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.