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jlmb's review
3.0
I'm drawn to this sort of book - a biography of a great house, basically - for several reasons. I love learning about history, especially British and French history, and learning about specific locations adds another dimension to my knowledge. I also enjoy learning about architecture, landscaping and decorative arts, subjects that take up a large part of the book. Finally, I am fascinated by the idea of living in a home like this, it's like living in a museum! I think I'm influenced by several books I read as a child. "From The Mixed Up Files of Mrs Basil E. Frankweiler" is about 2 kids secretly living in NYC's Metropolitan Museum of Art and boy,did it sound cool! A little uncomfortable for sure, but worth it to be able to wander the galleries at night, living with all that amazing art. Another children's book that shaped my interest was Elizabeth Enright's "Return to Goneaway" where a family buys a mansion that has been abandoned for over 50 years and they restore it, discovering wonderful treasures hidden in the home. The Secret Garden, The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe and the Enchanted Castle are just some of the other children's novels set in a rambling country estate in England that whetted my desire to read about such homes as an adult.
My favorite section of this book was when Lady Victoria wrote about living at Burghley as a child. The mention of using a rainy day as a chance to poke around the house and look for random treasures - omg, how fun! Even as an adult, she would open some drawer and discover something amazing, like an letter or a bill written 350 years ago. Cool! Her father gave her a priceless Chinese snuff box that she then stored in her toy box and took out occasionally to gaze at in enjoyment. (it's now on display in the state rooms with all the other snuff boxes) She writes about the fun games they played in the house and the surrounding park. Hanging out with the blacksmith (seriously, a working blacksmith forge at your home with a full time blacksmith working there - wow) and learning how to forge horseshoes is another neat memory she writes about.
I also enjoyed learning about the restoration of items within the house and how that process works. Being about to rent out buildings on the property to furniture restorers, stonemasons, book binders, art restorers etc facilitates the constant work that needs to be done on the upkeep of a house this size. It was good fortune that Lady Victoria worked at Sotheby's prior to taking over the house's upkeep as an adult. I would think she chose that career thinking ahead to when she might need to help care for Burghley, but she doesn't go into detail about why she started working there. Anyway, she made a lot of helpful connections that she took advantage of later on.
What I didn't like about this book so much was that she only spent one chapter on the history of the home's former occupants. I would have liked more details about them. It would have been nice to learn more about the initial build of the home. As for the photos, I loved that there were a lot and quite a few in color. However, there was no logic to where the photos where placed within the pages. The photos were spread throughout the book but were not placed near the text discussing those rooms. It was a drag having to be constantly flipping back and forth, looking for photos of the room being discussed. Why not cluster all the photos of one room together, then have the accompanying text be located right after the photos?
This book was published 25 years ago so I asked Professor Google about the house's current situation. Lady Victoria's daughter Miranda is now the chatelaine of the home. Happy to learn that the family still lives in the private quarters of the home. Also learned that the Kiera Knightley version of Pride & Prejudice was filmed at Burghley - cool! Burghley is Lady Catherine's Rosing Park. (Also found out that neighboring Chatsworth, my favorite British great house played the role of Darcy's Pemberly.) It's always nice to learn random fun facts!
My favorite section of this book was when Lady Victoria wrote about living at Burghley as a child. The mention of using a rainy day as a chance to poke around the house and look for random treasures - omg, how fun! Even as an adult, she would open some drawer and discover something amazing, like an letter or a bill written 350 years ago. Cool! Her father gave her a priceless Chinese snuff box that she then stored in her toy box and took out occasionally to gaze at in enjoyment. (it's now on display in the state rooms with all the other snuff boxes) She writes about the fun games they played in the house and the surrounding park. Hanging out with the blacksmith (seriously, a working blacksmith forge at your home with a full time blacksmith working there - wow) and learning how to forge horseshoes is another neat memory she writes about.
I also enjoyed learning about the restoration of items within the house and how that process works. Being about to rent out buildings on the property to furniture restorers, stonemasons, book binders, art restorers etc facilitates the constant work that needs to be done on the upkeep of a house this size. It was good fortune that Lady Victoria worked at Sotheby's prior to taking over the house's upkeep as an adult. I would think she chose that career thinking ahead to when she might need to help care for Burghley, but she doesn't go into detail about why she started working there. Anyway, she made a lot of helpful connections that she took advantage of later on.
What I didn't like about this book so much was that she only spent one chapter on the history of the home's former occupants. I would have liked more details about them. It would have been nice to learn more about the initial build of the home. As for the photos, I loved that there were a lot and quite a few in color. However, there was no logic to where the photos where placed within the pages. The photos were spread throughout the book but were not placed near the text discussing those rooms. It was a drag having to be constantly flipping back and forth, looking for photos of the room being discussed. Why not cluster all the photos of one room together, then have the accompanying text be located right after the photos?
This book was published 25 years ago so I asked Professor Google about the house's current situation. Lady Victoria's daughter Miranda is now the chatelaine of the home. Happy to learn that the family still lives in the private quarters of the home. Also learned that the Kiera Knightley version of Pride & Prejudice was filmed at Burghley - cool! Burghley is Lady Catherine's Rosing Park. (Also found out that neighboring Chatsworth, my favorite British great house played the role of Darcy's Pemberly.) It's always nice to learn random fun facts!
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