rooms were still beautiful when seen in the visitors’ loop, their progression was not entirely logical. The contrived quality of a prescribed route would have been fairly apparent to visitors. One of the most detailed studies of this phenomenon is Sophia Psarra’s work on the relationship between routes and sightlines. Of particular relevance is her discussion of the architect Sir John Soane’s London-townhouse-turned-museum, which, although different in many ways from country houses, was also a private house that required its owner to develop a route for tourists. Soane himself wrote the first guidebook to his house and, like many authors of country-house guidebooks, he established a route by numbering the rooms. The design of the house, however, connects several rooms through sightlines, such that from most of the first floor rooms, a visitor can look through doorways or at mirrors and see into other spaces; for example, while standing in the breakfast parlour, one can look into the dining room and the dome. In her discussion of how the tourists’ route operates within this space (Soane’s numbering system can still be followed today), Psarra determined that there is ‘a tension between Edward Daniel Clarke, A Tour through the South of England, Wales, and Part of Ireland, Made during the Summer of 1791 (London: Minerva Press, 1793), 392–3. 95 Shaw, Tour, 86. 96 Leslie Harris, Robert Adam and Kedleston: The Making of a Neo-Classical Masterpiece (London: National Trust, 1987), 58. 97 De Bolla, Education, 195. 94

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seeing a collection along a path and being able to access visually each room from almost every other location’.98 Psarra went on to argue that because of this tension, the route becomes significant for visitors, requiring them to understand their experience of the rooms as one that opposes the experience intended by the architect, who had created a kaleidoscope of views in which one saw multiple rooms simultaneously. Although not to the same degree as the Soane museum, very often, rooms in country houses are also intimately connected, through decoration and occasionally through sightlines. These connections would have highlighted the contrived nature of the visitors’ route, and this awareness would have underpinned the nature of the visit. Even without strong sightlines, a contrived quality might also have been evident if visitors were in a position to quickly recognize the design of the plan itself. Many Palladian country houses’ plans were designed as variations of a common type, and this too made tourists’ routes conspicuous. The basic arrangement consisted of a hall and saloon on a central axis from which one could access a tripartite range of rooms on either side with staircases near the middle; it could easily be expanded laterally for a larger house. Many visitors would have had no difficulty in identifying this type of plan, a type which appeared in hundreds of houses in the eighteenth century; unlike the enormous plans of houses like Blenheim, Burghley and Chatsworth, it was relatively simple and compact.99 The Kedleston plan is in fact a late variation; earlier variations include the plans of Stourhead and Houghton. In every case the hall and saloon created an axis of grandeur for the house, and the ideal visitor was expected to move outwards: to be crossing the central axis as part of a circular itinerary was to move against its order, in an irrational, albeit convenient, itinerary. When routes were published in guidebooks, they were markedly explicit and carried particularly powerful connotations. Some guidebooks offered plans which illustrated them: Burghley (1815), for example, provides readers with schematic plans of the ground floor and the first floor (Figure 2.9), with each room numbered according to the order in which a visitor would view it and read about it; the same numbers identify the descriptions of rooms in the text itself. Stowe (1773) provided a plan with rooms identified with letters (Figure 2.10), and Corsham (1806) provided a plan with ‘numbered rooms … figured in progressive order as visited’.100 This approach was expensive for the publisher, however, and many books simply represented the route through a textual description; for instance, Blenheim declares that ‘we shall conduct our readers through the grand suit of rooms, usually open to public inspection, in the order they are shewn’.101 Whether illustrated or described, guidebooks effectively codified practices which were already in place. In this context, the route was particularly significant because guidebooks appeared to offer official, formal narratives of visits, and in outlining the route in print, they indicated that visitors were expected to use this Sophia Psarra, Architecture and Narrative: The Formation of Space and Cultural Meaning (London: Routledge, 2009), 125. 99 Andor Gomme and Alison Maguire, Design and Plan in the Country House: From Castle Donjons to Palladian Boxes (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2008), 289–90. 100 Britton, Corsham, ‘ADVERTISEMENT’ page. 101 Mavor, Blenheim, 1789, 47. 98

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Figure 2.9  Plans from Thomas Blore, A Guide to Burghley, Stamford: John Drakard, 1815, engraving, 17.3 × 11.2 cm. Collection Centre Canadien d’Architecture/Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal, gift of Phyllis Lambert. This plate was included in both the abridged and extended versions of the guidebook.

structure – endorsed by the owner of the house – to organize their own experiences. In practice, it was not uncommon for a route to shape both how visitors responded to a house’s space and how they organized everything else they saw during their visit inside the house. In addition to disrupting the architectural goals of the space, describing a house with reference to a prescribed tourist route tied tourists’ knowledge of the space to the limited time frame of their visit. Presenting rooms in sequential order essentially

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Figure 2.10  ‘A Plan of the House & c. of the Right Hon.ble The Earl Temple at Stowe in Buckinghamshire’, from Benton Seeley’s Stowe: A Description of the Magnificent House and Gardens, Buckingham: B. Seeley, 1773, engraving, 27.7 × 51.6 cm. The Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto.

creates a schedule of how one is expected to move through the house, one which includes specific beginning and end points. Particularly if they were presented using numbers or letters to identify the different spaces within a house as a series of ordered stages, routes necessarily imposed a temporal dimension on visitors’ experiences: they indicated where visitors were meant to begin their tour, how they were meant to continue it and where they were expected to finish it. This kind of itinerary establishes a tourist’s visit as one which unfolds during a defined, and by extension limited, interval. Consequently, the route reminded tourists that although they had been welcomed, they were expected to leave in a timely fashion and the house was ultimately a private residence. Diary entries indicate that at least some visitors simply accepted the progression through the house as it was presented to them and wrote about their experiences according to that structure. In 1794, a tourist writing about Stowe described the house on a room by room basis: ‘Saloon very superb … Hall finely painted … Vestibule Library – large collection of valuable books – Lesser Parlour’.102 This description presents rooms in about the same order as the guidebook describes them (some rooms are not mentioned in the diary), which suggests the importance of the route for this visitor’s recollection of his visit. Similarly, the Honourable H. Legge, discussing his visit to Alnwick in 1787, wrote ‘The Saloon, the drawing room, the eating-room, the breakfast room & the library are all very magnificent splendid, very large & very comfortable British Library, Add MS 30172, ‘Journal of a Tour thro England and Wales’, 1794.

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rooms: but the chapel is that upon which the most money has been expended.’103 Like the visitor at Stowe, he chose to describe the rooms he saw according to the order the guidebook lists them in, even though this order meant that the room that struck him as most noteworthy came last. The diary entries quoted indicate that prescribed routes, and their attendant subtle reminders of the limitations of tourists’ access to houses, provided tourists with frameworks through which to describe their visits.

* * * For the eighteenth-century country-house tourist, the house itself was at the core of their experience, regardless of whether or not they had come to the house with an interest in architecture or with any particular admiration or disdain for the architecture of the house in question. The traveller’s viewpoint cultivated specific ways of looking at houses, often ones which were not driven by traditional concerns of architectural design. The first sight of the house was usually the formal beginning of a visit, even if the visitor was to spend all their time in the gardens and never enter the house, and the distant view of the house was often available in print. If they did enter, the touristspecific route underpinned any presentation of the interior space, subtly reminding tourists of their position as spectators of and outsiders within the house and ordering their encounters with the house’s art works and furnishings. Inside the house, strict distinctions between attention to architectural planning, interior decorations and paintings and sculptures were rarely maintained: rather than treat each separately, most authors used the route as a foundation on which to build descriptions of art collections. It is to these collections that I now wish to turn.

Staffordshire Record Office, D(W)1778/V/1110, I.

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‘Eminent in Public Estimation’: The Transformation of Country Houses’ Paintings and Sculptures

Wilton House Ld. Pembrokes, a well-known repository of fine Antiques & choice collection of Pictures. – Frances Bridger and Mary Lewis, 17751 Collections of ancient Roman statues, busts and relief sculptures, and of family portraits by Anthony van Dyck. A room filled with paintings by Carlo Maratta. Religious paintings by Carlo Dolci, Rembrandt and Annibale Carracci. History paintings by Titian, Rubens and even (supposedly) Leonardo da Vinci. For eighteenth-century tourists, one of the main attractions of visiting country houses was the art collections they displayed. Tourists’ writings are packed with references to works, everything from lists of dozens of pictures on display to simple records of works which struck them, such as a note that ‘The Death of Seneca by L. Giordano is esteemed one of the best pictures’ at Burghley or Sir Robert D’Arcy Hildyard’s mention of ‘admirable statues … particularly a Diana, [and] a Venus with wet drapery’ in the gallery at Holkham.2 At a number of houses, the art collection was more celebrated than the house itself.3 The publicity which attended country-house art collections was not only crucial to tourism, it was an important consideration for British artists, especially when their commissions were destined to be displayed in country houses. Kate Retford has argued that portraits hung within the grandest rooms in a house could display family values for tourists: when Joshua Reynolds painted the Earl and Countess of Pembroke (the latter shown with her son), two works which hung in the colonnade room at Wilton, and Nathaniel Hone painted Lord Scarsdale and his wife, a picture which had been commissioned for the state apartment at Kedleston, they did so knowing that their East Sussex Record Office, SHR/1928, ‘Journal of Frances Bridger and Mary Lewis Giving a Conventional Account of Houses’, 1768–89. The phrase in the chapter title is from John Britton, An Historical Account of Corsham House (London: Printed for the Author, 1806), 105. 2 Devon Record Office, 152M/C1802/F69, ‘Journal of a Tour – Enfield to York’, 1802. East Riding Archives and Local Studies, ERALS DDHI/58/19/4, ‘England and Scotland Journal of Sir Robert D’Arcy Hildyard’, 1781–3 (1781). 3 Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies, D/DR/8/7/5, ‘Letter from William and Thomas Drake to Their Father, Describing Their Tour of Northern England’, 1773. 1

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works would become part of displays of family history and the stability of patriarchy.4 To that end, in the portraits he did of the family of the fourth Duke of Marlborough, Reynolds incorporated references to other paintings on display at Blenheim; while working on an ambitious group portrait of the family, he visited the house to paint in situ and to supervise the hanging of the finished work.5 Artists also took a general interest in country-house art collections: Benjamin West, for instance, made trips to view the art at Blenheim, Corsham, Stourhead, Fonthill, Wilton and Longford Castle shortly after he arrived in England.6 By the late eighteenth century, country-house tourism was highly significant for British artists. For a country-house art collection to become prestigious, it required appropriate presentation and public awareness of its merits. This chapter examines how countryhouse art collections were gradually transformed into tourist attractions. As with houses’ architecture, the experience of viewing collections was shaped both by initiatives owners participated in and by a broader discourse led by travel writers. Only owners were in a position to provide lists of the art works on display, lists which encouraged tourists to admire and reflect on each painting and sculpture. In contrast, the public admiration of specific art works, such as Luca Giordano’s Death of Seneca at Burghley, can be traced to a wide range of books and articles, including many narrative tours. Country-house guidebooks sometimes offered readers art-historical narratives to explore during their visits, and often made ambitious claims for the value of the experience. They did not make these claims in isolation: by the beginning of the nineteenth century, many people had begun to identify a number of country-house art collections as museum-like, and to associate them with national culture. Exploring the texts which served as the bedrock of these ideas illuminates both the evolution of the public discourse surrounding country-house art collections and the art works which commanded the attention of country-house tourists.

The list of art works In the middle of the eighteenth century, as more country houses began to display large art collections, tourists’ desires for accurate information about the paintings or statues they saw became a critical element of how they experienced the house. With dozens, sometimes hundreds, of paintings on display, information about the collection was invaluable to visitors. Tourists sometimes complained about houses where they deemed it inadequate, or where none was available at all; for example, in 1743, the Rev. Jeremiah Milles went to Althorp and noted that ‘Here is reckoned to be one of ye finest collections of paintings of any house in England; but … unhappily ye person who shews ye house, Kate Retford, The Art of Domestic Life (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2006), 109, 112, 169–70. 5 Retford, Art, 220. 6 John Galt, The Life, Studies and Works of Benjamin West Esq., 2 vols (London: T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1820), II, 5. 4

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hardly knows ye name of one single piece’ and that ‘I could learn few of ye painters names.’7 The provision of such information was entirely at the discretion of the owner, but as the number of tourists and travel writers visiting houses grew, so too did the pressure on owners. Increasingly, appropriate accommodation for tourists included offering them the names of the art works on display, and, if possible, providing the names of the artists who had created them. Whether they appeared in catalogues, travel books or guidebooks, lists of art works were some of the most important interpretive texts about country houses: they could shape the visitor’s experience, and they could function as the foundation for further claims about the collection. Though lists often read as straightforward, systematic texts, they represented an important intervention in the country house. Lists had the power to transform a collection’s presentation because they implied visitors should be attentive to each art work as an autonomous object, and many collections had not been created or arranged for this purpose. Historically, the idea of paintings as mere decorations for, or furnishings in, country houses was a popular one; for example, at the end of the seventeenth century, writers such as Timothy Nourse and Roger North suggested country-house owners might use paintings to ‘adorn’ and ‘finish’ their state rooms.8 Paintings intended to function as ornaments needed to fit into a decorative scheme; they did not necessarily need to be impressive in themselves. In 1719, Jonathan Richardson lamented that there were ‘Few Lovers of Painting; not merely for Furniture, or for Ostentation, or as it represents their Friends, or Themselves; but as it is an Art capable of Entertaining, and Adorning their Minds’.9 For many collectors who had acquired paintings for country houses, their suitability as decorations was a key consideration; for example, in the mid-1740s and 1750s, the first Earl of Leicester expanded his picture collection with a view to filling the gaps he had identified in the interiors he was creating at Holkham.10 Furthermore, once acquired, the arrangement of pictures might also be driven by overarching concerns rather than by individual art works. There were some houses where the arrangement of pictures was very carefully planned: Francis Russell concluded that Holkham’s hang was ‘more carefully thought out than that of any other English house of its generation’; drawings for the interiors at Houghton (designed by William Kent) and Kedleston (designed by Robert Adam) demonstrate that the picture hang was sometimes planned as part of the design process, ensuring that canvases were hung symmetrically.11 Even if the hang was not planned carefully, at many houses, the framing and installation of art works would have subsumed them into the broader display. Paintings were usually hung closely together, and the frames themselves were often very similar, ensuring that they were visually knitted together.12 They could even British Library, Add MS 15776, ‘Journals of the Rev. Jeremiah Milles’, 1735–43. Timothy Nourse, Campania Foelix, or, A Discourse of the Benefits and Improvements of Husbandry (London: Tho. Bennet, 1700), 311. Roger North, Of Building, ed. Howard Colvin and John Newman (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), 136. 9 Jonathan Richardson, Two Discourses, 2 vols (London: W. Churchill, 1719), II, 6. 10 John Cornforth, Early Georgian Interiors (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2004), 239. 11 Francis Russell, ‘The Hanging and Display of Pictures, 1700–1850’, in The Fashioning and Functioning of the British Country House, ed. Gervase Jackson-Stops (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1989), 137. 12 Russell, ‘Hanging’, 138–9. 7 8

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be built into the space: at Kedleston, frames for paintings in the music and dining rooms and niches for sculptures in the hall were set into the walls, as if the art works had been created to be part of the fabric of the house itself.13 This approach to the acquisition, arrangement and display of art effectively minimized the singularity of each object. For an owner and his personal guests, the identity and significance of individual art works could presumably have been drawn out through conversation, but this clearly did not suffice for tourists. Offering visitors information about each painting and/or sculpture had important consequences for art collections: it demonstrated that each item described was to be thought of as carrying its own meaning, and viewed and analysed on its own merits. In an essay on how frames can distinguish art works, Louis Marin argued that the frame ‘defines the conditions of visual reception and of the contemplation of representation as such ... Through the frame, the picture is never simply one thing to be seen among many: it becomes the object of contemplation’.14 The process of reading information while viewing art works also defines the condition of reception: it is a practice which encourages the viewer to contemplate the individual object, no matter how impressive or coordinated the surrounding display might be. In the eighteenth century, this approach was increasingly popular, but it was not nearly as ingrained as it is today, when it would be almost inconceivable to display art works in a public museum without allowing space between them and providing information about each one. Examining the individual art work was important as well as novel because it was a mode of viewing which was only available to those who possessed the appropriate capacity for aesthetic appreciation and the ability to participate in polite conversation, qualities which were fundamental to an individual’s social position.15 Strictly speaking, information about a painting was not essential for this type of viewing, but it clearly signalled to visitors that this was what was expected of them and it made it substantially easier to take it up: a well-informed visitor was one who would quickly recognize the opportunity to cultivate their own judgement, rather than simply admire the objects. The provision of this information normally relied on some form of publication, most likely because labelling the art works themselves would have disrupted the overall display and created a permanent sign of the house’s role as tourist attraction rather than residence. Printed guides were more convenient (in fact, to this day many country houses continue to rely on printed guides rather than wall labels), and they had an added advantage in that they brought the collection together. Victor Stoichita has argued a catalogue gives an art collection (as specified in the catalogue) self-awareness, coherence and cohesion: it becomes a concept beyond merely an assemblage of things.16 Through publications, Oliver Garnett, Kedleston Hall, 5th edn (Swindon: National Trust, 2006), 10, 21, 8–9. Louis Marin, ‘The Frame of Representation and Some of Its Figures’, in The Rhetoric of the Frame: Essays on the Boundaries of the Art Work, ed. Paul Duro (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 82. 15 Stephen Copley, ‘The Fine Arts in Eighteenth-Century Polite Culture’, in Painting and the Politics of Culture: New Essays on British Art, 1700–1850, ed. John Barrell (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 34–6. See also Iain Pears, The Discovery of Painting: The Growth of Interest in the Arts in England, 1680–1768 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1988), 27–50. 16 Victor Stoichita, The Self-Aware Image: An Insight into Early Modern Meta-Painting, trans. AnneMarie Glasheen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 104–5. 13 14

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then, the art collections on display in country houses not only became legible assemblages, they acquired distinct identities; given that many of these art collections had been formed by multiple collectors, and often without overarching strategies to shape them, coherence was particularly valuable. These advantages are clearly manifested in early publications about art collections in country houses. As a genre, these were rare in the first half of the eighteenth century – many great collections were still being kept in houses in London – but those books which were published made ambitious claims for the importance of their respective collections.17 The first of these was Carlo Gambarini’s A Description of the Earl of Pembroke’s Pictures (1731). The eighth Earl of Pembroke had built up several notable collections at Wilton, including antique sculptures, coins and medals and Old Master paintings; the Description may have been his idea, and he definitely contributed to the text.18 The book listed the artist, subject and scale of each painting, and it organized them according to whether or not they were moveable, and which historical school they represented. In introducing this material, however, Gambarini presented his book as much more than a catalogue of the Earl’s pictures, writing that ‘a Man does what he can to promote the Love of the fine Art of Painting, and the Splendor of your glorious Country’.19 His intention, so stated, was not to provide a description of Wilton – he left out the sculptures, and the building itself – but to show to the public the Wilton paintings’ ability to represent the greatest artists in history. Gambarini further claimed that studying the paintings held in aristocratic collections was so important that he would write subsequent books detailing works owned by over twenty other noblemen, including the Duke of Devonshire, the Duke of Buckingham and Lord Burlington (he does not, however, appear to have done so).20 For Gambarini, not only were these men’s residences places where one could see art, they were places with art of the highest quality, and, by extension, exceptional educational value. He represented Wilton as a repository of one of the world’s great art collections. Houghton was another house where an early publication interpreted and promoted the art collection. Notable for including dozens of Old Master paintings, Sir Robert Walpole’s collection inspired Horace Walpole’s Ædes Walpolianæ (1747/8), a book which describes Houghton’s interior layout and emphasizes its importance as a site which displayed great paintings. Like Gambarini, Walpole provided readers with the pictures’ subjects, artists’ names and sizes; he stressed that he intended it as a catalogue of the collection rather than a description of it.21 In addition, in identifying the paintings, Walpole related them to other works of art; for example, he noted that Pope

Francis Haskell, ‘The British as Collectors’, in The Treasure Houses of Britain, ed. Gervase JacksonStops (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1985), 51. 18 Francis Russell, ‘A Collection Transformed’, Apollo 170, no. 567 (2009): 48. 19 Carlo Gambarini, A Description of the Earl of Pembroke’s Pictures (Westminster: A. Campbell, 1731), xv. 20 Gambarini, Description, vi. 21 Horace Walpole, Ædes Walpolianæ (London: s. n., 1747), vii. It was actually printed in 1748 (A Capital Collection: Houghton Hall and the Hermitage, ed. Andrew Moore and Larissa Dukelskaya (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002), 354). 17

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Innocent XIII had declared Guido Reni’s The Doctors of the Church ‘too fine to be let go out of Rome’ but granted permission when he heard Walpole had purchased it and that The Virgin and Child by Dominichino (now known to be by Sassoferrato) was ‘bought out of the Zambeccari Palace at Bologna’ (Figures 3.1 and 3.2).22 These sorts of details gave the collection what Walpole called ‘a pedigree’, establishing a relationship between it and great European collections.23 In Walpole’s view, the Houghton collection was internationally important: the opening pages of his book proclaim that ‘There are not a great many Collections left in Italy, more worth seeing than this at Houghton: In the Preservation of the Pictures, it certainly excells most of them.’24 To describe Houghton in these terms was to assert that not only was the house a site where art was displayed, it was one that deserved attention from those who were generally interested in painting, and demanded attention from those who wished to consider themselves experts. Providing the catalogue helped ensure that visitors appreciated this: although it was privately printed and initially distributed as gifts, information and excerpts from Ædes Walpolianæ were subsequently included in several other books, including travel guides. Copies seem to have been available for tourists visiting Houghton to consult: after seeing the house in 1756, Caroline Powys wrote that she would bring home ‘a catalogue, as I’ve taken the pains to copy a written one … every room indeed is adorn’d by them’.25 In his account of Houghton, Craven Ord also noted that he had drawn on ‘the catalogue of the pictures from the ÆDES WALPOLIANÆ by Horace Walpole 2d edit 1752’, and that the text was not ideal for the visitor because Walpole had ‘arranged them in the critical order … for ordinary visitors it is as well to view them in the order they hang’.26 Walpole, however, had not been writing for the ordinary visitor. In the 1760s, prominent writers began to appeal for the provision of accurate information about country-house art collections on the grounds that it was necessary for tourists. Thomas Martyn’s The English Connoisseur (1766) begins with a declaration of frustration: ‘It is well known at how few of those houses into which, by the indulgence of their illustrious owners, the curious are admitted, any catalogues of the paintings and other curiosities which adorn them can be obtained; and without such catalogues it must be confessed little use can be made, by the yet uninformed observer of these valuable collections.’27 He went on to explain that his book brought together a selection of catalogues he had obtained in the hopes that it would aide ‘the young student in the polite arts’.28 In response, the Gentleman’s Magazine affirmed that it was as a guide to collections that Martyn’s work would be most valuable, noting that there were many ‘whose judgment and taste enable them to distinguish a good painting’, but that without Walpole, Ædes, 71, 86. Houghton Revisited (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 2013), 240. Walpole, Ædes, vii. 24 Walpole, Ædes, ix. 25 Morris R. Brownell, The Prime Minister of Taste: A Portrait of Horace Walpole (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001), 46. 26 British Library, Add MS 14823, ‘Journal of Tours by Craven Ord in the Counties of Norfolk and Suffolk’, 1781–97. 27 Thomas Martyn, The English Connoisseur, 2 vols (London: L. Davis and C. Reymers, 1766), I, i–ii. 28 Martyn, English, I, ii–iii. For the sources Martyn drew on, see Frank Simpson, ‘“The English Connoisseur” and Its Sources’, The Burlington Magazine 93, no. 584 (1951): 355–6. 22 23

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Figure 3.1  George Farington and William Sharp after Guido Reni, The Doctors of the Church, 1785, engraving, 64.3 × 42.8 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, gift of Georgiana W. Sargent, in memory of John Osborne Sargent, 1924.

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Figure 3.2  George Farington and Valentine Green after Giovanni Battista Sassoferrato (formerly attributed to Domenichino), The Virgin and Child, 1774, mezzotint, 25 × 17.8 cm. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

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information, they could not connect the pictures they had seen with individual artists, and so failed ‘to distinguish the paintings of one master from another’.29 In all three of his Tours (1768, 1769/70, 1771), Arthur Young made a point of listing art works and referring to catalogues, noting when he had been provided with one (as he was at Kedleston), when he could add to the catalogue’s information (as he did at Wilton when he noted pictures ‘not mentioned in the catalogue they sell at the house’) and when a catalogue was not available.30 Observing the need for one at Temple Newsam (West Yorkshire), he complained ‘the person who shews the house, knows neither the subject, or painter of scarce any [of the paintings]; a circumstance to be regretted, when a catalogue is so easily written for the information of the traveller’.31 In other words, not only is the experience of viewing an art collection without an effective list considerably diminished, as far as Young was concerned, polite country-house owners had an obligation to provide one. During this period, some regional guidebooks began to include picture lists for travellers to refer to as they toured houses. Offering descriptions and lists of art works at Blenheim and Ditchley (Oxfordshire) arranged according to room, The New Oxford Guide (1759) stressed that it was meant to be straightforward, declaring that its value was that it had ‘not omitted or misrepresented any one remarkable Particular’, and it was ‘more accurate than elegant’.32 Convenience and accuracy were also issues highlighted in the second edition of The Norfolk Tour (1773), which noted that the revisions to the book included the addition of lists of paintings at Holkham and Narford, and the rearrangement of the list of the Houghton pictures according to the order visitors would encounter them, all changes which would ‘render it much more perfect’.33 For tourists, these lists would have been even more convenient than a formal catalogue at the house because they could be kept for future reference. Writing about a visit to Houghton in 1772, for example, Letitia Beauchamp Proctor discussed several paintings, and observed that ‘you will wonder perhaps, how I became so well acquainted with the names of the painters, but I carried a little Book with me which containd them, the remarks are all my own’.34 It was to enable precisely this type of approach that Martyn and Young encouraged landowners to provide lists: while the picture collection at Houghton had been hung with a view to a symmetrical arrangement and the appearance of grandeur, the valuable experience for visitors was the appreciation of each painting. As tourist numbers increased, more and more houses began providing their own lists of paintings. When Caroline Powys visited Longford Castle in 1776, she found ‘2. [Review of] The English Connoisseur’, The Gentleman’s Magazine 36 (1766): 286. Arthur Young, The Farmer’s Tour through the East of England, 4 vols (London: W. Strahan, 1771), I, xixx. Arthur Young, A Six Weeks Tour through the Southern Counties of England and Wales (London: W. Nicoll, 1768), 161. 31 Arthur Young, A Six Months Tour through the North of England, 4 vols (London: W. Strahan, 1769/70), I, 390. 32 The New Oxford Guide (Oxford: J. Fletcher, 1759), 78. 33 The Norfolk Tour, 2nd edn (Norwich: R. Beatniffe, 1773), iii. 34 Cambridgeshire Archives, 408/F2/2, ‘Letter to Agneta Yorke, the Writer’s Sister, from Langley Park, Describing Second Tour of Norfolk’, 1772. 29 30

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that there was ‘a catalogue to every room’.35 Describing his visit to Kedleston in 1777, James Boswell noted ‘We saw a good many fine pictures. … There is a printed catalogue of them which the housekeeper put into my hand.’36 This ‘catalogue’ was very different from the texts published by Gambarini and Walpole: designed to function as a practical guide, it not only lists art works with their titles and the names of the artists who created them, it gives considerable attention to the location of works. Each was positioned along the route visitors were expected to take and in addition, the text groups paintings according to the area of the room they were in, such as ‘Chimney Side’ and ‘South End’ of the Withdrawing Room, and it provides their dimensions.37 Similarly, CowdrayHouse (1777) groups paintings according to rooms, and it too includes further details about the locations of each work, such as ‘In two ornamented Compartments’ and ‘Over the opposite Door’.38 In form, these catalogues were somewhat like pamphlets, but they would clearly have been very effective guides. For later eighteenth-century visitors, this type of information about picture collections had an important urban precedent. The emergence of exhibition catalogues in London in the early 1760s would have ensured that many country-house tourists were familiar with written guides to collections. Whether working for institutions or commercial galleries, exhibition organizers in London often published their own catalogues, simple inventories of the works which were on display and the names of the artists who had created them. The Royal Academy catalogues’ lists followed ‘the arrangement of paintings in the various galleries’ to better enable visitors to identify works as they moved through the exhibition.39 Like the catalogue-guides to Kedleston and Cowdray, these texts were closer to pamphlets than formal books, but they were significant nonetheless; C. S. Matheson has argued that they could ‘address the public authoritatively in their prefaces and eventually seek to manipulate its movement’.40 The popularity of the London exhibitions indicates many country-house guidebook readers would have understood this type of catalogue, and been accustomed to the mode of viewing it implicitly recommended. The importance of accurate information about each art work, about its title and the artist who had created it soon became one of the chief rationales for the publication of country-house guidebooks. In the preface to Ædes Pembrochianæ (1774), for example, the author speculated that ‘Without a clue to guide them, without some book to direct them, or some person to inform them,’ visitors might not notice Wilton’s most beautiful art works.41 Similarly, Burghley (1797) tells the reader that ‘so fine a collection of painting’ Passages from the Diaries of Mrs. Philip Lybbe Powys of Hardwick House, Oxon. AD 1756 to 1808, ed. Emily J. Climenson (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1899), 165. 36 James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, 3rd edn, 4 vols (London: H. Baldwin and Son, 1799), III, 175. 37 Nathaniel Curzon, first Baron Scarsdale, Catalogue of the Pictures, Statues, & c. at Kedleston. With Some Account of the Architecture, [5th edn] (s. l.: s. n., c. 1810), 11, 12. 38 A Catalogue of the Pictures at Cowdray-House (Portsmouth: R. Carr, 1777), 4, 5. 39 C. S. Matheson, ‘“A Shilling Well Laid Out”: The Royal Academy’s Early Public’, in Art on the Line: The Royal Academy Exhibitions at Somerset House, 1780–1836, ed. David Solkin (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001), 42–3. 40 Matheson, ‘Shilling’, 40. 41 Ædes Pembrochianæ: Or a Critical Account of the Statues, Bustos, Relievos, Paintings, Medals, and other Antiquities and Curiosities at Wilton-House (London: R. Baldwin, 1774), iii–iv (‘Preface’). 35

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requires ‘some person to show it, whose intellects are a little more cultivated than those of a common chamber-maid’, tacitly offering to fill that role.42 These types of claims were also made in response to guidebooks: commenting on the publication of the guide to Corsham (1806), one reviewer declared ‘we should be glad to see every capital collection in the kingdom described in the same manner: it would wonderfully relieve the traveller from the tiresome impertinence of ignorant housekeepers’.43 In content and in format, guidebooks’ lists typically appear to be relatively straightforward: they list each painting and sculpture separately, they provide a title for each one, and, at least in the case of paintings, they usually name the artist who created it. All this information is presented within a set layout of some kind, and, because of the sheer number of works displayed in houses, it usually stretches over several pages; unlike travel books, guidebooks would normally have been more or less comprehensive. In a discussion of tourists’ experiences at royal residences, Catherine Tite has argued that because guidebooks included apparently comprehensive descriptions of the rooms, they made the visitor’s experience systematic, replacing a tradition of oral anecdotal descriptions and ‘enabling visitors to rationalize and plan their visits to the royal palaces as centres of culture and museum-like display’.44 Country-house guidebooks would have done the same: by providing visitors with names which they could match to paintings and sculptures, they framed the experience of touring a house’s art collection as a methodical and modern one. Whether available in a travel book, a catalogue at the house or a guidebook, a list of art works was an integral element of a description of a house, and critical to the fame of a collection. In reflecting on what they had seen, many tourists chose to write out tremendous lists of their own: James Plumptre listed over forty paintings at Kedleston, Maria Cubitt recorded forty-seven paintings at Burghley and William Gray itemized over twenty at Corsham.45 Beyond what they had seen, lists also facilitated the promotion and recognition of specific works of art or aspects of the collection. Theoretically, having identified specific works would have enabled tourists to reflect on art works’ arrangement and themes which emerged from their juxtaposition, such as the significance of an arrangement of family portraits; in practice, surviving evidence suggests this was rare.46 Few tourists commented

J. Horn, A History or Description, General and Circumstantial, of Burghley House (Shrewsbury: J. and W. Eddowes, 1797), 42. 43 ‘Art. XX. [Review of] An Historical Account of Corsham House’, The Annual Review, and History of Literature 5 (1807): 480. 44 Catherine Tite, Portraiture, Dynasty and Power: Art Patronage in Hanoverian Britain, 1714–1759 (Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2010), 110. 45 Cambridge University Library, Add. 5804, ‘Journal of a Tour into Derbyshire’ [made by James Plumptre], 1793. Norfolk Record Office, MC233/16, 680x5, ‘Journal of a Tour’ (apparently by Maria Cubitt…through south and midlands of England), 1814. Explore York Libraries and Archives, Acc5,6,24,235/T5–A, ‘Journey from York to Bath made by William Gray, Senior’, 1809. 46 For a series of case studies of dynamics between portraits and other art works on display, see Placing Faces: The Portrait and the English Country House in the Long Eighteenth Century, ed. Gill Perry, Kate Retford and Jordan Vibert, with Hannah Lyons (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013). For an analysis of this issue in London exhibitions, see Mark Hallett, ‘Reading the Walls: Pictorial Dialogue at the British Royal Academy’, Eighteenth-Century Studies 37, no. 4 (2004): 581–604. 42

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on how the meanings of paintings affected each other: in fact, few commented on the meanings of individual works at all. The vast majority of tourists were more concerned with the quality and the fame of the works they were viewing: for them, a precise description of the collection gave definition to its prestige, and subsequently enabled greater commentary and praise.

The celebrated art work In the second half of the eighteenth century, one of the most common elements of a description of a country house was praise for the art collection: travel writers, tourists and guidebooks routinely referred to specific art works as ‘beautiful’ or ‘fine’. Some paintings and sculptures, however, were discussed in detail, celebrated as if they were the most important works on display. Unlike lists, which could only be created with some input from the owner (however minimal), the increasing fame of selected art works within country-house art collections can be seen as a reflection of a broader public discourse surrounding them. Fuelled by travel writers and art dealers, by newspapers and even artists, the mechanisms which made specific paintings and sculptures well known were numerous, and they sometimes overlapped. The travel writer’s encomium on an Old Master painting might be echoed by a country-house guidebook; the newspaper report of a high-profile sale of an antique sculpture might elevate it to travel writers’ particular notice. Significantly, the art works which are most celebrated in tourists’ writings always have a presence in travel publications, and they are not necessarily the works which might have been most valued by connoisseurs or by the London art market; it was rare, for example, for tourists to praise paintings by contemporary British artists, no matter how prominent their works might be in a given room. This makes the praise in travel literature particularly important: it demonstrates that many paintings and sculptures in country-house collections were becoming well known in their own right, and their enhanced status ultimately burnished the prestige of the country houses they were on display at. While tourists valued the opportunity to identify every art work on display at a house, examining each one could easily become overwhelming. At Burghley, there were literally hundreds of paintings; the tourists Frances Bridger and Mary Lewis declared that there was simply ‘too great a Profusion of Pictures … unless a Traveler could allow one Day to each room’.47 For many visitors, however, one picture stood out: Our Lord Blessing the Bread and Wine by Carlo Dolci, a relatively small canvas which still hangs in the Jewel Closet (Plate 1). Diary entries indicate that many travellers were extremely impressed with this painting in particular: while the comments themselves are often not especially interesting – Maria Cubitt simply noted it was the ‘most beautiful’ and the Honourable H. Legge declared that the painting ‘pleased us best’ out of the whole collection – the sheer frequency with which tourists praised it East Sussex Record Office, SHR/1928.

