Soane Museum Study Group – Wednesday 12 June – Kerry Bristol
Regular price £6.00
The Soane Museum Study Group is an open forum for scholars – both established and emerging – to present new research into an aspect of architectural history and/or Soane’s collection.
Kerry Bristol - Planning and (mis)managing: three generations of life below stairs at Nostell, West Yorkshire, c.1730-1805
Wednesday 12 June, 6:30pm
On arrival please come to No.14 Lincoln’s Inn Fields. The door will be staffed from 6pm.
Your confirmation email serves as your ticket.
About the event
Drawing on a rich archive, this paper will explore how service life was planned and organised spatially and socially at Nostell, West Yorkshire, by three generations of the Winn family. Under Sir Rowland Winn, 4th Baronet, the servants divided their time between the old converted monastic buildings on the site and the new house, where the service areas designed by Col. James Moyser and James Paine were planned to reflect the needs of a large family increasingly distanced from those who served them. During the tenure of Robert Adam’s patron Sir Rowland Winn, 5th Baronet, and his Swiss-born wife Sabine d’Hervart, the move into the new house was completed but Lady Winn’s attempts to assert authority were ineffective and her household was fraught with idle maids, inattentive housekeepers and irritated cooks, many of whom were vocal in their dissatisfaction and seldom stayed long in her employ. Nostell then underwent a period of retrenchment following the accession of Sir Rowland Winn, 6th Baronet, whose account books encapsulate service life there at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
About the speaker
Dr Kerry Bristol is a senior lecturer in the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies at the University of Leeds, where she has taught the history of British and Irish architecture and country house culture since 1999. She is currently researching and writing a book on everyday life in the eighteenth century at Nostell, West Yorkshire, where she is honorary historical advisor to the National Trust.
