A taxonomy of guidebooks

85 of the National Trust’s best-selling guidebooks can now be purchased online through our website.

I use the guidebooks a lot in my work, to quickly check facts about certain houses, gardens, rooms and objects. Over time I have collected different editions of the same guidbook, and it is interesting to see how they have changed over the years.

The earliest National Trust guidebooks were small, sober affairs, as befitted the austere 1940s and 1950s, and for quite a long time the guidebooks kept that restrained look.

I can remember buying one at Clandon Park in the mid-1980s which was fairly substantial in size, but still had the self-consciously ‘tasteful’ green cover. Inside some of the pages contained text only – extraordinary by today’s standards – and the relatively sparse illustrations were mainly in black and white.

Even so, to me as a teenager just becoming aware of ‘heritage’ it was rather thrilling to have all this diverse information about a house, its garden, the people who lived there and the things they collected – a biography of a place, effectively - in one booklet.

In some cases I have managed to find the pre-NT guidebooks as well, published when the house in question was still privately owned, and which show different and understandably more personal approaches to presenting a family’s heritage. And in places where the ‘donor family’ has a lot of input, such as Waddesdon Manor, the guidebooks still have a distinctive identity.

Today the guidebooks are much more visually stimulating both outside and in, as they have to compete for attention with the plethora of other products on offer in the various National Trust shops. And in some places there is now more than one type of guidebook, to cater for the different needs and tastes of different visitor groups.

It is probably not too far-fetched to say that the guidebooks mirror the development of the National Trust as a whole, and reflect trends in our appreciation of the past more generally. Perhaps – and I say this only half in jest – the time has come for a proper sociological and art-historical study of the subject?

Update: It had slipped my mind that our guidebooks editor, Oliver Garnett, has published a fascinating article on country house guidebooks in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, on pp. 7-9 of the October 2010 issue of ABC Bulletin. Hopefully he will soon produce another article on the history of National Trust guidebooks.

Clumber: a lost house, a flourishing garden

Part of the two-mile-long lime tree avenue at Clumber Park. ©NTPL/Andrew Butler

We have just purchased a 1937-1938 auction catalogue for the contents of Clumber Park, Nottinghamshire, annotated by the original owner, from Patrick King Rare Books.

Nineteenth-century view of the house at Clumber by W. Watkins after Thomas Allom. ©NTPL/John Hammond

The house at Clumber was pulled down in 1938 and the collections dispersed. The National Trust will never be able to reassemble those collections, but it is useful to know what was there.

The lake at Clumber. ©NTPL/David Levenson

The park, as created by successive Dukes of Newcastle from about 1760, survives and thrives. There is a Brown-style serpentine lake, probably created on the advice of Joseph Spence and a series of meandering views and walks.

The chapel, epitomising the high Victorian period at Clumber. ©NTPL/Jerry Harpur

The garden designer W.S. Gilpin planted the lime avenue in the 1830s for the 4th Duke of Newcastle, to provide interest and grandeur in the flat landscape. Gilpin also created the areas of picturesque and formal planting, with conifers, rhododendrons and specimen Mediterranean trees.

The central conservatory and palm house in the walled garden at Clumber. ©NTPL/Stephen Robson

In the late 1880s G.F. Bodley built the splendid chapel. The stable block and the walled garden with its range of glasshouses are also still there, and one could easily forget that there is no longer a ’big house’ at the centre of all of this.

An emblematic interior

Sir Rowland and Lady Winn in the Library at Nostell Priory, attributed to Hugh Douglas Hamilton (1736-1808). Accepted by HM Government in lieu of inheritance tax and allocated to the National Trust for display at Nostell Priory, 1986 (inv. no. 960061). ©NTPL/John Hammond

The image of the Chippendale set of steps in the Library at Nostell Priory reminded me of the portrait of Sir Rowland and Lady Winn standing in that same room, painted by Hugh Douglas Hamilton.

The Library at Nostell. Hamilton's painting can be seen on the easel in the corner. ©NTPL/Andreas von Einsiedel

Here we see a couple in the room that they had just finished decorating, to designs by Robert Adam and with stucco by Joseph Rose, inset paintings by Antonio Zucchi and furniture by Thomas Chippendale.

Detail of the Chippendale desk in the Library (inv. no. 959723). Accepted by HM Government in lieu of inheritance tax and allocated to the National Trust for display at Nostell Priory, 1986. ©NTPL/Jonathan Gibson

Sir Rowland seems to be leaning against the Chippendale desk, which is still very much the centrepiece of the room today.

