Country House Research Articles

ОТ МИРАЖА К ТРАГЕДИИ. БРИТАНСКАЯ ЛЕНИНИАНА: ОТ БЕРТРАНА РАССЕЛА И УЭЛЛСА, П. ТРАВЕРС, У.Х. ОДЕНА ДО Р. КОНКВЕСТА, Р. СЕРВИСА, С. СЕБАГА-МОНТЕФИОРЕ, К. МЕРРИДЕЙЛ

The subject of this interdisciplinary article is a literary, journalistic and historiographic tradition of Lenin’s perception in Great Britain since early 1920-s up to our time. The main trajectory of this tradition is seen as a movement from myth, impressions, illusions of B. Russell, H. Wells, Gareth Jones, poets W.H. Auden and Hugh MacDiarmid to the revelations of Pamela Travers, Malcolm Muggeridge and later - to contemporary historians and writers Robert Conquest, Robert Service, Orlando Figes, Helen Rappaport, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Catherine Merridale, who base their works on archival research and explore the ambivalent phenomenon of Lenin’s personality: his rationalism, coldness, ruthlessness, cynicism, focus on theory, lack of interest in life, power hunger and propensity to repressions. British scholars convincingly show that this outstanding politician negatively influenced the course of history, he did incredible harm to Russia, which, in their opinion, he didn’t like. And he ended tragically like the majority of dictators: the revolution he spawned consumed him - being ill, he was isolated by his “successor” Stalin in a country house Gorky near Moscow. And then, against his will, he was not interred in Volkovo cemetery, next to his mother, but was doomed, like a vampire, to “eternal immortality” and the remains of his body are still tortured by regular mummification.

Kastelen in Zeeland, 1570-1670. Adellijke huizen en burgerlijke buitenverblijven

In the seventeenth century the Dutch Republic saw the rise of a culture of country living that was mainly driven by wealthy townspeople. Apart from newly built country estates, some older castles were used as country residences. This raises the question whether the possession of a castle was an expression of the exceptional position of well-to-do townspeople in the bourgeois Republic of the seventeenth century. Can this, moreover, be understood as a form of ‘aristocratisation’? Were there differences in the design of castles and newly-built country houses that indicate that the former enjoyed a prestige that other rural houses did not? To answer these questions, this article first outlines the rise and background of Zeeland’s culture of country living. Then, the focus turns to the castles, with the question of how they passed from noble possession to civilian hands. In order to investigate the developments in castle ownership and the function of castles, this contribution focuses on the islands of Zuid-Beveland and Walcheren. Finally, the question is answered to what extent there were indeed differences in design between castles and newly built country houses.

Estate landscapes in the Netherlands

In the past, country house research was mainly concerned with individual houses and gardens. Yet, as early as the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, so many country houses were being built around the major cities that they came to define the landscape. Genuine estate landscapes took shape along several rivers (Amstel, Vecht), along the inner edge of coastal dunes, and on newly reclaimed land. In the middle of the seventeenth century, the rivers were augmented with a network of barge canals and soon they too were lined by a belt of country houses. The greatest density of country houses was to be found around Amsterdam, but other big cities in the provinces of Holland and Zeeland had their fair share as well. Access was mostly by water, but in some areas, especially in Zeeland, country roads performed this role. The majority of country houses were built on or next to a farm, which generally continued to exist and, in many cases, survived the country house. In a few areas, the evolving density of country houses has been traced in a detailed chronological record. In most cases it reveals progressive growth towards a high point in the first half of the eighteenth century, after which a gradual decline sets in. However, in a number of areas growth was much more rapid, in particular along the River Vecht. Sustained growth was followed by decline. In the final decade of the eighteenth century and the first decade of the nineteenth, large numbers of country houses were demolished and in many instances the land reverted to agriculture production. It appears that the decline set in earlier in Zeeland than in Holland, but regional differences in decline are not yet entirely clear.
 The second quarter of the nineteenth century saw the construction of a new generation of country houses, especially in the undulating sandy areas of the Utrechtse Heuvelrug and the southern part of the Veluwezoom, where railway lines provided access. The owners of this new crop of country houses laid out their gardens in the English landscape style. They also bought up vast, neighbouring heathlands from local councils or farmers and planted them with trees. As a result, these country houses are quite different in character from those of the earlier period.
 In the past the concentrations of country houses dominated the landscape and even today, wherever they have survived to a substantial degree they continue to represent an important landscape quality. As such, protection and management should not be confined to individual country houses but should extend to groups of country houses and their interrelationships (in the form of visual axes, for example). In recent years, a number of provinces have already set a good example by formulating policies for country house biotopes and linear estate landscapes.

