Synopses & Reviews
Today we find a motor-racing circuit in their place, or a power station, or a housing estate, or a reservoir, or a thunderous stretch of the M1.
But once there was a grand country house, a superb parterre, a cottage garden, a sweeping deer park, a tree-lined avenue, lodges, stables, perhaps a cricket field altogether a classic English country estate. But while we can mercifully still visit Chatsworth these days or Holkham, all too many literally hundreds - across the country have been broken up, sold off, the buildings demolished, the land built on, leaving nothing but a collection of stirring, and now poignant, photographs, and sometimes not even many of them.
John Robinson’s book catalogues 20 of the most egregious losses around the country, from fabulous Trentham in Staffordshire to Shillinglee on the South Coast. Normanton is now under Rutland Water; Cassiobury has been swallowed into suburban Watford; Chicksands is covered with ugly military buildings. But here we can see these superb estates as they were in their pomp, and also in their decline. Robinson’s authoritative, sometimes waspish text anatomises the various reasons for their dissolutions, from polluted water to in at least one case, the black sheep of the family blowing the fortune on horses and high living.
England is Changing Hands is a fascinating chronicle of how power and money passed away from the aristocracy, but in the process utterly changed the English landscape, usually for the much worse.
Synopsis
Today we find a motor-racing circuit in their place, or a power station, or a housing estate, or a reservoir, but once there was a grand country house, a superb parterre, a cottage garden, a sweeping deer park, a treelined avenue, lodges, stables, perhaps a cricket fieldaltogether a classic English country estate. But while we can mercifully still visit Chatsworth these days or Holkham, all too many across the country have been broken up, sold off, the buildings demolished, the land built on, leaving nothing but a collection of stirring, and now poignant, photographs. John Robinsons book catalogues 20 of the most egregious losses around the UK.
Felling the Ancient Oaks is a fascinating chronicle of how power and money passed away from the aristocracy, but in the process utterly changed the English landscape, usually for the worse.
Synopsis
A stunning visual record of our most spectacular and scenic country estates that were broken up for sale and lost for ever.
Synopsis
A stunning visual record of England's most spectacular and scenic country estates that were broken up for sale and lost for ever. A sweeping country estate, with grand house and spectacular gardens and park, would not be the first impression of a visitor to modern suburban Watford. But well into the twentieth century that was exactly what was there – the magnificence of the Cassiobury estate, of which only a modest municipal park survives. Underneath the expanse of Rutland Water lies the once splendid Normanton estate, while Deepdene in Surrey is now memorialised only by an ugly office block. Fortunately, at least photographs live on to remind us of how the landscape looked before death duties, mining subsidence and sometimes the plain impecuniousness of the black sheep in the family took their toll and forced the break-up of all too many historic landed estates. In this elegiac book, a successor to Aurum’s Lost Victorian Britain, John Robinson surveys 20 of the most egregious losses, from Costessy in East Anglia to Lathom in Lancashire, and shows how the deer park, the home farm, the parterre and the cottage garden gave way to the power station, the motorway and the caravan park.
About the Author
Dr. John Martin Robinson is an historian and author whose many works include studies of the Wyatts and the architecture of recent country houses. Among his most recent books is The Regency Country House, published by Aurum. He serves as Maltravers Herald Extraordinary, one of Her Majesty's Officers of Arms, and is Librarian to the Duke of Norfolk.