Detail of a carved lion mask on the desk. ©NTPL/Andreas von Einsiedel

The artist has practised a sleight of hand in ‘folding open’ one of the walls of the room, to create a wider backdrop for the figures and allowing them to be more prominent and closer to the picture plane (as explained by our curator of pictures Alastair Laing in his article on the painting in the April 2000 issue of Apollo magazine).

Quite apart from providing a glimpse of the life of the specific inhabitants of a specific house, this picture has fairly recently also come to stand for English cultural life in the eighteenth century more generally, when it was reproduced on the cover of John Brewer’s widely-read book The Pleasures of the Imagination. The companionable atmosphere of the painting and its suggestion of culture and learning borne lightly seems to make it an emblem of the ideal of a certain way of life.

The natural history of the pagoda

Tapestry including Chinese and Indian motifs produced by John Vanderbank, c. 1700, at Nunnington Hall, North Yorkshire. ©NTPL/John Hammond

The Linnell cabinet at Kedleston mentioned in the previous post, topped with its neat row of miniature chinoiserie pavilions, reminded me how the motif of the ‘pagoda’ or Chinese-style pavilion spread through the various decorative arts, in a process almost resembling natural selection.

English cabinet incorporating pietra dura panels, ivory plaques after the Antique, Chinese lacquer and miniature pagodas, late 1750s, in the Little Parlour at Uppark, West Sussex. ©NTPL/Nadia Mackenzie

Pagoda-style buildings were originally copied from illustrations in books on China and from Chinese porcelain and lacquer, and were adapted for European tapestries, japanning, ceramics and silver. The original models were soon forgotten as the ‘chinoiserie’ style took on a life of its own.

Doorcase in the Chinese Room at Claydon House, Buckinghamshire, created by Luke Lightfoot in the 1760s. ©NTPL/Andreas von Einsiedel

Then from the 1730s English garden pavilions, too, began to take on Chinese shapes.

Pier glass made by Thomas Chippendale, early 1770s, in the State Bedroom at Nostell Priory, West Yorkshire. ©NTPL/Andreas von Einsiedel

Furniture soon followed suit, with the mid-eighteenth-century seeing a proliferation of pagodas in variety of shapes and media.

One of a pair of Regency-period chinoiserie cabinets (originally used as bookcases) at Castle Coole, Co. Fermanagh. ©NTPL/Nick Meers

In true Darwinian style the pagoda adapted itself to the different circumstances of the Regency and Victorian periods.

The Pagoda at Cliveden, Buckinghamshire, purchased by Viscount Astor in 1900 from the estate of the Marquess of Hertford, who had previously installed it in the garden of his Paris villa, Bagatelle. ©NTPL/Ian Shaw

But occasionally natural selection in the arts goes into reverse, as in the case of the pagoda at Cliveden. This is an 1860s copy of a pavilion that was originally erected in in the early 1780s in the park of the Château de Romainville, on the outskirts of Paris, and which was in turn based on an illustration in William Chambers’s Designs of Chinese Buildings of 1757.

More about a snuffbox that depicts Romainville and its anglo-chinois gardens can be seen on the Wallace Collection website.

A style to suit the time of day

Reclining mermaid on one of a set of four sofas supplied by John Linnell to Kedleston Hall in 1765. ©NTPL/Nadia Mackenzie

Looking at images of Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire, I was struck by the differences between two pieces of furniture, both made by the same cabinetmaker.

One of the sofas in its Drawing Room setting. The blue damask is meant to reinforce the maritime theme. ©NTPL/Nadia Mackenzie

The magnificent sofas in the Drawing Room featuring supine mermaids and sea gods were made by John Linnell in 1765 to suit the maritime theme of the room.

Design by John Linnell for a state coach, c. 1760. ©National Trust/Richard Holttum

Linnell was working to a design by Robert Adam, but also incorporated elements of his own designs for King George III’s coronation coach.

Chinoiserie porcelain cabinet by John Linnell, in the Wardrobe at Kedleston. ©NTPL/Dennis Gilbert

Linnell also supplied a chinoiserie porcelain cabinet for Kedleston, using the ‘pagoda’ roof motif that he also deployed in the famous Badminton bed, now in the V&A.

The chinoiserie bed made for Badminton House, Gloucestershire, probably by John and William Linnell in about 1754. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

These very different pieces show how cabinetmakers like Linnell were able to switch styles with ease when required.

'Are we feeling maritime or Chinese, my dear?' The 1st Lord and Lady Scarsdale as portrayed by Nathaniel Hone. ©NTPL/John Hammond

It also tells us something about the different social associations of the classical/rococo style and the chinoiserie style: whereas the former was always chosen for the most formal and grand spaces of a house, the latter would appear in the more informal, intimate rooms.