Dutch research into the country house and its landscape

One of the unmistakable trends in current country house research is the growing interest in the landscape context of country houses. The unquestioned emphasis on the main house and the garden is increasingly giving way to an approach that includes or focuses on the wider setting: village, nature, town, infrastructure, farms, churches, and other country houses. This article sketches the rise of this approach and offers an overview of the various perspectives. Among the aspects covered by landscape studies are country house regions, choice of location, the productive landscape, infrastructure, the political landscape and the mental landscape. Although this growing interest in the landscape setting is one of the most important recent developments in country house research, most of these studies are predominantly descriptive. This article calls for the establishment of a firmer methodological and theoretical underpinning – a task to which it is to be hoped that future researchers will devote themselves.

The social geography of the estate landscape in Gelders Arcadië

For many centuries, the landscape and cultural history of the Netherlands have been influenced by the rural estates of large landowners. Their country houses with gardens, parks and farmland formed an important combination of practical aspects of economic management and aesthetic landscaping. Many castles or country houses were linked to large landholdings of several hundred, sometimes even thousands of hectares, as in the case of the Veluwezoom in the Province of Gelderland. Since the late Middle Ages this area, now known as Gelders Arcadia, has been popular with the landed elite, whose ranks have included noble families, stadtholders, city regents and bankers. The undulating landscape, the rivers and brooks and the fertile land was ideally suited to the creation of the desired combination of productive and aesthetic landscapes.
 One of the special aspects of the Gelders Arcadia estate zone is that it represents nearly every stage in the development of the Dutch country estate, from the emergence of castles and lordships (c. 500-1600), to the foundation of small country retreats by town regents (c. 1600-1800), and the creation of villa-like country estates for a new elite of bankers, industrialists and lawyers (c. 1800-1940). The historic country houses and landed estates are manifestations of their time and therefore very diverse, ranging from transformed noble castles with large landholdings to the rural retreats of town regents to villa-like country houses for the newly wealthy. Not only the architecture of the house and park, but also the use, the anchoring in the cultural landscape and the social significance underwent development.
 A historical-geographical approach was used to analyse location and distribution patterns and to investigate the size, character and functions of country estates in each period from an economic, political, societal and social perspective. It appears that the majority of new country houses and estates were created by a new elite of the newly rich, whereas the old elite continued to invest in their ancestral properties.
 The motivation to invest in the establishment of a country seat differed per period. The landed and country estates featured both economic and aesthetic landscapes, although the former were less prominent in later periods.
 This socio-historical-geographical approach has given us a better understanding of the various processes of estate creation, transformation and adaptation through time – knowledge that can also be used to reach well-founded decisions in the 21st century. The geographical approach for Gelders Arcadia has resulted in improved spatial policies through: 1. Attention to the entirety of country estates (rather than only those with listed status); 2. A focus on the country estate as a cohesive heritage ensemble, including an understanding of the social, economic, landscape and political factors that contributed to its development and design; 3. Recognition that the estates, thanks to their large number and individual sizes and qualities, have formed and will continue to form an important basis for the character of the living environment.