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is exceptional.48 Some made a point of noting that it was an extraordinary work by an artist they already admired, reporting (for instance), that the house had ‘a Collection of most capital Pictures by the best Masters, I do not recollect to have seen a finer performance of my favourite Carlo Dolce than the Head of Our Saviour’.49 Frederick Charles Spencer’s assessment of the painting is especially interesting as it includes a comparison between two popular, widely admired houses: ‘The Salvator Mundi, justly celebrated as one of the first paintings in this country, and the Chef-d’oeuvre of Carlo Dolci. While I was examining this picture, I had the Mary Magdalene at Blenheim in my “mind’s eye;” and with some hesitation I gave the palm to Burleigh.’50 By the early nineteenth century, Dolci’s painting was clearly one of the highlights of a visit to the house. While part of this celebrity might be attributed to the way this painting is displayed – unlike the vast majority of the other paintings at Burghley, it is hung in a small room which would have heightened the intimacy of visitors’ encounters with it – the painting had been widely praised in travel books. Arthur Young admired Dolci’s painting at length, and given the popularity of his writings, his judgement would have been reasonably well known. In his Tour through the North (1769/70), he declared ‘To desire you to make a pause when you come to this picture, would surely be needless; for all, from the connoissieur [sic] to the clown, must be struck with astonishment at the first entering the room: Sure never piece was finished in so perfect a manner.’51 Soon reprinted in England Displayed and the Critical Review, this account, which goes on to praise several elements of the composition, circulated widely.52 It is a text which insists every tourist admire the painting, particularly if they aspire to any judgement in art: in effect, Young both demanded and modelled the correct, polite reaction to it. Years later, both guidebooks to Burghley also celebrated it: A History or Description… of Burghley (1797) declared that no other work is ‘more eminently conspicuous’ than this one, and that it deserves attention because ‘Never, certainly, were serene sweetness and benevolence more happily touched and displayed than they are in this piece’; the Guide to Burghley (1815) proclaimed that it is ‘incomparable … and is the flower of this diversified collection’.53 Given all this promotion, it is not surprising that this painting emerged as having a special status for visitors. Norfolk Record Office, MC 233/16, 680x5. Staffordshire Record Office, D(W)1778/V/1110, ‘Journal of a Tour of the North of England by the Hon. H. Legge’, 3 vols, 1787, I. For additional passages which note the painting, see East Sussex Record Office, SHR/1928; Lincolnshire Archives, MON 15/C/1, ‘A Journey to the Lakes, written by the Hon. Mrs. William Monson’, 1793; Wiltshire and Swindon Archives, 1300/6584, ‘An Account of a Tour of North England and Scotland by Charles Lord Bruce and Mr. Brand’, 1789; Kent History & Library Centre, U1776/F6, ‘Journal of Tour to the Lakes’, early nineteenth century; and British Library, Mss Eur F331/42, ‘Memorandums … Travel Notes in England’, 1779. 49 Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies, D/DR/8/7/1, ‘Letter from William and Thomas Drake to Their Father, Describing Their Tour of Northern England’, 1773. 50 Frederick Charles Spencer, Journal of a Tour to Scotland (Oxford: Munday and Slatter, 1816), 7–8. 51 Young, North, I, 67. 52 P. Russell and Owen Price, England Displayed, 2 vols (London: Printed for the Authors, 1769), I, 364. ‘Article I. [Review of] A Six Months Tour through the North of England’, The Critical Review 28 (1769): 405. 53 Horn, Burghley, 93, 94. Thomas Blore, A Guide to Burghley House (Stamford: John Drakard, 1815) (British Library, 10358.ccc.3), 58. 48

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A similar aura surrounded one of the paintings at Kedleston: Daniel Interpreting Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream (Plate 2), then attributed to Rembrandt but now believed to be by Salomon Koninck, attracted tremendous attention from both travel writers and tourists. In his Sketch of a Tour into Derbyshire and Yorkshire (1778), William Bray commented on the painting at length, claiming that it beggars all description. It is the story of Daniel brought before Nebuchadnezzar to interpret his dream, and contains eight or nine small whole length figures. The composed majesty of the king, who is seated in a chair of state; the astonishment and terror of his great men sitting near him; the earnestness of Daniel kneeling before him, and in short the whole piece is, beyond expression, striking.54

This passage was repeated almost verbatim in The Modern Universal British Traveller (1779) and The Juvenile Tourist (1805).55 The Rev. Richard Warner wrote his own account of the painting’s merits for an 1802 narrative tour: ‘One of the finest productions of the pencil of Rembrandt; the subject Daniel Interpreting Belshazzar’s Dream. The solemnity of Daniel’s figure; the attention and alarm in the different faces; the grandeur of the king; and the splendid light emanating from the mithra, or emblem of the sun, behind the king’s throne, are all indications of transcendent genius and skill.’56 Tourists reflecting on the painting in their diaries often had less to say about its specific merits, but their admiration is clear: in recounting a visit in 1779, one tourist labelled it ‘extraordinary’; a visitor in 1807 described it as ‘particularly striking … the expression of countenance, in many of the group is exquisite’.57 After visiting in 1808, Mary Kerr wrote that it ‘is one of Rembrants finest Pictures Daniel before Nebuchadnezzar to interpret his Dream, it contains 8 or 9 whole length Figures, and rivets the attention for a long time’.58 While it is impossible to be certain that any of these visitors had read Bray’s or Warner’s account, this painting was clearly perceived to be one of the house’s great art works. Other Old Master paintings which became particularly famous did so because of popular stories which travel writers helped perpetuate. After Dolci’s Our Saviour Blessing the Elements, the second most notable painting at Burghley was Luca Giordano’s Death of Seneca. In the 1748 edition of Daniel Defoe’s Tour, this painting was described as ‘a fine Piece of Seneca bleeding to Death in the warm Bath, and dictating his last Morals to his Scholars; a Piece so excellent, that I have been told, the late King of France offered the Earl 6000 Pistoles for it’.59 Like Bray’s account of the Kedleston William Bray, Sketch of a Tour into Derbyshire and Yorkshire (London: B. White, 1778), 69–70. Charles Burlington, David Llewellyn Rees and Alexander Murray, The Modern Universal British Traveller (London: J. Cooke, 1779), 104. John Evans, The Juvenile Tourist (London: Albion Press, 1805), 221. 56 Richard Warner, A Tour through the Northern Counties of England, and the Borders of Scotland, 2 vols (Bath: Printed by R. Cruttwell, 1802), I, 120–1. 57 Cornwall Record Office, CA/B50/5, ‘Journal of Tour to North of England’, 1779. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, Osborn d433, ‘[Journal]’, June – August 1807. 58 Yale Center for British Art, DA11 .K47 1789, ‘Notes on Visits to Various Country Houses and Towns in Great Britain’ [by Mary Kerr], 1789–1826 (Paul Mellon Collection). 59 Daniel Defoe, A Tour thro’ the Whole Island of Great Britain, 4th edn, 4 vols (London: S. Birt, 1748), III, 40. 54

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‘Rembrandt’, this story was repeated in The Modern Universal British Traveller; more importantly, similar stories were told about other paintings.60 On seeing the Raphael Holy Family at Okeover, one tourist reported it was ‘a remarkable fine Picture … which they say the family has refused 3000 Guins. for’, a price which would have been an extraordinary sum for a painting in the 1770s.61 The best-known painting at Wilton was a giant family portrait by van Dyck which features ten full-length figures including Philip Herbert, fourth Earl of Pembroke, his wife, Lady Anne Clifford, his son and heir, Charles, Charles’s bride, Mary Villiers, daughter of the Duke of Buckingham, and several of the earl’s other children; still at Wilton today, this work takes up most of a wall in the Double Cube Room (Figure 3.3). Visiting in 1776, Peter Oliver declared that on seeing it, ‘I was overcome wth Amazement: –this Family Piece Sr. Godfry Kneller offered £3000 for, & the late King of France offered to cover the Piece with Louis d’Ors for the Purchase of it.’62 The painting is undoubtedly monumental in scale, but this

Figure 3.3  The Double Cube Room at Wilton. © Country Life Picture Library. Anthony van Dyck’s Portrait of the fourth Earl of Pembroke and his Family/Family Piece (c. 1635) is visible in the background. Burlington et al., Modern, 196. British Library, Add MS 80764, ‘Travel Journal’, 1770. 62 British Library, Egerton MS 2672, ‘Voyages and Travels: Journal of Voyage from America to England, and Various Tours, by P. Oliver’, 1776–80. 60 61

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story is one Oliver clearly heard or read, possibly in a magazine.63 In his Observations on the Western Parts of England (1798), William Gilpin made a shrewd assessment of such claims: ‘that it might have been covered with gold, as a price to obtain it … is a compliment which I have often heard paid in great houses to favourite pictures; and as the King of France is supposed to be the richest man in Europe, he is generally introduced, on these occasions, as the bidder’.64 While all or any of these stories may have been apocryphal, their meaning does not depend on their veracity. They created a sense that some of the paintings in country houses were suitable for a king’s palace and a royal collection, and by extension, a national collection. The refusal of the tremendous sum or the price set by covering the canvas with gold implies that it was effectively inconceivable that these paintings would be sold. They resist the idea of the painting as a commodity: it is as if they are beyond the reach of the London art market, and their monetary worth is unimportant when weighed against their excellence as works of art. Yet while Giordano’s Death of Seneca and the van Dyck family portrait had been in their respective collections since the seventeenth century, and had not really ever been on the London art market, one of the most extraordinary retellings of this myth was written for a work which had been the object of a very recent, very famous sale. Annibale Carracci’s The Three Maries is now owned by the National Gallery and displayed under the title The Dead Christ Mourned (Plate 3). In the early nineteenth century, this painting was on display at Castle Howard, and the house’s guidebook (1805) contains a lengthy piece of propaganda for the painting and the owner: If there ever was a picture that united all the excellencies of painting, this seems to be that wonderful effort of the art. The drawing, colouring and composition, cannot be surpassed … Many stories are recorded of the esteemed value of this extraordinary work; such as the court of Spain having offered to cover its surface with Louis-d’ors, which would amount, by the trial, to 8,000… By the most awful and unexpected of all events, the French Revolution, and in the wreck of all princely grandeur, and individual property, it found its way into England, and into the hands of the owner of this house; where, as long as it remains, may it not only be an object of delight and admiration, but a memorial of the instability of all worldly possessions.65

Here, the painting is not only a great artistic achievement and a work of near mythical value, it represents a public service; written by the Earl of Carlisle himself, this is one of the most blatant claims for the country-house owner’s role as a guardian of culture to be found in any publication during this period. Yet although the language here is certainly extreme, the painting’s fame was already established and the guidebook was simply building on it. ‘Description of Wilton House’, The Oxford Magazine 8 (1772): 216. William Gilpin, Observations on the Western Parts of England, Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty (London: T. Cadell Jun. and W. Davies, 1798), 111–12. 65 Frederick Howard, fifth Earl of Carlisle, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Pictures at Castle-Howard (Malton: G. Sagg, 1805), 11–12. 63 64

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The Three Maries had been one of the highlights of the Orléans collection of Italian pictures, which was exhibited and sold in London in the 1790s.66 During the French Revolution, the Duc d’Orléans was forced to sell his collection (once displayed in the Palais Royal in Paris) in stages; in 1798, the Star reported that his collection of Italian paintings was in a warehouse in the City of London and that the king of Spain had offered ten thousand guineas for Carracci’s painting.67 Later that year the paintings were purchased by the Duke of Bridgewater, Lord Gower and the Earl of Carlisle, and, advertised as a ‘superb assemblage of Italian pictures’, on 26 December 1798 the Orléans Italian paintings (including The Three Maries) went on exhibition, divided between Michael Bryan’s gallery (88 Pall-Mall) and the Lyceum in the Strand.68 Admission cost half a crown, and in response the Morning Chronicle published an article wondering why a lower fee could not have been set, given that the noblemen who exhibited the collection must have done so to ‘cherish the love of the Arts’ and ‘ameliorate the national taste’.69 The event undoubtedly enhanced public awareness of the Orléans collection, and to a lesser extent the individual reputation of The Three Maries. Thereafter, some of the excitement of this provenance clung to the pictures the earl had acquired for Castle Howard: during his tour, Sir Robert D’Arcy Hildyard noted ‘some fine acquisitions from the Orleans [sic] gallery’; for Sarah Martha Holroyd, the ‘new acquisition of pictures from the Orleans Gallery’ was ‘the greatest treat’ of her visit in 1801.70 When Louis Simond visited in 1811, he observed that The Three Maries was ‘very famous’ and ‘has the honour of the curtain’; earlier in his account, Simond noted a painting covered with a curtain which was drawn aside for visitors, and it seems likely this small ceremony was also in place for viewing The Three Maries.71 Paintings were not the only works which acquired reputations from a combination of travel writing and a high-profile appearance in London: the antique sculptures at Duncombe Park were some of the most famous in England, perhaps as well known as any of the paintings discussed above. One was the so-called Dog of Alcibiades, a second-century CE Roman copy of a Greek sculpture of a Molossian dog (Figure 3.4). It is unclear exactly where it was excavated, but sometime between 1748 and 1756, the sculptor Bartolomeo Cavaceppi acquired it, restored the muzzle, left foreleg and plinth For more on the Orléans exhibitions, see Philippa Helen Boudica Simpson, ‘Exposing the British School: The Rise of Old Master Exhibition Culture in London c1793–1825’ (doctoral thesis, Courtauld Institute of Art, 2009), 44–56 and 66–78. 67 ‘Prologue to Secrets Worth Knowing’, Star, 20 January 1798 (Issue 2942). 68 For examples of advertisements, see ‘Orleans Italian Pictures’, Times, 19 December 1798 (Issue 4361); ‘Orleans Italian Pictures’, True Briton (1793), 25 December 1798 (Issue 1871); and ‘Orleans Italian Pictures’, Morning Chronicle, 8 January 1799 (Issue 9244). 69 ‘The Orleans Collection’, Morning Chronicle, 3 January 1799 (Issue 9240). In the spring the admission was reduced to one shilling (Simpson, ‘Exposing’, 67). 70 East Riding Archives and Local Studies, ERALS DDHI/58/19/8, ‘England Journal of Sir Robert D’Arcy Hildyard’, 1788–1810. Serena Holroyd, ‘Serena to M. J. S., Lincoln: March 18, 1801’, in The Early Married Life of Maria Josepha Lady Stanley, ed. Jane H. Adeane (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1899), 216. 71 Louis Simond, Journal of a Tour and Residence in Great Britain, 2 vols (Edinburgh: George Ramsay and Company, 1815), II, 74. 66

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Figure 3.4  The Dog of Alcibiades, second century CE, marble, 105 cm (height). © The Trustees of the British Museum.

and some parts of the body and sold it to Henry Jennings.72 In 1778, Jennings consigned his collection to Christie’s and at a sale on 4 April, Charles Duncombe bought it and placed it in the front hall of his house.73 It was already widely praised as an exceptional work; Horace Walpole had named it as one of only five sculptures of animals to survive The Treasure Houses of Britain, ed. Gervase Jackson-Stops (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1985), 318. 73 Carlos A. Picon, Bartolomeo Cavaceppi (London: Clarendon Gallery, 1983), 81. 72

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from antiquity which were ‘of equal merit’ with the best surviving statues of humans.74 The publicity around the sale and the price the sculpture fetched significantly enhanced its fame. The advertisement for the auction promised ‘a representation of the renowned Dog of Alcibiades, an extraordinary production of the famous Myron, known to be one of the most capital pieces of sculpture extant’; it also noted that the collection would be open for public viewing on the two days before the sale.75 A couple of weeks after the sale, the Morning Post and Daily Advertiser reported that the sculpture had been sold to ‘Mr. Duncomb of Grosvenor Square’.76 The paper also alluded to the thousand guineas Duncombe had reportedly paid for the work, a price which is the subject of an interesting passage in James Boswell’s Life of Johnson (1791). Johnson had seen the sculpture while it was exhibited during the days leading up to the auction, as had a number of his peers; supposedly, on hearing that the statue was valued at a thousand guineas, one of his friends exclaimed ‘A thousand guineas! The representation of no animal whatever is worth so much’, and Johnson replied ‘Sir, it is not the worth of the thing, but of the skill in forming it which is so highly estimated.’77 Notorious for its high cost and valued for its rarity, the Dog had developed quite a reputation. After the sale, tourists and travel writers celebrated the statue’s presence at Duncombe Park. An 1802 visitor simply described it as the ‘most remarkable’ in the house, ‘a noble antique’.78 In contrast, visiting c. 1796, the tourist John Eyre declared the sculpture ‘justly admired’ – but he, like a visitor in 1779, also recorded its extraordinary price.79 Richard Sulivan claimed that for connoisseurs, it was ‘the finest and most valuable part of the collection’, and the Duncombe Park guidebook called it ‘an excellent antique sculpture’.80 The guidebook also identified the Dog as an exceptional work of the ancient sculptor Myron, and, even more rarely, as one of a pair of his works in the same room. This second sculpture was a Diskophoros, then called a Discobolus, an early-fourth-century BCE type which survives in a dozen Roman copies, one of which Duncombe had bought from the collector William Locke (Figure 3.5).81 While it was in Locke’s possession, Gilpin had written a lengthy description of and reflection on it as part of his Observations, and the guide to Duncombe Park later reprinted this passage. It declares that it is ‘the first statue in England’, and that ‘what chiefly engages the attention in this statue, is, it’s [sic] expression … as in the Venus, the Belvidere Apollo, the listening Slave, or the Farnesian Hercules. All these gentle modes of action Horace Walpole, Anecdotes of Painting in England, 4 vols, 3rd edn (2nd edn of ‘The History of the Modern Taste in Gardening’) (London: J. Dodsley, 1782), IV, xiii. 75 ‘Sales by Auction … by Mess. Christie and Ansell … the Valuable and Truly Capital Museum, &c. of Henry Constantine Jennings’, Morning Post and Daily Advertiser, 30 March 1778 (Issue 1698). 76 ‘Anecdote of the Famous Dog of Alcibiades’, Morning Post and Daily Advertiser, 16 April 1778 (Issue 1714). 77 James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, 2 vols (London: Henry Baldwin, 1791), II, 191. 78 Devon Record Office, 152M/C1802/F69. 79 National Archives, PRO 30/46/1/4, ‘Diary’ [kept by the Ven. John Eyre, Archdeacon of Nottingham], 1796–7. Cornwall Record Office, CA/B50/5. 80 A Description of Duncombe Park and Rivalx [sic] Abbey &c. Attempted (Kirbymoorside: Harrison and Cooper, 1812), 5. Richard Joseph Sulivan, A Tour through Parts of England, Scotland, and Wales, in 1778, 2nd edn, 2 vols (London: T. Becket, 1785), II, 119. 81 This sculptural type is now known as the Diskophoros because the athlete is carrying the discus as opposed to throwing it. 74

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Figure 3.5  Illustration of the Diskophoros from Bartolomeo Cavaceppi, Raccolta D’Antiche Statue Busti Bassirilievi ed altre Sculture, 3 vols, Rome: Pietro Manna, 1768, engraving, 19.4 × 28.8 cm. © The British Library Board (1265.h.27).

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or expression are certainly much more beautiful …. The Discobolus before us possesses this beauty in a distinguished manner’.82 In praising the statue by associating it with such famous works, Gilpin and the editor of the guidebook highlighted the significance of the sculpture as an iconic antique. It was widely admired and reproduced during the eighteenth century; a cast of it was even on display at the Royal Academy.83 This broader recognition of the work would have enabled many tourists to recognize it easily, and by extension, to appreciate the significance of the opportunity to see it at Duncombe Park. In some instances, art works in country houses might find their fame enhanced through the publication of prints. John Boydell published prints of dozens of paintings from private collections, including many which were on display in country houses and were popular with tourists; for example, in 1768 he published a print of Giordano’s Death of Seneca at Burghley (Figure 3.6). In 1782, he published Richard Earlom’s mezzotint Rubens’s Wife (Figure 3.7), and in 1789, he published Charles Howard Hodges’s mezzotint

Figure 3.6  Simon François Ravenet I and Richard Earlom after Luca Giordano, The Death of Seneca, 1768, engraving, 48.4 × 60.2 cm. © The Trustees of the British Museum. Duncombe Park, 6–7, quoting phrases from Gilpin, Western, 20, 21. Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, Taste and the Antique (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1982), 200. Picon, Bartolomeo, 30.

82 83

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Silenus, both works after Rubens paintings which were on display at Blenheim, where they were widely admired. Visiting in 1750, Philip Yorke commented ‘There are several fine Rubens here … the adoration of the Magi, a drunken Silenus with Bacchanals; the

Figure 3.7  Josiah Boydell and Richard Earlom after Peter Paul Rubens, Rubens’s Wife, 1782, mezzotint, 50.2 × 35.2 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

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flight into Egypt; Lot and his two daughters; a Roman charity; Catherine de Medici; one of Rubens’ wives singly; and a picture unfinished of the three together etc.’84 Later tourists also singled out the Rubens paintings: in 1769, Thomas de Grey claimed they ‘exceed any in England if not in Europe’, and in 1784, Hildyard described them as an ‘excellent collection’.85 Boydell’s prints would have enhanced this reputation, which was further inflated by the Blenheim guidebook; describing the palace’s Grand Cabinet, it declared ‘The paintings [which included several by Rubens] are some of the most superb in any collection.’86 Similarly, Boydell’s prints helped enhance the fame of the Houghton collection, even after it had been sold: between 1774 and 1788, he published a series of 162 prints of paintings in the Walpole collection under the title the Houghton Gallery (Figures 3.1 and 3.2). Through displays in print shop windows, a venue sometimes called ‘the poor man’s picture gallery’, as well as in the shops themselves, these and other paintings would have become better known, allowing potential tourists to get a sense of what they might expect to see during their travels.87 Whether through travel books, tourist diaries, newspapers, periodicals, exhibition literature or guidebooks, public attention to selected paintings and sculptures made those art works integral to the identity of the house in question. Numerous instances of praise for a given work – no matter how brief the passages might be – suggest that many tourists would have anticipated seeing a specific work (or works) on their visits, and such art works may even have been part of their reason for visiting a house. We can assume that housekeepers and guides became used to pointing them out, whether or not they were knowledgeable about the entire collection, and tourists’ writings demonstrate that seeing these works could be quite exciting. This discourse is one which evokes spectacle, be it through superlative adjectives, extraordinary histories or even legends, and it is one which emerges from somewhat disorderly patterns in multiple texts. In country-house guidebooks alone, however, the discourse surrounding collections was often a highly systematic one, directed towards the collection’s educational potential.

Country-house collections and narratives of the history of art In addition to providing identifications of art works, in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, several country-house guidebooks offered readers a wealth of extra information about collections and the artists whose works they contained. Authors offered discussions of individual paintings’ and sculptures’ formal qualities, iconography and occasionally provenance, and longer guidebooks often provided wider contexts for these readings, such as surveys of entire periods and media which were ‘The Travel Journal of Philip Yorke, 1744–63’, in Joyce Godber, The Marchioness Grey of Wrest Park (Volume XLVII of The Bedfordshire Historical Record Society, 1968), 147. 85 East Riding Archives and Local Studies, ERALS DDHI/58/19/6, ‘England and Wales Journal of Sir Robert D’Arcy Hildyard’, 1784–88. Norfolk Record Office, WLS/XLVIII/1/425 x 9, ‘Letters [from Thomas de Grey (later Lord Walsingham) to his parents describing a tour in the West Country]’, 1769. 86 William Mavor, New Description of Blenheim, 2nd edn (London: T. Cadell, 1789), 60. 87 Richard D. Altick, The Shows of London (London: Belknap Press, 1978), 109. 84

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relevant. Given their subjects, although art history was not a formal discipline at the time, these narratives can be categorized as art-historical, and they changed the nature of the collections by providing tourists with a broader intellectual framework through which to understand the art works on display. Many guidebook authors presented viewing art collections as opportunities for self-improvement through cultural education, through studying art and understanding its history. The approach to understanding art that was promoted in guidebooks, however, was a serious and deeply conservative one. The impression of gravity these texts convey relies on the contemporary association between art and personal character development. The idea that ‘the exercise of taste’ – that is, the appreciation of certain art works and the ability to articulate said appreciation – enhanced an individual’s virtue had been established in the first half of the eighteenth century by theorists such as the third Earl of Shaftesbury.88 Lists of art works alone implied the opportunity to view the art collection was a chance for personal refinement, but in some guidebooks, this was made explicit. In the opening section of one of the Wilton guidebooks (1774), for example, is an essay that begins with the statement ‘The arts and sciences are intimately connected with the improvement and civilization of mankind’; this is followed by sections with detailed descriptions of the sculptures and paintings on display.89 Like the author of that guidebook, John Britton treated the visit to the art collection at Corsham as a character-building exercise; his guidebook (1806) declares that ‘To improve the taste, ameliorate the manners, and cultivate the refinements of polished life, is the express province of the Fine Arts’, and goes on to argue that ‘the love of the arts tends to render man, not only engagingly social, but additionally enlightened and refined’.90 Such statements set the tone for guidebooks’ subsequent discussions about collections. Given what possibilities were at stake, it is not surprising that some guidebooks emphasized the scholarly credentials of the information they were offering. Providing citations and references to authorities is both a commitment to and an instruction for the reader: the author has taken his project seriously and the reader is expected to do so as well. When he incorporated ‘Biographical Sketches of the Artists, whose Works Constitute this Collection’ into the Corsham guidebook, Britton implied that his work did not merely provide additional information about the paintings, it was a valuable contribution to the critical literature on art.91 He compared his work to that of the earlier English art historian Matthew Pilkington, author of The Gentleman’s and Connoisseur’s Dictionary of Painters (1770), arguing that ‘we must admit that his work was excellent for the time, but now we require something better. A few lines from an impartially intelligent professional man, are of more real importance than a volume by an unpractised connoisseur. Sensible of this, I have obtained the assistance of an eminent artist to look over the following memorandums’.92 The artist was Benjamin David Solkin, Painting for Money: The Visual Arts and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century England (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1993), 9. 89 Ædes Pembrochianæ, i (‘A Dissertation on… Sculpture’). 90 Britton, Corsham, 2, 4. 91 Britton, Corsham, title page. 92 Britton, Corsham, 62. 88

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West, then the President of the Royal Academy.93 For the extended edition of Burghley (1815), Thomas Blore also drew on the authority of Royal Academicians: his guidebook provides Joshua Reynolds’s opinions of the artists Correggio, Baroccio and Jan van Eyck, and Henry Fuseli’s of Carlo Maratta, Albrecht Dürer and Rembrandt, among others.94 Presumably, the prestige of these men was intended to augment both the prestige of the guidebooks and of the collections they described. The Wilton guidebook refers to a number of leading writers who were widely respected for their writings on art. In its opening pages, Ædes Pembrochianæ declares that in the creation of its text, ‘The writings of the greatest men have been consulted.’95 The author indicated on the title page that the sections entitled ‘The Science of a Connoisseur in Painting’ and ‘A List of Rules to Judge the Goodness of a Picture’ drew on Jonathan Richardson’s work; very similar phrasing suggests that the author was relying on Richardson’s Two Discourses: I. An Essay on the Whole Art of Criticism as It Relates to Painting, and II. An Argument in Behalf of the Science of a Connoisseur (1719).96 Likewise, the section entitled ‘A Dissertation on the Origin, Progress, and Decay of Sculpture, among the Greeks and Romans’ paraphrased theories about classical sculpture from Johann Joachim Winckelmann’s Reflections on the Painting and Sculpture of the Greeks (1765, translated from the German by Fuseli, who dedicated his work to Lord Scarsdale) and other writings, although it only acknowledged Winckelmann as the source of a few anecdotes.97 For passages on specific sculptures, the author also drew on Joseph Spence’s Polymetis (first edition, 1747), a work which used ancient Roman poetry to attempt to explain ancient Roman art works. Finally, Ædes Pembrochianæ also established its academic credentials by deploring that ‘every one who is able to purchase antiquities, fancies that he is a judge of them’, clearly implying that this was not the case.98 It makes several references to what it calls the ‘common catalogue’, possibly the earlier Wilton guide A New Description of … Wilton (first published with this title in 1758), and rejects some of its attributions.99 The reality of the Wilton collection was that although it appeared very impressive, many of the statues were combinations of antique and modern parts, a not uncommon characteristic of sculpture collections formed in the early eighteenth century. In addition to correcting attributions, Ædes Pembrochianæ drew attention to these repairs and alterations, and consequently presented itself as a more objective commentator.100 Britton, Corsham, 108. Blore, Burghley (British Library, 578.e.19), 194, 171–2, 204, 239, 202 and 256. Reynolds was dead when Blore was writing; similarities in language suggest he was consulting The Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Knight (ed. Edmond Malone, 3 vols (London: T. Cadell, Jun. and W. Davies, 1798)); for example, the phrase ‘one of his most successful imitators’ appears in relation to Baroccio on Reynolds, III, 178, and Blore, Burghley, 172. In contrast, Fuseli was still alive and Blore may have corresponded with him directly. 95 Ædes Pembrochianæ, vi (‘Preface’). 96 For an example, see Ædes Pembrochianæ, x (‘The Science of a Connoisseur in Painting’) and Richardson, Two Discourses, II, 10. 97 For an example, see Ædes Pembrochianæ, xi (‘A Dissertation on… Sculpture’). 98 Ædes Pembrochianæ, ix (‘A Dissertation on… Sculpture’). 99 Ædes Pembrochianæ, 26. 100 For an example, see Ædes Pembrochianæ’s discussion of the ‘statue of Diana’ on 36. 93 94

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It is difficult to assess how successful all these guidebooks were in inspiring visitors, but there is evidence that some tourists were interested in studying and reflecting on the works they saw. At some houses, it was possible to spend considerable time viewing the art works: on visiting Wilton in 1797, John Machell recorded that ‘We were gratified a few hours in taking a hasty view of the Statuary and Paintings’ (emphasis mine); the Honourable Mrs William Monson, visiting Castle Howard in 1793, wrote that she could have ‘gazed with delight for Hours … tho’ indeed we were nearly 3 Hours in our survey’; the Honourable H. Legge devoted a day to Burghley in 1787, but ultimately concluded ‘it requires a week to examine it thoroughly’.101 Other tourists do not mention how long they visited, or wished to visit, but the depth of their interest is indicated by their approach to writing about what they saw. A visitor to Corsham in 1804, for example, recorded that ‘I proceed in places of this kind pencil in hand to note any thing striking.’102 For visitors like these, guidebooks offered considerable contextual information for the works on display. In terms of content, one of the most significant narratives in guidebooks’ art history is the supreme importance of classical art. The most prominent example of this theme is the essay in Ædes Pembrochianæ on the history of antique sculpture. Beginning with archaic Greece and ending in imperial Rome, the essay describes the distinguishing characteristics of sculpture in several periods, and names important artists, such as Phidias and Praxiteles. Furthermore, it implies that this ideal art must have emanated from an ideal society, and declares that in classical Greece, sculpture ‘reached the utmost point of excellence of which it is capable’, and then ‘necessarily degenerated and declined’.103 The theory that ideal art could reflect an ideal society was Winckelmann’s, and the end of the essay refers to Winckelmann and translates a passage from his Description des pierres gravées du feu-baron de Stosch (Florence, 1760); earlier, however, there are several allusions to Winckelmann’s ideas. The essay claims, for example, that in ancient Greece, ‘The Gymnasia, and places of public exercise, were the great schools of the artists. From the naked forms, which they observed in these, they chiefly derived their excellence and skill.’104 A 1766 review of Winckelmann’s History of Ancient Art had quoted the relevant passage: ‘The Gymnasia, and other places where youth promiscuously exercised themselves in different games, … were the schools of the Greek artists. Hither they came to study beautiful nature, and to learn to copy her.’105 Whoever wrote the Wilton essay was evidently familiar with Winckelmann’s work, which was well known not only as a text in its own right, but also as a text discussed and quoted in popular periodicals; for instance, his writings had Lancashire Archives, DDMC 34/46, ‘Diary of a Tour’, 1797. Lincolnshire Archives, MON 15/C/1. Staffordshire Record Office, D(W)1778/V/1110, I. 102 Royal Academy of Ireland, Ms. 24 K. 38, ‘Journal of a Tour through England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland (Vol. II)’, 1804. 103 Ædes Pembrochianæ, iii–iv (‘A Dissertation on… Sculpture’). 104 Ædes Pembrochianæ, iii (‘A Dissertation on… Sculpture’). 105 ‘[Review of] Histoire de l’Art chez les Anciens; par Mr. J. Winckelmann’, The Monthly Review 35 (1766): 561. The book being reviewed was J. Winckelmann, Histoire de l’Art chez les Anciens (Amsterdam: E. Van Harrevelt, 1766). This work is a French translation of Winckelmann’s Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums, or History of Ancient Art (first published in 1764, in German). 101

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inspired a series of letters entitled ‘Concerning the Imitation of the Grecian Artists, in the Works of Painting and Sculpture’ which appeared in the London Chronicle in 1764 and 1765.106 Through the guidebook’s essay, the Wilton collection is ultimately tied to the eighteenth century’s most important history of classical sculpture. In addition to this survey, Ædes Pembrochianæ provides several close readings to help the reader interpret individual pieces. As mentioned above, some of these passages analyse their physical history. Most, however, are more concerned with the subject matter, retelling stories about the individuals represented by the statues or myths depicted in the reliefs. The description of one sarcophagus, for example, includes a paragraph about Meleager, the hero depicted, who murdered his uncles during a quarrel and was subsequently murdered by his mother in revenge.107 A few passages focus on the relevance of a given work to art history: in describing a copy of the Apollo Belvedere (made by Joseph Wilton), the book quotes Winckelmann, claiming that the statue ‘presents to us, he observes, the most sublime idea that art is capable of conveying. One may say, that the artist has made an intellectual statue’.108 This type of passage also appeared in other guidebooks: Burghley (1815), for instance, praises a cast of a statue of Venus for displaying ‘the same delicate workmanship, inimitable grace, and scientific proportion, as the celebrated statue de Medicis’; it also explains the significance of the shell which rests near her feet.109 Descriptions like these suggest that visitors were expected to appreciate each sculpture as an individual art work which would teach them about antiquity, regardless of whether it had been acquired because of its merit as an original work, or because it was a reproduction of a work so celebrated that even its copy deserved to be admired for the remarkable achievement it represented. As we have seen, several country houses had large collections of Old Master paintings on display, and just as with classical sculptures, guidebooks indicate visitors were expected to take these paintings very seriously, appreciating their rarity and excellence. Before describing the paintings on display at Blenheim, William Mavor presented a short verse on the benefits of the visit: ‘Hail, ye great artists, whose enchanting skill/Can mould the passions, and controul the will:/Not to the eye your labours are address’d, ––/ They boast an influence o’er the ductile breast;/For while, entranc’d, each happy touch we view,/The moral sense becomes reform’d by you.’110 These lines encourage visitors to improve their characters by viewing the paintings on display. A similar moralizing force is alluded to in other texts about paintings; for example, the essay in Ædes Pembrochianæ declares that ‘The great and chief ends of painting are to raise and improve nature; and to communicate ideas … whereby mankind is advanced higher in the rational state, and made better.’111 In the eighteenth century, the term ‘rational’ referred to reason and logic, but in addition, ‘a fitness to promote the welfare of man, as a rational … agent, is For an example, see ‘Concerning the Imitation of the Grecian Artists, in the Works of Painting and Sculpture’, London Chronicle or Universal Evening Post, 15–17 January 1765 (Issue 1260). 107 Ædes Pembrochianæ, 19. 108 Ædes Pembrochianæ, 17. 109 Blore, Burghley (British Library, 10358.ccc.3), 19. 110 William Mavor, New Description of Blenheim, 4th edn (London: Cadell and Davies, 1797), 37. 111 Ædes Pembrochianæ, xi (‘The Science of a Connoisseur in Painting’). 106

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stiled moral good’.112 Consequently, to inspire rationality was also to inspire goodness. Naturally, for paintings to have the strongest impact on viewers, viewers would need to have accurate information about their subjects; the stress on communicating ideas indicates that the content of art works was at least as important as their forms. Many detailed entries about specific paintings are about the subject matter, offering what we might term iconographic information. Those which refer to paintings of mythological scenes often retell the stories which are depicted. The extended edition of Burghley (1815), for example, provides the following account of Maratta’s The Golden Shower: ‘Danae … was confined in a brazen tower by her father, who had been told by an oracle that his daughter’s son would put him to death. Jupiter, who was enamoured of her, changed himself into a golden shower, and introduced himself to her bed.’113 Another type of explanation is in the form of biographical data about the subjects of portraits. In the most succinct descriptions, only basic information about family and rank is provided: for example, the guide to Stowe (1797) identifies one painting as ‘Hester Temple, his wife, succeeded her brother as Viscountess and Baroness Cobham, and was created Countess Temple.’114 Longer biographies range from a few sentences to a few pages, depending on the perceived importance of the individual sitter. A book about Knole (1795) is an extreme example: apart from an introduction discussing the history of the house, it is made up of ‘Biographical Sketches’ of the individuals whose portraits were on display; these essays range from two pages describing relatively minor historical figures to twelve pages for Cardinal Wolsey. Such passages, whether about the loves of the gods or the accomplishments of courtiers, read as natural extensions of the identification of the paintings, and they intensify the impression that the visit must be a learning experience. Even if visitors did not read them during the visit – and some guidebooks are so long it seems highly unlikely that a visitor would read the entire text while in the house – their inclusion seems to insist that the reader attempt to understand the stories being told or referred to in the paintings. In addition to arming readers with the stories and histories depicted, or with information about portraits’ sitters, some guidebooks gave additional details about the painters themselves, particularly the Old Masters, a group which was quickly becoming a powerful element of cultural heritage. During this period, exactly which artists qualified as ‘Old Masters’ was somewhat fluid: the term certainly included sixteenthand seventeenth-century Italian artists such as Raphael and Annibale Carracci, and often did not include British artists, living or dead; it included a number of seventeenthcentury artists from other countries, such as Rembrandt and Nicolas Poussin, but it did not yet include all French, Flemish or Dutch artists.115 Many texts published in the late eighteenth century promoted the theory that the Italian Renaissance painters were the best modern artists; for example, Reynolds, whose Discourses have been described as ‘Rational’ in Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language, 6th edn (London: J. F. and C. Rivington, 1785). 113 Blore, Burghley (British Library, 578.e.19), 71. 114 J. Seeley, Stowe: A Description of the House and Gardens, 21st edn (Buckingham: J. Seeley, 1797), 50. 115 Francis Haskell, The Ephemeral Museum: Old Master Paintings and the Rise of the Art Exhibition (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000), 4. 112

