This edited article about Hughenden Manor originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 705 published on 19 July 1975.

Hughenden Manor

Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, bought Hughenden in 1847. The manor is really Georgian in style but was altered to its present Tudor appearance to satisfy the romantic passion for English tradition of the young Disraeli.

Hughenden has an incomparable position, standing high among the Chiltern Hills, overlooking a lovely park in which stands the church where Disraeli is buried.

With its contemporary decoration, the house is a typical example of a Victorian gentleman’s country seat and contains many relics of the statesman.

There are portraits of his friends, letters from Queen Victoria and some of the manuscripts of his novels. His study is arranged exactly as he left it at the time of his death.

The statesman’s son, Major Coningsby Disraeli, lived at Hughenden until 1936, When Mr. W. H. Abbey generously purchased the house, contents and the park for preservation. It was opened to the public in 1949, and is now run by the National Trust.

During World War II, the house became a storehouse of target maps which were used by the Allied air forces.

This edited article about Castle Ashby originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 704 published on 12 July 1975.

The Long Gallery at Castle Ashby with its early Palladian design. Photograph by Charles Latham

Castle Ashby is a sight worth seeing. It lies in a great landscape park built by the noted landscape gardener, Lancelot Brown, better known as “Capability” Brown. He received his nickname from his favourite saying that a site had “capabilities.”

Although the park was laid out in 1765, the bulk of this quadrangular mansion is regional Jacobean and dates from approximately 1624. An unusual aspect of the building is that it presents the most complete example of a balustrade spelling out an inscription. In this case, it is the verse Nisi Dominus.

The side containing the entrance to the courtyard was built in the style of Inigo Jones, but the date and designer are unknown.

The Great Chamber with Elizabethan and Charles II features, has a ceiling typifying the transition in style from the Jacobean to the Palladian vogue of the sixteenth century.

There is a richly carved oak staircase and the State rooms, hung with expensive Brussels and other tapestries, were decorated in 1675 by the third Earl of Northampton to repair Civil War damage.

Castle Ashby is owned by the Marquess of Northampton.

This edited article about Hatfield House originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 702 published on 28 June 1975.

A picture history of Hatfield House

Only 21 miles from London, is this celebrated Jacobean house which stands in its own great park. It was built between 1607-12 by Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury and Prime Minister to James I. It has been the family home of the Cecils ever since.

The accounts show that the design is due to Robert Lyminge and supervised by Simon Basil, the predecessor to Inigo Jones as Surveyor of the King’s Works.

The plan is unusual in that it was among the earliest to combine domestic comfort with provision for State visitors or as we would call them now, V.I.P’s. The centre is devoted to State rooms with a separate dining room with kitchen adjacent.

The staircase is exquisitely designed and decorated and the beautiful stained glass in the chapel is original. Adjoining is Hatfield Old Palace where Queen Elizabeth I was confined during her sister Mary’s reign.

The Staterooms contain famous paintings, fine furniture, rare tapestries and historic armour. Hatfield House is one of the most completely adorned and preserved of mansions.

This edited article about Powis Castle originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 699 published on 7 June 1975.

Powis Castle

Powis Castle, commonly called the Castle Coch or “Red Castle” owes its name to the lofty ridge of red limestone upon which it is built. It has remained continuously occupied since the time of Edward I, although over the years It has been altered and adapted to the needs of its many owners.

Because of their adherence to the cause of James I, the Powis family were sent into exile. Tenancy of the castle was granted to William III’s cousin, the Earl of Rochford who was responsible for the design and laying out of the superb terraced gardens.

The Powis family returned in 1722 and have since added to and elaborated their family home. The castle is situated on a crest overhanging the upper reaches of the River Severn.

It contains much notable furniture, tapestries, fine plasterwork, murals and paintings. It is notable for many interesting relics of “Clive of India” (1725-74), to whose son the castle and title passed. The castle was bequeathed to the National Trust by the late Earl of Powis in 1952.

