The story of domestic servants is inseparable from the story of the development of the English country house as it became an icon of power, civilization and luxury. English country houses from the 17th century to the 20th century were reliant on an intricate hierarchy of servants, each of whom provided an essential skill. This is particularly true with the great estates such as Chatsworth, Knole, Holkham Hall, Waddesdon Manor, Cliveden, and Wilton, among others. For centuries, these grand houses were admired and imitated around the world.

In this lecture, Jeremy Musson will look at 600 years of British country house life and discuss the activities and servant populations of country houses and the running of the daily life of a household. He will discuss how the presence of a large country house servant body influenced the planning and shaping of the houses architecture with the development of service zones of considerable sophistication. Drawing on both published and unpublished sources, Mr. Musson will celebrate the voices of the servants who ran these vast houses and made them work. Through extracts from memoirs and letters, he will explore some of the elaborate rituals and hierarchies of noble households right up until the late-20th century.

Jeremy Musson

Jeremy Musson is a leading commentator and authority on the English Country House. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and sits on a number of boards and trusts including the Country House Foundation. He was awarded an M Phil in Renaissance History at the Warburg Institute, University of London, in 1989 and was Architectural Editor of Country Life from 1995-2007. Before joining Country Life in 1995, Mr. Musson was an assistant regional curator for the National Trust in East Anglia, curating historic houses such as Ickworth House, and at the same time setting up the research and interpretation of new sites such as, the ex-bomb testing range and nature reserve at Orford Ness in Suffolk. He has written and edited hundreds of articles on historic country houses, from Garsington Manor to Knebworth House. Mr. Musson also presented 14 programmes on BBC 2, making up two series called The Curious House Guest, in 2005-07, and he also lectures and supervises for academic programmes with Cambridge University, London University and Buckingham University, and the Attingham Summer School. Among his books include Up and Down Stairs: The History of the English Country House Servant (2009), English Country House Interiors (2011), Robert Adam: Country House Design, Decoration & the Art of Elegance (2017), The Country House: Past, Present, Future: Great Houses of the British Isles (2018), and Romantics and Classics: Style in the English Country House (Rizzoli, 2021).

LIVE

Tuesday, April 12 | 2:00 p.m. (ET)
Online via Zoom Webinar
$15 ROF members; $20 non-members

RENT

From Wednesday, April 13 to Monday, April 25
Rent the recorded lecture to watch at your leisure
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