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‘classically European’, declared Raphael and Michelangelo to be ‘the greatest masters’, men who ‘have not been excelled, nor equalled’.116 Horace Walpole’s Anecdotes of Painting predates Reynolds’s text, yet more than one guidebook author chose to rely on it.117 In his work, Walpole laid out a history of art which valued the Old Masters above all else, announcing that in Italy in particular, ‘the art of painting has been carried to an amazing degree of perfection’.118 To a lesser extent, which artists’ works could be prized as by an ‘Old Master’ was also determined by art collectors, especially if the artist in question was a relatively minor one. In 1760, the London art market theoretically valued paintings by Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci and Correggio above all others, but in practice, because very few works by these artists were available, other Roman and Bolognese painters, such as Guido Reni, Domenichino and Annibale Carracci, were increasingly popular, and all attracted considerable praise in the popular press.119 By the very end of the eighteenth century, the idea of the ‘Old Masters’, a group of artists whose works represented painting’s ultimate achievements, was relatively well established. The category was evidently familiar to many tourists: a 1779 tourist wrote about ‘Pictures by the very best masters’ at Kedleston, William and Thomas Drake commented on ‘a Collection of most capital Pictures by the best Masters’ at Burghley in 1773, in 1809 William Gray introduced his list of pictures at Corsham by noting that they were ‘by ye first Masters’, and so on.120 Consequently, when a guidebook commented on the Old Masters it elevated the status of the collection and emphasized that there was a cultural education available from the opportunity to view these artists’ works. It should be noted that not all of the paintings in question are still awarded the attributions they had in the eighteenth century; for example, A New Description of … Wilton (1774) identifies a Leda and the Swan as the work of Leonardo, but it is now believed to have been painted by Cesare da Sesto after a Leonardo drawing.121 In view of this, it is possible that erudite tourists critiqued attributions while making visits, but hardly any have left records of having done so. In any event, what is most significant for our understanding of eighteenth-century tourists is not simply who made the paintings, but who most people believed had made them, and what guidebooks had to say about those artists. Drawing on Walpole’s work, J. Horn wrote an essay ‘On Painting’ which appears in Burghley (1797). It specifies which painters deserved the highest acclaim, arguing that Michelangelo, Raphael and Leonardo ‘vastly surpassed their masters; they not only effaced all that had been done before them, but carried painting to a pitch from which Mark A. Cheetham, Artwriting, Nation, and Cosmopolitanism in Britain: The ‘Englishness’ of English Art Theory since the Eighteenth Century (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), 42. Joshua Reynolds, Discourses on Art, ed. Robert R. Wark (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1975), 81, 84. 117 See, for example, Britton, Corsham, 19, 21. 118 Walpole, Anecdotes, I, i. 119 Gerald Reitlinger, The Economics of Taste: The Rise and Fall of Picture Prices 1760–1790, 2nd edn, 3 vols (New York: Hacker Art Books, 1982), I, 5, 8. 120 Cornwall Record Office, CA/B50/5. Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies, D/DR/8/7/1. Explore York Libraries and Archives, Acc5,6,24,235/T5–A. 121 James Kennedy, A New Description of the Pictures, Statues, Bustos, Basso-Relievos, and Other Curiosities in the Earl of Pembroke’s House, at Wilton, 6th edn (Salisbury: E. Easton, 1774), 101. John Martin Robinson, Wilton House (Ipswich: Healeys Print Group, [after 2003, undated]), 36. 116

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it has ever since been declining’.122 Similar essays appeared in the extended edition of Blore’s Burghley (1815) and in Corsham (1806), and these also incorporate another of Walpole’s theories, namely that some contemporary British art was exceptional enough to deserve the same attention as that of the Old Masters.123 Reynolds attracted special praise: in Burghley, Blore named him as ‘the restorer if not the founder of the art in England’, and in Corsham, Britton equated him to Raphael and van Dyck.124 These essays encouraged the reader to not only appreciate the paintings on display, but to recognize them as exceptional in the history of art. Independently of the art-historical essays, guidebook authors often indicated the importance of the Old Masters by providing biographical information about these artists in addition to identifying their works, either within the list of art works or in separate sections. Sometimes this information is extremely succinct: while describing the painting Circumcision, Castle-Howard (1814) simply names ‘Joannes Bellinus’ (Giovanni Bellini) as the ‘great instructor of Titian and Giorgioni’.125 Other guidebooks offered a little more detail: Burghley (1797), for instance, explains that Leonardo ‘was the founder of the school at Milan, and was a person of great learning and universal genius’.126 Still others devoted entire sections to artists’ biographical details. Of these, one of the most distinctive is in Stourhead (1800), which lists the painters whose works are on display in the house according to the national ‘school’ they were associated with, such as Roman, Florentine or Flemish, and provides the dates of their births and deaths.127 The most elaborate sections are the ‘Biographical Sketches of the Painters whose Works Constitute the Corsham House Collection’ and the ‘Lives and Anecdotes of the Artists’ found in the extended edition of Burghley (1815).128 Even in the abridged version of the latter, readers were given an index of artists’ names with brief biographical notes, such as ‘Rosa, (Salvator,) b. at Naples, 1614; d. 1673. A disciple of Francesco Francazano: painted history, landscapes, battles, &c.’, thus enabling the reader to at least broadly relate the paintings on display to the artist’s career.129 The inclusion of such biographical information indicates that these artists were supposed to be worth learning about, a suggestion which is often reinforced by varying lengths. The ‘Biographical Sketches’ in Corsham, for example, range in length from two to seventeen lines, creating the impression that some artists are much more noteworthy than others.130 Finally, the artist biography was the form of the canonical art-historical narratives, and some readers may have known that it was the method adopted by art Horn, Burghley, 30. Blore, Burghley (British Library, 578.e.19), 153–66, and Britton, Corsham, 9–28. 124 Blore, Burghley (British Library, 578.e.19), 166. Britton, Corsham, 23. 125 Frederick Howard, fifth Earl of Carlisle, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Pictures at Castle-Howard, 2nd edn (Malton: J. Gibson, 1814), 4. 126 Horn, Burghley, 57–8. 127 Sir Richard Colt Hoare, A Description of the House and Gardens at Stourhead (Salisbury: J. Easton, 1800), 36–42. 128 Blore, Burghley (British Library, 578.e.19), 167–292. Britton, Corsham, 61–100. 129 Blore, Burghley (British Library, 10358.ccc.3), index (unpaginated). 130 For examples, see the biographies of ‘Sir Anthony Vandyck’ (96–7) and ‘Axaretto’ (64) in Britton, Corsham. 122 123

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scholars such as Giorgio Vasari and Walpole. That guidebook authors often employed this method as well encouraged readers to take a serious approach to the art works on display, and appreciate the importance of these works for the history of art. The most significant consequence of all of this information was that in presenting it, guidebooks implied that the ideal experience for tourists, the experience they were intended to have, was one in which they came to the house to learn about art. In any guidebook, the underlying contract between author and reader is that the author will provide information which will be useful or interesting to the reader and as such, the type of information given indicates certain assumptions, in this case that the reader is not sufficiently educated to have what in some circles would have been common knowledge. Guidebooks, however, were often eager to correct that: given the wealth of material many offered, visitors were evidently expected to learn quite a bit more than the identities of what was on display. The history of classical sculpture, narratives of Greek and Roman myths and historical episodes, the importance of Old Master paintings, the biographies of leading Renaissance artists: the sheer amount of this material and its prominence made it impossible for the reader to deny that she was being welcomed to a site of learning, not merely a site of spectacle. In fact, visitors were not only being encouraged to learn during their visits, they were being encouraged to learn about topics closely associated with aristocratic education. The various guidebooks’ close readings of classical subjects create a stark distinction between the reader’s cultural knowledge and the owner’s. Ædes Pembrochianæ, for example, while describing a relief sculpture in the great hall, recounted the story of Niobe, a foolish woman who boasted of having more children than Leto, the mother of the gods Apollo and Diana, who then murdered Niobe’s children as a punishment for the insult to their mother.131 This was not an obscure story; in fact, it was recounted by several ancient writers including Homer and Ovid. To include it in the guidebook constituted a tacit assumption that the reader might not remember or even have read those texts. In the eighteenth century, it would have been virtually inconceivable for an aristocratic owner to be unfamiliar with these writers: classical literature, languages, philosophy and history were the most important areas of study for young aristocrats and gentlemen, both at schools like Eton and at universities. For tourists, then, it would have been natural to assume that the owner of the house was reasonably well read in classical texts; in contrast, guidebook authors apparently assumed that some of the tourists, perhaps young women or self-made men, would not necessarily have been exposed to them and provided information accordingly. Interestingly, not everyone appreciated this: Richard Warner complained that in the Wilton guidebook, ‘much of the interest and entertainment it might otherwise have possessed, is wanting, in consequence of the compilers confining themselves to dry mythological and historical details … without entering into a description of the peculiar beauties, costume, and attributes of each; the places where they were found, from who purchased, &c.’132 By filling pages with explanations of paintings’ and sculptures’ content, a guidebook author Ædes Pembrochianæ, 30. Richard Warner, Excursions from Bath (Bath: R. Cruttwell, 1801), 154.

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established a serious, ‘dry’ tone for the text and the visit, one which might conceivably have been compromised by what Warner refers to as entertainment. Formalist discourses woven into discussions of paintings strengthen the impression that élite knowledge was required to truly appreciate touring a collection. In explaining specific works, guidebooks often told readers why they should be admired. NunehamCourtenay (1797), for example, declares that a self-portrait by Sofonisba Anguissola is ‘most lively and highly finished … very rare, and not to be surpassed’.133 More helpfully, the guide to Duncombe Park quotes Edward Dayes’s Excursion through the Principal Parts of Derbyshire and Yorkshire (1805) when describing a Venus and Adonis by Titian: ‘The colouring is excellent, the flesh being particularly well managed; and in the relief, the figures are rounded to deception.’134 In these passages, the reader is encouraged to adopt exemplary formal analyses as their own. Similar to these analyses are instructions on how to recognize the characteristics of a given artist’s style; Corsham, for instance, declares that Rembrandt’s style is characterized by a ‘strong opposition of light and shade’.135 While this passage reads as an assessment of Rembrandt’s entire oeuvre, Britton expected his readers to recognize these qualities within the paintings at Corsham (Plate 4), and the guidebook does not relate Rembrandt’s style to any of his other works. As with the details of subjects, implicit in all of this commentary is a presumption that readers will benefit from it, that they require guidance in order to appreciate art correctly. Yet just as an aristocratic gentleman was expected to be familiar with classical literature, his familiarity with the viewing and discussing of art works, from London exhibitions, travels in Europe and visits to his peers, would also be assumed. He would not require the guidance the tourist is apparently expected to need. One of the clearest connections between how visitors are expected to approach a collection and élite knowledge of art is the ‘List of Rules to Judge the Goodness of a Picture’ in Ædes Pembrochianæ. Jonathan Richardson had composed and published this list over fifty years earlier in his Two Discourses, a work specifically ‘written for a readership of novice connoisseurs’; he introduced the rules by claiming that one can develop a system for analysing paintings either ‘as being the result of our Own Study, and Observation, and Drawn up, and Compos’d by Us; Or by some Other, and Examin’d, and Approv’d by Us’.136 In providing a list of guidelines intended for those new to viewing art, the Ædes’s author indicated that he did not expect readers to have ‘studied’ sufficiently to compose their own rules, and so was enabling them to borrow Richardson’s, which carried undertones of class. The rules instructed visitors to consider subject, expression, light, drawing, colouring, quality of the hand and adherence to nature, many of the same criteria other guidebook authors drew on when commenting on specific paintings. These were loaded criteria: Mark Hallett has argued that to concentrate ‘so closely on matters of form and style’ was to draw on ‘the themes George Simon Harcourt, Earl Harcourt, Description of Nuneham-Courtenay, 2nd edn ([Oxford: s. n.], 1797), 33. 134 Duncombe Park, 9. 135 Britton, Corsham, 91. 136 Carol Gibson-Wood, Jonathan Richardson: Art Theorist of the English Enlightenment (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000), 179. Richardson, Two Discourses, I, 26. 133

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and technical jargon found in the discourse of connoisseurship. … This discourse, it is important to note, was traditionally linked to the figure of the aristocratic art collector’.137 Hallett was analysing the discourse of critics discussing works on display at the Royal Academy, but his comments about the emphasis on style and the nature of the ‘technical jargon’ can be applied to the discourse in guidebooks as well. The rules in the Wilton guidebook demonstrate an aristocratic method for readers, as if a visit to the collection was an opportunity to learn a connoisseur’s approach to examining paintings, one which the owner would have been presumed to know well. None of these ideas about and approaches towards art were original, nor were they unusual. Winckelmann’s ideas were popular all over Europe, and by the 1790s, the phrase ‘Old Masters’ was in common use, frequently employed by writers producing everything from art-historical surveys to advertisements for auctions.138 Among the élite, the study of classical iconography and the development of a connoisseur’s skill were essential elements in a good education. What is distinctive in country-house guidebooks is the idea that the canon of the history of art in Western Europe was visible and available to study in the collections in country houses. Ædes Pembrochianæ claimed it offered its readers ‘a critical introduction to the study of antiquities’ by elucidating ‘the various pieces at Wilton-house’.139 Britton claimed that Corsham described the qualities of the leading artistic schools, such as the Roman, Florentine and Venetian, in an effort to ‘afford some insight into the characteristics of the present collection’.140 Even when guidebooks did not make this type of explicit claim, the very association between the country-house art collection and the accepted canon was an implicit claim for a wider art-historical, and by extension cultural, importance. In offering these narratives, guidebooks implied that while the art works may be reflections of the owner’s taste, they were significant for tourists because they had a universal relevance, a claim which guidebooks were not alone in making.

* * * Beyond travel writers’ and tourists’ widespread praise for specific works of art and guidebooks’ claims for the educational value of touring country-house art collections, there was an increasing sense that some collections had a particularly high cultural importance. These collections were sometimes described as museums or compared to museums, and these associations intensified their identities as public collections. While all country-house art collections remained in private hands in the eighteenth century, comments made by tourists, travel writers, historians, periodical writers and even politicians demonstrate that it was possible to conceive of these collections as nationally important, and even deserving of national ownership. Mark Hallett, ‘“The Business of Criticism”: The Press and the Royal Academy Exhibition in Eighteenth-Century London’, in Art on the Line: The Royal Academy Exhibitions at Somerset House, 1780–1836, ed. David Solkin (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001), 68. 138 Haskell, The Ephemeral Museum, 4. 139 Ædes Pembrochianæ, vi (‘Preface’). 140 Britton, Corsham, 11. 137

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Wilton was one of the earliest country houses to be conceived of as a museum. The 1748 edition of Daniel Defoe’s Tour proclaimed the Earl of Pembroke ‘took Delight in collecting such valuable Pieces of Painting and Sculpture, as made Wilton House a perfect Museum, or Receptacle of Rarities: and we meet with several things there, which are to be found no-where else in the World’.141 Reprinted in Britannica Curiosa (1776), the theme of this passage permeates later accounts of Wilton as well: in his Tour (1785), Richard Sulivan noted that at Wilton there was ‘a collection, indeed, not be equalled by any person’s in England, or, perhaps, by any subject’s in Europe’, and the travel writer John Evans claimed that ‘The statues, busts, paintings, &c. collected at different periods, are so arranged, that it may with propriety be called a grand Museum.’142 In 1805 in a letter describing his visit, the Rev. John Dudley wrote, ‘Such a collection of Paintings and Statues! The former exceeds I think those at Burleigh. And the Statues are finer still. … With the exception of the Louvre at Paris, surely there is not such another in the world.’143 Maximilien de Lazowski (a tutor and travelling companion) even commented that Wilton was ‘where you should go if you haven’t been to Italy to see a superb collection of antiques’.144 Whether they were comparing Wilton to European royal collections or to the famous collections of antiquities on display in Rome, all these claims of international parallels imply that while the continent was the ultimate place to study art, for those unable to visit due to lack of funds, professional expectations, the strict expectations society had from young women or even political turmoil (Dudley was writing in the middle of the Napoleonic Wars), Wilton was the ideal site for a substitute experience. Even the frontispieces to the guidebooks emphasized this: whereas other guidebooks’ frontispiece illustrations represent the houses they describe, the Wilton guides often illustrated one of the sculptures in the collection (Figure 3.8). Surrounded by this type of aura, Wilton had clearly become more than just a country house. Another collection which achieved extraordinary fame was the collection at Houghton. Philip Yorke’s comment that ‘Those who would … study the manners of the different schools of painters to as great perfection as may be done almost anywhere on this side the Alps must come here for entertainment and instruction’ is a statement which resembles the tremendous claims made about Wilton.145 Broadly publicized through texts based on Ædes Walpolianæ and John Boydell’s Houghton Gallery and widely visited by tourists, the paintings at Houghton came to parliamentary attention when it became known that the family intended to sell them. Speaking in the House of Commons in 1777, John Wilkes recommended that the government purchase the collection, and suggested that ‘A noble gallery ought to be built in the garden of Defoe, Tour, 1748, I, 333. Britannica Curiosa: Or, A Description of the Most Remarkable Curiosities, Natural and Artificial, of the Island of Great Britain, 6 vols (London: R. Snagg, 1776), III, 124. Sulivan, Tour, I, 169. Evans, Juvenile, 132. 143 East Sussex Record Office, FRE/2801, ‘Letter from Rev John Dudley, Humberston, Leicestershire to Mary Frewen, Brickwall’, 11 September 1805. 144 Innocent Espionage: The La Rochefoucauld Brothers’ Tour of England in 1785, ed. Norman Scarfe (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1995), 186. 145 ‘Travel Journal of Philip Yorke’, 144. 141 142

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Figure 3.8  John Alexander Gresse, ‘Pyrrhus’, frontispiece from James Kennedy, A New Description of the Pictures, Bustos, Statues, Basso-Relievos, and Other Curiosities at the Earl of Pembroke’s House at Wilton, 5th edn, Salisbury: E. Easton, 1771, engraving, 15.6 × 19.1 cm. Collection Centre Canadien d’Architecture/Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal, gift of Phyllis Lambert.

the British Museum, for the reception of that invaluable treasure.’146 Ultimately the collection was sold to Catherine the Great, and in 1782, ‘C. D.’ wrote to the European Magazine that ‘The removal of the Houghton Collection of Pictures to Russia is, perhaps, one of the most striking instances that can be produced of the decline of the empire of Great Britain.’147 Though no action was taken, these comments demonstrate that Houghton was being thought of as a site of national heritage because of the perceived value of its art. The collection continued to be part of tourists’ visits: even after the paintings had been sent to Russia, The Norfolk Tour continued to include a list of the pictures which ‘formerly ornamented this magnificent house’, as if the identity of the paintings was somehow revelatory of the nature of the house itself.148

General Evening Post, 1–3 May 1777 (Issue 6762). C. D., ‘To the Editors of the European Magazine’, The European Magazine, and London Review 1 (1782): 95. I was directed to this piece by Capital Collection, 76, 89. 148 The Norfolk Tour, 6th edn (Norwich: R. Beatniffe, 1808), 297. 146 147

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The discourses surrounding the collections at Wilton and Houghton were the most extreme examples of claims of national importance, but many other collections inspired superlative praise on account of both specific works and shared art-historical significance. Some tourists wrote about a collection’s quality in general terms; for example, after visiting in 1785, François de La Rochefoucauld declared the paintings at Nuneham-Courtenay to be ‘by the best painters’, ‘a private collection of the greatest quality and value’.149 Some claims placed collections at the pinnacle of a national hierarchy: writing about Burghley in 1801, the Rev. C. Crutwell informed his readers that it was ‘supposed to contain the first collection of pictures in the kingdom’, and in recounting her visit to that house in 1814, Maria Cubitt recorded that ‘the pictures are reckoned the best in England’.150 Some of these claims may have been partly inspired by the increased interest in country-house collections during the Napoleonic Wars: writing in 1813, the art historian Henry Kett advised his readers that ‘As it may not be very easy for an Englishman to satisfy his curiosity by “stepping into the gallery of the Louvre” at present, he may content himself with … viewing the admirable pictures in his own country’; he then recommended Blenheim and Castle Howard as good destinations.151 The fact that this language of superlative admiration was in circulation before the wars demonstrates that it did not appear in response to the conflict, and by the time war broke out, it was already common enough that it would not have read as overly aggrandizing or wildly unrealistic. While all these comments demonstrate public impressions of country-house art collections, the idea of the owner as merely a guardian of his family’s art collections was also being considered as a legal concept during this period. In response to an enquiry in 1792, the Pembroke family lawyer Elbro Woodcock advised Lord Herbert (then heir to Wilton) that his grandfather’s will contained a clause which attempted to forbid the sale of his art works and collections, but it was not legally binding; had it been, Woodcock commented, the collections ‘would now be secure against any improper Attempt to dispose of them’.152 This type of situation is not quite the same as an owner’s intention to share his collections with the nation (see Chapter 1), but it does demonstrate the increasing strength of a collection’s identity, as if it was one of the greatest features and legacies associated with a house itself. For tourists, this would have been beyond doubt: an extraordinary proliferation of writings and prints had accustomed them to believe that.

Innocent, 138, 139. Rev. C. Cruttwell, A Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain, 6 vols (London: G. and J. Robinson, 1801), IV, 149. Norfolk Record Office, MC 233/16, 680x5. 151 F. A. De Chateaubriand, The Beauties of Christianity, trans. Frederic Shoberl with notes by Henry Kett, 3 vols (London: Henry Colburn, 1813), I, 242. 152 Wiltshire and Swindon Archives, 2057/E1/10, ‘Letter from Lawyer Elbro Woodcock’, January 1792. 149 150

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‘A Degree of Taste and Elegance’: Commenting on Country Houses’ Interiors

The Drawing Room, an oval, about 46 feet by 35 and 22 high, with a circular bow on one side. The furniture is figured satin, the grounds between the gothic work green, pink and white, a handsome lustre hangs from the ceiling, and a large glass over the chimney. – James Plumptre at Alnwick in 17991 At the vast majority of country houses tourists visited in the long eighteenth century, they were shown lavishly decorated rooms, rooms with features such as wall paintings, marble chimney pieces, tapestries, gilded furniture, precious stone tables, silver ornaments or rare porcelain, as well as collections of paintings or sculptures. All these interior decorations and furnishings represented significant investments for owners: in the first half of the eighteenth century, most landowners’ expenditure for interiors ‘was concentrated on a comparatively small number of rooms to achieve the maximum impact’, and whether these rooms were called state rooms, great rooms or rooms of parade, they were generally ‘intended as statements of family dignity … to honour special guests as well as impress visitors’.2 In addition, the furnishing and decoration of a house was not simply an issue of being extravagant, but also of being thoughtful in design choices. By the middle of the eighteenth century, complex displays of furnishings were extremely important for many owners, and for the architects and designers they worked with. Historians have argued that William Kent’s work at Houghton (begun 1725), for instance, brought together the rich colours of the paintings, damask wall hangings and upholstery, and tapestries with different forms of gilding and coloured marbles such that the various textures and tonal contrasts in the house united the

Cambridge University Library, Add. 5814, ‘A Narrative of a Pedestrian Journey’ [made by James Plumptre], 1799. The phrase in the chapter title is from A Journal of First Thoughts, Observations, Characters, and Anecdotes Which Occurred in a Journey from London to Scarborough (London: J. Bowen, 1781), 132. 2 John Cornforth, Early Georgian Interiors (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2004), 109, 13. 1

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art works, decorations and furniture in a powerful symbolic vocabulary.3 Beyond making crucial contributions to the total effect of a space, decorations and furnishings might also display unique motifs indicative of a connoisseur’s knowledge; for example, the first Earl Harcourt, the owner of Nuneham-Courtenay, was one of the founding members of the Society of Dilettanti, and he commissioned James ‘Athenian’ Stuart to design chimney pieces and other decorative elements which drew on his studies of Athenian ruins.4 Commissions for parade rooms often featured very high-quality workmanship as well: the drawing room sofas at Kedleston took John Linnell three years to make, and when they finally arrived, Lord Scarsdale’s clerk of works described them as ‘certainly as elegant a piece of furniture as ever was made and as well executed. The gilding is by far the best done of any I ever saw’.5 Some owners were so proud of their interior decoration schemes that they arranged for them to be recorded and commemorated: at Stourhead, Sir Richard Colt Hoare ordered over £5,000 worth of furniture from Thomas Chippendale the Younger between 1795 and 1820, and he commissioned Francis Nicholson and J. C. Buckler to create illustrations of some of the rooms.6 Yet despite the tremendous importance interior decorations and furnishings held for owners, how they were presented and promoted to tourists is extremely nebulous and varied, and no travel book presented them as the chief attraction of visiting houses. For anyone attempting to describe a country-house interior, one of the largest challenges was the extraordinary diversity of the objects and decorations involved: what might be considered ‘interior decorations’ generally encompassed everything on display apart from art works, and even that distinction is somewhat problematic. For many people, picture and sculpture collections were part of a house’s furnishings: in a description of his visit to Wilton in 1752, Robert Andrew declared it ‘a magnificent Palace’ which attracted great admiration ‘for its Building & furniture, especially of Paintings & Statues’; The Salisbury Guide (1782) likewise stated that at Wilton ‘The furniture is the richest that could be procured, being the productions of the greatest geniuses in sculpture and painting.’7 Both these writers are clearly referring to Wilton’s Old Master paintings and marble statues as part of its furniture, but for many other writers, the two categories were distinct: in its account of Ditchley, for example, England Displayed (1769) reported ‘this seat is a noble repository of valuable and masterly Julius Bryant, ‘From “Gusto” to “Kentissime”: Kent’s Designs for Country Houses, Villas, and Lodges’, in William Kent: Designing Georgian Britain, ed. Susan Weber (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2013), 201. See also Cornforth, Early, 151. 4 Giles Worsley, ‘Nuneham Park Revisited – I’, Country Life 177, no. 4559 (1985): 18–19. Julius Bryant, ‘“The Purest Taste” – James “Athenian” Stuart’s Work in Villas and Country Houses’, in James “Athenian” Stuart, 1713–1788: The Rediscovery of Antiquity, ed. Susan Weber Soros (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2006), 278–9. 5 Scarsdale Archives, Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire, quoted in Helena Hayward and Pat Kirkham, William and John Linnell: Eighteenth Century London Furniture Makers, 2 vols (London: Christie’s, 1980), I, 111. 6 Judith Goodison, ‘Thomas Chippendale the Younger at Stourhead’, Furniture History 41 (2005): 58, 60. 7 Northamptonshire Archives Service, A 280, ‘Diary of Robert Andrew’, 1752. The Salisbury Guide, 7th edn (Salisbury: E. Easton, 1782), 59. 3

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portraits … As a piece of architecture, it is inferior to none … With regard to furniture and decorations, it is finished with taste rather than with splendor’.8 Ultimately, many descriptions of country houses made some sort of rhetorical or formal distinction between collected art works and furniture, but even having excluded paintings and sculptures, houses’ furnishings and interior decorations might still include murals and ornamental paintings, stucco decorations for walls and ceilings, mantelpieces and other decorative carved stonework, tapestries, curtains, cabinets, silver plate, state beds, chairs, tables, chests, mirrors, fire grates, vases and carpets. The cultural significance of these objects varied tremendously: some might be deemed family heirlooms whereas others simply represented the latest fashions; some were part of the fabric of the house and might be thought of as part of its architectural design while others were mobile items. All, however, were routinely linked to the furnishing or ‘fitting up’ of a house. Throughout the eighteenth century, there were significant differences in how country houses’ interior decorations and furnishings were described in travel publications, and how they were discussed by tourists. Though they often noted the arrangement and sizes of rooms, travel books and guidebooks usually gave comparatively little information about the interior decorations. Whereas the list of art works provided a foundation for developing guides to art collections, in publications there were no strict systems for describing a house’s furnishings, and they routinely received minimal attention in comparison to the paintings or sculptures on display. This was not due to a lack of textual model: just as the form of the catalogue could be adapted to guide the tourist around an art collection, the form of the inventory might theoretically have been adapted to write about furnishings, an approach Horace Walpole embraced when he wrote his Description of Strawberry Hill (1774).9 The limitations of most publications’ descriptions of furnishings indicate that there were more substantive issues at play in describing interiors. Tourists’ writings make perfectly clear that while a house’s furnishings might not be well known in their own right, they were certainly of interest to visitors, who anticipated being impressed by them. Commensurate magnificence was critical to the overall experience of the house, and tourists sometimes noted their expectations; for example, on visiting Edgcote (Northamptonshire), Andrew declared ‘As y.e Proprietor of it is very rich, it is supposed y.e Finishing & Furniture of his House will be proportionably sumptuous.’10 This type of expectation also underpinned criticisms: when he visited Raby Castle (County Durham) in 1807, Robert Day complained that although the house had ‘a noble Hall’, there was ‘not a single article of furniture in it modern or antique – Lord Pembroke of Wilton or Marq.s of Exeter late of Burleigh-Castle would have contrived to furnish this magnificent Shell with feudal armoury – massive oak chairs tables chimney pieces &c. – or with Statues & other monuments of the fine arts wch tho not in character P. Russell and Owen Price, England Displayed, 2 vols (London: Printed for the Authors, 1769), I, 270. Stephen Clarke, ‘A Description of … Strawberry Hill’, in Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill, ed. Michael Snodin (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009), 18. 10 Northamptonshire Archives Service, A 280. 8 9

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wo.d want no apology’.11 Despite tourists’ expectations of houses, it was relatively unusual for a travel writer to incorporate descriptions of furnishings into their accounts, and even rarer to include much detail. Tourists, however, often wrote about decorative schemes: their comments about decorations range from brief assessments, such as a note that Holkham was ‘finely Furnish’d’, to long accounts which address colours, materials, textures and workmanship.12 The variety and detail of these passages indicates that furniture did receive critical attention from visitors, if not from travel writers. The disparity between travel publications and tourists’ writings is a deeply revealing one. Considered against a background of debates over luxury and a rapidly evolving furniture industry, it is not wholly surprising that travel writers typically elected not to write much about the interior decorations they encountered. Publicized or not, however, tourists were drawn to rare and precious pieces of furniture, and to the idea of the decorative scheme as a manifestation of taste. Both these aspects of interiors invited the visitor to reflect on the country house’s role as a highly élite residence, and to consider the familial and personal resonances of the space. In embracing these opportunities, tourists asserted their right to view these sites as houses, no matter how formally and impersonally they were presented.

Publicity for interior decorations and furnishings In comparison with country houses’ architecture, art collections and, as we shall soon see, gardens, the prestige of interior decorations and furnishings was not heavily promoted in any form of travel publication, not even in country-house guidebooks. In the absence of strong publicizing texts, these elements of houses might be written off as unimportant to visitors but for the evidence of manuscript diaries and letters. In their writings, many tourists commented on a wide range of aspects of houses’ interiors, from ceiling paintings to bookshelves to beds. This disparity between publications and manuscripts suggests that when it came to furnishings, there were significant ideological challenges at stake (as well as potential practical problems). The most likely issues were closely related, and together they effectively prevented any house from becoming famous solely for its interior decorations. As a result, when people visited country houses, they would have been conscious that they occupied a privileged position whereby they could view and delight in the less publicized aspects of the house. In the early eighteenth century, furnishings were often critical elements of tourists’ descriptions of their visits, and several wrote about them with rich pictorial details. When Celia Fiennes visited Burghley in 1697, she was particularly interested in the Earl of Exeter’s bedchamber: the tapistry was all blew Silke and rich gold thread, so that the gold appeared for the light part of all the worke; there was a blew velvet bed with gold fringe and very Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, Osborn d147 1/2, ‘[Travel Diary kept by Robert Day]’, 1807–13. 12 East Sussex Record Office, SHR/1928, ‘Journal of Frances Bridger and Mary Lewis Giving a Conventional Account of Houses’, 1768–89. 11

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richly embroidered all the inside with ovals on the head piece and tester where the figures are so finely wrought in satten stitch it looks like painting.13

In this passage, Fiennes gives her reader the information needed to begin to visualize the room, and she offers an analysis of the effect and quality of the tapestries and hangings. Visiting Kimbolton in 1725, Charles Perry commented on everything from the painting on the main staircase to the candlesticks in the chapel, and he paid particular attention to the textiles, declaring the rooms were ‘most magnificently furnished with Velvet Beds, Hangings laced with Gold, brocaded Velvet, & rich Damask laced with Gold’ and that in the chapel in particular, a room he described as ‘impossibly fine’, ‘the Decorations of the Gallery are very splendid; the Chairs for the Duke & Dutchess, & the Stools Cushions & Carpets to lean on being all of Velvet, richly adorned with Gold Lace’.14 For both Fiennes and Perry, it was the extraordinary materials which were to be admired, a sentiment which was not limited to upholstery. During his tour in 1732, John Loveday was particularly interested in pieces of stone, noting that at Easton Neston, for instance, ‘there is fine Egyptian Marble here; a Porphyry Table; a large Table of uncoṁon Agate; a table of uncoṁon Egyptian Marble, consisting of many variations of Green & of White’.15 In these accounts, cost, material and effect were clearly part of the fascination during the visit, but these were elements rarely addressed by travel books. In the middle of the eighteenth century, travel writers’ comments about furnishings in country houses were usually relatively brief, and in most cases, they were too general to be of much use to the reader. Daniel Defoe’s Tour, for instance, noted that at Burghley, ‘The Stair-case, the Cielings of all the fine Lodgings, the Chapel, the Hall, the late Earl’s Closet, are all finely painted by the celebrated Varrio [sic], whom the Earl kept 12 years in his family’; it did not, however, mention anything about the beds and other furnishings which had so impressed Fiennes.16 Arthur Young wrote about furnishings in more detail: in his account of Holkham he noted a bed of ‘a cut velvet, upon a white sattin ground … the design of this bed is equal to any thing you ever saw’ (Figure 4.6).17 Yet even Young made striking omissions: he did not mention the monumental sofas at Kedleston, for example. Compared to narrative tours like Defoe’s and Young’s, the large topographical volumes were often more constrained in space, and so just as they confined themselves to mentioning only the most important paintings, if they mentioned furnishings at all, they did so with the briefest of references, giving the reader an impression of grand rooms, but with minimal detail. The Complete English Traveller (1771), for example, declared that at Celia Fiennes, The Illustrated Journeys of Celia Fiennes, 1685-c. 1712, ed. Christopher Morris (London and Sydney: Macdonald & Co, 1982), 83. 14 Norfolk Record Office, MC 150/49/625 x 3, ‘A Journal of a tour to the north of England’, 1725. 15 Diary of a Tour in 1732 through Parts of England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland Made by John Loveday of Caversham (Edinburgh: privately printed, 1890), 224. 16 Daniel Defoe, A Tour thro’ the Whole Island of Great Britain, 4th edn, 4 vols (London: S. Birt, 1748), III, 40. 17 Arthur Young, A Six Weeks Tour through the Southern Counties of England and Wales (London: W. Nicoll, 1768), 10. 13

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Duncombe Park ‘The salloon is extremely grand, divided into three compartments, and the great dining room is finished in the same masterly manner. The drawing room is adorned both with paintings and statues, and the bed-chambers, and other apartments, are all hung with the richest damasks.’18 In this account, there is just enough information to give the reader a vague sense of the house: nothing really indicates what makes the saloon grand or the dining room masterly, and there is nothing about the colours used, details of the ornaments or the moveable furniture on display. Similarly, England Displayed described the rooms at Longford in very general terms, claiming that they were ‘pleasant, chearful, and elegantly decorated … The pictures, furniture, and fitting-up of this gallery, are said to have cost ten thousand pounds’.19 The Modern Universal British Traveller (1779) commented on only a few rooms at Holkham, including the saloon, the drawing room and the state bedchamber; it then summarized the rest as being ‘all equally elegant’.20 This type of description cannot possibly have enabled a reader to envision a house’s interior, it simply indicated that it would be accessible to them and that they should anticipate being satisfied that the grandeur of the house, its art collection and its gardens was suitably complemented by the furnishings. Travel guides sometimes described decorations more precisely, but they often did so in a cursory way, as if offering a summary of furnishings before identifying paintings on display. In its account of Blenheim, The New Oxford Guide (1759) made this distinction particularly sharp by commenting first on the tapestries in a room, and then, under a subheading ‘THE PICTURES’, listing the paintings.21 Describing Houghton, The Norfolk Tour (1772) noted that the drawing room is ‘hung with yellow caffoy. The cieling is exactly taken, except with the alteration of the paternal coat for the Star and Garter, from one that was in the dining-room of the old house’, that in the saloon ‘the hanging is crimson flowered velvet; the cieling painted by Kent, who designed all the ornaments throughout the house’ and that in the Carlo Maratt Room ‘The hangings are green velvet, the table of Lapis Lazuli; at each end are two sconces of massive silver’; all of these passages precede detailed discussions of the art works displayed in these rooms.22 The Scarborough Guide (1796) provided an appendix describing Castle Howard, and although much of the text was devoted to identifying paintings and statues, it did mention some of the rooms’ more prominent features, particularly chimney pieces; the one in the state chamber was described as ‘very elegant … supported by Corinthian columns, the shafts of Sienna marble, and the capitals and bases of white; the cornice is also of white marble, and in the centre of the frieze, are pigeons in white marble polished’.23 More specific than general claims of elegance or

Robert Sanders, The Complete English Traveller (London: J. Cooke, 1771), 520. Russell and Price, England, I, 91. 20 Charles Burlington, David Llewellyn Rees and Alexander Murray, The Modern Universal British Traveller (London: J. Cooke, 1779), 518. 21 The New Oxford Guide (Oxford: J. Fletcher, 1759), 81, 82, 83. 22 The Norfolk Tour (Norwich: R. Beatniffe, 1772), 27, 28, 30. 23 The Scarborough Guide, 2nd edn (Hull: Thomas Lee and Co., 1796), 154–5. 18 19

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magnificence, comments like these give a reader a somewhat better sense of what the room was like, but they still imply that the real attractions are the art works, and that it is those objects which truly merit the visitor’s attention. Even descriptions in country-house guidebooks reflect this bias: practically unconstrained in length, these texts were ideal vehicles for comprehensive descriptions of rooms, but hardly any guidebook author even came close to attempting this. Most merely made brief notes of selected furnishings or ignored them altogether, and by singling out certain pieces, their indifference towards the others is made all the more evident. None attempted to systematically describe or list features of a house’s interior decoration and/or its furniture; as in travel guides, in many country-house guidebooks, if furniture is mentioned at all, it is brief to the point that it simply reads as a way of introducing the description of the art collection. Those guidebooks which do contain significant information about furnishings are still limited in their approaches: in the guide to Blenheim (1789), for example, William Mavor described the state bed (‘the bed-posts are elegantly fluted, and covered with burnished gold’), but apart from a brief mention of furniture in blue damask, he did not mention six gilt armchairs, a settee and two white and gold window seats, all upholstered in blue damask; a mahogany screen to guard the bed; two blue lustring window curtains and the two gilt cornices surmounted by vases … a lavishly mounted and inlaid rectangular commode which may have been designed by Chambers … a large gilt pier glass above a gilt table.24

