Sudbury

Next up in my country house queue is Sudbury Hall. If you are a fan of the 1995 "Pride and Prejudice" miniseries (and who isn't?), some of these interiors are going to look familiar to you! As in the last post, all of the videos are 360s, so you can either just watch them or "take control" and look at whatever you want.

From the outside, Sudbury is very Jacobean/Restoration in its facade, which actually could be period-appropriate based on what we know about Pemberley, but doesn't, I think, match most peoples' mental picture of that fictional house (the exteriors of Pemberley were filmed at Lyme Park).

In addition to the house itself, the former stables now house the National Trust Museum of Childhood. I've got much too much house to show to go into too much detail of that, as well, but I will share this Regency era doll as an example:

Aside from its film connections, Sudbury is a great place to visit as an example of the evolution country houses were going through, both when it was built, and over time. It had a lot of placards explaining various changes that had taken place over the house and what era particular rooms dated from. One example of the way country houses at this time were evolving is in the great hall, below.

We've moved on from the old medieval/Tudor great halls, with their hammerbeam roofs, the halls where the entire family and their servants would have eaten and slept. But it is a still large, separate space that could be used as needed for the customary entertainments of not only one's equals in society, but also of tenant farmers and servants. By the Georgian era, these have started to fall off or are moved to separate servants and tenants' halls, and the great hall becomes the entrance hall: still an impressive space, but not commonly a room for entertainment anymore.

There are definitely areas of the house that seem Pemberley-ish, even ones that I don't recall seeing featured in the movie, like the library:

Or this sitting room:

Or small dining room:

These and the grander rooms you're about to see show that many country houses have a real mix of living spaces. Unfortunately you don't always get to see the more "family" rooms because they're in separate wings, sometimes still lived in by the family, and so it's only the grand state rooms that are on tour.

Speaking of grander rooms, let's just go ahead and show one of the two you've probably been waiting for, the great staircase:

What you don't necessarily catch as much of in watching it on television is the rather Baroque decoration of this room, which makes sense in a house of this age, that some spaces would have been finished in the brief era when it was popular in English country houses, or perhaps updated during that time. Like the ceiling:

 

 Or this carving above the staircase newel:

 

 

 

Personally, I don't think of Pemberley as being Baroque in terms of its interior decoration:

The rooms were lofty and handsome, and their furniture suitable to the fortune of their proprietor; but Elizabeth saw, with admiration of his taste, that it was neither gaudy nor uselessly fine; with less of splendor, and more real elegance, than the furniture of Rosings.

To me, Baroque is a whole lot of gaudy and uselessly fine, and I've always thought of it as more of a neoclassical interior (we'll be seeing some great examples of that in upcoming posts). I suppose the furniture could be thus and the wall and other decoration more Baroque, but I don't think Elizabeth would be complimenting Darcy's mismatched taste, if that was the case.

Things get even more Baroque in the saloon:

We'll go downstairs briefly to the kitchen. This one is more of a melding of different eras, but I think generally more Victorian and Edwardian in terms of features.

It also has an incomplete alteration I believe from the Edwardian era (you can see a certain re-flourishing of past styles, which was meant to be a very high-ceilinged billiard room.

We'll go up two flights of stairs now to the other room I expect you've been waiting for, the long gallery. It's basically impossible to walk down the gallery without fangirling over recalling Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy doing the same. Again, though, it's more Baroque when you get a chance to study it than I recall from the movie.

I've one last grand room to show, the Queen's room. It's very fitting to the general era of the interior decoration, with its silk damask wall hangings.

I also love this little detail, a book carrier. These mini-shelves could be used to carry books from one room to another (very useful considering how many "books" came in multiple volumes at that time) and were a common piece of furniture in the Georgian/Regency eras.

On the opposite side of the upstairs area is this great example of the house changing and being redecorated over time, this highly carved Tudor/gothic revival fireplace that only the Victorians could give us!

And just before the great staircase upstairs you get a completely different period with this art deco library:

Sigh, I do love a library!

In last week's post on Shugborough, we had a chance to look at a Georgian era farm. One of the things that was most interesting about Sudbury was that it's one of those houses that never moved its village farther away for landscaping or agricultural reasons (I've been reading about this and it wasn't always for aesthetic reasons; sometimes it just made sense as part of re-configuring farms). What this means is that you get a chance to see the supporting village as well as the estate buildings.

There's the stable and its yard, of course:

Then as you walk further along into the village...

...you reach the yard for the estate buildings which would have contained things like the steward's office and maintenance buildings (now converted into shops, of course):

Further into town and there is an inn, shops (including a butcher), school, and housing:

And even the village stocks!

On the other side of the great house is the church:

I usually find when I'm visiting these houses and considering them as settings for this time period that I have to gear up the old imagination to envision them as lived-in houses, and often stitch things together from various houses I've been to. I went to Sudbury because of the P&P connection, but I was extra glad I did because it gave me the chance to understand more about the estate and the supporting village than any house I've been to so far.