Estate landscapes in Gelderland

The Province of Gelderland has long boasted a large number of country houses and landed estates, which over time coalesced into estate landscapes around the historical capitals of the Duchy of Guelders quarters of Nijmegen, Arnhem and Zutphen.
 Rapidly increasing urbanization from the end of the nineteenth century onwards threatened the coherence and accessibility of these landscapes. Gelderland’s largest cities, Arnhem and Nijmegen, watched in dismay as many country houses and landed estates fell victim to subdivision and development. In response they started to buy up portions of that estate landscape to ensure that they would remain available to city dwellers. In addition, the ‘safety net’ provided by newly established nature and landscape organizations, in particular Natuurmonumenten and Geldersch Landschap & Kasteelen, also contributed to preservation and permanent accessibility by offering landed families the opportunity to keep their estate intact, albeit no longer under their ownership.
 Similar motives – the need to preserve attractive, accessible walking areas for the increasingly urbanized society – underpinned the government’s introduction of the Nature Conservation Act in 1928. The Act was invoked more frequently in Gelderland than in any other province. It promoted the opening up of private properties as well as the preservation of the cultural value of the kind of ‘natural beauty’ to be found on landed estates.
 After the Second World War, in addition to resorting to the Nature Conservation Act, the owners of country houses and landed estates could avail themselves of an increasing variety of grants aimed at preserving (publicly accessible) nature, landscape and heritage, although the emphasis was firmly on nature. Estate landscapes like the Veluwezoom and the County of Zutphen were eventually safeguarded by a patchwork of different government regulations.
 In the twenty-first century, government policy shifted towards providing financial support for both public and private contributions to nature, landscape and heritage by country houses and landed estates. This in turn has stimulated interest in estate landscapes. Instead of individual heritage-listed estates, the focus is now on areas with multiple country house and landed estates where there are spatial tasks waiting to be fulfilled: not just the preservation of natural beauty for outdoor recreation, but also spatial articulation, climate change adaptation, increased biodiversity and sustainable agriculture. Interest in design, both past and present, has burgeoned thanks to this development.

Future-proofing estate landscapes

Climate change and urbanization have substantial ramifications for the management and protection of cultural-historical landscapes. This is especially true for historical estate landscapes – landscapes whose character is defined by several historical castles, country houses (along with their gardens and parks), and landed estates – where climate change adaptation constitutes a major task. Issues of concern include an excess or shortage of water and changes to vegetation as a result of rising temperatures. That pressure is compounded by increasing urbanization and the associated recreational needs. These landscapes are also susceptible to spatial fragmentation due to urbanization, changes in ownership, changes in function, and so on. Combatting these pressures calls for a future-oriented design approach that deals sensitively with historically valuable landscape characteristics. It involves safeguarding the spatial quality of estate landscapes by striking a new balance between utility value (economic exploitation), amenity value (identity and familiarity), and future value (ecological sustainability). Such is the complexity of the task that a regional perspective is required in order to fully comprehend the cohesion and systemic relations between individual country estates and to develop a common basis for collaboration.
 This article proposes a landscape-based regional design approach aimed at understanding and designing future-proof estate landscapes. It details a preservation-through-development strategy based on spatial development in sympathy with historical landscapes structures in a process of meaningful stakeholder involvement. Key to this process is collaboration and co-creation with owners, experts, policy advisers and others. Design-based research is employed as a method for addressing the complex spatial tasks facing estate landscapes in an integrated and creative manner. Spatial design, at every level of scale, becomes a instrument for working out development strategies and principles for context-specific landscape formation. But also for highlighting possible solutions that can contribute to the protection and development of historical estate landscapes. In other words, this is not about opposing change or locking up the existing landscape, but about creating new landscape qualities through well-designed new developments. This coincides with a collaborative process in which stakeholders jointly weigh the pros and cons, learn and come up with solutions. The combination of substance, involvement and process makes the landscape-based regional design approach a powerful method for increasing the resilience and adaptability of the estate landscape and in so doing making this landscape future-proof.

Book Review: Women of the Country House in Ireland, 1860–1914 by Maeve O’Riordan

Book Review: <i>Women of the Country House in Ireland, 1860–1914</i> by Maeve O’Riordan

Hayton, D. W. Conservative Revolutionary: The Lives of Lewis Namier.

Hayton, D. W. <i>Conservative Revolutionary: The Lives of Lewis Namier</i>.