These furnishings are all recorded in a 1780 inventory and although their individual attributions are unclear, Sir William Chambers and the prestigious firm Mayhew & Ince were certainly involved and most pieces were likely commissioned specifically for that room, making it highly unlikely that by the time Mavor wrote his guidebook, they had been moved elsewhere.25 The more plausible explanation for their absence from the guidebook is that Mavor simply chose not to include them, an omission which would not have been unusual. In fact, many guides to country houses specified that they described only paintings and sculptures; the full title of the guide to Holkham, for example, is A Description of Holkham House, in Norfolk, with a Particular of the Pictures, Statues, Bustoes, and Other Marbles Therein (1775). Ultimately, the sharp contrast between what country-house guidebook authors and travel writers could have chosen to describe in their accounts of houses and what they did give their attention to suggests that while they were no doubt conscious of the general importance of the fitting up of the house in question, they had significant reasons for not writing much about furniture. In the absence of any definitive explanation, issues commonly associated with furniture in the eighteenth century suggest what their reasons might have been. William Mavor, New Description of Blenheim, 2nd edn (London: T. Cadell, 1789), 74–5. Hugh Roberts, ‘Nicely Fitted Up: Furniture for the 4th Duke of Marlborough’, Furniture History 30 (1994): 123. 25 Roberts, ‘Nicely’, 123. 24

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One issue which may have concerned travel writers was a need to avoid creating the impression that the interiors of country houses were highly luxurious spaces, a status which would have made them problematic. Many people in the eighteenth century associated luxury with risks to society’s established order and values, and furnishings in country houses were in a deeply ambiguous area. They were very often extremely costly, and more importantly, compared to a house’s architecture, art collections and even gardens, they were much, much closer to luxury goods. Whereas the visual arts could theoretically claim to improve people’s minds and characters, decorative objects, including silk and velvet hangings, silver plate and gilded furniture, could not. This could have been a source of concern for travel writers, but at the same time, in the context of grand country houses, costly furniture did not necessarily need defending. For many commentators, especially those writing in the first half of the eighteenth century, luxury was problematic because of the changes it was linked to: it seemed to be ‘fast begetting new, false, and artificial wealth, a new and noxious economic order, and a new and sinister breed of men’, all of which undermined and damaged the so-called natural order of society and politics.26 In contrast, the owners of the country houses tourists visited were often quite different men (or at least appeared to be): their wealth seemed to derive from their estates or their roles in government, in effect a manifestation of the traditional economic and political order, and many came from families which had been landowners for decades. In this context, the costs of their furnishings might not have been seen as examples of modern vice, but simply as instances of what was appropriate for a family of great rank and prestige; some landowners even saw their spending as a public responsibility.27 Furthermore, by the middle of the eighteenth century, the idea of luxury was increasingly associated with the expanding range of goods available to consumers, particularly modern conveniences, associations which would never have applied to tapestries or pietre dure (inlaid ornament made of polished coloured stones) cabinets.28 Accusations of excessive luxury very rarely appear in tourists’ writings, even when they were deeply conscious of the high costs of the interiors they viewed. Apart from potential connotations of luxury, many people felt that furnishings simply did not have the same connections to connoisseurship, or to improvement of the mind, as art works did. In his account of his visit to Harewood (West Yorkshire), Richard Warner made a sharp distinction between the advantages of viewing art collections and viewing furniture, declaring that at this house, which had been decorated by Robert Adam and Thomas Chippendale, nothing within interests the mind; no productions of the arts, unless indeed the labours of the gilder and upholsterer may be considered as deserving that character. John Sekora, Luxury: The Concept in Western Thought, Eden to Smollett (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977), 68. 27 Jules Lubbock, The Tyranny of Taste: The Politics of Architecture and Design in Britain, 1550–1960 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995), xiv. 28 Maxine Berg, Luxury and Pleasure in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 32–3. 26

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Rich hangings and fine furniture may catch the gaze and captivate the fancy of the multitude, but taste and sensibility require some other food, and turn away with satiety from the glitter of golden cornices and the lustre of satin hangings.29

Warner’s criticism of attention to furniture is unusually explicit, but a similar attitude can be seen in other travellers’ comparisons between houses. Describing a visit to Belvoir Castle (Leicestershire) in 1703, one gentleman noted that the apartments were ‘magnificently furnished’ and commented that they had seen ‘some fire-dogs, some fire-guards and some tongs of silver and many mantelpiece ornaments on the chimney pieces and cabinets of the same metal, some beds and hangings very rich, but few beautiful paintings’ in comparison to what they had seen at Burghley.30 William Bray also viewed rich furnishings as inadequate compensation for the lack of a picture collection, informing his readers that at Chatsworth the house ‘is certainly magnificent, but you look in vain for those beautiful productions of the pencil, which now so frequently adorn the seats of our nobility and gentry’.31 Part of the challenge may have been that although it was possible to describe and critique furnishings, it required a different vocabulary and approach. In a survey of eighteenth-century country-house guidebooks’ attention to furnishings, Simon Swynfen Jervis noted that although in some guides there was frequent praise for furniture, whether generalized or specific, ‘there is not much sense of a critical engagement with individual objects or schemes, as was commonplace with paintings, sculpture and the picturesque views of which gardens were composed. All the latter gave an opportunity to flaunt connoisseurship’.32 Since they could not discuss furnishings in the same terms they could art works, some writers may have decided not to discuss them at all. Interior architectural features and decorative paintings in country houses are the exceptions which prove this rule: it was these elements which were most likely to be mentioned by a travel writer who ignored all other decorations and furnishings. It was not unusual for halls and saloons to have columns or pilasters, and many descriptions mentioned these; when Young visited Holkham, for instance, he noted that the hall had ‘eighteen very large and magnificent Corinthian pillars’ (Figure 4.1).33 Similarly, some visitors treated wall paintings as if they were comparable to paintings acquired for a collection; for example, when he described the painted staircase at Worksop (Nottinghamshire), Bray claimed ‘the figures are so relieved, that they perfectly stand out from the wall’.34 Although at many houses travel writers did not mention the

Richard Warner, A Tour through the Northern Counties of England, and the Borders of Scotland, 2 vols (Bath: Printed by R. Cruttwell, 1802), I, 241–2. 30 A Relation of the Journey of the Gentlemen Blathwayt into the North of England in the Year Seventeen Hundred and Three, ed. Nora Hardwick (Dursley: F. Bailey & Son Ltd., 1977), 12. 31 William Bray, Sketch of a Tour into Derbyshire and Yorkshire, 2nd edn (London: B. White, 1783), 168–9. 32 Simon Swynfen Jervis, ‘Furniture in Eighteenth-Century Country House Guides’, Furniture History 42 (2006): 84. 33 Young, Southern, 1768, 8. The columns are actually Ionic. 34 William Bray, Sketch of a Tour into Derbyshire and Yorkshire (London: B. White, 1778), 205. 29

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Figure 4.1  The Hall at Holkham. © Country Life Picture Library.

decorative paintings at all, let alone the artist(s) who had painted them, the artists who had created some of the grandest schemes were known to visitors: at Chatsworth in 1735, one tourist observed that most of the ceilings were painted by Antonio Verrio and Louis Laguerre, but ‘one Room is wholly, & wretchedly painted by Sir James Thornhill’

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Figure 4.2  The Sabine Room at Chatsworth, painted by James Thornhill, 1706. © Country Life Picture Library.

(Figure 4.2).35 As this visitor indicates, decorative history painting was increasingly considered to be of lesser status, but however problematic, the sheer scale of these projects and the prominence of the men who painted them ensured that they became part of the narratives of houses; for example, in most travel books, Verrio’s work at Burghley was not described in the same terms as the art collection, but his time in British Library, Add MS 5842, ‘A Tour thro’ England in the Year 1735’, transcribed in 1775.

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the earl’s household was mentioned.36 Architectural features and grand wall paintings were also more likely to be mentioned in country-house guidebooks: a case in point is the 1777 guide to Stowe, which informed readers that the Hall ceiling had been painted by Kent, and it showed ‘the seven Planets, the ruling one, that of Mars, in the likeness of King William, presents a Sword to the late Field Marshal Viscount Cobham, in allusion to that Prince having given him a Regiment at his first Entrance into the Army’.37 Highlighting the meaning of the image – in this case the representation of a crucial moment in the family’s history – implicitly encouraged tourists to recognize it as more than mere decoration. The guide to Blenheim included comparable comments about the tapestries, explicitly encouraging tourists to view them almost as they would paintings: in describing the ones in the Winter Drawing Room, it notes they ‘represent the four Cardinal Virtues, with their characteristic emblems and accompaniments, and in vivid beauty of colouring approach nearer to painting than any thing of the same kind in Blenheim’.38 When it came to items such as damask wall hangings, pier glasses, tables and chairs, however, traditional forms of connoisseurship were less relevant. Closely related to the issue of connoisseurship were issues of production and rarity: many furnishings and decorations were less than ideal elements for a collection as represented in a travel book because they simply were not unique in the way that many paintings and sculptures were. In the later eighteenth century, furniture and interior decorations increasingly came not from artisans, but from manufacturers. Production was increasingly mechanized, and although many people were impressed by technical and organizational ingenuity, for some the changes ‘sat uncomfortably with ideas of taste, design, and the application of the fine arts’.39 There were close connections between manufacturing and shops, and although retailers would frequently fulfil specific commissions, they were also happy to act as consultants, capable of advising customers on which choices would be the most elegant and presenting themselves as authorities on fashion.40 Many shops were literally designed to encourage the consumer to easily envision fashionable goods in their homes: decorative elements (such as mouldings and screens), colour schemes, upholstered furniture and even tea tables were all used to evoke the look of grand houses’ interiors within stores.41 In light of the differences in production and the roles of artist and retailer, for some people, the latter’s goods were inescapably commercial, and thus not worthy of describing alongside paintings or sculptures. They were also far from exclusive: while individual items and schemes were Richard Johns, ‘“Those Wilder Sorts of Painting”: The Painted Interior in the Age of Antonio Verrio’, in A Companion to British Art 1600 to the Present, ed. Dana Arnold and David Peters Corbett (Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2013), 90–5. A Description of England and Wales, 10 vols (London: Newbery and Carnan, 1769–70), VII, 65. 37 Benton Seeley, Stowe: A Description of the Magnificent House and Gardens, 17th edn (Buckingham: B. Seeley, 1777), 34. 38 William Mavor, New Description of Blenheim, 4th edn (London: Cadell and Davies, 1797), 49. 39 Berg, Luxury, 98. 40 Clive Edwards, Turning Houses into Homes (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 39–40. 41 Claire Walsh, ‘Shops, Shopping, and the Art of Decision Making in Eighteenth-Century England’, in Gender, Taste, and Material Culture in Britain and North America, 1700–1830, ed. John Styles and Amanda Vickery (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2006), 154. 36

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often bespoke, they were heavily influenced by fashions which affected dozens, if not hundreds, of objects elsewhere. This is particularly true of stucco ornaments: during the late eighteenth century, Joseph Rose’s family firm monopolized English plasterwork; Rose worked with Robert Adam for several years and was involved at many houses Adam worked at.42 Apart from the immense success of this firm, texts such as George Richardson’s Book of Ceilings (1776) further enabled broad public familiarity with the Adam style. Furniture in the neoclassical style had also developed through custom commissions for houses like Kedleston, but it soon reached a wider market through design publications and adaptations by craftsmen and manufacturing firms. Even the finest furniture was not necessarily unique: the Linnells’ firm, for instance, became ‘adept at developing a grand manner and carrying it with them from one commission to another’; in general, the same craftsmen who served royalty and aristocracy also supplied pieces to middle-class property owners, clergy and professionals.43 Small decorative objects were especially likely to be viewed at multiple sites and might even be potentially purchased during a tour: as noted in Chapter 1, it was possible to visit factories such as Josiah Wedgwood’s Etruria (Staffordshire) while touring England; visiting ceramics shops, show rooms and sale rooms was a popular activity in London. Regardless of all this production, objects in country houses may still have been seen as somewhat removed from the market for luxury furnishings. In a discussion of the commodity within the country house, Stacey Sloboda has argued that when objects were literally embedded into a country house or designed specifically as a decorative ensemble for it, they were fixed within ‘a particular aristocratic spatial context’ which effaced their mercantile origins.44 Tourists may not have conceived of objects in this way, but explicit references to commercial activities are rare in their writings. A final critical issue was the extent to which furnishings might be considered appropriate for public commentary at all. While they were certainly of interest to both men and women, in the third quarter of the eighteenth century, the ability to judiciously select fabrics, furnishings, colours, ornaments and arrangements for a room was increasingly seen as a feminine form of accomplishment.45 For many writers of this period, it was through virtuous feminine refinement that modern luxury furnishings could be reconciled with a polite domestic sphere; at the same time, a woman was supposedly more susceptible to being corrupted by wealth, fashion and frivolity, and if her choices were not refined, her home would display her poor character.46 In this context, it is possible that information about furnishings and decorations was excluded from travel books because these aspects of a house could potentially be seen as expressions of a woman’s character and a display which was intended for Geoffrey Beard, Georgian Craftsmen and Their Work (London: Country Life, 1966), 71. Christopher Christie, The British Country House in the Eighteenth Century (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), 235. Hayward and Kirkham, Linnell, I, 91. 44 Stacey Sloboda, Chinoiserie: Commerce and Critical Ornament in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2014), 85. 45 Charles Saumarez Smith, Eighteenth-Century Decoration (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1993), 233–4. 46 Robert Jones, Gender and the Formation of Taste in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 205, 208–9. 42 43

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a private setting. Like the tensions surrounding luxury and commercialism, this is an ambiguous issue: interior decorations were not rigidly gendered feminine in the eighteenth century, and the grandest rooms of country houses would normally have been associated with dynastic prestige, and by extension, with masculinity. Countryhouse owners were expected to concern themselves with lavish decorations for grand rooms, and women’s involvement might ultimately be ignored: in his visit to Holkham, Young treated the house as the Earl of Leicester’s creation, even though it then belonged to the Countess, whose works had completed it.47 Tourists also distinguished between rooms that had a public status and rooms which did not: during his visit to Stourhead, Richard Fenton declared one section of the house was ‘dedicated to show and the public’, while the other was ‘dedicated to study, convenience, and domestic comfort’ (it was often possible to tour these rooms as well, but they did not have the prestige of the ‘public’ rooms).48 Still, some tourists certainly made the connection between decorations and gender: when Jonathan Gray visited Alnwick in 1796, he described the interiors as ‘adornd with all the Splendour & dazzling Magnificence which it is possible to conceive’, but then claimed that ‘I cannot describe the Magnificence of this House, but must leave the task to a Female Hand. I can imagine the gazing Admiration with which all ladies must contemplate this gaudy Finery, & how they must dwell on each minute Particular.’49 Gray’s comments suggest that for some travel writers, the issue may not have been the decorations or furnishings in themselves, but whether or not it was appropriate for them, as gentlemen-professional authors, to write about them. While none of these issues is a satisfying explanation by itself, taken together, it is clear that there were significant reasons for travel writers to avoid describing the interior decorations and furnishings of country houses. Notwithstanding their cursory attention, the growth of the furniture and interior decoration industry during the eighteenth century ensured that most tourists would have been reasonably well prepared to view and comment on whatever they saw. As noted above, the look of a fashionable interior was not prohibitively expensive to acquire for anyone who could afford to travel for leisure, and throughout the eighteenth century, the number and diversity of furnishings and domestic goods grew tremendously: everything from Spitalfields silks to Chinese porcelain was increasingly available to the consumer, and with the proliferation of goods, many people became familiar with the possibilities for ‘fitting up’ rooms, even in modest ways.50 The presence of furnishings in print was also changing: in a critical examination of the modes of description in the eighteenth century, Cynthia Wall has argued that the increase in consumer choice shaped approaches to describing houses because as auction houses, stores and advertisements Amanda Vickery, Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009), 133, 131. 48 Richard Fenton, A Tour in Quest of Genealogy (London: Sherwood, Neely, and Jones, 1811), 180, 181. 49 Explore York Libraries and Archives, Acc5,6,24,235/T2–A, ‘Tour of Scotland, made by Jonathan Gray’, 1796. 50 Hannah Greig, ‘Eighteenth-Century English Interiors in Image and Text’, in Imagined Interiors: Representing the Domestic Interior since the Renaissance, ed. Jeremy Aynsley and Charlotte Grant (London: V&A Publications, 2006), 115. 47

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‘made a profusion of things imaginatively as well as actually available to buyers, readers, and the makers of homes … Choice generated individuality and difference, and differences would ask to be compared and described’.51 Representations of interior spaces played critical roles in novels, particularly later in the eighteenth century, and beginning in the 1730s, interior spaces were increasingly depicted in paintings, such as conversation pieces (in which the space might be real or fictitious), and in prints, such as William Hogarth’s modern moral series. In addition to portraits and narrative scenes, many images in architectural and design books offered designs for decorations and furnishings, from Thomas Chippendale’s famous The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker’s Director (1754) to less expensive and more easily accessible pattern books. Finally, leading furniture makers and upholsterers were making bold claims about their achievements; for example, John Mayhew and William Ince dedicated their book, The Universal System of Houshold Furniture (1762), to the fourth Duke of Marlborough on the grounds that the duke had an extensive knowledge of the arts and sciences as well as an interest in promoting ‘Industry and Ingenuity’.52 In this context, there can be no doubt that the mid-eighteenth-century tourist was well equipped to reflect on the possibilities of decorating and furnishing the country house, however ill-prepared they were by travel books and guidebooks. Given the extraordinary range of objects and spaces tourists encountered, it is hardly surprising that their comments about furnishings and interior decorations vary tremendously, but considered together, patterns of what they admired emerge. At some houses, the chief attraction of the furnishings was a rare piece or a collection of pieces made of precious materials, and tourists often praised these objects as if they were curiosities. Other tourists chose to write about decorative schemes, considering the effect of the space and whether or not it was in good taste. However brief, the vast majority of tourists’ comments about country houses’ furniture can be placed under the broad umbrellas of curiosity or taste, both of which had more personal associations than the art collections on display.

The rare and the curious At many country houses, the furnishings within the staterooms or rooms of parade included items made with precious materials, such as silver or rare stones, and extraordinary craftsmanship. These were primarily for display rather than use, and, like paintings and sculptures, they would often have been presumed to be objects which would be passed down to future generations. Many had been specially acquired in Europe, or received as legacies or prestigious gifts, and they were too precious to be discarded when fashions changed. Several tourists commented on them in their Cynthia Sundberg Wall, The Prose of Things: Transformations of Description in the Eighteenth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 176. 52 William Ince and John Mayhew, The Universal System of Houshold Furniture (London: Robert Sayer, 1762), i. 51

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diaries, and some were even mentioned by travel writers. Taken together, these texts indicate that some furnishings could be admired as curiosities, as objects whose significance derived primarily from their rarity and which merited attention for their historical, cultural or scientific value. In the eighteenth century, collections of curiosities could be tremendously wide ranging, embracing everything from natural specimens to antiquities to fine art objects. Some of the most famous eighteenth-century collections included such disparate objects that they seemed to defy categorization altogether, and historians’ explanations of the attractions of curiosities have been notably broad: Barbara Benedict has argued that ‘Symbolically, curiosities collected from overseas represent travel; seeing and possessing them demonstrates the knowledge of the world,’ while Susan Crane has observed that ‘many of the objects in a curiosity cabinet were essentially accompanied by stories’, and suggests that ‘the desirability of the curious object lay in its relation to a known or acceptable story’.53 At country houses, all kinds of things were on display; for example, at Chatsworth, one visitor noted that there was ‘a great Deal of exceeding fine carved work’ (Figure 4.3), including a carved cravat and a woodcock ‘in a Glass Case … much the finest executed I ever saw’.54 Yet hardly any tourists wrote of natural specimens they encountered inside houses, and few expressed interest in furniture which was merely old, regardless of what historic associations it might have. Objects made of precious materials, however, often made a unique contribution to a house’s status. Rare furnishings made of stones were admired for their foreign origins and their age. Tables made from rare coloured marbles and other decorative stones had become popular in England in the early eighteenth century, and stone cutters in Rome regularly supplied slabs (including some which were taken from archaeological digs) to Grand Tourists; though they were intended for table-tops, these slabs effectively functioned as collectibles.55 At Castle Howard, several tourists described the stone tables and cabinets as being of exceptional quality and meriting just as much attention as the art collection. When he visited in 1766, Sir Roger Newdigate noted that the house had ‘an infinite variety of Marbles, no room without 2 or three fine tables some inlaid exceedingly beautiful. A Vast number of Cabinets set with precious stones agates & lists of Curious Marbles … exceedingly handsome’.56 For Newdigate, the tables and cabinets were well designed, but the real attraction was the collection of specimens they displayed. Many others employed similarly superlative praise: a visitor in 1759 described the tables as ‘exceeding fine & equal if not superior, both in number & Beauty to any in ye Kingdom’, in 1779 Philip Rashleigh noted the house had ‘Marble & Mosaic Tables of great Barbara M. Benedict, Curiosity: A Cultural History of Early Modern Inquiry (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), 17. Susan A. Crane, ‘Story, History and the Passionate Collector’, in Producing the Past: Aspects of Antiquarian Culture and Practice, 1700–1850, ed. Martin Myrone and Lucy Peltz (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999), 190, 191. 54 British Library, Add MS 5842. 55 The Treasure Houses of Britain, ed. Gervase Jackson-Stops (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1985), 303. The English Prize: The Capture of the Westmorland, An Episode of the Grand Tour (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2012), 292. 56 Warwickshire County Record Office, CR 136/A/563, ‘Journal of a Tour’, 1766. 53

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Figure 4.3  Carved ornament in the state apartment at Chatsworth. © Country Life Picture Library.

Curiosity’, and in 1781 Sir Robert D’Arcy Hildyard claimed ‘The collection of tables of the finest, most rare Italian marbles, surpasses any thing of the kind in England’.57 The recurring references to these tables suggest that they had become part of what the Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies, DE/R/F153, ‘Journal of an English Tour’, 1759. Cornwall Record Office, CA/B38/61, ‘Notebook of Tour to the North of England’, 1779. East Riding Archives and Local Studies, ERALS DDHI/58/19/4, ‘England and Scotland Journal of Sir Robert D’Arcy Hildyard’, 1781–83.

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house was known for, and these comments might be considered as broadly comparable to the recurring references to specific paintings at houses like Burghley and Wilton. Whereas precious stone tables might be admired as curiosities which complemented the display of great art collections, at Stourhead, a single pietre dure cabinet dominated accounts of the interior of the house (Figure 4.4). Purchased on the Grand Tour by Henry Hoare II c. 1742 (alongside numerous paintings), the cabinet attracted tremendous attention from visitors, who seem to have considered it glamorous, expensive and even exotic (at least as far as Wiltshire was concerned).58 Samuel Curwen gave the following account of it in 1776: There is a cabinet of Pope Sixtus Quintus, which stands on a mahogany frame; – the front is of ebony; and amber pillars, set with sapphires, emeralds and other precious stones, and miniatures of all the Perotti family from which he sprang, and elegantly executed in white alabaster. In the drawers are prints of the principal royal and noble families of Europe in metal frames.59

This was an object with multiple claims of interest: it displayed rare materials, even jewels, it incorporated paintings and held prints and it had a distinguished provenance. Like the rare statues at Duncombe Park, its purchase was also well known: Caroline Powys described it as ‘the so-much-talked-of cabinet that once belong’d to Pope Sixtus, which Mr. Hoare purchased at an immense sum, so great that he says he never will declare the sum’.60 As an object which visitors would have anticipated seeing and which clearly rewarded careful examination, the Stourhead cabinet was undoubtedly a highlight of a tour of the house. In some cases, furnishings which displayed precious stones were celebrated, or at least acknowledged, in travel publications. In his Journal of Eight Days Journey (1756), Jonas Hanway described the Stourhead cabinet as ‘a great curiosity, and of high value’; in a gesture towards discretion, he referred to the owner of it as ‘Mr. H****’, but when Hanway’s description of Stourhead was reprinted in the London Chronicle and the London Magazine, Hoare’s name was included.61 The cabinet even merited inclusion in some of the large topographical volumes, which otherwise mentioned hardly any furniture; for example, The Modern Universal British Traveller, which does not mention any of the house’s paintings, noted the cabinet as a ‘great curiosity’ and gave a brief description of it.62 The authors of country-house guidebooks sometimes Simon Swynfen Jervis and Dudley Dodd, Roman Splendour, English Arcadia: The English Taste for Pietre Dure and the Sixtus Cabinet at Stourhead (London: Philip Wilson Publishers, 2015), 144. 59 George Atkinson Ward, Journal and Letters of the Late Samuel Curwen (London: Wiley and Putnam, 1842), 79. 60 Passages from the Diaries of Mrs. Philip Lybbe Powys of Hardwick House, Oxon. AD 1756 to 1808, ed. Emily J. Climenson (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1899), 172. 61 Jonas Hanway, A Journal of Eight Days Journey (London: H. Woodfall, 1756), 88. [Jonas Hanway], ‘Journey through Wiltshire’, London Chronicle, 16–18 June 1757 (Issue 73). Jonas Hanway, ‘A Description of Stourton in Wiltshire, the Seat of Mr. Hoare’, The London Magazine 36 (1767): 7. 62 Burlington et al., Modern, 394. 58

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Figure 4.4  The Pope’s Cabinet, Stourhead. © National Trust Images/James Dobson.

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made a point of identifying precious stones displayed as table tops or incorporated into other decorations, presumably to ensure visitors would fully appreciate their rarity and prestige. At Wilton, as at Castle Howard, there were several stone tables, and Ædes Pembrochianæ (1774) listed tables made of red Egyptian granite, oriental alabaster, jasper agate, Mount Edgcumbe marble, lapis lazuli, porphyry (with a yellow and green marble border) and finally one of black marble which was so large (11 feet 9 inches × 4 feet 2 inches) that the room was known as ‘The Black Marble-Table Room’.63 Similarly, the guide to Holkham (1775) directed readers’ attention to anything made of a precious stone: in its description of the great dining room, it records ‘Two Chimney Pieces of a similar Design, composed of Sicilian Jasper Trusses, and statuary Marble. The Side-board, Table, Frame and Legs, are of Porphyry. The Table Slab of Egyptian green Marble. Beneath, a large Bason of Mount Edgcumbe red Granite’.64 Given that both these houses were known for displaying sculpture collections, directing visitors’ attention to the stone tables and other items presumably seemed like a natural extension of the guidebook’s remit, though it was undoubtedly the statues which took precedence. Although as materials precious metals lacked the exoticism and variety of rare stones, silver or gilt items of unusual scale and/or age were admired as historical curiosities and heirlooms. At Knole, for instance, where there were several pieces of antique furniture, the king’s room was notable for its state bed (which had belonged to James II) and a small collection of silver furnishings (Figure 4.5).65 Visiting in 1771, Powys noted the furniture in this room was a present from the royal family, and certainly had been equal to the rank of the donor and splendid to a degree. The bed and chairs cost £8000, the outside cloth of gold, the inside that of silver, the beakers, jars, &c., on the cabinets of most curious filigree, the frames of all the glasses, sconces, tables, and chairs, of solid emboss’d silver. In that, and many other rooms likewise, old cabinets very fine with silver emboss’d frames.66

As with the Stourhead cabinet, this suite demanded attention on account of its historical associations, its craftsmanship and materials, and its tremendous cost, and it was clearly for show rather than use. Although this type of silver furniture was very rare, some houses had significant collections of plate on display; for example, after a visit to Stowe in 1815, one tourist noted that in the dining room, there was ‘a side board at each end, one had antient embossed silver plate, the other antient gilt’ and that ‘There were three antient state bedchambers, one had a set of filigree dressing plate, another a set of gilt plate, the third a dressing room to it had antient silver plate.’67 While the age of these items was clearly important for this visitor, the arrangement and variety Ædes Pembrochianæ: Or a Critical Account of the Statues, Bustos, Relievos, Paintings, Medals, and other Antiquities and Curiosities at Wilton-House (London: R. Baldwin, 1774), 45, 51, 53, 54, 59, 69, 88. 64 A Description of Holkham House, in Norfolk (Norwich: R. Beatniffe, 1775), 6. 65 Robert Sackville-West, Knole (Swindon: National Trust, 2006), 42–5. Treasure Houses, 196–7. 66 Passages, 149. 67 Essex Record Office, D/DFr F6, ‘Journal’, 1815. 63

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Figure 4.5  View of silver furniture and mirror in the King’s Room at Knole. © National Trust Images/Andreas von Einsiedel.

of plate could also attract attention: during a visit to Kedleston in 1807, one tourist admired ‘a most superb sideboard of gold and silver vases, candlesticks & in short every useful as well as ornamental plate that luxury could wish’.68 In general, collections of plate were among the most prestigious items a country house might exhibit: a buffet in a dining room might showcase cups, plates, tureens and basins, wine coolers and even fountains, and was frequently associated with the landowner’s rank; a bedroom toilette service typically included a mirror, cosmetic boxes, a jewel casket, brushes and candlesticks, and it often reflected the prestige of the owner’s wife.69 The late Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, Osborn d433, ‘[Journal]’, June–August 1807. 69 Timothy Schroder, The National Trust Book of English Domestic Silver, 1500–1900 (London: Penguin Books, 1989), 165. 68

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eighteenth century witnessed a huge increase in the demand for silver goods, but most of those objects were made for regular use and through semi-industrial production processes; the plate displayed at Stowe and Kedleston would have been comparatively rare, and clearly attractive to the curious.70 Through the prestige of these houses and their owners’ families, the difficulty of the luxuriousness of silver was diffused and the objects became polite attractions. Unlike furniture from Chippendale, plaster decorations from Joseph Rose or porcelain vases, it was impossible to view or purchase equivalents to these objects elsewhere. They were exceptional to the point that there was nothing especially problematic about directing tourists’ attention to them: visitors would hardly be likely to view Wilton’s lapis lazuli table as a commercial good, or Knole’s silver furniture as associated with a feminine interior. The extraordinary rarity of these examples not only reveals what tourists and travel writers were prepared to celebrate as curious examples of furniture, it also indicates how few pieces of furniture were likely to attain this status. Age alone did not necessarily impress: Richard Sulivan claimed that although there were people who were ‘delighted with mouldering chairs and a faded tapestry’ and that these kinds of relics ‘ought to be preserved’, he believed antique furnishings were unlikely to attract ‘the observation of common personages’; in fact, many tourists wrote comments criticizing houses for having old furniture.71 Only furniture which could be celebrated for several qualities at once could be admired as a curious attraction of the house: more modern furniture attracted tourists’ attentions for quite different reasons.

Taste and design on display in the country house As well as admiring rare or curious furnishings which were associated with familial and dynastic prestige, some tourists took the time to write accounts of the decorative schemes that they encountered. For any tourist, the combined effect of the interior decorations, the furnishings and the art works was the most personal aspect of a country house’s display: how the owner presented his house and possessions – including all those inherited or collected as family treasures – reflected his preferences (in practice that might mean either commissioning redecoration of a given space or not bothering to replace old furniture). Tourists’ interests in the details and impact of furnishings displayed within these houses demonstrate that while the chief attraction of these spaces may have been their art collections, people were also using their visits to country houses to assess élite taste in interior decorations. In effect, country houses allowed tourists to examine how the highest-ranking members of society were responding to fashion and contemporary design. Schroder, Silver, 225. Richard Joseph Sulivan, A Tour through Parts of England, Scotland, and Wales, in 1778, 2nd edn, 2 vols (London: T. Becket, 1785), I, 262, 263, 263. For an example of a tourist complaining about the age of furniture, see Yale Center for British Art, DA11 .K47 1789, ‘Notes on Visits to Various Country Houses and Towns in Great Britain’ [by Mary Kerr], 1789–1826 (Paul Mellon Collection).

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For many tourists, comprehensive decorative schemes in which a room’s decorations and furniture had been commissioned as a single project on a grand scale would have been relatively novel, particularly in the first half of the eighteenth century, and the novelty would have been part of what drew their attention. Commenting on the interiors at Petworth in 1713, John Macky stated that ‘what is particular to the Duke of Somerset is, that all his Palaces are compleatly Furnished, and he moves to them without removing any Thing from his other Seats’.72 In fact, although fewer and fewer families were moving precious furnishings with them as they moved between houses, the idea of coordinating all the decorative elements of a room for permanent installation was only just emerging in England; the interiors Daniel Marot designed at Hampton Court and Kensington Palace in the 1690s for Mary II and William III were innovative in that sense, and it was not until well into the eighteenth century that the concept became widely popular.73 Eventually, the carefully designed scheme became common in great houses: Robert Adam’s designs for the Kedleston interiors encompassed everything from the arrangement of paintings to the ornaments in the ceilings. The resulting space was still fairly novel in that although the choices available to consumers were rapidly expanding, the scale, complexity and cost of interior spaces like those at Kedleston remained beyond the reach of most people. Yet however unfamiliar grand decorative schemes were, tourists already had a vocabulary with which to discuss them. By the middle of the eighteenth century, although the term ‘taste’ was becoming increasingly difficult to define, there were significant distinctions in how it might be deployed, particularly in relation to material things. As we have seen, those who invoked it in reference to paintings, sculptures and buildings often did so with a view to distinguishing the fine arts from the mechanical arts, and the ability to appreciate and speak critically about these arts was fundamental to participation in polite society.74 In this context, most furnishings and ornaments are not objects of taste, but it was reasonably common for tourists and other writers to refer to taste in relation to interiors. Many tourists used the term in brief summary comments: for instance, a tourist at Knole in 1735 described it as having ‘one compleat magnificent Apartment fitted up in the modern Taste’.75 Similarly, on visiting Harewood Richard Supple commented that ‘the inside is most elegant, noble new Fashion Furniture & fine Inlaid Tables & carv’d Mahog. Doors & the Rooms Decorated with great Taste & Judgment’.76 These tourists are typical in that most who wrote about taste in interiors seem to have done so with set notions of taste in mind, as if it was something they recognized (either as a style or a quality); commenting on Caroline Powys’s analyses of interiors, Katherine John Macky, A Journey through England. In Familiar Letters from a Gentleman Here, to His Friend Abroad (London: J. Roberts, 1714), 67. 73 Peter Thornton, Seventeenth-Century Interior Decoration in England, France and Holland (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1978), 4, 50–1. 74 John Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century (London: HarperCollins, 1997), 87, 92–3. 75 British Library, Add MS 5842. 76 Yale Center for British Art, In Process DA670.N7 S87 1771, ‘Notebook Belonging to Richard Supple’, 1771–85 (Paul Mellon Fund). 72

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Sharp has argued that ‘By the 1770s she was speaking of the “present taste” as if she knew exactly what that was.’77 In contrast to these brief comments, some tourists wrote lengthy accounts of rooms which identify multiple objects, demonstrating a critical engagement with the same items which other visitors alluded to through terms like ‘fitting up’ and ‘decoration’. In both approaches, the idea of taste is much closer to fashion and modernity than the fine arts, which indicates different criteria are at play: carpets and curtains did not improve moral character. Recent studies have emphasized that in relation to interiors, good taste was not a reflection of the common interests of polite society but rather of the distinctions within it. In an essay on how eighteenthcentury consumers articulated taste in relation to wallpaper, Amanda Vickery found that people routinely displayed ‘An obsession with decorum and fitness to context’ and that their choices ‘shored up social and spatial hierarchies, the innate appreciation of which was a proof of taste’.78 Similarly, Stacey Sloboda has argued that during this period, ‘furniture, tea and coffee sets, table wares, drinking and serving vessels, and myriad other useful and decorative objects facilitated decorum, the visible and tangible manifestation of polite character’.79 In this context, furnishings of tremendous cost and luxury could be identified as being in good taste if a tourist deemed them appropriate for the owner in question. To comment on the taste displayed in the interior decorations of country houses, then, was to comment on the owner’s display of modern fashion as appropriate to his own rank, an awareness which underlines tourists’ consciousness of country houses’ functions as residences. In tourists’ writings, long descriptions of country-house interiors sometimes incorporate an extraordinary range of details, including the decorative architecture of the space, the colours and materials of its furnishings and the ornaments displayed within it. In a diary entry which devotes over sixteen pages to describing Corsham, for instance, one tourist described the Saloon, or Picture Gallery, as follows (Plate 5): Saloon 70 feet long – 5 great windows on one side – grand Mirrors in the piers under them oblong chests with Drawers, & flat tops, all of satin wood, instead of pier tables – on the other side of the room beautiful marble tables on gilt frames – walls crimson & gold borders – Window curtains & curtains over the doors crimson – Door of some beautiful wood like walnut, very neat carving on the mouldings of the panels – fine vases of greenish marble & several great vases of fine blue & white china above 3 feet high – Chairs of crimson – noble chimney piece of white marble with statues of female figures nearly as large as life supporting the cornice also of white marble highly polished, the figures graceful & drapery elegantly disposed – the whole sculpted by Scheemaker.80 Katherine Sharp, ‘Women’s Creativity and Display in the Eighteenth-Century British Domestic Interior’, in Interior Design and Identity, ed. Susie McKellar and Penny Sparke (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004), 19. 78 Amanda Vickery, ‘“Neat and Not Too Showey”: Words and Wallpaper in Regency England’, in Gender, Taste, and Material Culture, 211, 216. 79 Sloboda, Chinoiserie, 9. 80 Royal Academy of Ireland, Ms. 24 K. 38, ‘Journal of a Tour through England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland (Vol. II)’, 1804. 77