Conservation: walking the walk and talking the talk

The Regency curtains that until recently hung in the Sultana Room at Attingham, showing signs of wear and tear. ©National Trust

I just wanted to mention some more lively blogs focusing on the conservation work taking place at the historic houses of the National Trust.

Conservator applying a coat of water-based acrylic to the painted floorcloth in the Entrance Hall at Attingham, to help protect it against tens of thousands of visitors' feet. ©National Trust

The Attingham Park Mansion blog has been chronicling the big winter cleaning and maintenance round, but also shows the results of archival research into the history of the Noel Hill family, the cataloguing of the collection of photographs as well as a recent Marie Claire photoshoot.

Hoisting the 3rd Duke of Dorset back into position at Knole. ©National Trust

The Knole conservation blog shows the recent reinstatement of the Reynolds Room following an environmental control trial which involved a life-size mock-up of the room being placed in front of the walls (and which I reported on earlier).

One of the internal gutters at Knole, with evidence of recent snowfall. ©National Trust

The blog is also witness to the considerable problems that the house is facing with water ingress, often due to strange historical drainage solutions such as gutters that run inside the walls, demonstrating the need for the major conservation project that has just got underway there.

Finished toile for a corset of the type that the lady in the Dunham portrait would have worn. ©Jennifer Craig

I have already mentioned Jennifer Craig’s blog about her project to recreate the costume worn by the lady in the Jacobean portrait we recently acquired for Dunham Massey, but Jennifer has since added a number of interesting posts about her research into seventeenth century embroidery and corset-making.

Oyster, not gold. ©Jennifer Craig

Jennifer also remarks how the recent cleaning of the portrait has shown that the colour of the lady’s jacket is oyster, rather than gold as we all thought prior to the removal of the old varnish – demonstrating the importance of conservation in not only protecting but also revealing the true nature of historic objects.

Anti-Havisham at Kingston Lacy

Detail of the chimneypiece in the Spanish Room at Kingston Lacy. The tooled and painted leather hangings came from the Palazzo Contarini near the church of SS. Apostoli in Venice. The polychrome pendant garland is of Florentine marble set against black Belgian marble. ©NTPL/James Mortimer

In a comment on the previous post Courtney Barnes mentioned that the forlorn look of the orangery at Tyntesfield before its restoration reminded her of Miss Havisham, the tragic figure created by Charles Dickens in Great Expectations. An heiress who was jilted at the altar, Miss Havisham refused to have anything changed in her large mansion from that day onward, allowing it to decay around her.

The top of the Upper Marble Staircase. The balustrade is of alabaster capped with Biancone marble. The candelabra are also of Biancone, and the bronzes are probably eighteenth-century copies of Michelangelo's Times of Day in the Medici Chapel of S. Lorenzo in Florence. ©NTPL/James Mortimer

This in turn reminded me of William Bankes (1786-1855), who created the sumptuous interiors at Kingston Lacy in Dorset: not because he tried to stop the clock, but because he was a kind of ‘anti-Havisham’, creating a beautiful house without actually being there.

The Tent Room, one of the bachelor bedrooms dating from 1835-41. ©NTPL/Andreas von Einsiedel

Bankes was gay, and this was at a time when homosexuals were being increasingly persecuted in Britain. After one encounter too many with a guardsman in Green Park he was forced to flee the country. But he continued to develop the interiors at Kingston Lacy by sending back works of art and furnishings that he had purchased and commissioned in Italy, accompanied by detailed instructions on how they should be installed.

One of a pair of early seventeenth century bronze firedogs from the workshop of Niccolo Roccatagliata, in the Spanish Room. ©NTPL/Andreas von Einsiedel

There is something not only very poignant but also rather poetic and intellectually fascinating about such a project of creating a Gesamtkunstwerk like Kingston Lacy entirely in the mind’s eye.

Walnut shutters with carvings designed by William Bankes. ©NTPL/James Mortimer

Bankes’s fastidious and connoisseurial imagination clearly enabled him to visualise the end result, but at that same time that imagination must have made it especially painful not being able to inhabit the actual house.

Niche designed by William Bankes and Charles Barry based on shell niches in Montpellier and Narbonne and carved from yellow Torre, Biancone and fleur de pêcher marble. ©NTPL/James Mortimer

There are indications that Bankes may have visted Kingston Lacy in secret towards the end of his life, which presents yet another poignant image, of the exile returning briefly to gaze at his creation before rushing off again.

