Snapshots of country-house life

Press, 5 March 1988, Page 23

Snapshots of country-house life

Country House Camera. By Christopher Simon Sykes. Pavilion Books, 1987. 224 pp (paperback). (Reviewed by Stephen Erber) Mr J. Loudon, the gardener, remarked in 1806 that "rural scenery is so cogenial to the human [mind, that there are few persons who do not indulge the hope of retiring at some period into the country." j In England over many years effect has been given to this hobe by the wealthy, who have built very large, grand and often quite grandiose, country residences. These palaces are called, with typical British understatement, "houses." Although I am not convinced that the subject of English country houses is of great interest to the New Zealand public, this is a book which is not so much about the English country house, as it is about photography whose subjects happen to be, in the main, the occupants of and activities carried out in and about the Englifh country houses. In his introduction, Christopher Sykes says that the English country house can claim to have been the birthplace of photography The very first photograph, a picture no bigger than an inch square, was of the windows of Lacock Abbey “the first building that was ever known to have drawn its own picture.” ' Generally the attitude of the English public towards the new iivention of

public towards the new

photography was one of indifference, an (attitude to be contrasted with the attitude of the French public to the similar discovery by Daguerre, which caused great excitement and interest in ‘ France. But the English upper classes did embrace photography, and this is a record of the photographs they took over a period of 90 years until 1939. Perhaps the most interesting photographs in this book are, those taken by Lady Lucy Bridgeman and her sister in the 1850 s. They seem to me to show great imagination in their composition and great fortitude on the part of the sitters, some of whom had to sit, in those early days, for twenty to| thirty minutes before! the photograph could be pronounced to have been taken. This clearly accounts for the often trance-like state in which some of the sitters are depicted. The book is by no means simply a celebration of the British upper classes and a past way of life although, admittedly, : there is a pervading sense of nostalgia because the photographs are all taken from family photograph family albums. If .they are anything to go by, country life was by no means always glamorous and richly caparisoned. The lawns may have been sweeping but they were not always cut. The gardens may have been extensive but they were not always carefully and sympathetically planted. The houses

may have been huge, even imposing, but they were by no means always well-maintained.

Indeed, many were in a state of considerable dilapidation; Hesleyside, for example, being host to mushrooms which grew on the woodwork in the winter time. Their owners were usually well-off, but one would not always think that to look at them — the photograph of the fourth Earl of Ilchester shows him dressed down to such a degree that it could be commented of him as it was of another: “If he is a lord he dresses little worse than a commoner.”

A lot of the delicacy and innocence of the world of children, especially of late Victorian and Edwardian children, [is captured. There are wondrous photographs of the Manners [family, particularly of Lady Marjorie Manners as a child, as well as some [ extremely bizarre photographs, such as [ that of Violet Asquith as a three-year ' old reading to a doll in a pram with a [ large stuffed alligator nearby and a dead stuffed snake on top of the pram. The book ends with photographs of 14 of the houses themselves. I would judge these houses to be architecturally undistinguished. Their owners might well have lamented with , Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, when i she said:! "I have always had the misfortune to suffer very great mischiefs | from the assistance of architects.”