Latviešu literārā biedrība un skolotāja Pētera Zēvalda savāktais jaunvārdu un mazāk zināmo vārdu krājums (1874)

This research is a part of the analysis of the collection of articles of the Latvian Literary Society (Lettisch-literärische Gesellschaft) Magazin, herausgegeben von der Lettisch-Literärischen Gesellschaft (so-called “Magazin”) with special emphasis to the materials important in the history of Latvian language, especially, of the development of terminology in Latvian. This paper deals with the almost forgotten author Pēteris Zēvalds (Peter Seewald) (ca. 1838/1839–1910), a schoolteacher in Jelgava (Mitau) and active contributor of “Magazin” from 1865 to 1877. In 12 sequels (published in eight issues of “Magazin”), he collected 2198 words and expressions from his native place, now Birzgale parish, originally, from the private manor in Linde parish (aus Privatgut Lindenschen Gemeinde in Kurland)). This paper provides a more detailed analysis of two other word collections (both published in 1874 in issue 3 of XV volume of “Magazin”) of Zēvalds. They contained current lexis, including a lot of new terms. The first one is created as a successive excerpt of neologisms and lesser-known words (in Latvian-German comparison) from the weekly newspaper “Baltijas Vēstnesis” (using numbers 44th, 48th, 49th un 51st from 1872 and successive first 49 from 1873, excl. number 9th). There are 467 numbered entries or 495 words in total. Most of the words in Zēvalds’s collection are related to terminological lexis. They can be divided into four groups (indicating the serial number used in the original): (1) terms currently used in the same form or with minor changes of ending (7. greizsirdība, 29. pilnvare, 41. māksla, 33. cēlons, 69. veicināšana, 88. pirmvaloda, 237. izvilktne (= atvilktne), 275. viels); (2) terms which have a different correspondence in modern Latvian (32. valodas=iztirzāšana (= valodniecība), Sprachforschung; 49. lietuve (= lejkanna), Gieskanne; 54. rakstiens (=raksts, dokuments), Schriftstück; 183. atvēles=zīme (= atļauja), Erlaubnißschein; 187. jūras=pāržmauga (= jūrasšaurums), Meerenge); (3) words, that could still be considered as potential terms (11. tiesas=laulība, Zivilehe; 37. sauljumte, Sonnenschirm) and (4) those, which, from the moment of fixation, can be considered occasional words (43. spīdgans, Sternschnuppen, Meteor; 387. muldu=valsts, Reich der Träume; 409. tulpete (= runas=vieta), Katheder, Rednerbühne). Zēvalds’s collection is a unique material that allows identifying the perception of the interested reader about the lexical neologisms in one newspaper. Zēvalds’s second collection of words contains the technical expressions from legal country house purchase agreements. There are 83 numbered entries (in German-Latvian comparison) from the legal contract written in German with a lot of additional conditions and long pay-outs delay. This list (at least the part containing legal terms and terminological word-groups) can be regarded as the first term bulletin in Latvian. The possible addressee of this term list is the parish pastors to whom farmers sought advice on such matters. Publications of the teacher Pēteris Zēvalds is a small but interesting episode in the history of the Latvian language, which has not earned attention so far but provides researchers with interesting material about the lexical development in the 70s of XIX century.

Житлове будівництво в Україні у контексті урбаністичних та демографічних змін

It is substantiated within the article that the course of urban processes, high level of mortality, migration, income diff erentiation of the population of Ukraine aff ects housing construction, housing sector, as the number of urban residents is declining more slowly than the number of residents of small cities, villages and settlements due to a lower level of natural population decline and migratory growth, stimulating the demand for housing in cities. Th e purpose of the article is to systematize the factors of interaction of housing construction, demographic and urban processes in Ukraine, and substantiate the corrective measures of housing policy to prevent the negative eff ects of urbanization. Th e scheme of the impact of the processes of urbanization, natural increase of the population of the need satisfaction for habitation on housing construction is developed. In the process of using the questionnaire method, it is substantiated that the level of satisfaction of needs (including housing needs) in rural areas is much lower than in the city. Th e study made it possible to conclude that with declining incomes of population, sales of country houses are declining; studio-apartments and one-and two-bedroom apartments are beginning to be in greater demand in new buildings. It is determined that meeting the need for housing involves solving such tasks as: increasing the volume of housing construction, reducing the failing housing stock, carrying out quality overhaul of housing, development of the mortgage market and rental market, etc. Measures to stimulate housing construction and housing repair as a corrective factor in the equalization of urban processes in Ukraine in order to reduce the environmental burden on megapolis, cities, as well as equalizing the level of population density in Ukraine are developed. It is argued that within the program of social responsibility of construction business, it is advisable to stimulate construction companies, to repair failing housing at the state level with the establishment of standards individually for rural and urban areas with the active use of legal, financial instruments, state subsidies to developers, who implement projects on the development of urban and rural areas to reimburse the costs of repairs, redevelopment of failing housing.

