News & Events

Adapting to Survive: The Country House and the Pandemic

An online talk by Ben Cowell, Director General of Historic Houses. This event was hosted by David Adshead, Co-Director of the Attingham Summer School with a Q&A at the end. You can watch the recording here

An Evening of Country House Readings, hosted by Tessa Wild, Co-Director of The Attingham Summer School. You can read the running order here watch the full recording here

Queen Mary: First Royal Curator

Queen Mary, consort of King George V, has often been dismissed in the past as a collector of fripperies and bibelots, yet not only did she add considerably and significantly to the Royal Collection, but visitors to the royal residences today see the works of art through her lens. Queen Mary was the first member of the Royal Family to consider the collections in her care in their historical context, reorganising and redisplaying the works of art with didactic purpose and orhereganising the provision of interpretation of many objects for the first time. Kathryn Jones, Senior Curator, Royal Collection Trust, and Rebecca Lyons, Director of The Attingham Trust’s Royal Collection Studies, consider Queen Mary’s role as collector and curator. You can watch the recording here

Sunday 7th March 2021 at 7pm GMT
The Attingham Trust in association with the Furniture History Society

‘What tone is salmon-coloured? Interpreting documentation in historic textile furnishing schemes’ by Annabel Westman

Interpreting archival documentation can present many challenges when furnishing an historic interior. Colour and design, texture and technique are just some of the queries and considerations raised when restoring beds and window curtains, seat furniture and carpets to replicate an historic period. This talk will concentrate on colour and design with some historic house case studies to illustrate and show how sometimes questions have been resolved by the original trimmings supplied – and a red herring will be thrown in for good measure as well…

You can register here.

Tuesday 16th March 2021 at 6pm GMT
‘The Historic House in Ireland’

On the eve of St Patrick’s Day, Elizabeth Jamieson, Director of the Study Programme in Ireland 2021, invites you on a virtual trip across the sea to Ireland. The event will comprise a number of short film extracts followed by a live Q&A.
Further details to follow

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Wednesday 28th April 2021 at 6pm GMT
‘The Château of Bagatelle: the story of a remarkable house and its collections’

Helen Jacobsen, the Director of the French Eighteenth-Century Studies course, looks at the absorbing story of the Château of Bagatelle, the former hunting lodge in the Bois de Boulogne that was transformed into a jewel of French neoclassicism as the result of a et between Marie-Antoinette and her brother-in-law, the Comte d’Artois. Much more than a plaything, Bagatelle survived the Revolution and came the much-loved home of two more of the greatest patrons of French art, the 4th Marquess of Hertford and Sir Richard Wallace. Helen, who is also the Curator of French 18th-century decorative art at the Wallace Collection, will chart the life of the house under all three owners, and investigate the continuing connections between Bagatelle and Hertford House.

A Conversation between Attingham Trust Patron, The Duke of Devonshire and Attingham Alumnus Jay Robert Stiefel

Recording available here