Empire and the Country House in Early Nineteenth-Century Britain: The Amhersts of Montreal Park, Kent

Abstract

This article explores empire’s impact on British material culture. It does so by studying a particular site, the country house. The expansion of visitor numbers during the nineteenth century meant that the country house became a key site within which Britons interacted with sophisticated displays of material culture. As with texts, in “reading” for signs of imperial impact it is important to analyse not only the external aspects of objects and buildings—their surfaces and façades—but also their context, configuration and arrangement. By utilizing this approach, this article demonstrates the complex narratives of empire situated within country houses.