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The amount of detail here is remarkable, but this room did stand out to others: a visitor in 1785 singled it out as ‘nobly furnished & hung with crimson Damask and entirely filled with the finest Pictures’; in 1814, Millicent Bant observed ‘the Saloon is furnished with … Scarlet cloth richly embroidered, in worsted, and has a very magnificent aspect, a large collection of old china, in particular an immense number of large Jars many handsome marble tables’.81 This was a room where the owner had made a concerted effort to display furnishings by the best designers, and to ensure that they were well integrated: prominent features included a chimney piece designed and carved by Peter Scheemakers and four enormous pier glasses and matching tables designed by Adam; Thomas Chippendale’s workshop supplied thirty armchairs, four settees, a winged armchair and two foot stools, all upholstered with the same red damask which had been used for the wall hangings and the curtains.82 As a result, although the picture collection was undoubtedly the star attraction at Corsham, visitors responded to the taste displayed through the combined effect of the furnishings and paintings. At Kedleston, almost every object in the rooms shown to tourists was intended to exemplify or integrate with the overall neoclassical design. A number of diarists commented on the taste shown in the house’s furnishings; for instance, in 1767 James Coldham wrote ‘as far as ye House is Furnish’d, you See a great Display of Elegant Taste in Cielings, chimney pieces – Door Cases & Furniture’.83 Many were drawn to specific objects, making note of everything from mahogany book cases in the library and the carving and hangings on the state bed to the effect of the doors made of ‘Clays Paper Manufactory from Birmingham’ and the candle sconces in the hall and saloon.84 Dorothy Richardson wrote a description of the drawing room (Plate 6) which is exceptional in its detail: The Drawing Room, which is exceedingly large & Magnificent; The Hangings Blue Silk Damask with a Gold Moulding – No Chairs, but Four very Stately Blue Damask Sofas, with exceeding Rich Burnish’d Gold Frames, & the Figure of a Triton supporting each Corner. – The Window Curtains are also Blue Silk Damasks; This Room has three Windows, the Middle a Venetian one, supported by Corinthian Pillars of Red & White Derbyshire Marble; In the Piers are two Elegant Oval Glasses with Magnificent Burnish’d Gold Frames, & Slabs under them. The Cases of Four Doors are Red & White Derbyshire Marble, supported by Corinthian Pillars of the same – A Grand Statuary Marble Chimney Piece supported by two fine Female Figures (Prudence & Liberty) In the Centre of the Frieze upon a Tablet is a Basso Relievo of Virtue rewarded with Riches & Honour – The Carpet which is Wilton, is very large & Beautiful.85 Cornwall Record Office, T/1341/1, ‘Notebooks, Journey from Heligan to Oxford, Birmingham and Monmouth’, 1785. Essex Record Office, D/DFr F5/2, ‘Journal of a Tour to Bath, Bristol, Cheshire, Lancashire etc.’, 1814. 82 Leslie Harcourt, Mr Methuen’s House (Slough, Berkshire: Hollen Street Press, 1981), 38. 83 Norfolk Record Office, MC 40/103/1, ‘Journal of a Tour in England’, 1767. 84 Devon Record Office, 961M-1/F/12, ‘Journal, Tour of Scotland’, 1795. Ward, Curwen, 127. Yale Center for British Art, DA11 .K47 1789. Cambridge University Library, Add. 5804, ‘Journal of a Tour into Derbyshire’ [made by James Plumptre], 1793. 85 The University of Manchester Library, GB 133 Eng MSS 1123, ‘Travel Journals of Dorothy Richardson’, 1767–75. 81

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At Kedleston, the art collection had been created to seamlessly fit into the house – and the house had been designed to accommodate the art collection – and the rarity of the combination likely inspired these tourists’ attentions. In 1791 J. P. Cumming went so far as to declare that Kedleston contained ‘the two most superb & perhaps the most highly finished rooms of any private house in the kingdom’.86 Although both travel publications and the Kedleston guide typically gave more attention to the house’s art collection (and sometimes neglected to mention the furnishings at all), the novelty of the interior decorations was clearly a powerful element of the visitor’s experience. Among modern pieces of furniture, formal beds were usually among the most expensive, and as they could easily dominate a room, they often attracted visitors’ attentions. An antique state bed might be considered an historical curiosity, but many were admired for their modern material and the taste exhibited in their contemporary designs. Visiting Holkham in 1764, for instance, Letitia Beauchamp Proctor noted that she had seen ‘three fine bedchambers’, all with beautiful hangings: ‘one is my Ladys own, of Mazareen damask … a second is flowerd silk, and the third a most exquisite French velvet of different colours on a white ground’ (Figure 4.6).87 While undoubtedly expensive fabrics, these were not heirlooms, they represented the taste of the Countess. Similarly, in his account of Stourhead, Sir John Parnell was meticulous in his discussion of the interiors, and his description of the bedrooms is rich in detail: in what he described as ‘a Most Beautifull Bedchamber’, he noted the Bed stands in an alcove where the great cabinett stands in the fellow Room on the other side the House. the Bed Painted silk Exquisitely Beautifull the ceiling done in grotesque very Prettily the walls ornamented with Drawings in water colours & crions in a nich a Indian Cabinett the Room finish a Pale Blue the next Room is a Bedchamber with a work Bed India Dimity Embroidrd with worsteds in an Elegant taste and Lined with crimson satten.88

For Parnell, the beds effectively anchored the decorations of their respective rooms, even more so than the art works on display did. State beds often functioned in this way: symbolic rather than practical, rarely (if ever) slept in, they could be extraordinary displays of expenditure, design, taste and master craftsmanship.89 Visiting Burghley in 1805, Mary Kerr described the state bed as ‘composed of a bright Geranium colored rich striped satin, lined with plain white satin; the bed posts are each three small Corinthian Pillars, united top & bottom, but distinct elsewhere, which gives them a remarkably light effect, they support a rich Canopy of white & Gold, it cost 3000£’.90 Cornwall Record Office, T 2345/1, ‘Letter from J P Cumming to Reverend Henry Hawkins Tremayne, Journey to Scotland’, 1791. 87 Cambridgeshire Archives, 408/F2/1, ‘Letter to Agneta Yorke, the Writer’s Sister, from Langley Park’, 14 July 1764. 88 LSE Library, COLL MISC 0038, ‘Journal of a Tour by Sir John Parnell’, 1769–83. 89 Cornforth, Early, 83. Thornton, Decoration, 57. 90 Yale Center for British Art, DA11 .K47 1789. 86

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Figure 4.6  The State Bed at Holkham. © Country Life Picture Library.

Kerr’s reference to the specific cost of this bed is unusual, but other tourists also commented on it: an 1802 tourist wrote that the ‘universally admired’ bed had cost £3000, and Bant recorded ‘three thousand Guineas’ in 1809; given the repetition of approximately the same sum, it may have been an anecdote which the housekeeper

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routinely repeated to visitors.91 The bed was even described in the Guide to Burghley (1815), which declares that it ‘is considered by travellers as the most magnificent in Europe’, and describes it with considerable detail.92 Grandeur notwithstanding, all these beds ultimately represented modern taste in furnishings. Not only did many tourists comment on the good taste they encountered, many were also confident in identifying bad taste. The interiors at Alnwick – the rooms Jonathan Gray described as ‘gaudy’ – attracted considerable criticism, especially the chapel. In the 1760s, the first Duke of Northumberland had employed Robert Adam to redecorate it, a project which combined Adam’s famous style with Gothic motifs, and the magnificence was striking. The Honourable Mrs William Monson, for instance, wrote that the castle was ‘embellished within, with all the taste Modern Elegance & skill can furnish – The carving is delicate & light, suitable to the Colours, which are pale Green, straw & white’.93 Of all the rooms tourists viewed, the chapel stood out – and not in a good way. James Plumptre claimed that although his first glance at the room ‘presented a thousand pleasing ideas’, when he discovered that what he had thought was an altar was in fact a tomb and the room’s decorations featured the Percy arms and genealogy, he was shocked and concluded ‘Never had I seen in any place so much to admire so much to condemn; but to see the House of prayer, turned into the House of ostentation of the Percy family filled me with indignation.’94 Even travel writers were prepared to criticize the chapel in their publications: Henry Skrine declared that while the dining room, drawing room, saloon and library ‘are truly noble rooms’, ‘The almost pontifical blaze of ornament and gilding in the chapel at Alnwick, strikes very forcibly on the sight of any one who has lately been used to the slovenly simplicity of the Scottish kirks, and certainly may justly be censured for excess of ornament, though it forms a splendid appendage to the castle.’95 Louis Simond published an even stronger critique, describing the chapel as ‘highly gilt, and gaudily ornamented … A place of Christian worship seems the most unfit imaginable for this display of worldly greatness’.96 In all these comments, the chapel is being criticized on the grounds that it represents a significant misjudgement in taste. At Fonthill House (now known as Fonthill Splendens), the interiors became notorious for their magnificence and lack of taste. The Alderman William Beckford, a merchant (and later a politician) whose fortune derived from a sugar empire in the West Indies, had purchased the estate in 1744, and while he initially made alterations to the existing house, on 13 February 1755 a fire destroyed it, and he was forced to Devon Record Office, 152M/C1802/F69, ‘Journal of a Tour – Enfield to York’, 1802. Essex Record Office, D/DFr F4, ‘Journal’, 1808–12. 92 Thomas Blore, A Guide to Burghley House (Stamford: John Drakard, 1815) (British Library, 10358. ccc.3), 61, 62. 93 Lincolnshire Archives, MON 15/C/1, ‘A Journey to the Lakes, written by the Hon. Mrs. William Monson’, 1793. 94 James Plumptre’s Britain: The Journals of a Tourist in the 1790s, ed. Ian Ousby (London: Hutchinson, 1992), 104. 95 Henry Skrine, Three Successive Tours in the North of England (London: W. Bulmer and Co., 1795), 75. 96 Louis Simond, Journal of a Tour and Residence in Great Britain, 2 vols (Edinburgh: George Ramsay and Company, 1815), II, 55. 91

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rebuild. The new house was begun immediately, and it was a far grander, more opulent building than the one it replaced; by the time it was completed, c. 1770, it was regularly attracting tourists. Early visitors to Fonthill often singled out the lavish interior decorations and furnishings as the most memorable, albeit not admirable, element of the house. In an account published in 1798 (written approximately twenty years earlier), the Rev. William Gilpin claimed that ‘there is abundance of splendor; not without a little dash of vanity and ostentation. What is wanting in taste, is made up in finery. Never house was so bedecked with all the pride of upholstery. The very plateglass in one room cost fifteen hundred pounds’.97 When Powys visited in 1776, she was also struck by the ‘splendor’, emphasizing the materials and the obvious cost: ‘The state bed and furniture crimson velvet, gold frames to the chairs, tables, and cornice to the bed. Mrs. Beckford’s dressing-room has in it numbers of superb and elegant nick-nacks. From thence we descend’d to the principal floor, where is display’d the utmost profusion of magnificence, with the appearance of immense riches, almost too tawdrily exhibited.’98 Both Gilpin and Powys were clearly not impressed by simple expenditure, and though they have no issue with the design of specific objects, their combined effect offends. Similarly, Richard Sulivan stated that the furniture ‘it must be confessed, is rather gaudy’, and John Henry Manners declared that ‘there appeared to be much more magnificence than taste’.99 For all these visitors, what distinguished Fonthill from the vast majority of country houses was that its interiors were distasteful because their opulence was inappropriate. While it is difficult to identify precisely why these spaces were in bad taste when others which had also been tremendously expensive were not, distaste for the most extravagant spaces of the newly wealthy was likely part of the issue. Both the first Duke of Northumberland and Beckford can be seen as representatives of a new financial and political order: the duke’s grandfather had been a haberdasher in Cheapside, and Beckford was the leader of the West Indian lobby. Both men were somewhat notorious for their ambitions, and the tourists cited here are primarily offended by issues such as ostentation and vanity. Even in more established country-house owners too much ambition could lead to a misstep: during a visit to Wentworth Castle, Alexandre de La Rochefoucauld commented that apart from the long gallery The furnishings of the rest of the house gave me the feeling that it was done by a gentleman who wanted to be a great lord and wasn’t quite up to it. Much gilding is scattered all over the place, yet there are certain shortcomings, such as the balustrade of the great staircase in oakwood, and more disappointments of this sort.100 William Gilpin, Observations on the Western Parts of England, Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty (London: T. Cadell Jun. and W. Davies, 1798), 117. 98 Passages, 167. 99 Sulivan, Tour, I, 127. John Henry Manners, Journal of a Tour Round the Southern Coasts of England (London: J. Triphook, 1805), 227. 100 Alexandre de La Rochefoucauld, To the Highlands in 1786: The Inquisitive Journey of a Young French Aristocrat, ed. Norman Scarfe (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2001), 53. 97

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As La Rochefoucauld implies, the line between good taste and bad could be a very fine one. Some newly wealthy landowners did not attract criticism: Henry Hoare II, for instance, was a banker who had clearly spent a fortune, but he did not attract the public censure that Beckford did.101 That Hoare and Beckford could be treated so differently by tourists is indicative of the ambiguities in standards of taste and display at great houses. The taste shown in the interior decorations was the most personal element of the country house: unlike the houses themselves, the art collections, rare furnishings and landscape gardens, interior decorations were not expected to reflect a family’s longevity, but merely its rank. Tourists were disappointed when they encountered old furniture: when Edward Pigott visited Chatsworth, he concluded that the inside of the house did not answer to its grand exterior because the best rooms had ‘an antique appearance, and [were] indifferently furnish’d; most of the others are very Small, with, indeed, bad furniture’.102 This type of reaction suggests that not only did tourists expect magnificent interiors, they also appreciated comparatively modern ones and expected owners to keep their houses suitably up to date. Their interest in taste indicates that not only were they unconcerned with the hesitations travel writers may have felt, they were interested in how country houses functioned as personal displays, and in how the owner presented himself. Hardly any tourists would have expected to emulate the owner’s choices, but in analysing them, they were reflecting on the significance of the house as a residence rather than merely an impersonal display of art and architecture. For some visitors, the interest in the personal even led them to consider how comfortable the house would be; during a visit to Alnwick, Frances Bridger and Mary Lewis concluded that the castle was ‘fitted up in the purest Gothick taste, but the interiors are comfortable’.103 This intimate interpretation of country houses brought the owner and tourist closer together in visits which were otherwise often formal and impersonal inside the house.

*** For the owners of country houses, appropriate decorations for the interior of the house were absolutely essential, but whereas collections of paintings and sculptures could increasingly be associated with the study of art and the refinement of character, many furnishings were quite personal, whether they were rare heirlooms or lavish modern schemes. At the same time, at most houses, it was impossible to view the art collections without viewing the furnishings as well, and the combination could be utterly tantalizing: visiting Houghton in 1733, John Clerk noted that he ‘was astonished at the magnificence’ of the interiors, particularly by ‘the furniture, for amongst other things of vast valow I observed a prodigious collection of fine pictures Swynfen Jervis and Dodd, Roman, 144. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, Osborn fc80, Box 1, ‘Edward Pigott, [Diary]’, 1770–83. 103 East Sussex Record Office, SHR/1928. 101 102

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by the best Masters’.104 For tourists, furnishings were easy to describe, and they were intriguing. Objects so costly and rare that they might more accurately be described as collectibles, and decorative schemes which represented the most elaborate, expensive and (usually) tasteful responses to modern design gave them faint connections to the owners and invited them to reflect on these sites as residences. The most personal experiences to be had, however, were to be had outside the house itself, in the gardens and the park.

Memoirs of the Life of Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, Baronet, Baron of the Exchequer, Extracted by Himself from His Own Journals, 1676–1755, ed. John M. Gray (London: Nichols and Sons, 1895), 141.

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‘The Beauties of Nature’: Descriptions of Country-House Gardens and Parks

[T]he River Skell runs thro’ the Gardens or Grounds which form many Pleasing Cascades, the murmuring of which being heard & seen from the different Walks inspires in the beholder a Pleasing Contemplation, in the midst of the Wood are two Magnificent Amphitheatres, giving from the different eminences a most Picturesque View. – Anthony Hamond at Studley, 17751 For late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century tourists, the gardens surrounding a country house were often a significant part of the visit, and sometimes the primary attraction. During this period, the art of landscape gardening was widely celebrated as not only comparable to that of painting and sculpture, but as the single art form which the English excelled at more than any other nation. Eighteenth-century garden histories represented the English landscape garden as the ultimate achievement in landscape art, one which was possible because the country had attained an ideal political system. In making these claims, prominent garden-history writers provided examples of gardens which supposedly demonstrated their arguments, thereby linking this narrative of national achievement to specific places. In Observations on Modern Gardening (1770), for instance, Thomas Whately discussed Blenheim in his section on water, Hagley in his section on parks and Stowe in his sections on gardens; in 1786, Thomas Jefferson carried this book with him during his tour and found he could identify particular spots which were ‘so justly characterized by him as to be easily recognized’.2 Similarly, in his essay ‘On Modern Gardening’, Horace Walpole referred to several gardens, including those at Stourhead and Hagley.3 Stephen Bending has argued that within

Norfolk Record Office, HMN 4/36, ‘Diary (first volume only) Starting from Cambridge of Tour in Yorkshire, Durham, Northumberland, the Lake District and North Wales’, 1775. The phrase in the chapter title is from Devon Record Office, 152M/C1802/F69, ‘Journal of a Tour – Enfield to York’, 1802. 2 Thomas Whately, Observations on Modern Gardening (London: T. Payne, 1770), 78–81, 194–206, 213–26. Thomas Jefferson’s Garden Book, 1766–1824, ed. Edwin Morris Betts (Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1985), 111. 3 Horace Walpole, Anecdotes of Painting in England, 4 vols, 3rd edn (2nd edn of ‘The History of the Modern Taste in Gardening’) (London: J. Dodsley, 1782), IV, 268. 1

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these histories, visitors to gardens are asked to understand ‘the individual garden as part of an historical – and national – process wherein each garden alludes beyond itself to this larger narrative’.4 These histories were indeed popular and likely familiar to many tourists, and as such it is certainly possible that for them, country-house gardens were not merely art works, but highly patriotic ones. Beyond these texts, however, descriptions of gardens are extremely prominent in travel literature, and travel books and tourists’ diaries suggest that tourists embraced a wide range of experiences in gardens, most of which had very little to do with nationalism or politics. The gardens which attracted the most attention from tourists were gardens which had distinctive features that made them attractive in their own right: they were not merely well-designed spaces which complemented houses. Stourhead, for instance, was famous for its lake surrounded by temples. Nuneham-Courtenay had a park designed by Capability Brown but it was particularly known for its flower garden, a collaborative project created by the second Earl Harcourt, the poet William Mason and the gardener Walter Clarke; a 1794 issue of the Monthly Review declared ‘Nuneham … may have an equal: but its flower garden transcends all rivalry.’5 At Blenheim, where the architecture was notorious and the art collection was admired, the grounds had their own reputation, as many saw them as the most important project executed by Capability Brown; a ‘Preliminary Essay on Landscape Gardening’ in the Blenheim guidebook proclaims that in the grounds the visitor will see ‘the ideas of a master’ realized.6 At these sites, the gardens were at least as prestigious as the art collections displayed; in contrast, some popular gardens were at estates where visitors were not necessarily admitted to the house, but the gardens had been so well publicized that they had become attractions in their own right. By the middle of the eighteenth century, country-house gardens were being celebrated by a wide range of publications. They were included in comprehensive travel books and they were important elements of narrative tours, including Daniel Defoe’s and Arthur Young’s, and guidebooks dealing with gardens were among the earliest country-house guidebooks to be published. By the time Adam Smith declared Stowe ‘an ornament and an honour’ to the nation, it had been celebrated by several texts, the most important of which was a description written by Samuel Richardson for the third edition of Defoe’s Tour (1742); using Richardson’s text as a starting point, Benton Seeley published the first guidebook for tourists in 1744, a text which ran to over twenty editions by 1800.7 At Hawkstone, an estate where the house was rarely shown, the garden was so widely admired that by the early nineteenth century, some visitors were spending a number of days touring it; writing in 1802, Jonathan Gray commented Stephen Bending, ‘Horace Walpole and Eighteenth-Century Garden History’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 57 (1994): 219. 5 Mark Laird, The Flowering of the Landscape Garden (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 351. ‘Art. I. [Review of] An History of the Principal Rivers of Great Britain’, The Monthly Review 15 (1794): 367. 6 William Mavor, New Description of Blenheim, 4th edn (London: Cadell and Davies, 1797), 19. 7 Descriptions of Lord Cobham’s Gardens at Stowe (1700–1750), ed. G. B. Clarke (Dorchester: Buckinghamshire Record Society, 1990), 78. Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 2 vols (London: W. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1776), I, 423. 4

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‘many persons spend some weeks here during the summer; the park being open to the public’.8 Known both for its rocky natural landscape and an eccentric collection of ornamental features, including a hermit, a menagerie with exotic birds, monkeys who liked gingerbread and a lion reportedly discovered in the local countryside, Hawkstone was described in a guidebook which ran to nine editions between 1766 and 1811.9 William Shenstone had been a poet as well as a garden designer, particularly known for his work at the Leasowes (his own property), Hagley and Envil (Staffordshire), and both he and his admirers wrote about these sites; for example, in 1764, Robert Dodsley published ‘A Description of the Leasowes’, a text he described as ‘intended to give a friend some idea of the Leasowes’ on the grounds that they had been ‘so justly admired by persons of the best taste, and celebrated by the Muse of such an original genius as Mr. Shenstone’.10 Some gardens became so well known that they were included in novels: Richard Graves incorporated visits to the Leasowes in The Spritual Quixote: or, The Summer’s Ramble of Mr. Geoffry Wildgoose (1773) and to Stourhead in Columella; or The Distressed Anchoret (1779); in Thomas Cogan’s John Buncle (1776), the eponymous character goes to Stowe.11 All these descriptions ensured that these gardens were well known in considerable detail. Several gardens were partially shown in country-house views as part of the environment surrounding the house itself, but beyond these images, a number of gardens were the subjects of prints. In the late 1720s, artists began to depict gardens as series of views rather than as a site the viewer looks down on, a strategy which Roy Strong has suggested was not only appropriate given the move away from strict geometric garden design, but a way of ‘telling likely visitors what to look for when they came’; print series often promoted gardens as sites which welcomed tourists.12 Mount Edgcumbe was famous for its gardens, which incorporated panoramic views of the ocean and walks along cliffs; when five views of and from the grounds were published in 1755 (Figure 5.1), all were dominated by the sea, the sky and the coast, as if the estate itself was merely depicted to ground each scene. The series thus encouraged people to think of the site not as a place for a brief tour, but rather as an expansive site well suited to extended walks, a practice which seems to have been encouraged: when Daniel Webb visited in 1810, he reported that ‘A cottage is built in the park for the accommodation of strangers, where hot water for making tea and other conveniences may be procured. Those who make this pleasant excursion, generally furnish themselves Gloucestershire Archives, D388/F1-10 ‘M.S. Journals of Mary Russell [‘A Journal of a Tour … through Cheshire, Shropshire and Denbighshire’]’, c. 1802. Explore York Libraries and Archives, Acc5,6,24,235/T4, ‘Tour of West Country and South Wales made by Jonathan Gray’, 1802. 9 T. Rodenhurst, A Description of Hawkstone, 2nd edn (Shrewsbury: T. Wood, 1784), 24, 33, 44. Writing in 1802, Mary Russell described the lion as ‘only sculpture but very well executed’ (Gloucestershire Archives, D388/F1-10). 10 The Works in Verse and Prose, of William Shenstone, Esq; (London: R. and J. Dodsley, 1764), II, 333. 11 Richard Graves, The Spiritual Quixote: or, The Summer’s Ramble of Mr. Geoffry Wildgoose, 3 vols (London: J. Dodsley, 1773), III, 23–6. Richard Graves, Columella; or The Distressed Anchoret, 3 vols (London: J. Dodsley, 1779), II, 5–13, 30–1. Thomas Cogan, John Buncle, Junior, Gentleman, 2 vols (London: J. Johnson, 1776–78), see especially II, 5–23. 12 Roy Strong, The Artist & the Garden (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000), 183. 8

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Figure 5.1  James Mason after George Lambert and Samuel Scott, ‘A View of Plymouth Fort and St Nicholas’s Island, from Mt Edgcumbe’, Five Views of and from Mount Edgcumbe, Plymouth, 1755, engraving and etching, 38.6 × 62.8 cm. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

with a hamper.’13 Similarly, few tourists would have entered the house at Studley, but the gardens were prepared to receive visitors: developed by John and William Aislabie, these grounds included water features, temples and viewpoints, including the sight of Fountains Abbey; by 1769, the site was being managed by guides, and access to the abbey (purchased by the Aislabies in 1767) was managed with a system of doors and gates.14 In Anthony Walker’s views of these gardens (published in 1758 (Figure 5.2)), each scene shows a distinct space within the grounds with elegantly dressed figures who seem to have paused for discussion as they tour them; a number of figures gesture towards the garden, and sunlight draws attention to the paths they will follow as they move on. These are unquestionably spaces for tourists. This chapter explores the different modes of writing and representation which were adopted both by those who sought to promote gardens and by those who visited them. Circuits gave visitors routes to follow around the gardens, making them more convenient to tour and establishing a framework for the experience. Descriptions of views gave tourists guidance on how to appreciate specific scenes within the gardens as examples of picturesque landscapes, thus linking country-house gardens to one of Daniel Carless Webb, Observations and Remarks, During Four Excursions, Made to Various Parts of Great Britain, in the Years 1810 and 1811 (London: Allen & Co., 1812), 92. 14 M. A. Newman, ‘“A mere Timon’s Villa?”: Gardening, Conservation & Visitor Management during William Aislabie’s Proprietorship of Fountains Abbey, 1767–1781’, The National Trust Annual Archaeological Review 6 (1997–8): 21, 20. 13

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Figure 5.2  Anthony Walker, A View of the Reservoir & Artificial Mount, in ye Gardens of Studley ye Seat of William Aislabie Esqr. with a fine View of Fountains Abby, in ye West Riding of Yorkshire, 1758, etching and engraving, 28.3 × 43.8 cm. © The British Library Board (Maps K Top.45.27.3.d).

the period’s most popular types of tourism. Poetry and romantic language encouraged visitors to appreciate their tours as emotional and sensual as well as intellectual. These devices ensured that the country’s most celebrated gardens were described and presented as spaces just waiting to welcome visitors. Recent studies have concluded that although landscape gardens were surrounded by strong barriers, they were often ‘more or less open to all members of the polite on a formal or informal basis’.15 The vividness of travel literature about gardens demonstrates that not only was this widely promoted, gardens were easily shared by virtual tourists as well. The discourse developed by travel writers and tourists to describe and respond to country houses’ gardens was one which was fairly malleable and thus able to embrace a wide range of garden designs. The celebrity of a garden was not necessarily related to current fashions in garden design: although there were noticeable changes in the designs of gardens throughout the eighteenth century, tourists continued to visit gardens which were decades’ old, and many of them admired them regardless. The gardens at Stowe and Stourhead exemplified the mid-eighteenth-century fashion for garden temples and other emblems, but they remained popular destinations for David Brown and Tom Williamson, Lancelot Brown and the Capability Men: Landscape Revolution in Eighteenth-Century England (London: Reaktion Books, 2016), 161.

15

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tourists until well into the early nineteenth century, and visitors continued to praise them, though sometimes with occasional criticisms; visiting Stourhead in 1805, for example, the Rev. John Dudley wrote ‘the grounds very beautiful both with wood and water but rather over templed’.16 Comments about the garden at Chatsworth are particularly revealing: writing in 1786, the Rev. William Gilpin declared that it ‘was the glory of the last age, when trim parterres, and formal water-works were in fashion. It then acquired a celebrity, which it has never lost; tho it has now many rivals’.17 These are not simply indications of some visitors disliking a site; rather, they demonstrate that gardens could easily retain fame on the grounds that they were novel, extraordinary or curious, and many visitors and travel books would accommodate them accordingly.

The circuit In publications and in the presentation of gardens to visitors, the most crucial device was the garden circuit(s), a narrative mode for describing gardens and an itinerary tourists were encouraged to follow during their visits. Consisting of an ordered series of locations within the garden, circuits varied from basic lists of the temples visitors encountered to lengthy descriptions rich in multisensory imagery. At many gardens, to properly appreciate the design it was essential to move through it correctly: just as architects usually had routes in mind when designing houses’ interiors, landscape gardeners usually had specific paths in mind when laying out gardens. Circuit descriptions often reflected these paths, and they became critical to the promotion of gardens in guidebooks and travel books. They were not without ramifications, however. Circuits offered structures for visitors’ movements, but unlike routes within houses, they rarely differentiated between the owner and tourists. All would be expected to take the same paths, to move through gardens in such a way as to see them in the manner intended by their designers, thus creating an underlying cohesion which constructed gardens as spaces which were accessible and welcoming to all polite travellers. At many country houses, the order of the viewer’s movements was integral to the reflections the garden was intended to inspire. William Shenstone’s gardens were designed to direct visitors’ attentions to series of temples, inscriptions, seats and viewpoints, and he wished visitors to view these in a set order because the garden’s visual, intellectual and emotional impact was stronger that way; for example, at the Leasowes it was important that an area known as Virgil’s Grove was reached last because it ‘was devised to be the visitor’s culminating experience’, entered only after the visitor had had the opportunity to read thirty-five inscriptions (many taken from Virgil’s Eclogues) placed on various temples, urns and seats situated along the path leading to the Grove East Sussex Record Office, FRE/2801, ‘Letter from Rev John Dudley, Humberston, Leicestershire to Mary Frewen, Brickwall’, 11 September 1805. 17 William Gilpin, Observations, Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty, Made in the Year 1772, 2 vols (London: R. Blamire, 1786), II, 220. 16

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(Figure 5.3).18 Had a visitor not followed Shenstone’s order, he would have missed these associations; supposedly, for Shenstone ‘nothing created in his mind greater vexation than the perverseness or malice of those who passed thro’ the walks of The Leasowes in a contrary direction to that which he originally designed’.19 While the popularity of emblematic gardens like the Leasowes waned after the mid-eighteenth century, formal, ordered movements remained important. Capability Brown minimized the role of readable ‘emblems’ in his gardens, emphasizing ideal forms in nature rather than inscriptions and temples (particularly later in his career); however, fixed paths were still crucial elements of his designs.20 His work indicates that he often wanted people touring his gardens to stop their carriages at particular points and he wanted the view-point to be achieved after such stops to be accessible by one path only, a path which would ‘be reached on foot’, suggesting that ‘Arrival at the station [i.e. the viewpoint] must have had a formal, almost ritualistic, aspect.’21 For tourists, the visitor’s

Figure 5.3  James Mason after Thomas Smith of Derby, A View in Virgil’s Grove, at the Leasows, in the County of Salop, 1781, etching, 13 × 18.5 cm. © The Trustees of the British Museum. Robert Williams, ‘Rural Economy and the Antique in the English Landscape Garden’, Journal of Garden History 7, no. 1 (1987): 74. 19 Humphry Repton, Red Book for Shardeloes (20 March 1794), quoted in John Phibbs, ‘The ViewPoint’, Garden History 36, no. 2 (2008): 221. 20 Brown and Williamson, Lancelot, 92–3. 21 Phibbs, ‘View-Point’, 225. 18

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circuit within the garden was usually highly convenient as well as meaningful. In the event that no fixed path was implied by the design itself, a circuit could be established to ensure that nothing would be missed; while travelling and visiting gardens in 1800, Sir Richard Colt Hoare noted ‘we like to take the usual round prescribed by our guides, fearing to omit some principal view’.22 Meaningful to designers and convenient for visitors, circuits were practically irresistible to travel writers. Some of the earliest travel publications to represent a garden circuit were the guidebooks to Stowe, one of the most famous tourist attractions in the country and the first house to have its own guidebook for visitors. After its initial publication, new editions of Benton Seeley’s A Description of the Gardens of Lord Viscount Cobham, at Stow appeared annually until 1750. That year, George Bickham published The Beauties of Stow, a guide which was longer, featured new illustrations and briefly discussed the house as well as the gardens. Both books concentrated primarily on the temples, presenting visitors with a circuit consisting of a catalogue of them: they subdivided their texts under headings specific to each one, and many editions provided numbered maps (Figure 5.4). By providing their readers with the titles of these temples, Seeley and Bickham indicated that these were not mere ornaments but rather structures with specific meanings. Within this framework, both publishers had considerable freedom as to what other information about the temples they wished to incorporate. Seeley’s guidebook (which ran to far more editions than Bickham’s did) is generally succinct, but he includes details such as architects’ names and the classical order of the building in question; for example, he notes that the Rotunda is ‘raised on Ionic Pillars’ and ‘is the Design of Sir John Vanbrugh’.23 His text also identifies numerous sculptures, both on and inside temples, such as ‘the following ten Bustoes of my Lord and his illustrious Friends, viz. the Prince of Wales – Earls of Westmoreland, Chesterfield, and Marchmont – Lords Cobham, Gower, and Bathurst – Richard Grenville, William Pitt, and George Lyttleton, Esqrs’, which were displayed in the Temple of Friendship.24 Finally, Seeley also provided readers with transcriptions of many of the inscriptions which were featured on the temples, and, because many of the passages are in Latin, he also usually provided translations of these texts, immediately after the originals. Above the door of the Temple of Ancient Virtue, for example, is the following passage, as translated: ‘To be dear to our Country, to deserve well of the State, to be praised, honoured, and beloved, is glorious; but to be dreaded and hated is Matter of ill Will, detestable, weak, ruinous.’25 Bickham’s guidebook included similar information, and all of these details would have encouraged further close inspection and reflection on the meaning of the temple under discussion; neither guidebook bothered to provide much information about anything else the visitor encountered in the garden, such as views or trees, an omission which further heightened the prominence of the temples. Many The Journeys of Sir Richard Colt Hoare through Wales and England, 1793–1810, ed. M. W. Thompson (Gloucester: Alan Sutton, 1983), 149. 23 Benton Seeley, A Description of the Gardens of Lord Viscount Cobham, at Stow in Buckinghamshire (Northampton: W. Dicey, 1744), 11. 24 Seeley, Stow, 26. 25 Seeley, Stow, 15–16. 22

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Figure 5.4  ‘A Plan of the House & Gardens of the Right Honourable The Earl Temple at Stowe in Buckinghamshire’, from Benton Seeley’s Stowe: A Description of the Magnificent House and Gardens, Buckingham: B. Seeley, 1773, engraving, 36.8 × 28.7 cm. The Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto.

of the illustrations in Seeley’s guidebooks underline this point: the vast majority were close-up views of individual temples, with little sense of the surrounding landscape (Figure 5.5). Designed to make the site legible for visitors in a convenient and attractive

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Figure 5.5  G. L. Smith after Benton Seeley, ‘The Gateway by Kent, The Doric Arch, A Ruin, The Temple of Antient Virtue, The Shell Bridge’, illustrations from Benton Seeley’s Stowe: A Description of the Magnificent House and Gardens, Buckingham: B. Seeley, 1769, engraving, 12.1 × 20.4 cm. RIBA Collections.

