HOW TO SAVE THE COUNTRY HOUSES OF ENGLAND.—L
" The splendour of the French nobles is confined to their town residence ; that of the English is snore usefully distributed in their country seats ; and we should be astonished at our own riches, if the labours of architecture, the spoils of Italy and Greece, which are now scattered from Inverary to Wilton, were accumulated in a few streets between Atarylebone and Westminster."—GmBores AtrrosioolutruY.
WE publish elsewhere some interesting reflections on the sale of Stowe and on the very generous and public-spirited gift to the nation which was made by the purchaser, Mr. Harry Shaw. Our correspondent, Mr. Williams-Ellis, deals with one aspect of the problem of Stowe and the best way in which this princely gift can be utilized. Here we want to discuss the more general aspects of the question—how to save the great country houses of England and what we ought to do with them. That they are doomed unless we make a great effort and find real uses for them seems, unfortunately, only too true. Unless we solve the problem, the country houses of England will in another thirty or forty years have passed away as completely as did the abbeys between 1520 and 1560. To those who care, and they are to be numbered by the million, or rather by the ten million, for the beauty, charm, and historical associations of England, the prospect is a tragedy. The English-speaking world will have lost a precious and irreplaceable thing. Men and women yet unborn will mourn the loss, whether they live here or have made their homes by the waters of the St. Lawrence or the Mississippi, on the shores of the Pacific, from Alaska to the Mexican border, on the littoral of the great Australian Commonwealth, or in the far New England of New Zealand. As the children of the new generation turn over books of architecture and portfolios of drawings of old and magnificent houses, inflamed with the idea that some day they will travel in England and see these marvels of beauty, dignity, and grandeur, must they be told, " Alas I You will never see them. They are no more " 1 Maybe some scion of an old house would murmur to them Scott's unforgettable lines ;— " Ah Clandiboye ! Thy friendly floor
Shave Donard's oaks shall light no more. All unregarded in the glade My sire's glad halls are prostrate laid."
But those who merely mourn are worse than useless. Unless he can give some answer to the question, " What are you going to do about it ? " a man had better keep his tears to himself. What can we do to prevent the passing into nothingness of the great English country houses—the houses which are now too expensive even for rich men to keep up, and (what endangers them still more) are out of the fashion, out of that new way of life which the rich and the luxurious now affect ? For these the palatial country house is as much out of date as a state coach or a four-in-hand when compared to the newest and most elegant of motor-cars. Again, the country house is too obvious a target for the modern tax-collector. He cannot fail to hit it at the first shot. Et is essential, then, that if the structure of the country house and some part of the park and pleasaunces are to be saved, a use must be found for them.
Can we answer the question ? We believe that we sm. We do not mean by this to say that we can suggest a use for every doomed country house—every castle, park, place, and abbey which must otherwise go to ruin. We firmly believe, however, that the majority of them can, by the exercise of forethought and organization, be saved and put to new uses. To state it in another way, we believe that to let the great country houses either be pulled down or fall down would not only be a great destruction of the sources of aesthetic ecstasy, but must be regarded merely from the utilitarian point of view as a great and unnecessary act of waste.
The first and most obvious use to make of our great country houses is to use them as institutions—museums, libraries, hospitals, asylums, convalescent homes, homes for blind people, for cripples, for aged and infirm pen- sioners. No doubt the houses that are best suited for this purpose are houses which are near large cities. It is much easier to find a use for Ken Wood and Holland House, situated as they are, than for a house in the depths of the country. Still, the local authorities in country districts are constantly, or rather before the war were constantly wanting and soon will want again, great buildings for various public purposes. To be practical, we suggest that it should be a universal rule that before any municipality or other public body spends money on bricks and mortar on a large scale it should make a serious effort to .see whether there is not some big country house which could be purchased cheaply and adapted for institutional purposes. Here, no doubt, will come the tussle. The public bodies concerned will find it much less trouble—much pleasanter, in fact—to build an entirely new building on the most modern lines than to adapt an old one. Yet we are quite sure that, if the adaptation is carried out with sense and sympathy, the old building will make quite a good institution and will cost comparatively little, especially if we take into consideration the grounds and surroundings of large country houses, which, if they are kept within the proper bounds of economy, may provide much more amenity than there is in the ordinary institution, standing as it now does barely and bleakly near the road and upon only just enough ground to give a gravel drive and a strip of green to cover its nakedness. Let the word of prejudice and odium " unsuitable " be banished from the argument. Even though the building committee of an important rural sanitary authority may think it " unsuitable " to hold their dull and dilatory discussions or fight their squalid squabbles in some noble hall decorated by Verrio or Laguerre, we must repel their plea. Why should a marquess in a toga and a periwig, marching up to the gates of Heaven and summoning the celestial fortress with beat of drum, just as he summoned one of Vauban's master- pieces of fortification on the frontiers of French Flanders, put Mr. Jones off his oratorical strokes ? The rural councillors would soon get used to the marquess and even to the " naked females with musical instru- ments on the ceiling " (vide guide book). It is far more unsuitable that the world which we hope to see should be without that glorious army of houses which, as Gibbon said, stretch from Inverary to Wilton. If Mr. Bumble and his fellows pine to hold their meetings and have their offices in a smug little, neat little, white little, dull little room in a highly modern red-brick pile of municipal buildings, and prefer it to one of Vanburgh's imaginative flights in stone or of Wren's or Hawksmoor's masterpieces, they must be made subject to the veto of the Chief Com- missioner of Works or Minister of the Fine Arts.
We shall probably be told that the country houses converted to the uses of rural local government would be too much out of the way to be practical. That no doubt was true when the railroads ruled us. Now, however, that the motor-car and still more the motor-'bus and motor-coach have brought us back our roads, this difficulty is vanishing. Unless a country house is specially remote, it is pretty sure to be before very long on one of the 'bus routes which are growing up everywhere. A less obvious use than the institutional use for the country house, yet one which we believe has a great deal in it, may be described in literary shorthand as " Hamp. tonization." Some 160 years ago our Sovereign- and his Ministers conceived the brilliant idea of using Hampton Court, no longer wanted as a royal residence, as a communal house for persons who had done public service and deserved public recognition, but who were not in a position to have country houses, or perhaps any houses, of their own. Accordingly the palace was split up into a dozen or more sets of apartments, each with its own kitchen, and in these suites retired admirals or generals, or their widows, were given pleasant accommo- dation. We have no doubt that at the time it was said that the scheme was impossible, that the tenants would all hate each other and hate living close together, and so forth and so on. The results, however, were quite satisfactory. The happy inmates of this ideal almshouse or " College of Old Age for the Great " are envied by all their friends for the incomparable delight of living in such a place as Hampton Court, with all its beauties and associations. Why should it not be possible for some company, partly philanthropic, partly amenity-saving, partly commercial, partly co-operative, to take over, say on a 999 years' lease, one of the great country houses which its owner wants to get rid of in order to reduce outgoings and the gene of living in a place some ten times too large for a modern family with only six servants ? Obviously, the proper plan is to put ten families into it, by splitting it up into apartments as at Hampton Court. But it is impossible to raise money just now for any purpose, natuh less for some mad new scheme of this kind. Admitted ; but the beauty of the scheme is that it will not require the raising of a vast sum of money. The owner of a large house, if he were relieved of the rates, taxes, and upkeep, would in many instances be quite content not to receive purchase money down, but instead a rent of, say, £1,500 or £2,000 a year. He might prefer to sell right out ; but if he could not get the price, he might be quite willing to join in a speculation in which he was well secured. But of this scheme more next week.
(To be concluded.)
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