Genomic structure and diversity of oak populations in British parklands

Societal Impact StatementThe largest populations of veteran oak trees in Europe are found in British parklands: managed wood pastures up to 1000 years old. Here, we present genomic evidence that parkland oak populations harbour considerable diversity and grew from local seed sources. We found some evidence for natural regeneration of offspring and for hybridization between pedunculate and sessile oak. We detected signatures of past gene flow between these two species and few regions of high differentiation within their genomes. Future expansion of this dataset may allow us to test for a genomic basis of acute oak decline, a syndrome of particular concern in parkland environments.Summary The two predominant oak species in Europe, Quercus robur (English or pedunculate oak) and Quercus petraea (sessile oak), have a long history of human intervention. In Britain, a common management regime is parklands, often surrounding country houses. Little is known about how seeds were sourced for parkland oak populations nor the genetic diversity that they contain. We sequenced the whole genomes of 386 trees from four British parkland sites to characterize the nuclear and chloroplast genetic structure and diversity of oak parkland populations. We assembled the chloroplast genomes and matched these to restriction enzyme fragment chloroplast haplotypes found in previous studies of ancient woodlands. We found over two million high‐quality nuclear single‐nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), allowing us to identify 360 Q. robur, 10 Q. petraea and 16 hybrid individuals with confidence. We identified 81 coding regions exhibiting strong differentiation between the two species. We found evidence for selective sweeps in Q. robur near some regions containing genes with putative involvement in stress tolerance. We detected a few very close relatives within some sites, suggesting natural regeneration or local seed planting. There was little differentiation among the Q. robur populations at the four sites. Chloroplast genomes found in each parkland tended to be similar to those of local ancient woodlands, suggesting that they were derived from local seed sources.

Houses asLieux de Mémoirein Margery Allingham’s Crime Fiction

This article discusses the house as a site of memory in the novels of Margery Allingham, where it embodies a tension between the past and the present that turns the domestic milieu into a place of horror. Stemming from Susan Rowland’s claim that Golden Age authors did not write ‘unproblematically conservative country house mysteries’ (43), this paper uses Svetlana Boym’s theory of restorative and reflective nostalgia and Pierre Nora’s concept of lieux de mémoire (sites of memory) to read Allingham’s novels, which critically observe the sustainment of a vision of the past after the Great War. In her work, country houses like the eponymous one in The Crime at Black Dudley (1929), are, despite their aristocratic grandeur, perfect scenes for murder. While the countryside is associated with a nostalgic innocence, it is also contaminated by the intrusion of the present, as in Sweet Danger (1933). Family secrets are also reasons for crime, as we see in Police at the Funeral (1931). Hide My Eyes (1958) relocates the nostalgic atmosphere to a suburban house converted into a museum of ‘curios’, which operates as an ironic allegory of a nation wrapped up in its own history.

“Paying the tribute of a song”: the poetry of albums and visitors’ books

ABSTRACT Victorian commentators identified visitors’ books with mass tourism and disparaged their contents as banal and absurd. However, a historicised approach shows that inscription conventions and commentators’ expectations were influenced by the print mediation of earlier practices centred on blank books, notably poetry composed for British country house albums. This article demonstrates how album poetry published in the late eighteenth century shaped later practice in, and reception of, visitors’ books. An artform which could elevate the album beyond recording fleeting encounters with places and persons, album poetry shows writers deploying literary strategies to construct a guest–host dynamic which navigates between the familiar and formal, and between hospitality and payment. Album poetry establishes a complimentary rhetoric and fantasy of hospitality and belonging that sets an unrealistic model for Victorian contributions to visitors’ books in public and commercial settings.