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manner, the Stowe guidebooks codified the tourist’s circuit and represented an enormous and complex place as a succinct list of points of interest. Many travel writers also organized their texts according to circuits, richly embellishing them with details to better capture the experience of moving through gardens. Descriptions of Shenstone’s gardens, for instance, were published in a series of travel books by Joseph Heely. Heely’s books are something of a hybrid type: like many tour narratives, they are structured as series of letters about his visits to the gardens in question and they are filled with his own reactions and reflections; at the same time, they lead readers carefully from point to point and as such could probably have been used as guidebooks. A Description of Hagley (1775) is typical in its precision: ‘A small wicket now leads into the environs of THE GROTTO, through a gloomy sequestered range of trees, thick set with various sorts, decidious [sic] and evergreen. The first bench under a shady oak, of surprising magnitude, gives the most agreeable idea of this sweet recess.’26 Unlike the catalogue-like descriptions published in the Stowe guidebooks, this passage reflects the distinguishing characteristics of more typical garden circuit descriptions: it is structured around major features in the garden such as temples, but while these features might form headings within the text, their descriptions are supplemented with extensive comments about the surroundings tourists will move through. This type of lengthy narrative could easily be adapted to describe the viewpoints, or even the plants the writer had encountered; in an account of Mount Edgcumbe, for instance, the Rev. Stebbing Shaw noted he had seen ‘serpentine bowers of bays, myrtles, arbutuses, laurestinuses, &c.’ and a walk with ‘very fine cork-trees, live-oaks, &c.’27 For travel writers, offering a circuit description which encompassed everything they had seen, felt and thought during their tour of a garden helped ensure that their books were attractive to both tourists and virtual travellers: according to the Monthly Review, Heeley’s Letters on the Beauties of Hagley, Envil, and the Leasowes (1777) offered ‘agreeable information’ to anyone who had not visited these gardens, and for those who had visited them, the book would ‘give occasion for useful and pleasing recollection’.28 The rich details of these descriptions brought tours of gardens to a metropolitan audience, and ensured potential tourists knew exactly which pleasures they should anticipate. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, many guidebooks were published with circuit descriptions which combined the practicality of the early Stowe guidebooks with the richness of narrative tours. The Mount Edgcumbe guide (1812) claims that its text had noticed every walk and every object in the gardens: in order that no one, either from losing his way, or from ignorance of what the place contains, should omit seeing any part which he might afterwards regret not to have seen … they have been drawn with a view of exciting, rather than satisfying Joseph Heely, A Description of Hagley, Envil and the Leasowes (Birmingham: M. Swinney, 1775), 88. Stebbing Shaw, A Tour to the West of England, in 1788 (London: Robson and Clarke, 1789), 361, 364. 28 ‘Art. 42. Letters on the Beauties of Hagley, Envil, and the Leasowes; with Critical Remarks, and Observations on the Modern Taste in Gardening’, The Monthly Review 57 (1777): 322. 26 27

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curiosity, of marking where the principal beauties are to be sought, and of fixing the attention to those points which seem most to deserve it.29

Convenience remained key, but it was not terse: in discussing this guidebook in one of his own travel books, Richard Warner noted it was ‘written with neatness and elegance. It divides the excursion very properly into two routes, embracing by this arrangement the whole routine of its multifarious scenes and diversified objects’.30 William Mavor’s Blenheim offered a similar form of description, and as with the Stowe guidebook, several editions included a fold-out map for visitors (Plate 7); not only does it identify many of the key points of interest in the grounds, it indicates the direction of the different roads leading out of the park and provides a map of the nearby village of Woodstock, useful details at an estate where visitors were regularly permitted to drive in the park. While describing gardens according to circuits often demands considerable length, circuits were still employed by tourists writing diary entries. Describing his visit to Stourhead in 1779, Peter Van Schaack adopted the order of the circuit: Every step you take presents some new object, some variegated prospect. As you go round a very fine sheet of water, which is encircled by woods, lawns, &c., interspersed with little islands … you see, in succession, a temple of Apollo, a temple of Flora, a Pantheon, a Chinese bridge, a Turkish tent, and Neptune’s car drawn by sea-horses, all disposed in such a manner as to present themselves in the greatest variety of views.31

The succession of the temples effectively ordered Van Schaack’s experience of the garden, much in the same way routes often ordered tourists’ recollections of the interiors of houses. Similar approaches can be seen in tourists’ writings about Stowe: one visitor punctuated his description by underlining the title of each temple, another started a new line for each temple, as if he were creating a list, and one even began his description with a lettered and numbered map.32 Tourists also wrote circuit descriptions with more detailed attention to the plants and spaces they had seen: for example, a tourist visiting Studley in 1790 wrote that you then proceed by a very fine bank of Trees, and enter into a Subterraneous Passage which brings you upon a fine Lawn, where there is a beautifull round Tower. From which you have a pretty view of the House and several other objects. which are very pleasing. There are likewise upon this spot some very excellent A Walk Round Mount-Edgcumbe, 3rd edn (Plymouth-Dock: L. Congdon, 1812), 34. Richard Warner, A Tour through Cornwall in the Autumn of 1808 (Bath: Richard Cruttwell, 1809), 73. 31 Henry C. Van Schaack, The Life of Peter Van Schaack (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1842), 139–40. 32 British Library, Add MS 30172, ‘Journal of a Tour thro England and Wales’, 1794. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, Osborn c480, ‘[Account of Travels throughout Britain, Including Descriptions of Several Major Country Houses]’, 1742–50. British Library, Add MS 22926, ‘Some Observations Made in a Journey [through the Eastern and Central Counties of England] begun June the 7th and finish’d July the 9th 1742’, 1742. 29 30

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Timber. you are then carry’d on to the Rotunda where you have a striking view of Fountains Abbey. in ruins. it is a – charming walk to it by the side of a – River.33

All of these descriptions employ a narrative of itinerary: given its popularity with both travel writers and guidebook authors, it is not surprising that tourists adopted it, but it was by no means the only descriptive mode available to them and there were consequences for using it. Perhaps most importantly, the circuit implied structure, and to a certain extent, a level of formality for the visit. John Dixon Hunt has argued that when visitors follow a fixed route through a garden, they are adopting a processional, ritualized mode of movement which implies ‘some higher objective’ for the walk taken – in these gardens, the correct perception of the overall design, or simply the desire to tour the site in its entirety. For Hunt, strolling constitutes a more informal mode of movement whereby the garden itself provides the viewer with ‘incentives for moving forward’ but there is still an ultimate higher purpose; the distinction is a fine one, but Hunt stresses that ‘the use of a guidebook by public visitors … clearly tends toward ritualizing their movement’.34 With or without guidebooks, at country houses, rituals often defined visits to gardens: although visitors often had more freedom to explore them than they did houses, many followed expected paths; at Hawkstone, for example, there was a ‘regular routine’ in place, while at Studley, visitors followed a path four miles long.35 By perpetuating these routines, country-house gardens created a consistency for visitors’ experiences. Unlike the routes tourists took within houses, garden circuits were usually the very paths designers intended and owners would have taken themselves: these were paths which placed visitors in a privileged position. One of the most striking aspects of Heely’s descriptions of Shenstone’s gardens is that in them, he presented himself as moving through the gardens alone, even though these gardens were popular tourist attractions and he would very likely have seen other visitors; in 1749, Shenstone himself wrote of encountering ‘no less than a hundred and fifty people’ in his walks.36 In discussing Heely’s account of the Leasowes, Peter De Bolla has argued that by emphasizing the closed pathway, Heely created a privileged space for self-reflection: ‘In the solitary walk one appreciates more keenly the companionship of the place and, via this, the sense of belonging resulting from recognizing that one is part of a select company that correctly responds to the endeavors of the owner and designer.’37 In presenting his readers with an account of a private, ideal visit, Heely represented the site as a place where the polite tourist could enjoy the privileges of the landowner. National Library of Scotland, MS 15905, ‘Journal of a Tour in England and Scotland’, 1790. John Dixon Hunt, ‘“Lordship of the Feet”: Toward a Poetics of Movement in the Garden’, in Landscape Design and the Experience of Motion, ed. Michel Conan (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 2003),

(accessed 2 December 2016), 188, 195, 189, 202. 35 Explore York Libraries and Archives, Acc5,6,24,235/T4. National Library of Scotland, MS 15905. 36 The Works, in Verse and Prose, of William Shenstone, Esq; Volume III. Containing Letters to Particular Friends, from the Year 1739 to 1763, 2nd edn (London: J. Dodsley, 1769), 160. 37 Peter De Bolla, The Education of the Eye: Painting, Landscape, and Architecture in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003), 141. 33 34

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Similarly, the circuit at the Leasowes brought visitors back to where they had begun their tours: John Archer has argued that because the path ‘prescribed a unitary, closedended journey, allowing the visitor to see every feature of the garden, [it] afforded a sense of a complete, and completed, experience’.38 In reality, of course, visitors may have encountered other tourists or for whatever reason been required to adjust or curtail their actual route, but there was clearly a tacit invitation to tour these gardens as their owners would, an invitation which other travel writers would extend for other gardens. Not only did the circuit-description represent the garden as a site which welcomed tourists, it was better suited to the tourist than any other type of reader, including those with more general interests in garden design. As a rhetorical device, circuits turned enormous gardens into sequential, almost linear spaces: concluding the description of Stowe in his Tour, the Rev. C. Cruttwell declared ‘We have now gone round, and given you a faint description of an unparalleled Chain of artificial and natural beauty.’39 In reality, most country-house gardens were not chains, nor were they purely sequential: many had plantings, water features and sightlines which connected multiple points within the garden, and many of these connections brought additional meanings and resonances to the site. For the visitor interested in the overall design of a garden, then, the circuit was not very helpful. Sir John Parnell, who undertook his tours partly with a view to reflecting on what improvements he might make to his own estate, wrote an eloquent explanation of this distinction as part of his reflection on the Leasowes. In response to Arthur Young’s writing about the site, Parnell criticized the text for the lack of attention it gave to the land and plantings themselves, arguing that chain of Description Leading us from one seat to another Rather tends to Excite a curiosity to see the Places described than give us any Idea of the Disposition of the ground. In general we may take for granted that such and such a Place celebrated for its Beauty must be Pleasing in almost every spot on Viewing it what we want particularly from a critical survey of it, is, to Inform us what means has been made use of to cause such and such pleasing Effects – how the fields are divided, what art in the disposition of trees causes such & such Deceptions, what ground is dressd as Lawn & what appropriated to coarser uses, these hints would be of service to ornamental Improvers.40

Parnell’s frustrations highlight how the circuit – the ‘chain of Description’ – served to capture gardens in a way which emphasized the pleasure of touring and viewing them above all else. Tourists’ diaries suggest that most were not particularly interested in how a garden had been created; during a visit to Hagley in 1782, Mary Orlebar complained that the ‘striking effect’ of the water and cascade was ‘lost by the Gardener

John Archer, ‘Landscape and Identity: Baby Talk at the Leasowes, 1760’, Cultural Critique 51 (2002): 148. 39 Rev. C. Cruttwell, A Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain, 6 vols (London: G. and J. Robinson, 1801), III, 358. 40 LSE Library, COLL MISC 0038, ‘Journal of a Tour by Sir John Parnell’, 1769–83. 38

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(with great want of taste) informing us that he was going to set the Cascade a running’.41 The attraction of these sites was not the art of landscape gardening, but rather the experience of the combined effect of art and nature. The popularity of circuit descriptions may also account for a notable lack of attention to the meanings of entire sites. At gardens which are now known for large iconographic programmes, where the meaning of the site stems in part from the connections between the different temples, plantings and water features, many tourists do not seem to have recognized these overall meanings. Garden historians have long seen Stowe as an expression of political dissent, an enormous project which reflected Viscount Cobham’s anger at having been dismissed from government and his resulting animosity towards Sir Robert Walpole and his supporters; the presence of elements such as a Temple of Ancient Virtue displaying statues of ancient patriotic men dismissed by their governments, and a Temple of Modern Virtue in a ruined state supports these claims. Few tourists seem to have recognized these meanings, however; for example, commenting on Elizabeth Montagu’s response to Stowe in 1744, Stephen Bending claimed that she was ‘Oblivious to the political iconography at work in the Elysian Fields’.42 More recently, Oliver Cox has concluded that regardless of the complex layering of meanings at Stourhead (long contested by garden historians), eighteenthcentury tourists did not attempt ‘to provide an overarching superstructure of meaning to the garden, in contrast to the iconographical approach favoured by recent scholars’.43 Of course, failure to write about the meaning of a garden does not necessarily signify failure to understand it, but in view of how many elements of gardens tourists did comment on, the inattention is extraordinary. Whether guiding readers or representing a travel writer’s or tourist’s movements, circuit descriptions stressed the value of the visitor experience within the garden. Usually tacitly respectful of the garden designer’s intentions for the space – if not explicit about them – they were formal, coherent and linear, but most importantly, their potential for expansion was virtually unlimited. They were ideal rhetorical vehicles for descriptions of every building a tourist would encounter, every view they should admire and even every emotion they should feel. For the reader, these descriptions were often more prominent in texts, but it was circuits which organized gardens into spaces for tourists.

Framing the garden’s views: The picturesque The views tourists encountered in country-house gardens varied from small classical temples to massive medieval ruins, from ocean panoramas to distant villages and Yale Center for British Art, In Process DA522. O75 E93 1782, ‘An Excursion to Cheltenham, Birmingham, & Oxford, &c.’ by Mary Orlebar, 1782 (Paul Mellon Fund). 42 Stephen Bending, ‘Re-reading the Eighteenth-Century English Landscape Garden’, Huntington Library Quarterly 55, no. 3 (1992): 384. 43 Oliver Cox, ‘A Mistaken Iconography? Eighteenth-Century Visitor Accounts of Stourhead’, Garden History 40, no. 1 (2012): 98. 41

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from scenes of cultivated design to scenes of wild nature, but all had one thing in common: they could all be described as picturesque. Primarily associated with tourism to some of the more remote areas of Britain, picturesque discourse was also influential in texts describing country-house gardens. These descriptions were part of a small industry which supplied enthusiasts with Claude glasses (mirrors with which tourists could convert a view into an oval-shaped, flattened image), sketch books and journals to record their impressions, engravings and prints of picturesque views by professional artists and extensive written descriptions of picturesque sights, which appeared both in books and in periodicals (which sometimes printed passages lifted directly from books). Flexible and increasingly fashionable, the idea of the picturesque provided a vocabulary and an aesthetic framework for visitors to apply to views they saw in country-house gardens, and for tourists, almost any garden could be deemed ‘picturesque’ regardless of when it had been created or what kind of design it had. Although some late-eighteenth-century writers had very specific criteria in mind for picturesque gardens, there is little evidence that travel writers or tourists did. Imprecision notwithstanding, by framing specific sights within a garden as ‘scenes’ to view, picturesque discourse helped ensure that the tour of a garden was more legible for tourists and promoted it as an attractive destination for them. As a term, ‘picturesque’ had broad applications in the middle of the eighteenth century, and writers began to label sights in gardens as picturesque long before there was any formal theory of the picturesque landscape. Twenty years before he published his first book on the picturesque, the Rev. William Gilpin used the term in A Dialogue upon the Gardens of the Right Honourable the Lord Viscount Cobham, at Stowe in Buckinghamshire (1748) while describing the ruin near the lake, claiming that ‘There is something so vastly picturesque, and pleasing to the Imagination in such Objects [i.e. ruins], that they are a great Addition to every Landskip.’44 It was also associated with garden design in general terms: in 1764, the London Magazine published William Shenstone’s ‘Unconnected Thoughts on Landscape Gardening’, in which he claimed that ‘Gardening may be divided into three species – kitchen-gardening – parterregardening – and landskip, or picturesque-gardening.’45 By this definition, a landscape garden is automatically picturesque, regardless of its design, and the extreme generality of the term indicates it was hardly grounded in many criteria. This is how many travel writers and tourists would use the term: in the broadest sense, with only the most tenuous connections to later picturesque theories. Arthur Young did not write on picturesque theory, but he helped popularize the vocabulary of the picturesque, which he often used in his descriptions of views within country-house gardens; commenting on the grounds at Studley, for instance, he declared ‘through the trees you catch many obscure views that are truly picturesque: You look down thro’ them to the right upon

William Gilpin, A Dialogue upon the Gardens of the Right Honourable the Lord Viscount Cobham, at Stow in Buckinghamshire (London and Buckingham: B. Seeley, 1748), 5. 45 William Shenstone, ‘Unconnected Thoughts on Gardening’, The London Magazine 33 (1764): 191. 44

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the lake, in a most pleasing manner, and catch a beautiful view of the abbey’.46 Although often associated with this type of distant view, a picturesque sight did not have to be far away: when William Bray described his tour of Stowe, he claimed that ‘the elegant and picturesque scenes’ in the gardens ‘make amends for the want of those distant prospects’.47 Throughout descriptions of country houses’ gardens, the word appears again and again, casting sights as picturesque irrespective of when the garden was designed or the style of landscape gardening it represented. This looseness of terminology continued into the early nineteenth century, which suggests that for travel writers and tourists, the most important understanding of the term was that which was developed by Gilpin. He was one of the earliest writers to publish on the picturesque, beginning with An Essay upon Prints (1768), in which he defined it as ‘a term expressive of that peculiar kind of beauty, which is agreeable in a picture’, and in addition, unlike later writers such as Richard Payne Knight and Uvedale Price, he was primarily focused on the role picturesque theory could play for tourists.48 After the Essay, he published a popular series of tours which described his travels and developed the idea of the picturesque in relation to specific places (see Chapter 1). They contained a number of descriptions of visits to country houses: in Observations, Relative chiefly to Picturesque Beauty, Made in the Year 1772, on Several Parts of England (1786), for example, he included Nuneham-Courtenay, Blenheim, the Leasowes, Hagley, Studley, Hackfall (North Yorkshire), Harewood, Chatsworth, Kedleston and Woburn Abbey.49 In a brief account of Nuneham-Courtenay, he gave the following description of some of the views seen from the grounds near the house (Figure 5.6): These grand views, terminated by the Berkshire hills, and other rising grounds, compose the distance; and are presented from different places around the house; particularly from a terrace, which extends at least a mile. The accompaniment also of noble trees on the foreground sets off the distant scenery to great advantage.50

This passage represents several aspects of the picturesque theory he was developing, including the division of scenes into foreground and distance, the value of variety of ground and the potential for trees to punctuate the foreground and frame a scene. Yet while it does seem designed to illustrate how the view could be described according to picturesque ideas, it is not a particularly strict application: like other early writers to refer to the picturesque, Gilpin was prepared to be more flexible than later theorists would be. For example, although Capability Brown’s gardens had been admired for Stephen Copley, ‘Gilpin on the Wye: Tourists, Tintern Abbey, and the Picturesque’, in Prospects for the Nation: Recent Essays in British Landscape, 1750–1880, ed. Michael Rosenthal, Christiana Payne, and Scott Wilcox (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997), 134. Arthur Young, A Six Months Tour through the North of England, 4 vols (London: W. Strahan, 1769/70), II, 325–6. 47 William Bray, Sketch of a Tour into Derbyshire and Yorkshire (London: B. White, 1778), 6. 48 William Gilpin, An Essay upon Prints (London: J. Robson, 1768), 2. 49 Gilpin, 1772, I, ii–xvi. 50 Gilpin, 1772, I, 23. 46

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Figure 5.6  Michael Angelo Rooker after Paul Sandby, Seat of the Right Honorable, the Earl of Harcourt at Nuneham, with a Distant View of Oxford, 1 July 1775, engraving, 16.4 × 20.2 cm. Yale Center for British Art, gift of James Wilson, YCBA Docent.

their pictorial qualities in the mid-eighteenth century, for later writers, his gardens and parks were the antithesis of picturesque: in commenting on one aspect of Brown’s work at Blenheim, Price declared ‘a more complete piece of monotony could hardly be furnished’.51 When Gilpin described Blenheim, however, he declared Brown had done great work, claiming ‘the whole of this scenery, (the castle, the lawn, the woods, and the lake) seen together, makes one of the grandest bursts, which art perhaps ever displayed’; he went so far as to compare the park to the banks of the Wye river, one of the most famous picturesque tourist destinations in the country.52 Even in one of his later works, in which he claimed that ‘Garden-scenes are never picturesque’, he informed readers that it was still possible to make a good landscape from a garden scene, if you could ‘take’ the landscape from a location where the foreground appeared rougher.53 For tourists visiting a wide range of gardens, this theoretical flexibility was ideal. Steffie Shields, Moving Heaven & Earth: Capability Brown’s Gift of Landscape (London: Unicorn, 2016), 113, 115, 153. Uvedale Price, An Essay on the Picturesque (London: J. Robson, 1794), 265. 52 Gilpin, 1772, I, 29–30. 53 William Gilpin, Observations on the Western Parts of England, Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty (London: T. Cadell Jun. and W. Davies, 1798), 98. 51

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Gilpin’s picturesque was also well suited to country-house gardens because in his writings he encouraged tourists to look for picturesque scenes at specific locations, and one element many gardens did share was fixed points where visitors were encouraged to appreciate the views. Guidebooks or gardeners providing tours identified these points, and, failing them, seats provided clear cues as to where the garden should be viewed from. They were not simply for resting: describing the Leasowes in 1764, Robert Dodsley speculated that ‘a number of these extempore benches … seem chiefly intended as hints to spectators, lest in passing cursorily thro’ the farm they might suffer any of that immense variety the place furnishes, to escape their notice’.54 Many of Shenstone’s seats had inscriptions on them, but even the form of a seat could be instructive. During his visit to Stourhead, Sir John Parnell encountered one specially designed to take full advantage of the views: although he acknowledged it was ‘no ornament in itself ’, he concluded it was ‘the Best contrived seat I know to take in the ornaments of a fine scituation as by moving your foot you can take in a new portion of the Scene’.55 Visitors to Mount Edgcumbe were provided with seats at several viewpoints, including Redding Point, the Arch, the summit of the Zigzag Walks and the amphitheatre; at the ‘WHITE SEAT’, the tourist could completely and distinctly overlook the Hamoaze, and the whole course of the river Tamar as high as the town of Saltash; the ships in the harbour; the Dock-yard and town of Dock; the Fortifications and Government-house; the Church and village of Stoke; the Military Hospital; Stonehouse, with the Naval Hospital and Marine Barracks; the Citadel and Churches of Plymouth; Saltram, the seat of Lord Boringdon; Catwater, with its shipping, enclosed by Mount Batten, St. Nicholas’s Island, the Sound and Statton Heights beyond it; the whole view is bounded by a range of lofty hills, amongst which the round top of Hingston (or Hengist) down, the peaked head of Brent-Tor, and the irregular summits of Dartmoor, are the most elevated and conspicuous.56

For tourists unfamiliar with a site, seats within a garden were both convenient places to rest and subtle directions as to how to position themselves. Alongside the ritualized nature of movement around the garden, seats and fixed viewpoints ensured that tourists went looking for specific sights. Although Gilpin was by far the most famous travel writer associated with the picturesque, it was an important concept for many authors, whether they were writing guides to particular regions or to specific country houses. In his Letters, Joseph Heely described a view at Hagley as a landscape that would do honour to the pencil of a Poussin … Large oaks single, and others in groups, from hence grace another swelling lawn, diversified with patches of fern, extending itself in fine inequalities to a different and loftier compartment The Works in Verse and Prose, of William Shenstone, 1764, II, 337. LSE Library, COLL MISC 0038. 56 Mount-Edgcumbe, 9, 12, 14, 21, 8–9. 54 55

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of a wood, that gradually diminishes to a light, airy grove, yet affording over its branches a precipitate slant of the green hills of Clent – bold, high, and picturesque.57

In this passage, Heely refers to the picturesque explicitly, and more obliquely: in identifying the sight as worthy of Poussin, one of the painters whose works were often viewed as models for the picturesque, and describing it with reference to roughness and inequalities, he encouraged his readers to think of the scene as an artist’s subject, and to assess it according to picturesque criteria. Similarly, the guide to Hawkstone (1784), which is not particularly invested in picturesque theory in other respects, declares that one view is ‘at the same time so majestic, and yet so delicately softened, that it would require the united efforts of Salvator Rosa, Claude, and Poussin, to do it the smallest degree of justice’, a claim which echoes John Brown’s comments in A Description of the Lake at Keswick (1770) about the picturesque scenery of the Lake District and is designed to ensure that tourists recognized that what they saw was an ideal subject for a landscape picture.58 Richard Warner was one of many to take up Gilpin’s formal vocabulary: describing a scene at Hackfall, he praised a ‘grand and diversified picture … whose foreground, a rapid river pent up between steep rocks, and midnight woods; middle distance, a wide sheet of inexhaustible fertility; and boundary, a long line of mountains; form a combination better imagined than described’.59 Warner knew Gilpin personally, but by the end of the 1700s Gilpin’s works were so widely available that most travel writers could easily have consulted them and drawn on his ideas to support their own descriptions. Occasionally, country-house guidebooks even featured oval-shaped images, as if to adopt the frame of the picturesque tourist’s Claude glass (Figure 5.7). While it would be misleading to suggest that tourists always had a strong grasp of Gilpin’s theories, their writings often incorporate vocabulary and descriptive devices which invoke picturesque ideas, though they too were prepared to refer to many types of scenes as picturesque, regardless of the theoretical context. For instance, although late-eighteenth-century picturesque theory repudiated high viewpoints, tourists might easily describe a panoramic view in a garden as picturesque.60 When he visited Mount Edgcumbe, Peter Oliver noted there was an extensive view ‘of the English Channel: of the Islands & Rocks at the Entrance of Plimouth Harbor, & of Numbers of Ships of War & other Vessels at & near the Harbor; & of the Town & Dock of Plimouth’ and he gave it high praise, writing, ‘I cannot well conceive of a Prospect more picturesque & enchanting.’61 The extent of the view at Mount Edgcumbe was not typical of Gilpin’s picturesque scenes, but Oliver was clearly prepared to treat it in a similar way, even Joseph Heely, Letters on the Beauties of Hagley, Envil, and the Leasowes, 2 vols (London: R. Baldwin, 1777), I, 120–1. 58 Rodenhurst, Hawkstone, 1784, 36–7. John Brown, A Description of the Lake at Keswick (Kendal: J. Ashburner, 1770), 5. 59 Richard Warner, A Tour through the Northern Counties of England, and the Borders of Scotland, 2 vols (Bath: Printed by R. Cruttwell, 1802), I, 278–9. 60 Malcolm Andrews, The Search for the Picturesque: Landscape Aesthetics and Tourism in Britain, 1760–1800 (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1989), 63. 61 British Library, Egerton MS 2672, ‘Voyages and Travels: Journal of Voyage from America to England, and Various Tours, by P. Oliver’, 1776–80. 57

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Figure 5.7  ‘Hagley’, from A Companion to the Leasowes, Hagley, and Enville; with a Sketch of Fishwerwick, near Lichfield, Birmingham: Swinney & Hawkins, 1800, engraving, 12.6 × 7.8 cm (image). Collection Centre Canadien d’Architecture/Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal, gift of Phyllis Lambert.

though the scene was panoramic and it was a sight of settlement and industry, subjects which would sometimes be rejected as un-picturesque.62 Like Oliver, Charles, Lord Bruce and his tutor were quick to invoke the picturesque to describe high views, specifically those seen from the terraces at Duncombe Park: The Views from the Terraces are truly picturesque & beautiful. The charming Vallies of Wood have a beautiful effect. After having rode about 3 miles along the Valley we were very much struck with the striking appearance of Rivaux Abbey, which is most delightfully situated by the side of a fine River with noble hills covered with wood on all sides.63

These men were not alone in applying the picturesque to this site: in 1802, another visitor praised it as ‘one of the grandest coup d’oeil nature can present Rivaux Abbey a noble ruin with its appendages in the most beautiful & picturesque view’.64 These Stephen Copley, ‘William Gilpin and the Black-Lead Mine’, in The Politics of the Picturesque, ed. Stephen Copley and Peter Garside (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 48, 52–3. 63 Wiltshire and Swindon Archives, 1300/6584, ‘An Account of a Tour of North England and Scotland by Charles Lord Bruce and Mr. Brand’, 1789. 64 Devon Record Office, 152M/C1802/F69. 62

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tourists’ comments reflect a desire to respond to the site itself rather than picturesque theory, a tension which would also affect the Duncombe guidebook; it offers readers descriptions of the views they would see when looking down from the terraces, but it also explores – and illustrates – the abbey at ground level (Figure 5.8).65 This readiness to make accommodations suggests that as far as country houses were concerned, strict definitions of the picturesque were too limited to be useful to tourists. Even those who specifically referred to Gilpin in their descriptions were prepared to be more liberal than he in their assessments of picturesqueness. Commenting on the appearance of Fountains Abbey at Studley in 1793, one tourist noted that it was situated on an extensive plain or Lawn, surrounded by Hills of deepest Woods, partly embosomed in Trees and watered by a delightfull River, that winds, Sereamine lengo, thro’ the Plain; the whole is most enchantingly picturesque; Mr. Gilpin I know objects to the Lawn being too closely shaven, but I believe his Hint had been partly taken, for the Grass was high & the Rushes and Flags abundant; I could see nothing but Beauty.66

Figure 5.8  George Hillis after J. C. Buckler, ‘North West View of Rievaulx Abbey, Yorkshire’, frontispiece from A Description of Duncombe Park and Rivalx Abbey &c. Attempted, Kirbymoorside: Harrison and Cooper, 1812, engraving, 10.2 × 17.9 cm (image). © The British Library Board (101.h.4). Michael Charlesworth, ‘The Ruined Abbey: Picturesque and Gothic Values’, in The Politics of the Picturesque, 66. 66 National Library of Scotland, MS 29492, ‘Observations on a Tour through Part of Scotland’, 28 June– July 1793. 65

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In fact, Gilpin had had many objections to Studley: that this visitor could link the garden to his writings and declare it ‘enchantingly picturesque’ indicates that he too was not especially concerned with a strict application of theory, or even with reading Gilpin’s text particularly carefully.67 Nonetheless, the most general invocation of the picturesque still had important implications for the representation of country-house gardens. By placing readers in specific locations, picturesque descriptions insist on the importance of a reader’s gaze and celebrate her personal experience of the sites she visits. In a study contrasting the picturesque tourist with the impartial spectator, Karen Valihora emphasized that Gilpin’s picturesque theory ‘makes the correct view a product of holding a certain, clearly defined position within the landscape, rather than from some place beyond it’.68 These are not impersonal, abstracted views: when a travel book describes a foreground, it is placing the reader at a precise point within the garden and, by extension, legitimizing the tourist’s presence. Furthermore, as a concept, the picturesque was a system which required people not to simply appreciate a given view, but to take what they saw and imagine an ideal view, usually by constructing a picture in their minds which improved on the actual sight. It was only through the act of mediation and interpretation that the experience of the picturesque view was fully realized and thus for a tourist to view a country house’s garden as a picturesque sight – or (more typically) a series of sights – was to make it their own. Unlike celebrated paintings, whose beauty was often supposedly inherent in them to the point that some works were expected to command reactions, a picturesque sight in a garden depended on a viewer. Beyond a basic competence in the appropriate terminology, Gilpin’s picturesque ultimately derived from the delight viewers received from what they saw. The vocabulary itself emphasizes visual pleasure: the frequent references to ‘scenery’ and ‘scenes’ imply theatricality and spectacle.69 In contrast to other approaches to viewing, such as the decoding of emblems within the garden, there was no underlying gravitas to this picturesque theory, and Gilpin acknowledged that it was not necessarily a moralizing aesthetic, claiming he had ‘scarce ground to hope, that every admirer of picturesque beauty, is an admirer also of the beauty of virtue’.70 For tourists, the picturesque encouraged them to take ownership of what they saw and to take pleasure in it: just as the circuit presented gardens as spaces for personal movements, picturesque vocabulary stressed the importance of personal vision. At the same time, having established tourists’ importance within a garden, Gilpin’s picturesque gave them a convenient, easily learned language to interpret it. Kim Michasiw has argued that Gilpin was not writing merely for tourists and Gilpin, 1772, II, 179–89. Karen Valihora, ‘Impartial Spectator Meets Picturesque Tourist: The Framing of Mansfield Park’, Eighteenth Century Fiction 20, no. 1 (2007): 92. 69 For examples, see Uvedale Price, Essays on the Picturesque, 3 vols (London: J. Mawman, 1810), I, 37, and William Gilpin, Three Essays: On Picturesque Beauty; on Picturesque Travel; and on Sketching Landscape (London: R. Blamire, 1792), ii. David Marshall, ‘The Problem of the Picturesque’, Eighteenth-Century Studies 35, no. 3 (2002): 414. 70 Gilpin, Three Essays, 47. 67 68

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travellers, but that he saw his readers as ‘transient presences in the landscape’ and thought of his project as an exercise in instructing them ‘on how best to see, appreciate, and horde up in memory a fleeting acquaintance with a scene that is not their own’.71 Eighteenth-century tourists may not have thought of themselves in precisely these terms, but they could not have escaped acknowledging that they were visitors, and were often seeing sights which they may have found challenging to articulate their reactions to. Contemporary discussions of Gilpin’s books often refer to their value as educational texts: in 1782, a review of Observations on the River Wye declared ‘A painter habituated to view the scenes of nature as connected with the principles of his art, will find innumerable beauties in a landscape, which elude the notice of the uninstructed traveller,’ and praised Gilpin for the guidance he had provided.72 Five years later, a review of Observations Relative to Picturesque Beauty, Made in the Year 1772 proclaimed ‘They who are desirous of improving their taste for picturesque beauty’ can rely on Gilpin’s work to ‘teach the spectator to reason upon what he sees, and point out to him many features of nature which he might otherwise overlook’.73 The vocabulary of the picturesque signified an informed reaction to a sight, possibly one shaped by a narrative tour or guidebook which had taken on Gilpin’s role as teacher to the uninformed and guide to the untrained eyes. It provided the viewer with standards to model his reaction against, and even to replicate: because a person who views what has already been identified as picturesque effectively shares another person’s point of view, he can be said to mediate ‘his perception of the landscape through a double perspective that is divided between a sight and someone else’s view of it’.74 Commenting on the impact of picturesque theory, Malcolm Andrews has described it as a ‘template effect’ in which the picturesque guide ‘mediates the new. It protects the traveller from an excess of novelty, and from disorientation. It contextualises the unknown, structures our responses to new places and relates what is unfamiliar to the network of known cultural experiences’.75 In mediating the views within country houses’ gardens and in providing them with a highly flexible language to discuss what they saw, the picturesque gave tourists a broad conceptual frame through which they could draw their impressions into a cohesive whole. As a result, it ensured that when confronted with a new garden, they were already well prepared to discuss it in fashionable terms which represented their own knowledge and status as people of taste. Later tourists may have had much more complex understandings of the term ‘picturesque’ which charged views with associations with politics. Travellers in the late 1790s may have read Knight’s The Landscape: A Didactic Poem, or Price’s Essay on the Picturesque (both 1794), both works which dealt with criteria for picturesque landscapes. Theirs was a picturesque of improvement, management and ownership of Kim Ian Michasiw, ‘Nine Revisionist Theses on the Picturesque’, Representations 38 (1992): 82. ‘Art. I. [Review of] Observations on the River Wye’, The Monthly Review 69 (1783): 361. 73 ‘Art. II. [Review of] Observations Relative to Picturesque Beauty, Made in the Year 1772’, The English Review 9 (1787): 175. 74 Marshall, ‘Problem’, 430. 75 Malcolm Andrews, ‘A Picturesque Template: The Tourists and Their Guidebooks’, in The Picturesque in Late Georgian England, ed. Dana Arnold (London: The Georgian Group, 1995), 8. 71 72

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the landscape and thus quite different from Gilpin’s, and more easily linked to politics: for Price and Knight, ‘against the levelling tendencies of the French Revolution, individual variety in the landscape came to stand for British liberty’; this conception of the picturesque has also been implicated in colonialist views of British imperial territories, in which it implied control.76 In the context of these publications, linking Gilpin’s picturesque to politics was possible, but not straightforward.77 In a well-known scene in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey (1818), Henry Tilney offers Catherine Morland a lesson in the picturesque which moves from vocabulary to a political reading: He talked of fore-grounds, distances, and second distances – side-screens and perspectives – lights and shades … by an easy transition from a piece of rocky fragment and the withered oak which he had placed near its summit, to oaks in general, to forests, the inclosure of them, waste lands, crown lands and government, he shortly found himself arrived at politics.78

As evidence of the association tourists made between picturesque landscapes and politics, this passage is somewhat problematic. It does present a theoretically plausible logic: Andrews has argued that because the English landscape was shaped by economic forces ‘it was entirely natural that Henry Tilney should follow that sequence of topics’, and there is evidence that some tourists were attentive to the economic potential of gardens and parks, especially when it came to trees.79 That said, Northanger Abbey is a novel of parody and satire, and other parts of this scene are clearly intended for comic effect, thus undermining its sincerity and casting doubt on whether or not we are meant to see Tilney’s associations as typical of picturesque tourists.80 Austen was not the only writer to target Gilpin: in The Tour of Doctor Syntax, In Search of the Picturesque (1812), Thomas Rowlandson and William Coombe developed a character who toured the country obsessed with analysing landscapes according to picturesque theory; the doctor’s claim that he would ‘picturesque it everywhere’ mocks the flexibility and superficiality of the term as used by tourists.81 Ultimately, many tourists’ writings from this period treat picturesqueness very loosely, as if they are merely deploying a convenient and fashionable language which remained embedded in travel literature even as theorists developed it in new ways and critics delighted in making fun of it. Ann Bermingham, ‘System, Order, and Abstraction: The Politics of English Landscape Drawing around 1795’, in Landscape and Power, ed. W. J. T. Mitchell (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 85. Michasiw, ‘Nine’, 94. 77 Mark A. Cheetham, Artwriting, Nation, and Cosmopolitanism in Britain: The ‘Englishness’ of English Art Theory since the Eighteenth Century (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), 51–2. 78 Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, ed. John Davies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 87. 79 Malcolm Andrews, Landscape and Western Art (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 167. Explore York Libraries and Archives, Acc5,6,24,235/T5–B, ‘Journey in Derbyshire Made by William Gray, Senior’, 1811. 80 Ann Bermingham, Landscape and Ideology: The English Rustic Tradition, 1740–1860 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), 83–4. 81 Francesca Orestano, ‘The Revd William Gilpin and the Picturesque; Or, Who’s Afraid of Doctor Syntax?’, Garden History 31, no. 2 (2003): 164, 166. For more on Doctor Syntax, see Patricia Phagan, Thomas Rowlandson: Pleasure and Pursuits in Georgian England (London: Giles, 2011), 136. 76

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As a mediating discourse for tourists during their visits to country-house gardens, picturesque theory fulfilled several roles. It celebrated tourists’ experiences as critical to the value of the site itself, emphasizing the importance of their interpretations and the pleasures they experienced during their visits. At the same time, the picturesque offered tourists an informed vocabulary and provided them with a model for their experiences, and adopting a shared (albeit highly imprecise) aesthetic language enabled travel writers and tourists to more confidently claim gardens as their own; Ann Bermingham has suggested we might even think of the language of the picturesque as a ‘lingo’.82 It was ideally suited as a lens through which to view an extraordinary array of gardens, and its popularity ensured it was familiar to readers as well as travellers.

