Noble Ambitions: The Fall and Rise of the English Country House After World War II
The decline of the English country houses commenced with an accumulation of events beginning in the late 1890s. There was an agricultural depression and then burdensome death duties were implemented which only increased over the years. The lifestyle of the privileged class with their extravagant living, elaborate mansions, castles, and manors was not a system that could continue to hold up. They tried shoring up their lifestyle with infusions of money through American marriage, mortgages, and selling off valuables and land. After WWI when domestic labor became scarce, the decline accelerated. Tinniswood describes the creative, desperate measures taken by owners to hold on to their homes, but in the end, many had to let them go. Hundreds of stately homes, many of national importance, were demolished or sold in the interwar years and following WWII. Many were repurposed as museums, hospitals, schools, government buildings, or turned over to the National Trust. The homes that were requisitioned for war purposes, WWI and/or WWII, were returned in deplorable condition, further burdening owners with costs of repair and restoration.
With each chapter focusing on a specific topic such as the role played during the wars, keeping up appearances, reducing size, modernizing, post war interior design, tourism, bad behavior, menageries, and more, Tinniswood takes an in-depth look into the people, homes, and surrounding events over nearly a century. Photos, mainly of the owners of these homes, are included, but more photos of these majestic homes would have been welcome – prior to destruction and those that still stand. Noble Ambitions paints an intriguing mosaic of people and country homes from a bygone era trying to survive in a modern world.