Piecing together the Tyntesfield orangery

The orangery at Tyntesfield, as found. ©NTPL/Andrew Butler

When the National Trust took on Tyntesfield, the high-Victorian country house near Bristol, in 2002, the orangery there was in very poor condition due to long-term lack of maintenance, with shrubs growing through the roof and rain pouring in.

Work underway at the orangery. ©NTPL/John Millar

Last year saw the start of a three-year project to restore this listed building to its full late-Victorian glory. The aim of the project is not just to restore the orangery, but also to provide training oportunities in buildings conservation and stone masonry.

Stone mason finishing off a cornice. ©NTPL/John Millar

Extra funding was obtained from the Commercial Education Trust and the Heritage Lottery Fund to allow students from City of Bath College and other groups to work on the orangery together with the expert stone masons of Nimbus Conservation.

The worn capital of one of the pilasters awaiting replacement. ©NTPL/John Millar

Over 6,000 visitors have also been able to see the ongoing work from a specially constructed viewing platform. In October 2011 the project was awarded an English Heritage Angels Award, a scheme founded by Andrew Lloyd Webber to celebrate the efforts of local people in rescuing their heritage.

A newly carved capital. ©NTPL/John Millar

Bookings are now being taken for workshops and tours in spring/summer 2012: contact Katie Laidlaw at katie.laidlaw@nationaltrust.org.uk.

The unread pavilion

The Chinese House at Stowe, Buckinghamshire (inv. no. 91820). ©NTPL/Andrew Butler

The February 2012 issue of ABC Bulletin has just come out, with news about the historic houses and gardens of the National Trust. I wrote a short article for this issue on the hitherto hidden meaning of the garden pavilion at Stowe known as the Chinese House.

One of the trompe l'oeil panels with characters painted onto the Chinese House - this particular one was repainted in the mid-1990s on the basis of old photographs. A sequence of three characters derived from Chambers has been highlighted. ©Emile de Bruijn

The painted decoration on the Chinese house dates from the 1820s and includes a series of vertical trompe l’oeil  plaques with Chinese characters. Because these were difficult to read it had always been assumed that they were ‘faux‘ characters, made up by the Regency designer or painter as a playful, purely decorative imitation of Chinese writing.

Another plaque with characters, this one with more of the original, worn paint still remaining. A second sequence of four characters from Chambers has been highlighted. ©Emile de Bruijn

A little while ago I discovered that the characters were derived from an illustration in William Chambers’s book Designs of Chinese Buildings, published in 1757.

Plate XVIII from Chambers's 1757 book Designs of Chinese Buildings, with the sequences of characters that can be recognised on the Chinese House highlighted.

More recently one of my former tutors at university, Dr B.J. Mansvelt Beck, who is an expert in classical Chinese, spotted that the Chambers illustration incuded two quotes from the Zhuangzi, a collection of ancient philosophical writings that would become one of the classics of Daoism.

Canton enamel dish with a depiction of Xi Wang Mu, the the Daoist goddess of immortality, at Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire (inv. no. 107343). ©National Trust/Mike Kennedy

The chapter of the Zhuangzi to which these fragments refer is about man’s insignificance when compared to the hugeness of the universe and the limitlessness of time. So this frivolous-seeming little garden pavilion has a rather weighty subtext, albeit one that the original designer didn’t foresee – and that fact gives the whole thing a suitably paradoxical,  Daoist twist.

The gentle art of conservation

A conservator dusting the canopy in the Long Gallery at Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire. ©NTPL/John Millar

I have just noticed two new blogs about the continuous process of conservation going on at the historic houses of the National Trust.

Conservation assistants at Antony, Cornwall. ©NTPL/Cristian Barnett

Rob’s Blog at Dyrham Park is written by a trainee conservator working at Dyrham Park in Gloucestershire. He has been sharing his experiences of taking part in the cleaning schedule at the house that takes place every winter while the house is closed to the public. Rob describes how he goes about various conservation tasks, such as cleaning the swords and dusting the books.

Textile conservation volunteers working on items at Tyntesfield, North Somerset. ©NTPL/John Hammond

In Nostell Priory Conservation Blog the team at Nostell Priory, West Yorkshire, give an insight into what goes on behind the scenes there. Recent posts include putting the winter covers on furniture and sculpture and tackling an outbreak of mould in the Museum Room.

A conservator dusting Chinese ivory chess pieces at Chirk Castle, Wrexham. ©NTPL/Paul Harris

What I am finding so fascinating about these blogs is that they allow us to see actual people telling us about their actual, methodical, day-to-day care for the collections. No TV-makeover atmosphere here – this is the real thing.