Spaces of poetry and emotion While picturesque descriptions encouraged people to incorporate their experiences of country-house gardens into a broader aesthetic framework, gardens were also represented and described as spaces of feeling, spaces where the visitor would be overwhelmed by the beauty of what they saw. Poems employed metaphors, allegories and hyperbolic praise, encouraging readers to conceive of gardens as spaces of sensual delights, inspired reveries and passionate exclamations. In prose descriptions, many writers drew on the ideas of the romantic and the sublime to stress the psychological impacts of gardens and parks, especially those with distinctive natural features. Although these forms of writing are markedly different, both ultimately encourage a reaction based on feeling rather than analysis, and both portray the visit to the countryhouse garden as an all-encompassing, even overwhelming, encounter with the place. In the later eighteenth century, the potential for an emotional reaction to a garden was sometimes a factor in its design: in his Observations, Thomas Whately declared that ‘the scenes of nature have a power to affect our imagination and our sensibility’; writing about his flower garden at Nuneham-Courtenay, Lord Harcourt claimed that it needed to be ‘perceived and felt’.83 These comments were made at a time when the cult of sensibility was well established, and to feel deeply was a mark of refinement, yet even decades earlier there were texts about gardens which stressed their emotional and psychological potential.84 For tourists, these texts encouraged them to embrace deeply personal experiences in gardens, as if the gardens were their own spaces. Some of the earliest texts to celebrate the beauty of gardens at country houses were poems. Growing out of a tradition of poetry about country houses and estates, these Stephen Bending, ‘One among the Many: Popular Aesthetics, Polite Culture and the Country House Landscape’, in The Georgian Country House, ed. Dana Arnold (Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1998), 64–5. Ann Bermingham, ‘The Picturesque and ready-to-wear femininity’, in The Politics of the Picturesque, 85. 83 Whately, Gardening, 156. Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, MS Eng. Letters d310 f15, quoted in John Bonehill and Stephen Daniels, Paul Sandby: Picturing Britain (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 2009), 191. 84 John Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century (London: HarperCollins, 1997), 113–14. 82

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poems could celebrate gardens as places which were so beautiful that they could not be properly captured through ordinary prose descriptions but rather demanded the rich language and imaginative freedom of poetry. In introducing his poem about Studley (1733), Peter Aram declared that it was ‘exceeding beautiful and pleasant … beyond all Description. No Words, nor Plan are capable of representing it’, and that he ‘was unwilling so delectable a Place should remain unsung’.85 Many years later, discussing Hagley in The Juvenile Tourist (1805), John Evans observed that ‘The gardens belonging to this far-famed mansion are so picturesque and romantic, that they have not unfrequently been made the subject of song.’86 For both Aram and Evans, as a form alone poetry demonstrated extraordinary beauty; as texts, many poems included superlative praise for the sights within a garden, and they often represented gardens as sylvan idylls or places of Elysium, sometimes suggesting that they attracted muses, or even the goddess of Nature. While these are not unusual poetic tropes, they nonetheless encouraged a particular response to gardens, especially when the speaker in a poem reported that he was in a garden as he wrote or when references to specific spaces within a garden were incorporated. Two of the earliest major poems about country-house gardens and their potential as tourist attractions appeared in the 1730s. In 1732, Gilbert West published Stowe, The Gardens of the Right Honourable Richard Lord Viscount Cobham in response to Alexander Pope’s Epistle to Burlington (1731), a work which invoked Stowe as an ideal, informing readers that they should aspire to ‘A Work to wonder at – perhaps a Stow’.87 West’s poem opens with the claim that Stowe merits more than ‘one distinguish’d Line’ and promises readers descriptions of ‘Elyzian Scenes’: in describing one view, the speaker declares ‘Here chrystal Lakes reflect contiguous Shades,/There distant Hills uplift their azure Heads./Round the free * Lawn here gadding Heifers stray,/And frisking Lambs in sportive Gambols play.’88 Alongside the evocations of a pastoral paradise, West offered his readers information about the gardens: asterisks throughout the poem direct the reader’s attention to footnotes indicating precisely which temple or space the poem was referring to, entwining description with fanciful reverie. Aram’s poem about Studley Park was published the following year and takes a similar approach: in it, the speaker in the poem celebrates the pastoral pleasure of the site, declaring that while the garden of Eden had decayed ‘thine, O Studley! ev’ry circling Year,/More fresh and beauteous to the Eye appear … They, that Old Paradise now seek in vain,/May in this Park review the beauteous Plan’, and it unfolds as if the speaker is moving around the garden.89 Shorter poems could not offer quite so much detail, but they were ideal for periodicals: the London Magazine, for instance, published ‘Mount Edgcumbe: A Poem’ in 1750, ‘Verses The Antient and Modern History of the Loyal Town of Rippon (York: T. Hammond, 1733), iv, v. John Evans, The Juvenile Tourist (London: Albion Press, 1805), 253. 87 Alexander Pope, An Epistle to the Right Honourable Richard Earl of Burlington, 3rd edn (London: L. Gilliver, 1731), 7. 88 Gilbert West, Stowe, The Gardens of the Right Honourable Richard Lord Viscount Cobham (London: J. Wright, 1732), 1, 18. 89 Rippon, 3. 85 86

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occasioned by an Incident, at the Seat of William Shenstone, Esq’ [i.e. The Leasowes] in 1761, and ‘Verses wrote in Hagley-Park’ in 1764.90 Like the long works about Stowe and Studley, all these poems celebrate these gardens not simply as sites to tour for their aesthetic virtues but as sylvan idylls, where the multisensory experiences of the trees, the light, the water, the birds and even the scents are so beautiful they practically overwhelm the viewer. In the poem celebrating Mount Edgcumbe, for example, the speaker proclaims it ‘blest Elysium!’, and queries ‘what fair place a nobler prospect yields,/Groves more delightful, or more fragrant fields?’91 Not necessarily intended for travellers, these poems encouraged readers to associate landscape gardens with intense pastoral beauty. For some gardens, transcriptions of poetry from within the garden itself brought emotional reactions into descriptions in publications. In contrast to inscriptions intended to inspire reflections on the specific temples they adorned, such as the patriotic inscriptions at Stowe, several gardens had inscriptions which encouraged visitors to reflect on the scenes before them, inscriptions which might be characterized as gesturing outwards.92 At Hagley, for instance, one of the inscriptions the visitor would encounter was a seat with a passage from Milton’s Paradise Lost, and the text was linked to the sight itself: in her diary, Mary Orlebar reported that ‘there is one particular Scene at Hagley, so wonderfully fine, that the Mind of every One who sees it, must surely be in Unison with those Lines from Milton beginning “These, are thy glorious Works, Parent of Good &c” which are, with great propriety placed on a Bench upon a most noble natural Terrace’.93 The full passage she refers to had appeared in The English Connoisseur, Arthur Young’s Tour, and both Joseph Heely’s Letters and his Description of Hagley Park, ensuring that numerous readers and potential tourists were encouraged to conceive of Hagley as a place of superlative beauty.94 Similarly, the poetic inscriptions in the flower garden at Nuneham-Courtenay, which Lord Harcourt saw as an essential device for ensuring visitors ‘felt’ the beauty of the garden, were published in A New Pocket Companion to Oxford (1787) and in the text which accompanied two engravings of the garden published in the Copper Plate Magazine (1777) (Figure 5.9).95 The tour of this garden culminated in front of a statue of Hebe at the Temple of Flora, and verses by William Whitehead called on the goddess to preserve the garden: ‘Hebe, from thy cup divine,/Shed, O shed! nectareous Dews,/Here o’er Nature’s living shrine,/Th’immortal drops diffuse:/Here while every bloom’s display’d,/Shining fair

‘Mount Edgcumbe: A Poem’, The London Magazine 19 (1750): 470–71. ‘Verses Occasioned by an Incident, at the Seat of William Shenstone, Esq’, The London Magazine 30 (1761): 499. ‘Verses Wrote in Hagley-Park’, The London Magazine 33 (1764): 260. 91 ‘Mount Edgcumbe: A Poem’, 470. 92 John Dixon Hunt, The Picturesque Garden in Europe (London: Thames & Hudson, 2002), 64. 93 Yale Center for British Art, In Process DA522. O75 E93 1782. 94 Thomas Martyn, The English Connoisseur, 2 vols (London: L. Davis and C. Reymers, 1766), I, 66–67. Young, North, III, 354. Heely, Letters, I, 198. Joseph Heely, A Description of Hagley Park (London: Printed for the Author, 1777), 102. 95 The Genius of the Place: The English Landscape Garden, 1620–1820, ed. John Dixon Hunt and Peter Willis (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988), 308. 90

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Figure 5.9  William Watts after Paul Sandby, View of the Flower Garden at Nuneham, from the Statue of Hebe, to the Temple of Flora, 1781 (republication of 1777 print), etching, 16 × 20.9 cm. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

in vernal pride,/Catch the colours e’er they fade.’96 Although they are specific to the statue, these verses are also about the exceptional variety and delicacy of the flowers in the garden, and they imply the site manifests an ideal of nature. Like the poetry published in periodicals, the circulation of these texts encouraged visitors to anticipate an overwhelmingly beautiful sight. Poetry was also incorporated into country-house guidebooks, where, by indicating that for some visitors the experience of the garden had been so powerful that ordinary prose would not suffice, it encouraged readers to embrace imaginative and emotional reactions. In addition to offering transcriptions of the poetic inscriptions visitors would encounter, guidebooks sometimes included excerpts from famous works, or poems specific to the garden in question. In his guide to Burghley, for example, J. Horn included an excerpt from Paradise Lost in the middle of his description of one of the garden’s more secluded areas.97 William Mavor’s first edition of the Blenheim A New Pocket Companion for Oxford, new edn (Oxford: D. Prince and J. Cooke, 1787), 132. ‘Description of the Flower Garden at Nuneham in Oxfordshire’, The Copper Plate Magazine, 1777. 97 J. Horn, A History or Description, General and Circumstantial, of Burghley House (Shrewsbury: J. and W. Eddowes, 1797), 193. 96

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guidebook had consisted of a poem he wrote supplemented by a descriptive guide, and although the poem was not the primary focus in later editions, verses of it were incorporated into the descriptions of the gardens and park.98 Some guidebooks had verses on their title pages, as if to create a lyrical frame for the text itself. That of Duncombe Park (1812), for instance, displays three excerpts, including a passage from William Mason’s The English Garden (1771–83): ‘Happy art thou, if thou can’st call thine own/Such Scenes as these; where Nature and where Time/Have worked congenial;/       If a neighb’ring Mount/Bear on its brow the shiver’d fragment tall/Of some old Norman Fortress: if thy vale/Wash with the crystal coolness of its rills/Some mould’ring Abbey’s ivy vested wall.’99 This type of poetic quotation heightens the sense of the garden (and estate) as idyllic, and it encourages a personal connection: although hardly any tourist could ‘call thine own/Such Scenes as these’, by embracing emotions in the garden, they could come closer to using it as a personal retreat rather than a space to tour. They could even write: at Nuneham-Courtenay, pen and ink were left in the garden so that visitors could make their own contributions to the poetry which praised the space; at other gardens, tourists chose to transcribe the verses they encountered.100 In prose, the closest parallels to these poems are those descriptions which celebrate the romance of the country-house garden. In the later eighteenth century, the idea of the romantic landscape was particularly associated with the uncultivated scenery of the Peak District, the Lake District, the Wye Valley and Wales and Scotland; however, many travel writers and tourists used the term in describing gardens. During the period between c. 1775 and c. 1800, the meanings attached to the words ‘romantic’, ‘sublime’ and ‘picturesque’ varied considerably because although writers dealing with aesthetics were increasingly trying to define and distinguish between these terms, there was also ‘a tendency to merge them in popular literature’.101 Travel books were popular texts and there is no evidence to suggest that their authors were any more particular about what they meant when they used the term ‘romantic’ than they were when they used the word ‘picturesque’. The use of the term ‘romantic’ identified a landscape as ‘wild and primitive; varied, changing, irregular, and contrasting; or secluded and paradisiacal’, and, alternatively or additionally, it implied that the landscape inspired a viewer’s imagination, caused a strong emotional response or led him to associate the scene with literature.102 Not surprisingly, many people were fairly casual in how they defined country-house gardens and parks as romantic: in his Tour (1793), Edward Daniel Clarke stated that at Mount Edgcumbe, ‘Nature reigns supreme, wild, simple, and frequently contracting her features to a frown, Mavor, Blenheim, 1797, 76, 83, 84, 85, 107, 108. A Description of Duncombe Park and Rivalx [sic] Abbey &c. Attempted (Kirbymoorside: Harrison and Cooper, 1812), title page. 100 Mavis Batey, ‘William Mason, English Gardener’, Garden History 1, no. 2 (1973): 13. 101 Raymond Immerwhar, ‘“Romantic” and Its Cognates in England, Germany, and France before 1790’, in ‘Romantic’ and Its Cognates: The European History of a Word, ed. Hans Eichner (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1972), 37. 102 Immerwhar, ‘Romantic’, 30, 35. 98 99

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assumes an appearance, grand, sublime, and awful. Wherever you walk, the winds bring odours. Around you extends romantic scenery, continually varying, and ever beautiful.’103 Here, the beautiful and the sublime, terms Edmund Burke had defined in opposition to each other, are elided within the same space, and the ‘romantic’ seems to suffuse both. Embodying multiple meanings does not make these terms entirely meaningless, however, and descriptions of romantic scenery can be thought of as comparable to descriptions of picturesque scenery, especially in their identification of a romantic scene as something located at a specific point. More importantly, like picturesque beauty, a romantic (or sublime) sight within a garden depended on the viewer’s reaction to complete it. Because the term ‘romantic’ was associated with wildness, some gardens seemed especially suited to the label. Hawkstone was famous in part because of its natural topography, which included huge rock formations, hills and a lake (Plate 8), and in its guidebook, the author claimed he would ‘confine myself chiefly to those pleasingly wild and romantic scenes, which in all places would justly come under the denomination of the sublime’.104 Within his text, the terminology associated with the romantic and the sublime duly appears, often used to connote astonishment: he described the Gulf as a deep valley, which ‘Coming immediately out of a beautiful lawn, and having no suspicion of the sudden manner in which Nature changes … appears truly romantic.’105 Later on in the walk, he noted that ‘You command a most noble view of an/AWFUL PRECIPICE./ Here the towering oak is lost beneath the rugged rocks bulging with terror! – Next you admire with astonishment, the huge pending craggs, still more highly colour’d with copper, or hoary with age, and whilst the wide chasms between the rocks, strike you with dread, you often hear the Ravens.’106 In this description, part of the scene’s romantic aspect is conveyed by identifying the emotions the reader ought to experience, including awe and dread. Like picturesque descriptions in travel books, these passages offered visitors models for their own reactions, encouraging them to fully embrace the place. Arranged around a river in a deep ravine and intended as a complement to Studley, the gardens at Hackfall were routinely described as romantic (Figure 5.10). In introducing his description of them in his Tours, Henry Skrine declared Hackfall was ‘an appendage to Studley’, which ‘contrasts its grandeur and regularity with a profusion of romantic beauty’.107 Many tourists used the term: visiting in 1758, Sir William Burrell wrote that at Hackfall he had seen ‘the most delightfull & romantic Scenes, that are to be met with in these Parts’.108 During a tour in 1792, the Honourable John Byng declared that ‘Overhung by steep, wooded hills, the rapid and romantic River Eure

Edward Daniel Clarke, A Tour through the South of England, Wales, and Part of Ireland, Made during the Summer of 1791 (London: Minerva Press, 1793), 56. 104 Rodenhurst, Hawkstone, 1784, 12. Hawk Lake was created in the 1780s. 105 Rodenhurst, Hawkstone, 1784, 14. 106 Rodenhurst, Hawkstone, 1784, 19. 107 Henry Skrine, Three Successive Tours in the North of England (London: W. Bulmer and Co., 1795), xv. 108 National Library of Scotland, MS.2911, ‘Travel Journal’, 1758. 103

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Figure 5.10  Letitia Byrne after Francis Nicholson, Hackfall Yorkshire, 2 January 1809, etching and engraving, 23.5 × 29.3 cm. © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Herschel Collection.

frames its broad and rapid course … nothing can be more grandly wild, and pastoral, than the unexpected view of this river!’109 On visiting in 1795, Harriet Clark praised the site as astonishingly singular and Grand from the united Effect of hanging woods, Romantic Rocks and a Rapid River rolling through the Center of the scenery. The hanging woods from their Convex and Concave appearance are amazingly singular, and they are very much intersected by deep Ravines through which rapid streams of water roll down and form a variety of Cascades, to which you are unexpectedly led by the Rude walks and through the woods to all the beautiful points of view of this Romantic scenery.110

The Torrington Diaries: Containing the Tours through England and Wales of the Hon. John Byng (Later Fifth Viscount Torrington) between the Years 1781 and 1794, ed. C. Bruyn Andrews, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1934–38), III, 52. 110 Uncle John Carr: The Diaries of His Great-nieces, Harriet and Amelia Clark, ed. Corita Myerscough (York: York Georgian Society, 2000), 25. 109

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Byng’s and Clark’s descriptions indicate that not only was ‘romantic’ a term ideally suited to Hackfall’s awe-inspiring scenes, it was also one which could apply to objects, and by extension, to a more intimate encounter with the site: here, the river and rocks are not merely elements of the scene, they are inspiring in themselves. The romance of Hawkstone and Hackfall notwithstanding, even more so than the picturesque, the idea of the romantic was highly flexible: it did not require specific elements within a sight, and as a result it could occasionally be applied very freely. Maria Rishton used the word while describing her reaction to Stourhead when she visited in 1773, calling the estate ‘the Most beautiful romantic Country there is in the West of England’.111 Similarly, Peter Van Schaack claimed the walks through the woods at Stourhead were ‘very romantic’, noting that ‘one of them conducts you to a little “straw-roof ’d” cottage, and afterwards to a hermit’s cell, which is strongly characteristic of the purpose it was made for’.112 In its topography, Stourhead is virtually the antithesis of romantic: it has far too many temples to be conceived of as wild, and much of it is too open to offer the visitor seclusion, but for Rishton it was a convenient superlative and for Van Schaack a term which conveyed imaginative potential. Their writings suggest that it would not have been uncommon for an eighteenth-century tourist to have treated the term ‘romantic’ almost as a placeholder. Alongside poetic and romantic descriptions of country-house gardens, many tourists’ writings record impressions of superlative beauty, experiences so overwhelming they defied description and bordered on the physiological. One visiting Studley in 1790 declared ‘I never saw so beautiful a Place … the views and walks – round the Grounds are beyond description beautifull.’113 Other travellers invoked heavenly parallels: the Honourable James Bucknall Grimston proclaimed Hagley was ‘nearly perfect as is consistent with an Earthly Situation’; when he saw the gardens at Stowe, Van Schaack praised them as ‘truly paradisiacal. Nothing can exceed them in beauty and elegance’.114 When attempting to describe how his party was ‘captivated’ at Studley, one tourist went into great detail about the feeling the place inspired, claiming there was a ‘delicious sensation which lovely Nature, thus made lovelier, irresistably impresses on the mind; the big Heart swells with sympathy, and the Eye suffused in a tearful mist relieves at once and expresses beyond description the soft feelings within’.115 The emotional aspects of viewing gardens, whether expressed as awe in the face of sublime nature or as a sentimental reaction to overwhelming beauty, indicate that tourists’ concern not to miss any key sights and deep awareness of the fashionable vocabulary of the picturesque was counter-balanced by a desire to treat their garden tours as opportunities for personal, intimate encounters. The Early Diary of Frances Burney, 1768–1778, 2 vols, ed. Annie Raine Ellis (London: George Bell and Sons, 1889), II, 322. 112 Van Schaack, Peter Van Schaack, 140. 113 National Library of Scotland, MS 15905. 114 Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies, D/EV/F19, ‘Journal of a Tour to Wales and the Midland Counties of England’, 1769. Van Schaack, Peter Van Schaack, 139, 156. 115 National Library of Scotland, MS 29492. 111

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*** Included in all manner of travel publications, richly detailed descriptions of countryhouse gardens circulated widely and encouraged readers to anticipate and imagine tours. More than any other aspect of country houses, it was gardens which were most vividly captured in print, and this then shaped visitors’ responses. While writing about the Leasowes, Peter Oliver observed that To describe it would crowd a Volume, but it is so well & so minutely touched by the Pen of John Heely Esqr in two Volumes, which he published this year on the Beauties of the Leasowes, Hagley Park, & Envil, that it would be but Vanity to attempt to match the Pen from so masterly an Hand: and although the Reader, who never had seen the Leasowes might think the Author had given a loose to his Imagination & described the Prospect of fairyland yet an attentive Spectator would, from a minute Observation of the combined Beauties of the Leasowes, be forced to acknowledge that the Pen of Art must here veil to the Pencil of Nature.116

In his admiration for Joseph Heely, Oliver reveals how his reading about gardens subsequently shaped his experience of viewing and writing about them: he had a strong vision of the Leasowes well before he arrived at the site, and he was effectively looking for Heely’s Leasowes during his visit. Like many other travel writers, Heely had presented the public with a construction of the garden as a space which welcomed tourists. The vast majority of descriptions of gardens were dominated by approaches which embraced the tourist’s presence and valued his perspectives, making gardens seem all the more accessible. This accessibility and the ease with which tourists could virtually inhabit countryhouse gardens as their owners might have done are particularly significant because during their tours of gardens visitors would often see views of the countryside beyond. Although many landowners made efforts to screen off elements of their estates and some even had villages removed such that they would be further away from the gardens, at a number of gardens popular with tourists, the wider estate (sometimes including farms or villages) could be seen during tours. Descriptions of some such sights insist the reader blur the boundaries between the garden, the estate and the outside world, making the estate seem limitless, even though there usually were real boundaries (such as ha-has or even steel traps) to deter trespassers.117 In a description of a visit to Blenheim, for example, one travel writer declared ‘The rounded inequality of ground both in the park and gardens, here covered with venerable woods, and there with beautiful cattle – the Temples – the historical Column – the Bridge – the village British Library, Egerton MS 2673, ‘Voyages and Travels: Journal of Voyage from America to England, and Various Tours, by P. Oliver’, 1776–80 (1777). 117 Tom Williamson, Polite Landscapes: Gardens and Society in Eighteenth-Century England (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), 107. Some tourists were very conscious of ha-has and walls; for example, in 1786, Thomas Jefferson noted the different enclosures at Stowe. Thomas Jefferson’s Garden Book, 112–13. 116

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of Woodstock, all together form a variety of scenery which at once warms the heart and enchants the eye!’118 To see the surrounding countryside from within a garden that had embraced the tourist tacitly encouraged the visitor to appreciate the viewpoint of the owner as landowner in the community, and to read these passages allowed many people, including many who might never have been able to visit the garden in person, to share this perspective as well. The vivid descriptions of country-house gardens throughout travel books, poems and country-house guidebooks ensured that not only were the country’s largest and most elaborate gardens sites where polite society could share leisure spaces theoretically created for a tiny élite, they were also virtual spaces which naturalized owners’ authority over the land, as if to imply it was a public good.

A. Walker, Remarks Made in a Tour from London to the Lakes (London: G. Nicol, 1792), 15.

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I visited Blenheim House, a most superb and magnificent pile of building. Every thing here is upon a great and extensive plan, and the park, the gardens, the waters and the bridge over them, perfectly correspond with the building. There are here many very fine paintings and tapestry, historical, allegorical, fanciful and portrait; every thing in and about this house has the appearance of a palace. – Peter Van Schaack at Blenheim, 17791 By the time Peter Van Schaack visited, Blenheim was a highly popular tourist attraction. Its proximity to London made it convenient for travellers to visit if they were going on any sort of tour to the west or north (the 1803 Blenheim guidebook lists over twenty itineraries one could take from Woodstock).2 Its special status as a national monument, a gift from the country to the first Duke of Marlborough and his heirs, enhanced tourists’ conviction that they were entitled to see the house.3 Yet national monument status notwithstanding, the attractions of Blenheim are representative of what drew people to country houses all over England. Like Van Schaack, Amelia Clark described a house with every possible type of attraction: ‘Every room abounds with charming pictures by the most celebrated Masters, and you see worked in rich and beautiful Tapestry all the duke of Marlborough’s battles … The pleasure grounds & park is very beautiful and extensive.’4 Like the collections of Old Masters at Burghley, Wilton, Houghton and Kedleston, the pictures at Blenheim had become well known through publications Henry C. Van Schaack, The Life of Peter Van Schaack (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1842), 138. The phrase in the chapter title is from Mark Girouard, Country Houses Open to the Public (London: Country Life, 1960), 5. 2 William Mavor, New Description of Blenheim, 6th edn (Oxford: Slatter and Munday, 1803), 137–41. 3 Bedfordshire Archives & Records Service, L31/114/2, ‘Tour in England’ [made by Thomas Philip, 3rd Lord Grantham, Later Earl de Grey], 1799. Essex Record Office, D/DLu 7/1, ‘Journal […] Description of Excursions to Cambridge and Yorkshire’, c. 1815. 4 Uncle John Carr: The Diaries of His Great-nieces, Harriet and Amelia Clark, ed. Corita Myerscough (York: York Georgian Society, 2000), 56. 1

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and prints and were seen as an important collection for anyone interested in art or in cultivating their personal taste. The lavish furnishings were of secondary interest, but they remained fundamental to the effect of the house, and the decorative history paintings and tapestries which glorified the first Duke of Marlborough’s achievements were admired as rarities. Capability Brown’s park represented the best taste in landscape gardening, and at the same time, in the scale and complexity of the water, the grounds showcased a unique achievement. Given this combination of attractions, it is not surprising that Blenheim was attracting numerous visitors at a relatively early date and establishing routines for visits accordingly: when he went to the house in 1769, the Honourable James Bucknall Grimston complained that he had been part of a ‘Crowd of all kinds of People’, and that ‘this Building erected by the Munificence of the Public is to be run over in the Space of an Hour, which rather Tantalises than satisfies the Curious Eye’.5 William Mavor had every reason to believe there was a market for a guidebook: in the advertisement at the beginning of his second edition (1789), he noted that ‘the numerous and respectable visitors of Blenheim … include almost every person of condition in these kingdoms, and all the foreigners of quality who travel into England’; the Blenheim guidebook ultimately ran to fifteen editions, ten issued before 1815.6 Although Blenheim constitutes one of the most extreme examples of how a country house became established as a tourist attraction, the intertwining of visitor routines and texts can be seen at many other sites. Through these practices, houses’ public reputations grew, making them even more attractive to future visitors. Today, the idea of the country house as a site for the display of art, architecture and design remains crucial to British culture. Just over 230 years after Van Schaack’s visit, visitors to Blenheim could not only view the building, an historic art collection and the enormous landscape garden, they could also tour a retrospective of Ai Weiwei’s work: ‘Ai Weiwei at Blenheim Palace’ was held from October 2014 to April 2015. In responding to the exhibition, critics highlighted the significance of placing Ai’s work within the tapestry of historic art and architecture already on display: one review described Ai’s works as treasures which joined ‘Ming vases, crystal sconces, family portraits by Van Dyck and Reynolds and Sargent, swords, Meissen dinner services, antiquarian books and the fabulous Blenheim tapestries’; another claimed that in the display ‘old combines with new, East with West, and good taste with bling, in such a subtle way that it is almost seamless’.7 This exhibition was one of many in recent years in which contemporary art has been installed in a country house or its garden – since 2009, the National Trust alone has worked with over 200 artists – and the intellectual and artistic rationales of these exhibitions often depend on the premise Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies, D/EV/F15, ‘Journal of a Tour to Wales’ [by Hon. James Bucknall Grimston, Later 3rd Viscount Grimston], 1769. 6 William Mavor, New Description of Blenheim, 2nd edn (London: T. Cadell, 1789), vii–viii. 7 Caroline Roux, ‘Ai Weiwei at Blenheim Palace’, Financial Times, 10 October 2014, (accessed 22 November 2016). Florence Waters, ‘Ai Weiwei, Blenheim Palace, Review: “what fun”’, The Telegraph, 30 September 2014, (accessed 22 November 2016). 5

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that the country house is a display of historic art.8 For a 2014 exhibition at Chatsworth, Michael Craig-Martin installed a dozen of his sculptures in the gardens, curated a display of Old Master drawings and had the sculpture plinths within the house painted magenta. Describing the show as ‘one of the most important projects of my career’, he highlighted the rich interplay of spaces and media at the house: ‘It touches on a lot of things I do, I make paintings and sculptures, I do installations, and I have curated drawings. It has allowed me to play with different aspects of the repertoire of things I do in an extraordinary place.’9 Criticisms of contemporary art exhibitions at country houses also highlight houses’ roles as institutions of historic art: when Anthony Caro’s work was shown in an exhibition at Chatsworth in 2012, one person claimed that ‘the whole point of visiting this magnificent house, gardens, and water features would be lost’ if he had to share it with Caro’s work.10 Artists have also drawn on the aesthetics of country houses when creating works for exhibition elsewhere: Yinka Shonibare, for instance, used country house settings for his photo series Diary of a Victorian Dandy (1998) and his film Addio del Passato (2011), and he has invoked generalized notions of the historic house for works such as Upstairs Downstairs (1997) and The Victorian Philanthropist’s Parlour (1996–7), creating an ‘impression of heritage in splendour’ while highlighting people ‘on whose servitude such grandeur depended for its existence’.11 In Shonibare’s hands, historic interiors – including spaces, art works, furniture and decorative objects – become tools for critiquing imperialism, but the visual power of the interior is fundamental to how his works draw viewers into their protests.12 Whether they are celebrating, criticizing or subverting, all these exhibitions and works testify to the dominance of the idea of the country house as a site for the display of art. Country houses’ emergence as cultural tourist attractions in Britain has not been a smooth trajectory, and the traditions of welcoming tourists that many houses established in the long eighteenth century rarely survived unbroken to the present day. At some houses, including Stourhead, Wilton, Corsham and Blenheim, people continued to visit to view the art collections well into the 1800s, but they were not as popular as they had been in the eighteenth century.13 Country-house art collections did continue to be celebrated in print – Gustav Waagen’s Treasures of Art in Great Britain (1854–7), for example, discussed many country-house art collections – but ‘Trust New Art Exhibitions and Events’, National Trust, (accessed 22 November 2016). 9 Mark Brown, ‘High Heels and Pink Pitchforks Adorn Chatsworth House Lawns’, The Guardian, 12 March 2014, (22 November 2016). 10 ‘Sir Anthony Caro at Chatsworth House’, The Telegraph, 31 March 2012, (accessed 22 November 2016). 11 Secret Victorians: Contemporary Artists and a 19th-Century Vision (London: Hayward Gallery Publishing, 1998), 52. 12 Yinka Shonibare: Double Dutch, ed. Jaap Guldemond and Gabriele Mackert (Rotterdam: NAi Publishers, 2004), 41. 13 Peter Mandler, The Fall and Rise of the Stately Home (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997), 86. 8

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comparatively few country-house guidebooks were published in the Victorian period.14 In the later nineteenth century, many country houses were closed to visitors: out of about a hundred houses which were ‘publicized as open to the public in the 1860s and 1870s, about half were closed by 1914, and of those two-thirds before 1900’.15 Our modern culture of country-house visiting broadly dates to the years following the Second World War, when the National Trust began opening many of the houses it had acquired and a number of country-house owners opened their houses in order to help make their estates financially viable. When they did so, the history of touring country houses was quickly looked to, and the eighteenth-century country-house tourists enabled an historical and ideological triumph: if tourists had once come to country houses, then it was only ‘natural’ that they should do so again. Many of the leading figures in the country-house preservation movement stressed that country houses were important sites of British heritage because of their longevity, including their historic role as tourist attractions. In a 1960 edition of Country Houses Open to the Public, Mark Girouard began his introduction by explaining that ‘In the 17th and 18th centuries visiting country houses as a sightseer was a common pastime, and the visitor of today is following an example made famous by John Evelyn, Celia Fiennes, Daniel Defoe, Horace Walpole, Mrs Lybbe Powys and Dr Pococke, to name only a few of those who recorded their impressions in print.’16 Fourteen years later, John Cornforth published Country Houses in Britain: Can They Survive?, in which he quoted Defoe’s Tour’s description of Wilton on the first page, declared people had been writing about country houses for over 350 years, began his list of country-house ‘admirers’ with Fiennes and, in introducing his discussion of modern tourism, was quick to note that ‘the opening of country houses was not a new idea, for some of the most famous ones had been receiving visitors for over 200 years’.17 In introducing the 1985 exhibition The Treasure Houses of Britain, Gervase Jackson-Stops began his discussion of country-house owners’ reasons for devoting extraordinary time and money to their houses with a description of the history of country-house tourism – including references to Letitia Beauchamp Proctor, Fiennes, Defoe and the first Duchess of Northumberland – and a declaration that country-house visiting was ‘something of a national pastime’.18 It had never been a national pastime to the extent it would become one in the twentieth century, but the eighteenth-century country-house tourists’ voices were firmly established in official narratives. Country-house owners also promoted the historical parallel. In The Gilt and the Gingerbread, or, How to Live in a Stately Home and Make Money (1967), Lord Montagu Giles Waterfield, The People’s Galleries: Art Museums and Exhibitions in Britain, 1800–1914 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2015), 15. John Harris, ‘English Country House Guides, 1740–1840’, in Concerning Architecture: Essays on Architectural Writers and Writing Presented to Nikolaus Pevsner, ed. John Summerson (London: Alan Lane, the Penguin Press, 1968), 69. 15 Mandler, Fall and Rise, 207. 16 Girouard, Country Houses Open to the Public, 5. 17 John Cornforth, Country Houses in Britain: Can They Survive? An Independent Report (London: Country Life, 1974), 1, 2, 14. 18 Gervase Jackson-Stops, ‘Temples of the Arts’, in The Treasure Houses of Britain, ed. Gervase JacksonStops (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1985), 15. 14

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of Beaulieu began by observing that while modern country-house tourism might be said to have begun in 1949 with the opening of Longleat (Wiltshire), this was not the beginning of the movement but rather one that was being ‘restarted’ because ‘It has its origins in the eighteenth century.’19 The Duke of Bedford, who became somewhat notorious for the lengths he was prepared to go to in promoting Woburn Abbey, declared that ‘People regard me as the founding father of the Stately Homes business which, I am sorry to say, I am not. Many Stately Homes were open to the public in the eighteenth century.’20 Many country-house guidebooks from the mid-twentieth century referred to and drew on eighteenth-century texts about tourism. When David Green published a guidebook to Blenheim in 1950, the cover illustration was a reproduction of John Bowles’s 1745 print of the house, and the quotation on the title page was a passage from the 1806 edition of Mavor’s New Description of Blenheim.21 A 1951 guide to Stourhead quoted John Britton, Richard Pococke, Caroline Powys, Horace Walpole, John Wesley and Samuel Curwen in reference to the gardens and the Pope Sixtus V cabinet.22 A 1957 guide to Wilton opened with an illustration of a 1769 advertisement published in the Salisbury and Winchester Journal in which John Griffen, a former servant of the Earl of Pembroke, announced that he had ‘taken the Inn called Lord Pembroke’s Arms, in Wilton, which, being situated near the grand Entrance of Wilton House, is the most convenient for those Ladies and Gentlemen who visit that famous Repository of Antiquities’.23 A 1958 guide to Castle Howard opened with a quotation from Walpole, and concluded with a note from the owner which declared ‘Visitors are as welcome today as they have been for two and a half centuries. I hope they will receive as much benefit and enjoyment from their visit as past generations have done.’24 As the modern heritage industry took shape and country houses were presented to twentieth-century tourists, their eighteenth-century predecessors’ interests and responses became crucial touchstones. Today, many eighteenth-century country-house tourists’ voices continue to be integrated into houses’ interpretation. Recent guidebooks to Kedleston, Knole and Holkham all referred to eighteenth-century tourists’ writings; a 2011 guide to Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal not only quotes Philip Yorke and an eighteenth-century visitor known only as Mr Knatchbull, it includes all four of Anthony Walker’s 1758 engravings among its illustrations.25 In 2013, Houghton hosted a special exhibition in which many paintings from the Walpole picture collection (now primarily in the Edward John Barrington Douglas Scott Montagu, Baron Montagu of Beaulieu, The Gilt and the Gingerbread, or, How to Live in a Stately Home and Make Money (London: Michael Joseph, 1967), 17. 20 John Russell, 13th Duke of Bedford, How to Run a Stately Home (London: André Deutsch, 1971), 11. 21 David Green, Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire (s. l.: Blenheim Estate Office, 1950), n. p. 22 Stourhead, Wiltshire (London: National Trust, 1951), 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 27. 23 Reginald Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, The History and Treasures of Wilton House, Salisbury (London: Pitkin Pictorials, 1957), inside cover, 11. 24 George Howard, Castle Howard (York and London: Ben Johnson & Company Limited, 1958), 1, 28. 25 Oliver Garnett, Kedleston Hall, 5th edn (Swindon: National Trust, 2006), 6–7. Robert SackvilleWest, Knole (Swindon: National Trust, 2006), 42. Roger White et al., Holkham (Coventry: Clifford Press, 2010), 55. Tessa Goldsmith, Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal (Swindon: National Trust, 2011), 39, 42, 37, 41, 43 and 44. 19

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Hermitage) were temporarily returned to the house, and the catalogue celebrated the recreation of the visitor experience, noting that eighteenth-century tourists ‘could not fail to be impressed, a response that surely remains the case today’.26 In a recent essay about the visitor experience at Stowe, Anna McEvoy (of the Stowe House Preservation Trust) noted that among the questions they considered about their guests/visitors/ tourists were How many of them realise that the house was visited by members of the public 300 years ago and still can be today? How do we get the same messages across without assuming an education in the classics that was taken as read in the original guidebooks? Does it matter? How can we give the air of following in the footsteps of 18th-century tourists while retaining a workable visitor flow and realising that our target audiences do not wear tricornes anymore?27

At these sites and many others, historic testimony as to the experience of viewing the house is a core element of the modern visitor experience, shaping everything from the routes tourists take through houses today to the information they are given about individual spaces and objects. Assertions that tourists visited country houses in the eighteenth century are of course correct, and I have no doubt that for many visitors today, knowing what previous generations thought about the houses they are touring does enrich their visit. What I hope this book has demonstrated, however, is that the emergence of countryhouse tourism may have been haphazard, but it was not ‘natural’. By definition, country houses were not public tourist attractions: in order for them to become so, they had to be written about, most often by ambitious travel writers or guidebook authors. Eighteenth-century tourists drew on and created a proliferation of writing that fed the growth of houses’ public identities, establishing them as cultural treasures which were ornaments and honours to the nation.28 In doing so, they ensured that country houses were not only tremendously well known in the eighteenth century, but that when there was a desire to establish them as heritage sites in the twentieth century, the role was there to be taken up again.

Andrew Moore, ‘Sir Robert Walpole, Prime Minister and Collector’, in Houghton Revisited (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 2013), 55. 27 Anna McEvoy, ‘Following in the Footsteps of 18th-Century Tourists: The Visitor Experience at Stowe over 300 Years’, in The Country House: Material Culture and Consumption, ed. Jon Stobart and Andrew Hann (Swindon: Historic England, 2016), 193. 28 Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 2 vols (London: W. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1776), I, 423. 26

Appendix: Country-House Guidebooks

This appendix provides an annotated list of English country-house guidebooks published up to and including 1815 (it does not include Joseph Heely’s books, which might be considered a form of guidebook as well – see Chapter 5); full citations of specific editions quoted in this study appear in the bibliography (on this list, changes in titles are noted in parentheses; changes in publisher are not). Many of these guides are identified in John Harris’s A Country House Index (Shalfleet Manor, Isle of Wight: Pinhorns, 1971).