I must close out for now, but next up we've got Nostell Priory, which was actually my favorite out of all the ones I visited in this trip, so watch this space!

Writing update

I spent a LOT of time on Lady Anne's journal for A Generation's Secrets, all the while feeling odd because I wasn't making any progress on the main story. I did think it was important to finish a really solid draft of the journal, though, so that I could complete Lady Anne's arc as one unit. I have to admit, I cried when I got to the end. Spending that much time with one character, and particularly writing it all out long-hand, which I find to be more intimate, I suppose that was inevitable. For of course her last entry would be the last one before her death, and that meant that aside from filling gaps, our journey together was done. I might write Lady Anne Darcy again, in another work outside of this series, but not this particular characterization.

I typed up the entries, did I think three more as gap fills -- entries I'd realized later on were needed -- and by the time that was all done the journal came in at about 37,000 words, which is a not insubstantial novella! It will be integrated into the main story, though. I know many people were not tremendous fans of the dream sequences in Legacies (which make a little, tiny echo in this one), but I'm hoping the journal comes across as different because much of it is unknown for Elizabeth, and parts even for Darcy, and what Elizabeth reads has ramifications for their own lives (not to mention how it will impact Georgiana, who has long wondered about her mother). And while we know how it ends, Lady Anne and George Darcy's courtship is the book's primary love story.

And the really good news is that now that the journal is done, I'm on a real roll with the main body of work. It's up to 137,000 words now and I'm about halfway through the outline. So it's still on pace to be longer than A Season Lost, but how much longer is tough to tell at this point.

For those of you curious about Lady Anne's journal entries, I'd intended to post the excerpt I read at the Writer-Reader Get-Together when I wrote about that, and totally forgot. So here it is!

December 18, 1778

I do not know what is happening to me. Whenever I am in company with Mr. Darcy, I feel this strange dizziness and a churning in my stomach. It is not just that he is handsome, although he is, exceedingly so. He is so kind, and solicitous, and intelligent. I find it difficult to converse with strangers, but when I speak with him I never feel uncomfortable, as tho I have nothing to say. Even with the physical affect his presence has on me, I can still converse with him. Much of this is to his credit – he asks questions at just the right time to keep the conversation going. He seems to be one of those people who is exceedingly skilled in conversation. I admire it – O, I admire so much about him!

Today he expressed an interest in seeing the old castle, and Andrew said he would take him on a tour and invited Cathy and I to go with them. Cathy says he is a commoner and surely this is why she immediately said she had no interest in going through the droughty old castle, but I think I would have gone anywhere to spend more time in Mr. Darcy’s company, so I went with them. I think we were there for half the day and yet it felt like no time at all. Andrew and Mr. Darcy told me many tales of their travels but Mr. Darcy also asked me many questions about myself and what it was like to live at Stradbroke. I am given to understand that Pemberley, his family estate in Derbyshire, features a much newer house although the family have been in England since William the Conqueror – the former house has gone to ruin, he said. He quite enjoyed the castle and all its dusty corners because it is novel to him. He says he enjoys dining in the great hall for the same reason. I wish I could find his enthusiasm contagious in this. I would much rather live in a house where Robert Adam had recently designed the state rooms over old Stradbroke with its sad brick façade and old medieval furniture. I am always ashamed when we have people to visit, although at least that no longer happens with any frequency, since we have retrenched so much.

We also talked about my accomplishments and again he was very complimentary of my playing the harpsichord. He must think me terribly old-fashioned, although he has been kind about it. How I wish mama and papa would let me get a pianoforte instead, but they see it as an unnecessary expense. It makes me so angry at papa that he can lose five times the cost of a new pianoforte in one night at Almacks Club, and thus it is considered something I cannot have. I am sure all the other debutantes will have changed to that instrument and I only hope I will not be a laughingstock. Sometimes I wish for nothing more than to get away from Stradbroke, from debt and retrenchment and Cathy and papa.

I will not admit this anywhere but here, but over the past few days I have been wondering if it could be Mr. Darcy to rescue me. It is terribly forward of me! Yet everything about his situation save his lack of a title is so very eligible, and I would gladly give that up to be joined to such a man. I never believed in love at first sight but now I do wonder if it is indeed real. Or is this just an infatuation that will pass? I cannot tell at this time – I feel the desire to be in his company as much as I possibly can, and I have never felt that way about anyone before. I think his appearance of goodness must match what is inside his head and heart – Andrew would not have travelled with him for two years if it did not. And of course beyond my own feelings I am being very premature in presuming anything about his. He often initiates conversation with me, but he seems the sort of man who endeavours to make every member of his party comfortable in conversation, and perhaps he senses that I am least comfortable, even among my own family. And I know not whether he is even allowed to consider his own heart. It may be that there are other plans for him – plans involving a more well-dowered bride. All I know is that when he is gone I will miss him terribly, and I am glad that he has already promised to see us often in town during the season. His father is a member in the Commons and the whole family will be coming to town. Given his friendship with Andrew I have hopes of seeing him often.