This edited article about Penshurst originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 698 published on 31 May 1975.

Sir Philp Sidney, the great Elizabethan soldier-poet, was born at Penshurst, by Dan Escott

Penshurst was granted by Edward VI to Sir William Sidney, whose son, Sir Henry, a great Lord-deputy of Ireland and President of Wales, became brother-in-law of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester and was father of Sir Philip Sidney. This famous Elizabethan courtier-poet-soldier, was born here in 1554.

Although its chief associations are with the Sidney family, the core of Penshurst is the Great Hall which was built in 1340 and has been perfectly preserved. The still older vaulted crypt is now an armoury while the fine state rooms and long gallery contain china, silver and portraits of rare interest.

Although they were never wealthy, the Sidneys added and adapted to Penshurst which has remained a notable and picturesque medieval mansion. The 1st Lord De L’Isle and Dudley, their descendant, reconstructed parts in 1834 and his son did much to preserve the fabric and restore the gardens to their Jacobean form.

This “noble pile” as the poet Ben Jonson described it, stands in its own park of 350 acres.

This edited article about Temple Newsam originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 696 published on 17 May 1975.

Temple Newsam

Temple Newsam is so called because originally it was a preceptory or community of the Knights Templar. Lord Darnley who afterwards became the husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, was born here in 1545.

During the reign of Elizabeth I, its walls held many grim secrets. It was one of the chief meeting places for people connected with plotting against Elizabeth I and her nobles. Many famous and infamous English and Scottish names were to be met with in those days at Temple Newsam.

The manor house was later acquired by Sir Arthur Ingram, whose descendants became Viscount Irwin. It is a splendid example of an English country mansion and it has its own superb style.

Many Jacobean buildings were very ornate and tasteless in design, but the simple dignity of Temple Newsam represents the best possible taste of the early years of Charles I.

The hall is now the City of Leeds’s principal Art Gallery. It contains some superb furniture, silver, ceramics and a fine collection of pictures.

This edited article about Ham House originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 694 published on 3 May 1975.

The Cabal Room, Ham House

It is always fascinating to delve into the past in order to discover just how people lived then. Ham House at Petersham in Surrey, is an admirable example of a house which has been preserved in remarkable condition since it was built in 1610.

Sir Thomas Vavasor, knight-marshal to King James I, was the man responsible for its erection. It still remains the most sumptuous example of interior decoration of the Restoration period.

After it was first built, it passed into the hands of William Murray, first Earl of Dysart. On his death in about 1647, it became the property of his daughter, Elizabeth, Countess of Dysart, who, after her marriage to the Duke of Lauderdale, enlarged and decorated the house in the flamboyant style of the period.

After the Duchess died, Ham House reverted to her son, the 3rd Earl of Dysart. The house remained in the possession of the Tollemache family until they presented the house and gardens to the National Trust in 1948. Ham House is open daily throughout the year.

This edited article about Sheffield originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 659 published on 31 August 1974.

King Edward VII watching the rolling of steel plates on a royal visit to Sheffield by John W Campbell

Every time you eat a meal you probably hold a little piece of Sheffield in your hands. And so, for hundreds of years, have millions of other people. For Sheffield, as everyone knows, is the city where knives and forks come from.

Probably no other city in Britain is so identified by one product as is Sheffield. Yet many more things made from fine steelware come from this Yorkshire city, besides the cutlery with which we eat.

In fact, if it’s made of steel, Sheffield can make it. After knives come razors, scissors, surgical instruments, files, saws and engineering tools, armour-plate, rails, engines, machinery, guns and shells. Sheffield makes all these things.

It sets such store by its fine steel industry that next to the Lord Mayor, the highest dignitary in the city is the Master Cutler of the Ancient Cutlers’ Company, which rules the metal industries in the Sheffield district of Yorkshire’s West Riding, called Hallamshire.