Alnwick Castle (Northumberland) A Description of Alnwick Castle, Northumberland. Alnwick: J. Catnach, 1796. New edition: 1800. This guidebook was heavily based on the description of the castle published in Francis Grose’s The Antiquities of England and Wales, Volume IV (London: Hooper and Wigstead, 1772–6).

Blenheim Palace (Oxfordshire) Mavor, William. Blenheim, a Poem, to which Is Added, a Blenheim Guide. London: T. Cadell, 1787. New editions (as New Description of Blenheim): 1789, 1793, 1797, 1800, 1803, 1806, 1810, 1811, 1814. A French version of this guide was published in 1791 as Nouvelle Description de Blenheim. The text of this guidebook was initially published as an accompaniment to a long poem; after the first edition, the poem became the accompaniment to the description. From 1789 the guide included a map of the park, and in 1797 a ‘Preliminary Essay on Landscape Gardening’ and a description of the new China Gallery were added.

Browsholme (Lancashire) Catalogue of the Paintings in the Gallery, at Browsholme, the Seat of Thomas Lister Parker, Esq. Lancaster: William Minshull, 1807. This guide is only seven pages long: it deals with a single room, and combines identification of the pictures with brief commentary.

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Burghley (Lincolnshire) Horn, J. A History or Description, General and Circumstantial, of Burghley House. Shrewsbury: J. and W. Eddowes, 1797. Blore, Thomas. A Guide to Burghley House. Stamford: John Drakard, 1815. Blore’s guidebook was available in an abridged version, published under the same title; the long version was a larger volume which included additional plates, such as views of the house and of lodges in the park.

Castle Howard (North Yorkshire) Howard, Frederick, fifth Earl of Carlisle. A Descriptive Catalogue of the Pictures at Castle-Howard. Malton: G. Sagg, 1805. New edition: 1814. This guidebook is entirely focused on the house’s picture collection; it was published after the acquisition of paintings from the Orléans collection.

Corsham (Wiltshire) Britton, John. An Historical Account of Corsham House. London: Printed for the Author, 1806. This guidebook was dedicated to the patrons of the British Institution, and in addition to the description of the house, it features an essay on the history of the fine arts which covers both major historical schools and the state of the arts in England, and forty pages of artist biographies.

Cowdray (West Sussex) A Catalogue of the Pictures at Cowdray-House. Portsmouth: R. Carr, 1777. This guidebook is effectively a pamphlet guide, dealing only with the picture collection.

Duncombe Park (North Yorkshire) A Catalogue of the Pictures and Statues at Duncombe Park. Kirbymoorside: s. n., 1797. A Description of Duncombe Park and Rivalx [sic] Abbey &c. Attempted. Kirbymoorside: Harrison and Cooper, 1812. The Description relied heavily on Arthur Young’s account of the house, with updated information to reflect recent acquisitions. The author of the Description published his account of Rivaux Abbey in the Gentleman’s Magazine in 1810; this ruin was nearby, and it was illustrated on the guidebook’s frontispiece.

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Hardwicke Gardens (County Durham) A Walk through Hardwicke Gardens. Stockton upon Tees: W. Elstob, 1800. These gardens were not nearly as well known as most of the other estates listed here, but their presentation in the guidebook is similar to descriptions of major countryhouse gardens; there was a clear circuit, and the text offers extensive information about the buildings the visitor would encounter.

Hawkstone (Shropshire) Rodenhurst, T. A Description of Hawkstone. Shrewsbury: s. n., 1766. New editions: 1784, 1786, 1792, 1799, 1802, 1803, 1807, 1811. In the late eighteenth century, Sir Richard Hill made significant additions to these gardens and the guidebook grew accordingly: an entire second section was added in 1799, by which time the guidebook had grown from forty-eight pages (in 1784) to eighty-five pages. Later editions (1807, 1811) could be purchased with a series of illustrations.

Holkham (Norfolk) A Description of Holkham House, in Norfolk. Norwich: R. Beatniffe, 1775. Richard Beatniffe also published the highly successful travel guide The Norfolk Tour (1772, 1773, 1777, 1786, 1795, 1808), which covered many country houses including Holkham, Houghton, Blickling and Narford.

Kedleston (Derbyshire) Curzon, Nathaniel, first Baron Scarsdale. Catalogue of the Pictures, Statues, & c. at Kedleston. S. l.: s. n., c. 1769. New editions: c. 1770, c. 1777, c. 1792, c. 1810. Copies of this guidebook rarely have dates, which can cause considerable confusion; editions can normally only be dated by referring to studies of ongoing work at the house (particularly in the saloon). In addition, some of the later editions include ‘Some Account of the Architecture’ of the house.

Knole (Kent) Willis, H. N. Biographical Sketches of Eminent Persons, Whose Portraits Form Part of the Duke of Dorset’s Collection at Knole. With a Brief Description of the Place. London: John Stockdale, 1795.

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Although most of this book is devoted to biographies of the subjects of the historic portraits on display, it opens with a short description of the house itself and it includes two views of it. It does not discuss the Old Masters on display, or the works by Joshua Reynolds.

Mount Edgcumbe (Cornwall) A Walk round Mount-Edgcumbe. [Plymouth-Dock: L. Congdon], 1807. New editions: c. 1810, 1812. Surviving editions of this guidebook are extremely rare; the third edition is the earliest in the British Library, but the first edition can be dated from notices of publication (see Chapter 1). It features two different tours of the gardens.

Nuneham-Courtenay (Oxfordshire) Harcourt, George Simon, Earl Harcourt. Description of Nuneham-Courtenay. S. l.: s. n., 1783. New editions: 1797, 1806. Alongside the description of the house and gardens, from 1797 this guide included a selection of poems written at Nuneham-Courtenay.

Stourhead (Wiltshire) Hoare, Sir Richard Colt. A Description of the House and Gardens at Stourhead. Salisbury: J. Easton, 1800. Despite its title and the fame of Stourhead’s gardens, this guidebook focuses primarily on the picture collection.

Stowe (Buckinghamshire) Seeley, Benton. A Description of the Gardens of Lord Viscount Cobham, at Stow. Northampton: W. Dicey, 1744. New editions: 1745, 1746, 1747, 1748, 1749, 1750 (now published as Stow: The Gardens of the Right Honourable the Lord Viscount Cobham; subtitles would vary slightly in later editions), 1752, 1756, 1759, 1762, 1763, 1766, 1768, 1769, 1773, 1777, 1780, 1783, 1788, 1797 (now published under J. Seeley’s name), 1798. This guide began as a description of the gardens only; a description of the inside of the house was being included by 1762. From 1750, illustrations of the temples were available (the set included over thirty views of the temples and two of the house, and it was possible to purchase the guide with or without them); new illustrations were created for the 1797 edition.

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Bickham, George. The Beauties of Stow. London: E. Owen, 1750. New editions: 1753, 1756.

Wilton (Wiltshire) Cowdry, Richard. A Description of the Pictures, Statues, Busto’s, Basso-Relievo’s, and Other Curiosities at the Earl of Pembroke’s House at Wilton. London: J. Robinson, 1751. New edition: 1752. In 1754, Antonio Pillori published an Italian edition of this book (Descrizione delle pitture, statue, busti, ed altre curiosità esistenti in Inghilterra à Wilton nella villa di Mylord conte di Pembroke, e di Montgomery/operetta tradotta dall’inglese, e dedicata a sua eccellenza Mylord conte suddetto). Kennedy, James. A New Description of the Pictures, Statues, Bustos, Basso-Relievos, and Other Curiosities at the Earl of Pembroke’s House at Wilton. Salisbury: Benjamin Collins, 1758. New editions: 1764, 1768, 1771, 1774, 1776, 1778, 1779. Ædes Pembrochianæ: Or a Critical Account of the Statues, Bustos, Relievos, Paintings, Medals, and other Antiquities and Curiosities at Wilton-House. London: R. Baldwin, 1774. New editions: 1778, 1784, 1788, 1795, 1798. There are significant connections between Kennedy’s Description and Ædes Pembrochianæ; however, editions of the latter often include more art historical information, such as ‘A Dissertation on the Origin, Progress, and Decay of Sculpture among the Greeks and Romans’. Kennedy also published an illustrated volume which focuses on the collection of sculptures: Kennedy, James. A Description of the Antiquities and Curiosities in Wilton-House. Illustrated with Twenty-five Engravings of Some of the Capital Statues, Bustos, and Relievos. In this Work Are Introduced the Anecdotes and Remarks of Thomas Earl of Pembroke, Who Collected These Antiques, Now First Published from His Lordship’s MSS. Salisbury: E. Easton, 1769. New editions: 1781, 1786.

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Index Page references in bold refer to illustrations. access/admission to country houses 9, 42–6, 54, 81–2, 160–1, 162, 163, 192–3, 198 Adam, Robert 60, 74, 76, 93, 134, 139, 149, 151, 154 The Works in Architecture of Robert and James Adam 61 Ai Weiwei 196 Aislabie, John and William 162 Alnwick Castle (Northumberland) 46, 60, 65, 66, 71, 73 interior of 89–90, 127, 140, 154, 156 Althorp (Northamptonshire) 73, 92–3 Andrew, Robert 40, 128, 129 Anguissola, Sofonisba 122 Angus, William 10, 65 antiquities/antiquarian interests 27–8, 73–4 Aram, Peter 185 architectural books 61–2, 74 art exhibitions 9, 29, 64, 100, 107, 109, 113, 122 Austen, Jane 32, 45, 183 Bant, Millicent 25, 40, 151, 153 Baroque architecture in England 13, 70. See also specific houses Barret, George 64 Basildon Park (Berkshire) 75 Bath 26, 29–30, 32 Beckford, William 154–6 Bellini, Giovanni 120 Belvoir Castle (Leicestershire) 135 Bickham, George 10. See also guidebooks, under Stowe Birmingham 30 Blenheim Palace (Oxfordshire) 4, 6–7, 16, 40, 195–6, 197, 199 access to/cost of visiting 35, 43, 48, 195 architecture of 13, 59, 60, 61, 69–70, 71, 78–9, 84–6, 87

art collection at 92, 99, 103, 111–13, 112, 126, 132, 195–6 ceramics collection at 51 decorative history painting at 84, 196 furnishings at 132, 133 gardens at 159, 160, 170, 175, 176, 192–3, 196 guidebook 199 on architecture/space 79, 87 on art 113, 117 on furnishings/interior decorations 133, 138 on gardens 160, 170, 187–8 writing/format/publication of 52–3, 54, 55, 56, 71, 196 prints depicting 64, 65, 67, 68 tapestries at 84, 132, 138, 195–6 visitor numbers at 45 visitors’ route/routines of tours 46, 84–6, 85, 196 Boswell, James 100, 109 Bott, William 83 Bowles, John 199 Boydell, John 64, 111–13, 124 Bray, William 34, 35, 76, 104, 135, 175 Bretby (Derbyshire) 44 Brettingham, Matthew 16, 75–6 Bridger, Frances 76, 91, 102, 156 Britannica Curiosa 77, 124 Britton, John 53, 199. See also guidebook, under Corsham Brown, Capability 160, 165, 175–6, 196 Brown, John 178 Bruce, Charles, Lord 179 Buckler, J. C. 128 Burghley House (Lincolnshire) 12, 40, 44, 60, 68, 71 access to 42–3 architecture of 60, 79–80, 87

Index art collection at Dolci, Carlo, Our Lord Blessing the Bread and Wine 102–3 Giordano, Luca, The Death of Seneca 91, 92, 104, 106, 111, 111 paintings 18, 41, 74, 101, 102, 116, 118, 119, 124, 126, 135, 144, 195 sculpture at 117 decorative history paintings at 74, 131, 137–8 furniture at 129–30, 130–1, 152–4 Guide to Burghley 71, 80, 87, 88, 103, 115, 117, 118, 120, 153 A History or Description…of Burghley 12, 56, 57, 80, 100–1, 103, 119–20, 187 prints/illustrations depicting 65, 66 Burke, Edmund 10, 189 Burlington, Richard Boyle, third Earl of 16, 74, 75, 78 Burrell, (Sir) William 189 Buxton 30 Byng, (the Hon.) John 9, 19, 189–91 Campbell, Colen 61 Caro, Anthony 197 Carracci, Annibale 91, 106–7, 118, 119 Carr, John 45, 75 Carron Iron Works 30 Carter, Joanna 61 Castell, Robert 74 Castle Howard (North Yorkshire) 4, 13, 49, 64, 199 architecture of 60, 61, 69 art collection at 106–7, 116, 126 furnishings at 132, 142–4, 146 guidebook 54, 79, 106, 120 prints depicting 65, 67, 68 catalogues/lists of art works 52–3, 92–102, 166, 169 Catherine the Great 125 Cavaceppi, Bartolomeo 107–8, 110 Certeau, Michel de 14, 17 Chambers, (Sir) William 74, 133 chapels 90, 131, 154 Chatsworth (Derbyshire) 4, 10–11, 26–7, 32, 40, 76, 197 architecture of 61, 73, 87

229

described as a palace 60, 63 garden at 164, 175 interiors of 135, 136–7, 137, 142, 143, 156 paintings/prints depicting 64, 65, 68 chimney pieces 128, 132, 146, 150–1 Chippendale, Thomas 128, 134, 141, 148, 151 Chiswick House (Middlesex) 29 Clark, Amelia 29, 48, 195 Clarke, Edward Daniel 85–6, 188–9 Clarke, Walter 160 Clark, Harriet 30, 190–1 classical architecture 74–5, 78, 80–1. See also specific houses Claude Gellée, called Claude Lorrain 178 Clerk, John 156–7 Cobham, Richard Temple, Viscount 11, 49, 138, 173 Cogan, Thomas 161 Coldham, James 40, 69, 151 The Complete English Traveller 10, 36, 60, 64, 131–2 A Complete System of Geography 40, 60, 73 connoisseurs/connoisseurship 4, 134–8 and architecture 68, 71, 74, 75, 78, 128 and art 102, 109, 114, 115, 122–3 Coombe, William 183 Correggio (Antonio Allegri) 119 Corsham (Wiltshire) 32, 48, 197 art collection at 82, 92, 101, 116, 119 guidebook 53, 56, 71, 87, 101, 114–15, 120, 122, 123 interior decorations/spaces at 82, 150–1 prints/illustrations depicting 65, 71, 72 visitors’ route at 82, 83 Cotton, Charles 32 country-house guidebooks 19, 20, 41, 51–8, 71. See also specific houses art historical narratives in 113–23 authors of 52–3 formats 54–6, 55, 101 frontispieces of 71, 72, 124, 125, 180 on furniture 133, 144–6 on gardens 166–7, 167, 168, 171 and identifying art works 100–1 illustrations in 50, 56, 88, 89, 166–7, 167, 168, 178, 179

230

Index

poetry in 187–8 and routes through country houses 87–8, 88, 89 country-house owners and accommodations for tourists 49–51, 93, 96, 161–2 and admitting tourists to houses 41–3, 46, 48, 81–2 and classical architecture 74 and collecting practices 12, 16, 93, 95, 152 and country-house guidebooks 52–3 and education 121 and gardens 171–2 and heirlooms/legacies 126, 141, 146–8 and land management/ownership 182–3, 192–3 and politeness 1, 41, 42–3, 48, 81, 83, 99 and political power/influence 10–11, 192–3 and rank/deference 11, 78, 134, 139 and taste 148–56 Cowdray House (West Sussex) 56, 100 Craig-Martin, Michael 197 Cruttwell, (Rev.) Clement 22–3, 126, 172 Cubitt, Maria 41, 101, 102, 126 Cumming, J. P. 152 curiosity/curiosities 54, 142, 152 Curwen, Samuel 45, 70, 144, 199 da Sesto, Cesare 119 Dallaway, James 70, 78 Dawson, Eliza 39–40 Dayes, Edward 122 Day, Robert 129 de Caus, Isaac 77 de Grey, Thomas 45, 46, 113 decorative history painting 74, 131, 135–8, 137 decorum 150 Defoe, Daniel/A Tour thro’ the Whole Island of Great Britain 18, 33, 40, 61, 198 on Burghley 18, 68, 104, 131 on Castle Howard 69, 70 on Chatsworth 63, 73 on Holkham 60

on Kedleston 33 on Stowe 160 on Wilton 18, 124, 198 ‘The Destruction of the Country House’ (exhibition, Victoria and Albert Museum) 3 Dibdin, Charles 46 Ditchley (Oxfordshire) 99, 128–9 Dodsley, Robert 161, 177 Dolci, Carlo 91, 102–3 Domenichino (Domenico Zampieri) 96, 98, 119 domestic tourism historiography 3–5, 12 Drake, Thomas 79, 119 Drake, William 25–6, 79, 119 Dudley, (Rev.) John 124, 164 Dughet, Gaspard 64 Duncombe, Charles 108–9 Duncombe Park (North Yorkshire) 46, 107–11, 108, 110, 122, 131–2, 144, 179–80, 180, 188 Earlom, Richard 111, 112 Easton Neston (Northamptonshire) 131 Edgcote (Northamptonshire) 129 Edinburgh 27 Elizabethan architecture 70, 79–80. See also specific houses empire 13, 183, 197 England Displayed 35–6, 40, 77, 103, 128–9, 132 Envil (Staffordshire) 161, 169, 192 Etruria (Staffordshire) 139 Euston Hall (Suffolk) 25 Evans, John 104, 124, 185 Evelyn, John 198 Eyre, (the Ven.) John, Archdeacon of Nottingham 46, 109 factories 30, 31, 139 Fenton, Richard 51, 140 Ferrar, John 56 Fiennes, Celia 18, 19, 20, 26–7, 43–4, 130–1, 198 Fonthill (Wiltshire) 32, 63, 65, 92, 154–5 Fountains Abbey (North Yorkshire) 162, 171, 175, 180–1, 199 Francazano, Francesco 120

Index French Revolution 4, 11, 12, 106, 107, 183 French, Robert 43, 79 furnishings and interior decorations 127–57 and art collections 128–9 beds 130–1, 133, 146, 151, 152–4, 153 cabinets 134, 144, 145 and consumers/consumer goods 138–9, 140–1, 150 decorative schemes 149, 150–2, 154–6 and precious metals 146–8 and rare stones 142–6 tables 131, 142–4, 146 Fuseli, Henry 115 Gambarini, Carlo 95 Gandon, James 61 garden circuits 164–73 garden history (in the eighteenth century) 159–60 garden seats 164, 177 garden temples 15, 164–5, 166–9, 168, 170, 173 Gilpin, (Rev.) William 31, 40, 106, 109–11, 155, 164, 174, 175–8, 180–3 Giordano, Luca 91, 104, 106, 111, 111 Giorgione 120 Glorious Revolution 10 Gothic Revival architecture and design 62, 70, 82, 154, 156. See also specific houses Grand Tour 12, 16, 36–7, 122, 124, 142, 144 Grantham, Thomas Philip, third Lord 46 Graves, Richard 161 Gray, Jonathan 45, 140, 154, 160–1 Gray, William 45, 101, 119 Griffen, John 199 Grimston, (the Hon.) James Bucknall 57, 191, 196 Grose, Francis 10, 73 Habermas, Jürgen 7–9 Hackfall (North Yorkshire) 175, 178, 189–91, 190 Haddon (Derbyshire) 64 Hagley (West Midlands) 9, 40, 46, 175, 179

231

gardens at 159, 161, 169, 172–3, 177–8, 185, 186, 191, 192 Hamond, Anthony 60, 68, 159 Hampton Court (Middlesex) 29, 149 Hanway, Jonas 144 Harcourt, George Simon, second Earl Harcourt 160, 184, 186. See also Nuneham-Courtenay Harewood (West Yorkshire) 134–5, 149, 175 Harrogate 30 Hawksmoor, Nicholas 13 Hawkstone (Shropshire) 49, 50 gardens at 160–1, 171, 189, 191 guidebook 56, 57, 58, 161, 178, 189 Heely, Joseph 169, 171, 177–8, 186, 192 heritage industry 2–4, 196–200. See also national culture/national heritage Hildyard, (Sir) Robert D’Arcy 59, 91, 107, 113, 143 Historic England 59 Historic Houses Association 2 Hoare, Henry, II 144, 156. See also Stourhead Hoare, (Sir) Richard Colt 128, 166. See also Stourhead Hodges, Charles Howard 111–12 Hogarth, William 141 Holbein, Hans 77–8 Holkham (Norfolk) 4, 16, 28, 40, 44, 60, 65, 140, 199 architecture of 59, 61, 75–6, 77, 135, 136 art collection at 91, 93, 99 furniture at 130, 131, 132, 146, 152, 153 guidebook 76, 133, 146 Holroyd, Sarah Martha 107 Hone, Nathaniel 91–2 hospitality 5, 8, 41–6 Houghton (Norfolk) 6–7, 28, 40, 60, 61, 65, 87, 132, 199–200 Ædes Walpolianæ 95–6, 100, 124 art collection at 93, 95–6, 99, 113, 124–6, 195 interior decorations at 127–8, 132, 156–7 Hutchinson, William 31 Hutton, Catherine 49

232

Index

Ince, William 133, 141 inns 49–51, 50, 199 Ireland 12 Jefferson, Thomas 159 Jennings, Henry 108 Johnson, Samuel 109 Jones, Inigo 77–8, 80 Jonson, Ben 42 Kedleston (Derbyshire) 6–7, 14, 16, 48, 49, 60, 65, 175, 199 architecture of 60, 68, 69, 70, 75, 76–7, 82–3, 86, 87 art collection at 91–2, 93–4, 101, 104, 119, 195 furniture/interior decorations at 86, 128, 131, 139, 147–8, 149, 151–2 guidebook 47, 52, 76–7, 83, 99, 100 housekeeper at 46, 47, 100 visitors’ route at 82–3, 83–4, 84, 86 Kent, William 16, 74, 75, 93, 127–8, 132, 138 Kerr, Mary 69–70, 104, 152–3 Kett, Henry 122 Kimbolton (Cambridgeshire) 131 Kip, Johannes 11 kitchens 81, 82–3 Knight, Richard Payne 175, 182–3 Knole (Kent) 45, 60, 71, 118, 146, 147, 148, 149, 199 Knyff, Leonard 11 Koninck, Salomon 104 Laguerre, Louis 136 Lake District 12, 17, 26, 30–1, 178, 188 Lambert, George 63–4 La Rochefoucauld, Alexandre de 42–3, 155–6 La Rochefoucauld, François de 126 Lazowski, Maximilien de 124 The Leasowes (Shropshire) 9, 161, 164–5, 165, 169, 171–2, 175, 177, 185–6, 192 Lefebvre, Henri 8, 14 Legge, (the Hon.) H. 76, 79–80, 89–90, 102, 116 Leicester, Thomas William Coke, first Earl of 16, 75, 78, 93, 140

Leonardo da Vinci 91, 119, 120 Leoni, Giacomo 74 Lewis, Mary 76, 91, 102, 156 Linnell, John 128, 139 Locke, William 109 London 26, 28–9. See also art exhibitions British Museum 124–5 Greenwich Hospital 29 Kensington Palace 6, 149 Sir John Soane’s Museum 86–7 Westminster Abbey 29, 82 Longford Castle (Wiltshire) 32, 92, 99–100, 132 Longleat (Wiltshire) 199 Loveday, John 131 Lowth, Thomas 80 luxury 134, 139, 147–8, 150 Machell, John 68, 116 Macky, John 33, 149 MacRitchie, (Rev.) William 29, 45 Manchester 30 Manners, John Henry 155 manufacturing 138–9. See also factories Maratta, Carlo 91, 118 Marlborough, George Spencer, fourth Duke of 51, 52–3, 92, 141. See also Blenheim Marlow, William 64 Marot, Daniel 149 Martyn, Thomas 76, 96–9, 186 Mason, William 15, 160, 188 Maton, William George 27, 30 Mavor, William 34, 37, 48, 52–3. See also guidebook, under Blenheim Mayhew, John 133, 141 Methuen, Paul Cobb 53, 82 Metz, Conrad Martin 68 Michelangelo Buonarroti 119 Milles, (Rev.) Jeremiah 92–3 Milton, John 186, 187 The Modern Universal British Traveller 36, 37, 38, 77, 104, 105, 132, 144 Monson, (the Hon.) Mrs William 71, 116, 154 Montagu, Edward John Barrington Douglas Scott, Baron Montagu of Beaulieu 198–9

Index Montagu, Elizabeth 173 Morgan, Mary 79 Mount Edgcumbe (Cornwall) 19, 161–2, 169, 177, 178–9, 185–6, 188–9 guidebook 53–4, 56, 169–70 prints depicting 68, 161, 162 Myron 109–11 Napoleonic wars 124, 126 Narford (Norfolk) 28, 99 Nash, John 82 national culture/national heritage 2–7, 12, 43, 51, 96, 123–6, 196–200 National Heritage Act 3 National Trust 2, 196, 198 neoclassical architecture/design 62, 70, 74, 76–7, 139. See also specific houses A New Display of the Beauties of England 36, 64, 73–4, 83 The New Oxford Guide 70, 83, 99, 132 A New Pocket Companion to Oxford 186 Newdigate, (Sir) Roger 142 Newstead Abbey (Nottinghamshire) 74 Nicholson, Francis 128 Nightingale, Joseph 57 Norfolk (as a tourist destination) 28, 32 The Norfolk Tour 32, 76, 83, 99, 125, 132 North, Roger 93 Northumberland, Elizabeth Percy, first Duchess of 198 Northumberland, Hugh Percy, first Duke of 154, 155 Nourse, Timothy 93 novels 32–3, 37, 45, 141, 161, 183 Nuneham-Courtenay (Oxfordshire) 45, 63, 64, 65, 122, 126, 128, 160 gardens/park at 160, 175, 176, 184, 186–7, 187, 188 Okeover Hall (Staffordshire) 51, 105 Old Masters 102–7, 111–13, 117–23, 195–6. See also specific artists and houses Oliver, Peter 40, 45, 57, 105–6, 178–9, 192 opening hours 9, 48 Ord, Craven 28, 96 Ord, William 60, 69

233

Orléans collection 106–7 Orlebar, Mary 172–3, 186 Oxford, Edward Harley, second Earl of 43–4 Paine, James 61 paintings 15, 93–4. See also Old Masters; portraits; specific artists and houses Palladian architecture and design in England 16, 74, 87. See also specific architects and houses Palladio, Andrea 74, 78 Paris Louvre 124, 126 Palais Royal 107 Parnell, (Sir) John 152, 172, 177 patriotism and tourism 28, 36–8. See also national culture/national heritage Peak District 6, 26, 27, 31, 32, 188 Penshurst (Kent) 42 Perry, Charles 69, 131 Petworth (West Sussex) 149 picturesque 17, 32, 70, 173–84, 188, 189 Pigott, Edward 45, 69, 156 Pilkington, Matthew 114 Plumptre, James 45, 49, 101, 127, 154 Pococke, Richard 30, 198, 199 poetry 11, 42, 184–8 politeness/polite society 10, 39, 41, 42, 139–40, 148, 150, 163–4, 171, 193. See also country-house owners, and politeness and art and design 62, 94, 96, 103, 149 Pope, Alexander 29, 185 portraits 14–15, 91–2, 101, 105–6, 118, 141. See also specific artists Poussin, Nicolas 118, 178 Powys, Caroline Lybbe 19, 45, 96, 99–100, 144, 146, 149–50, 155, 198, 199 Price, (Rev.) John 40 Price, Uvedale 78, 175, 176, 182–3 prints depicting art works in country houses 97, 98, 111–13, 111, 112, 195 depicting country houses 9, 10, 11, 36, 37, 64–8, 65–7

234 depicting gardens 161, 162, 162, 163, 165, 176, 187, 190 privacy (at country houses) 8, 13, 81, 82, 139–40 Proctor, Letitia Beauchamp 75–6, 99, 152, 198 public sphere 7–10 Raby Castle (County Durham) 129–30 Rainham (Norfolk) 28, 40, 65 Ralph, James 78 Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio) 51, 105, 118, 119, 120 Rashleigh, Philip 142–3 Rembrandt van Rijn 91, 104, 118, 122 Reni, Guido 95–6, 97, 119 Reynolds, Joshua 91–2, 115, 118–19, 120, 196 Richardson, Dorothy 31–2, 39–40, 45, 48, 83, 151–2 Richardson, George 139 Richardson, Jonathan 93, 115, 122 Richardson, Samuel 160 Rievaulx Abbey (North Yorkshire) 179–80, 180 Ripley, Thomas 61 Rishton, Maria 191 roads 26–7 romantic 184, 188–91 Rosa, Salvator 120, 178 Rose, Joseph 139, 148 routes through country houses 81–90, 100, 164, 170, 200 routines/protocols 9, 46–9, 196 Rowlandson, Thomas 183 Royal Academy 29, 100, 111, 115, 123 Rubens, Peter Paul 91, 111–13, 112 Russell, John, thirteenth Duke of Bedford 25, 199 Russell, Mary 49, 58 The Salisbury Guide 128 Sandby, Paul 64, 66 Sargent, John Singer 196 Sassoferrato (Giovanni Battista Salvi) 96, 98 The Scarborough Guide 132

Index Scarsdale, Nathaniel Curzon, first Baron 49, 52, 76, 77, 91, 115, 128. See also Kedleston Scheemakers, Peter 150–1 Schopenhauer, Johanna 48 Scotland 12, 31, 32, 37, 188 sculptures (displayed in country houses) 15, 91, 107–11, 115–17 The Seats of the Nobility and Gentry (print series) 65 Second World War 4, 198 sentiment 191 servants (as guides at country houses) 46–8, 47, 49, 54, 81, 113, 153–4, 166 and lack of information 92–3, 99, 101 Shaw, (Rev.) Stebbing 34, 63, 86, 169 Shenstone, William 161, 164–5, 169, 171, 174, 177 Shonibare, Yinka 197 Shuckburgh Hall (Warwickshire) 44 Simond, Louis 49, 107, 154 Skrine, Henry 60, 154, 189 Smith, Adam 5–6, 10, 23, 160 Smith, Thomas (Smith of Derby) 64, 68 Smollett, Tobias 32–3, 37 Soane, (Sir) John 86–7 Society of Dilettanti 128 spa towns 29–30 Spalding, Samuel 51 Spence, Joseph 115 Spencer, Frederick Charles 103 state rooms/rooms of parade 81, 83–4, 127–8, 140. See also specific houses Stonehenge (Wiltshire) 27, 32 Stourhead (Wiltshire) 1, 9, 16, 32, 49, 51, 140, 161, 197, 199 architecture of 60, 87 art collection at 92 furniture at 128, 144, 145, 146, 152 gardens at 159, 160, 163–4, 170, 173, 177, 191 guidebook 54, 56, 57, 120 Stowe (Buckinghamshire) 5–7, 11, 36, 68, 161, 200 access to/accommodations for visitors 49, 50, 81–2 architecture of 60, 74, 75, 89, 89

Index art collection at 118 gardens at 159, 163–4, 166–9, 167, 168, 170, 172, 173, 174–5, 185–6, 191 guidebooks 54–6, 57, 87, 89, 118, 138, 160, 166–9, 167, 168 interior of 138, 146, 148 Strawberry Hill (Middlesex) 29, 129 Stuart, James ‘Athenian’ 74, 128 Studley Royal (North Yorkshire) 159, 163, 170–1, 174–5, 180–1, 185–6, 189, 191, 199. See also Hackfall visitor protocol/routines at 49, 162 Stukeley, William 27–8, 33, 74 sublime 184, 188–91 Sulivan, Richard Joseph 34, 35, 148 at Duncombe Park 109 at Fonthill 63, 155 at Kedleston 48 at Stourhead 1, 9 at Wentworth Woodhouse 61 at Wilton 56, 124 Supple, Richard 149 tapestry 84, 127, 129, 130–1, 132, 134, 138, 195–6 taste 28, 54, 57, 114, 182, 196 in architecture 62, 63, 74, 75, 78, 80 and art works 96–9, 114 and furniture 129, 148–56 Temple Newsam (West Yorkshire) 99 Thornes House (West Yorkshire) 75 Thornhill, (Sir) James 136, 136 Thorpe, John 80 Titian (Tiziano Vecellio) 91, 120, 122 topographical paintings (depicting country houses) 11, 63–4 tourist gaze 16–17 tourist industry/infrastructure 5, 17, 20, 26, 174, 178. See also country-house guidebooks; heritage industry; inns; roads; servants tourist itineraries 25–41 tourist numbers 4–5, 9, 17, 20, 44–6, 196 travel books 33–6. See also specific titles and authors travel diaries/tourist writings 17–18, 19 and approaches to writing 39–40, 116, 130–1, 149–50, 170–1, 178–81

235

and references to books 10, 20, 40–1, 57, 192 Tunbridge Wells 30 Vanbrugh, (Sir) John 13, 60, 62–3, 69–70, 78–9, 84–6, 166 van Dyck, Anthony 91, 105–6, 120, 196 Van Schaack, Peter 170, 191, 195 Vasari, Giorgio 120–1 Verrio, Antonio 74, 131, 136, 137–8 Versailles 5–6, 10 views of country houses 62–72 Viner, (Rev.) Samuel 31 virtual tourism 8, 9, 163, 169, 192, 193 The Virtuosi’s Museum 64–5, 66 Vivares, Francis 64, 65 Wales 31, 32, 188 Walker, A. (author of Remarks Made in a Tour) 70 Walker, Anthony 162, 163, 199 Walpole, Horace 19, 44, 95–6, 108–9, 159, 198, 199. See also Houghton; Strawberry Hill Anecdotes of Painting 80, 119, 120–1 Walpole, (Sir) Robert 61, 95–6, 173. See also Houghton Wanstead (Essex) 59 Ware, Isaac 61 Warner, Richard 35, 104, 121–2, 134–5, 170, 178 Watts, William 65 Webb, Daniel 161 Wedgwood, Josiah 139 Welbeck (Nottinghamshire) 64, 74 Wentworth Castle (South Yorkshire) 31, 34, 43, 155–6 Wentworth Woodhouse (South Yorkshire) 31, 44–5, 61 Wesley, John 199 West, Benjamin 92, 114–15 West, Gilbert 185 West, Thomas 31 Whately, Thomas 15, 159, 184 Whitehead, William 186–7 Wilkes, John 124–5 Willoughby, Cassandra 43–4 Wilton, Joseph 117

236 Wilton (Wiltshire) 10, 32, 36, 40, 45, 74, 81, 197, 199 A Description of the Earl of Pembroke’s Pictures 95, 100 Ædes Pembrochianæ 78, 100, 114, 115, 116–17, 121–2, 123, 146 architecture of 59, 77–8 art collection at 9, 91, 92, 95, 115, 116, 126, 128, 144, 195 furniture at 128, 129–30, 146, 148 guidebooks 9, 53, 99 as a museum/site of national culture 5–7, 18, 22–3, 124, 126 A New Description of … Wilton 56, 115, 119, 124, 125 portraits displayed at 91–2, 105–6, 105 prints depicting 37, 65, 68 Wiltshire (as tourist destination) 32 Wimpole Hall (Cambridgeshire) 43 Winckelmann, Johann Joachim 115, 116–17, 123 Windsor Castle (Berkshire) 6, 29 Woburn Abbey (Bedfordshire) 10, 44, 48, 74, 175, 199

Index Wollaton Hall (Nottinghamshire) 43 women (as residents of country houses) 13, 139–40 Woodstock 170, 193, 195 Woolfe, John 61 Worksop (Nottinghamshire) 135 Wotton, (Sir) Henry 42 Wye River/Valley 31, 176, 182, 188 Wyndham, William 79 Yorke, Philip 27, 76, 112–13, 124, 199 Young, Arthur 18, 33–4, 46, 59–60, 83, 99, 160, 174 on Blenheim 59, 78–9 on Burghley 103 on Hagley 186 on Holkham 59, 131, 135, 140 on Kedleston 99, 131 on the Leasowes 172 on Studley 174–5 on Temple Newsam 99 on Wanstead 59 on Wentworth Castle 43 on Wilton 59, 99

Plate 1  Carlo Dolci, Our Lord Blessing the Bread and Wine, mid-seventeenth century, oil on canvas, 84 × 68.5 cm. Burghley House Collection, Lincolnshire, UK/Bridgeman Images.

Plate 2 Salomon Koninck, Daniel before Nebuchadnezzar, 1630–56, oil on canvas, 165 × 165 cm. © National Trust Images/John Hammond.

Plate 3  Annibale Carracci, The Three Maries/The Dead Christ Mourned, c. 1604, oil on canvas, 92.8 × 103.2 cm. © National Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY.

Plate 4 Rembrandt van Rijn, Man in Oriental Costume (‘The Noble Slav’), 1632, oil

on canvas, 152.7 × 111.1 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, bequest of William K. Vanderbilt, 1920.

Plate 5  The Picture Gallery at Corsham. Bridgeman Images.

Plate 6  The Drawing Room at Kedleston. © National Trust Images/Nadia Mackenzie.

Plate 7  S. J. Neele, fold-out plan of the park at Blenheim, 1797, from William Mavor, New Description of Blenheim, 6th edn, Oxford: Slatter and

Munday, 1803, coloured engraving, 37.6 × 24.9 cm. Collection Centre Canadien d’Architecture/Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal, gift of Phyllis Lambert.

Plate 8  John Emes, The Lake, Hawkstone Park, Shropshire, 1790, graphite, watercolour and

pen with brown and black ink on smooth, medium, cream wove paper, 41.6 × 60.3 cm. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.