More of what I've been up to

It's been a busy past couple of weekends for me! I did some more tall ship viewing at the Chestertown, Maryland Downrigging Festival, and got a lot of writing done, to boot, as I found staying in this historic town very inspiring:

I also attended the JAFF Writer-Reader Get-Together, and had a fantastic time. It was so great to get to meet up with readers, bloggers, and fellow writers, and talk about Austenesque writing and Jane Austen the whole weekend. I dressed up for tea, as I love to do:




They're gauging interest for a 2020 session, so if this sounds like fun but you weren't able to make it this year, please register!

Shugborough Estate

 I have loads of multimedia from five different great houses I visited during my trip to England to share with you all, and lacking any better ordering I'm going to go in what was chronological order for me, which was also generally northwards. So first up is Shugborough Estate. This is a National Trust property although more recently so, as it was given to the National Trust in lieu of death duties in 1960 and then leased to the Staffordshire County Council, and has only been back under National Trust operation since 2016.

I was particularly interested in this one because of the estate portion of its name. Often when you visit these great houses, you get to see the most noteworthy portions of the house and then the landscape gardens, and they are often now including the servants' quarters (I've read visitors are asking for these more and they're having to be converted out of offices...I expect it's the Downton Abbey effect). But Shugborough included more of the working estate, or so I had read, and the more I can learn about the more behind the scenes aspects of these great houses, the better, as estate management plays a role at points in my series.

 

Walled kitchen garden at Shugborough

What I found there wasn't quite what I was expecting, but it was still useful. The "estate" portion is really more of a farm, which would have been the home farm for the estate. It's also, strangely enough, designed by architect Samuel Wyatt, who was one of the leading architects of his day (but not my favorite...we'll get to him in future posts). We tend to think of architects as specifically designers of buildings in the modern definition of the term, but back then it was still a developing role, and so you see architects better known for buildings also designing landscapes (and vice versa), also doing interior designs and sometimes even furniture, and in this case designing the layout and buildings of a farm, as you can see in the photos below:

 

Farmyard at Shugborough

 

 

Mill pond behind the farm. A working mill was built into the farm buildings rather than being a separate building. 

 

Pig pens at the farm

There were points where it definitely felt a little petting-zoo, and it seemed popular with families with children because they do have animals still kept within the farm.

 

Look at this cutie!

The exhibits within the farm explained the various roles that people would have held on the farm in the Georgian era, but probably the highlight was the bailiff's house. The bailiff would have been the person responsible for managing the farm (whereas a steward like George Wickham's father would have overarching responsibility for the entire estate including the home farm and tenanted farms), and so this house is a unique chance to see how someone at that level of society would have lived, which is pretty good (although not nearly so good as in the great house), as you can see in the 360 photo and video below (all of the videos in this post are 360s, so you can either watch them as they are or pan about to see different things as you watch):

 

 

Beyond the farm, there is a dairy, which would have been part ornamental dairy (for those great ladies who like to play at farming, a la Marie Antoinette) and part functioning dairy. Only the ornamental part was open, though.

 

Exterior of ornamental dairy.

 

Interior of ornamental dairy.

 

The stables, next to the house, are a bit fancier than the farm.

The house itself isn't particularly remarkable compared to some we'll see in future posts, but still worth taking a look at. And it was inhabited by some interesting people: Thomas Anson, who never married and therefore the estate passed to his much more famous brother, George Anson, who as a commodore (a temporary naval rank for a captain commanding a squadron) captured a Spanish treasure ship and circumnavigated the world. The estate passed to his son, who became the first Earl of Lichfield, and in the 20th century passed to Patrick Lichfield, who was a famous society photographer (his apartment in the house is a separate tour and photos aren't allowed as his photography remains under copyright).

Shugborough Hall exterior.

The library and drawing room were my two favorites of the rooms.

 

The library.

 

 

The drawing room.

 

 

What impressed me most, though, were the servants' quarters, which were extensive (I believe the county council had maintained them as a museum before) and really showed a full suite of rooms (larder, kitchen, scullery, laundry, etc.) surrounding this rather nondescript courtyard:

 

Servants' quarters courtyard. 

 

 

 

 

The kitchen had some great details like these racks designed to store apples so they aren't touching, so they'll ripen more slowly.

 

I believe this was a butler's or housekeeper's office, but can't recall which.
 

 

Servants' hall.

 

 

Storage.

That's all I've got for now, but if you enjoyed all of that multimedia, I've got plenty more for future posts! And next month's house is one that will look familiar to you 1996 Pride and Prejudice miniseries fans, so watch this space.