To hate stately homes and castles now?

[Allsorts1]

When I was younger I would love visiting stately homes, gardens and castles with my parents - learning about all the history and the inhabitants and generally imagining myself to be a princess lol.

Now when I go to these places I just feel a bit eye rolly and bitter, thinking about how corrupt and awful the aristocratic system must have been and how I’m so happy to not be living in that time. I find myself not particularly interested in the history of it as it’s usually “very rich person gifted a large parcel of land by some other landed gentry, blah blah blah”

Like yes, I can see that in some ways as a culture we did need concentrated wealth to create these beautiful buildings in the first place, but I’m very glad that this system has been dismantled now.

Just wondering if anyone else is bothered by conflicted feelings when visiting stately homes?

@DGRossetti

All the big Norman castles (especially in Wales) are also huge demonstrations of oppression. Not the nice fluffy oppression we have these days. But the OG style where the North of England was almost wiped out.

Absolutely - the churches are made in stone for similar reasons we are here were staying.

I have to admit my schooling left me with vauge impression reason we were so wealthy as a country was mainly because we had the industrial revolution - it's only since I've realised how much we asset striped India and how much we profited from slavery and how we started drug running opium on massive scale.

how we started drug running opium on massive scale.

Are you usually so understated ?

It went further than that. Remember we basically threatened to burn China to the ground (a serious threat to people who build in wood and paper) unless they let us in to peddle opium.

@DGRossetti

It's pretty much a given that the estates that went up - or were expanded - from about 1650 to the 1830s were paid for from and with the profits of slave trading and slave labour in the colonies.

And when slavery was abolished the slave owners were compensated (we stopped paying them in 2016 by the way) and some of that money will have gone into their stately piles of bricks.

It does change your view of things as you walk around.

No it isn't. Some, yes. Many are the result of simply owning vast tracts of land for a long time and/or finding coal on said land.

We should talk about the legacy of slavery. We shouldn't however assume it was universal.

@Knockon

I know what you mean *@Allsorts1* I went to chatsworth last summer, and I felt an awe for the beautiful architecture and landscape, but ended up feeling a bit sick at the magnitude of wealth. Especially at the end whereby it said the family couldn’t pay their taxes, so donated some tapestries to HMRC, which still hang in the house for visitors to see after they’ve paid their entrance fee to pay for the upkeep of the property because its too much for one family to pay.

I do however agree that usually the way historical houses have been set up, it’s hard to imagine the owners’ lives - with multiple bedrooms and dressing rooms and card rooms and retiring rooms, but much easier to go to the scullery and kitchens and feel the history come alive!

In fairness those tapestries (the Devonshire Hunting tapestries) are usually kept at the V&A for everyone to see, they are only back at Chatsworth for a short period. When valuable items are donated in lieu of tax it's with the caveat they have to be available for public access, so they would usually go to a suitable museum or archive, but can occasionally stay in the actual home - with the caveat they can't hide it away in the 'private' side of the house, and the museum/archive that technically now 'owns it' can ask for it occasionally for exhibitions. While I can kind of see the point of it (keeps national treasures in the UK and available to the public rather than going overseas/to a private collector) it is a bit of a fiddle! But if they didn't allow it as an option most of these houses would be gone in a generation because the inheritance tax bill would be unaffordable.

No

I've always known how stately homes became.
It's a huge system with lots of people living there?
Did you think they were altruistic communes