Mark Girouard, an architectural historian, has traced the roles of form and function in England's Great Houses in this densely illustrated, sensitively written book. Floor-plans, innumerable photographs and drawings (many of homes now destroyed), and portraits pepper the text, which is readability itself.
The book follows a chronological path from the Mediaval Household to the present day. The text isn't dry at all. Delicious details abound: Bess of Hardwick pacing her Great Chamber of Hardwick Hall, waiting for the royal visit that never came in the instantly-dated house she'd built for this very purpose, ... The origin of the phrase "backstairs intrigues" (both political and sexual).... the slow but persistant birth of the aristocratic ideal of "privacy"--and how it affected dining halls....the rise of the great dilettante libraries (and the rooms to house them).....and the advent of the freakish innovation of indoor plumbing (and a picture of the Duke of Wellington's elaborate WC) are just a few tidbits.
Mr. Girouard doesn't neglect the "downstairs" portion of a Great House, because he's interested in the whole institution as a functioning unit. Some of the most intriguing photos are of beloved servants' portraits, and the almost Shaker-like beauty of a working kitchen or laundry. Included, also, is a printed "Summary of Livery Men's Duties, Etc., Etc.", of Hatfield House, and darned if it doesn't sound like instructions for empoyees at an indifferent New York hotel!
This book is a delicious retrospective, and will make any red-blooded Anglophile who longs for one of these faded leviathans very happy indeed. Now, if you need me further, I will be in the Orangery.