Level One Visit to Harewood House

Thank you to the level one Country House and Museum Studies students, who all made the trip to Harewood House on a misty Yorkshire morning this week. After taking in the exterior, state rooms, below stairs area and terrace gallery, there was even time to explore the grounds and say a brief hello to the resident penguins (while of course asking ourselves why they are there in the first place!) I hope it was an enjoyable and productive experience which provided plenty of food for thought.

History & the Country House

Thanks Chris (our Salford friend!) for posting the provocative piece on history and the Country House...(or at least the CH as presented by the National Trust). It seems legitimate, of course, to point out the rather 'Whiggish' history that institutions such as the NT present to us (or at least those that go to NT properties...there's a clue there maybe?)...but it's not always the case that the Country House sanitizes history...and coincidentally, me and BAs were on a visit to Harewood House this week....

...and which in 2007 made some attempt to address what could be considered to be a provocative and problematic part of it's own history by including, albeit quite small, displays that directed attention to the links between the establishment of the House and the Slave Trade...(this was part of a wider project on the bicentenary of the Abolition of Slavery in 1807...in Britain anyway)......The Slavery Exhibit display cases are still part of the Display at Harewood...although they seem to be delicately underplayed...but perhaps that's inevitable?..part of the veracity of 'History' is that it is required to be 'coherent' (at least that's one strand of thought in philosophy of history anyway!)....

But that said, I do think that it's useful to disrupt the still waters of historical understanding sometimes.....but maybe the Country House (and National Trust) is too much of an ocean to be touched by 'other' narratives....(there is, in fact, a drip-drip effect of change in the interpretation of Country Houses, with the opening of 'below-stairs' displays...notice there's no mention of 'white slavery' there though!...I'm quite obviously being deliberately provocative here!).........................................
....Anyway, we enjoyed our visit to Harewood....but it did seem to be FULL of ex-Leeds University graduates!...(Thanks Anna....shown here introducing the BAs to the House in the Steward's Room....and thanks to Ruby for an excellent tour (apart from her rather disparaging remarks about the great Alfred Stevens, who apparently 'ruined' a perfectly good R.Adam ceiling in the house......'History' - ultimately it's all about 'fashion and taste')....
.....

Mark