Revisiting the “Inhabited Space” of English Country House in Sarah Waters’s The Little Stranger

The English Country House happens to be one of the most iconic topoi in English literary studies. Since narratologists have long privileged time over space, narrative space remained a relatively unexplored territory until the twentieth century, which intensified the interest in the house as the thematic fulcrum of literary works. British novelist Sarah Waters’s first venture into the realm of the sub-genre of English Country House fiction, The Little Stranger (2009) is a befitting discourse that appropriates the poetics of manorial space. Hundreds Hall, the Warwickshire seat of the Ayreses, encapsulates many roles as the epicentre of the story and as a powerful symbol of the gradual decay of English aristocracy in the post-World War II Britain. The article will try to incorporate Gaston Bachelard’s spatial criticism elaborated in his The Poetics of Space (1958) and the concept of heterotopia by Foucault for the interpretation/ (s) of the narrative. The study seeks to locate Bachelard’s bourgeoisie points of view, which the author subverts by portraying the rise of the proletariat. The focus of the article is to highlight the ingenuity of Waters’s creative process, which resorts to the genre of English Country House fiction to capture the condition of British aristocrats in a time of crises.

Reducing the cost of a country house by using reconstruction and modular construction

Reducing the cost of a country house by using reconstruction and modular construction

Adaptive Reuse of Manor Houses: Modernism and Tradition in Fernando Távora’s Approach for Heritage Renovation

This article seeks to analyze the methodology and principles underlying the intervention of the Portuguese architect and professor Fernando Távora (1923-2005) in the renovation of manor houses in the north of Portugal. Throughout his renowned professional career, Távora designed the refurbishment of numerous country houses, managing to adapt uses and spaces to the new requirements without undermining their strong identity in the landscape and their historical and architectural values. Thus, the study of his particular methodology can provide design guidelines to approach the adaptive reuse of this cultural legacy with respect for its heritage values, especially in rural areas undergoing a severe process of depopulation and agro-productive transformation. Three case studies have been selected in order to determine the evolution and consolidation of his practice: The Casa da Igreja in Mondim de Basto (1958-1961), the Casa da Covilhã (1963-1988) and the Casa da Breia (1984-1985). These renovation projects reveal careful analysis of the preexistence, supporting sensitive introduction of new elements with subtle contemporary expression in respectful continuity with the forms and atmospheres of the past.

ECOLOGICAL TECHNOLOGIES OF CONSTRUCTION IN MODERN FOLK ARCHITECTURE OF NORTHEA ST UKRAINE

The article considers aspects of the search for alternative architectural and construction solutions in the private construction of a peasant's yard.&#x0D; It is proposed to ensure the appropriate level of energy and economic efficiency of buildings through the use of traditional for the folk architecture of North-Eastern Ukraine local environmentally friendly materials and construction techniques. Such techniques allow to achieve stylish national aesthetics and architectural expressiveness at the same time. The article examines the dynamics of changes in temperature parameters of the Sumy region for the period 2010-2020. which affect the architectural and planning decisions of buildings and structures. The conclusion about the tendency of the general increase of settlement temperatures of external air in the winter period is made. The general calculations of energy losses of the house from available local materials of a natural origin on heating on engineering maintenance are carried out. Examples of the use of such materials in private housing construction of farms in Sumy region are analyzed. The comparative characteristic of cost of a country house from ecological materials with cost of a usual modern private house of a middle class is resulted. The conclusion about the economic expediency of construction of small and average individual peasant cottage from local natural materials is made. The first is the ability to use available local materials at low prices. Secondly - the ability to independently perform a significant amount of simple construction work. Third - high energy efficiency and environmental safety of such a building. Fourth - a fairly high fire safety, durability and mechanical stability of building structures when applying the necessary protective measures. The integration of such buildings into modern the planning structure will diversify the architectural environment and create the national color of Ukrainian villages and towns.

Classical Art: A Life History from Antiquity to the Present

Classical Art: A Life History from Antiquity to the Present

Thinking of Country House Based on the Concept of Green Development: Take Nanyang, Henan as an example

With the introduction of a series of policies such as rural revitalization, beautiful rural areas, and a comprehensive well-off society, the concept of green development of rural housing has attracted widespread attention. The green development of rural houses can effectively slow down the speed of global climate warming, reduce environmental pollution, reduce energy consumption of buildings and achieve sustainable development of buildings. Based on a field survey in a village in Nanyang City, this article summarizes the current problems of rural housing development, and combines current green development concepts, local lifestyles and living habits, and puts forward some practical suggestions for rural construction and development; the green of rural housing Urbanization can better promote rural construction and provide relevant references for the long-term sustainable development of rural housing in the future.