So why, one wonders, did the early steel men, whose product made Britain the industrial giant of the world, choose Sheffield for their headquarters?

We know for certain that by the time that William the Conqueror came to England, and probably even in Roman times, iron was smelted with charcoal in the Sheffield district. Somewhere between those two periods Sheffield was a tiny hamlet, situated where Derbyshire and Yorkshire now meet, called Escafeld – “the open space among the woods by the River Sheaf.”

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This edited article about the Industrial Revolution originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 633 published on 2 March 1974.

Enclosure enriched the landowners of great estates immeasurably, by Angus McBride

It is hard to believe that the most remarkable change in the history of mankind took place within the lifespan of a single generation. But the series of social, scientific, and economic changes which we call the Industrial Revolution did actually take place within the space of about seventy years.

It is difficult to pinpoint an exact date on which this revolution began. All revolutions take a very long time to come into force and the seeds of change may be sown long before they take root and finally burst through the soil. But we can say that Britain’s transformation from an agricultural country into an industrial nation began in about the year 1760.

Before that date, eighty per cent of Britain’s population lived on the land. The purpose of farming had been simply to provide enough food for a man’s family, and to make a little money by selling his surplus produce in the nearby town. Life for the farm labourer was tough, but so long as his primitive farming methods kept himself and the rest of society from food shortage, the system was an adequate one. For the rich landowner, on the other hand, the open-field system was a wasteful one. Throughout Britain the wealthy landed gentry began to realise that by using the improved, scientific, agricultural methods invented by such men as Jethro Tull, Lord Townshend and Thomas Coke, they could make their land much more profitable. But this improved agriculture could be carried out only at the expense of the open field system – and, at the expense of the farm labourer’s livelihood.

By a series of Acts of Parliament land all over Britain was divided into enclosures which radically changed the face of the whole countryside. The pretty patchwork of fields enclosed by hedges and trees which make up the English landscape that we know today meant hardship and poverty to the farm labourer, and high profits to the already wealthy landowner. For the enclosure system meant that a good deal of common land from which most people derived their livelihood was taken away. The combination of the Enclosure Acts and the improved methods in agriculture which we call the Agrarian Revolution had the effect of making the rich richer and the poor poorer.

The consequences of the agrarian revolution were to have a startling effect on the entire social system of Britain. The yeoman had become a landless labourer, drifting to the towns for employment in the new factories to save himself from starvation. To many of these men the ‘dark satanic mills’ were preferable to hunger and misery in ‘England’s green and pleasant land’. But when they arrived at the new towns they must have thought that they had only exchanged one evil for another. Having escaped from the awful consequences of one revolution, they found themselves facing another revolution – the most remarkable one of all time.

This edited article about life in service originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 612 published on 6 October 1973.

A cook and maid in a Victorian kitchen by Peter Jackson

The wind tore at the female servants’ bonnets, and the rain beat down on them and on the male servants alike. When the down pour ended, they were choked once again by clouds of thick black smoke as the steam engine belched its way across country. Even the bridges were sometimes hazards, little urchins delighting in dropping rocks down on to the occupants of the open trucks.

It had been better in the stage-coaching days. Then, valets and ladies’ maids travelled in the coach, and the other servants, perched on top, had only the weather to contend with.

There was no question in 1841 of servants sitting under cover, for closed coaches had been designed for travellers who wanted to avoid the risk of mixing, even temporarily, with any other than persons of the same apparent standing in society. This was the great age of class distinctions when the “lower orders” were expected to know their place and keep to it. None knew the rules better than servants who endured the most intricate class divisions below stairs as well as above.

However, most masters were not monsters, so the train situation was solved by having second class travel under cover, and, later, third as well. There were no corridors at first, though, so servants could not attend their masters’ and mistresses’ wants. Soon rich families could hire a whole special coach to themselves complete with a parlour, and a compartment for servants. The Victorians never shirked a challenge, especially where their comforts were concerned.

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