Rock garden with rhododendrons at Cragside, Northumberland

‘Outsiders’ and the English Country House

At the beginning of the 20th century, the owners of Britain’s stately homes reveled in the halcyon days of glory and glamour. Nothing lay beyond their reach in a world where privilege and hedonism went hand in hand with duty and honour. The ancestral seats of ancient nobility stood cheek by jowl next to the palaces of Jewish bankers (Waddesdon Manor) and Indian princes (Elveden). Before World War I, Britain was a place where dukes and duchesses mixed with chorus-line dancers who had turned into aristocratic society hostesses. It was a world where self-made millionaires who had been raised in the slums of Manchester and Birmingham, or whose family were farmers, owned glorious country houses (Craagside). It was a world where Americans who restored and transformed English country houses (Hever Castle) were received in the highest social circles in Britain. Historian Adrian Tinniswood, OBE, will explore the English country house during this brief golden age, when stately homes in Britain were at their most opulent. He will illustrate and explain how for the privileged few—not born into nobility or an aristocratic lineage—life in the country house during this period was the best life of all.

Adrian Tinniswood OBE, studied English and Philosophy at Southampton University and was awarded an MPhil at Leicester University. He has acted as a consultant to the National Trust and the Heritage Lottery Fund. He is currently Senior Research Fellow in History at the University of Buckingham and Visiting Fellow in Heritage and History at Bath Spa University. He has lectured at several Universities both in the US and UK, including the University of Oxford and the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of 16 books on architectural and social history including His Invention So Fertile: A Life of Christopher Wren; By Permission of Heaven: The True Story of the Great Fire of London; The Long Weekend: Life in the English Country House Between the Wars; Behind the Throne: A Domestic History of the Royal Household and Noble Ambition: The Rise and Fall of the English Country House. Tinniswood was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2013 Birthday Honours for services to heritage.