The intellectual culture of the British country house 1500-1700

Programme

Day 1, Wednesday 13th July
Day 2, Thursday 14th July
Day 3, Friday 15th July

Day 1 – Wednesday 13th July

10:30 – 11:00    Registration; tea and coffee
Location: B274

11:00 – 12:30    Plenary 1 – Maurice Howard (University of Sussex; President of the Society of Antiquaries of London), ‘The archeologies of the country house: buildings, contents and documents’
Chair: Tom Healy
Location: Silverstone Lecture Theatre 121

12:30 – 13:45   Lunch
Location: B217

13:45 – 15:15    Session 1a: The country house library
Chair: Andrew Hadfield
Location: B274

  • Susie West (Open University), ‘Looking back from 1700: problems in locating the country house library’
  • Hannah Moor (University of York), ‘‘My Laydes Bookes att Noward...’: The socialization of the country house library at Castle Howard’
  • Richard Simpson (University of London), ‘Sir Thomas Smith’s printed books at Hill Hall;  antiquity and innovation’

Session 1b: Imagined country houses
Chair: Margaret Healy
Location: B217

  • Alison Findlay (Lancaster University), ‘Imagined communities in country house drama’
  • Paul Quinn (University of Chichester), ‘‘Write such things upon the posts of our houses and upon the gates’: The house as religious cipher in The Arminian Nunnery at Little Gidding

15:15 – 15:45    Tea & coffee
Location: B274

15:45 – 17:15    Session 2: Intellectual impact
Chair: Jim Livesey
Location: B274

  • Marco Neumaier (Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg), ‘Private tutors and their pupils in Tudor country houses’
  • Rob Iliffe (University of Sussex), ‘The country house origins of the English Enlightenment: Newton, Locke and and the value of retreat’
  • Alison McCann (West Sussex Record Office), ‘“A most studious searcher after Truth”  - the 9th Earl of Northumberland and science’

19:30               Conference dinner

 

Day 2 – Thursday 14th July

9:00 – 10:30     Session 3a: ‘This country where now you set your foot is Arcadia’: the intellectual world of Wilton House
Chair: Paul Quinn
Location: B217

  • Anne Myers (University of Missouri), ‘Wilton House and country house literature’
  • Marta Straznicky, (Queen’s University, Ontario), ‘Performing arcadia: Wilton House and theatre in early modern England’
  • Louise Noble (University of New England, Australia), ‘Wilton House and the art of floating meadows’

Session 3b: Architecture & design
Chair: Susie West
Location: B274

  • Mimi Yiu (Georgetown University), ‘The open secret of English architecture’
  • Matthew Neely (Bodleian Library, University of Oxford), ‘Rediscovering a lost Tudor mansion through archives and manuscripts: The Rycote Project at the Bodleian Library’
  • Edward Town (National Portrait Gallery), ‘“A House Re-edified”? The decoration of Knole 1605-1608’

10:30 – 11:00    Tea & coffee
Location: B274

11:00 – 12:30    Session 4a: Gardens
Chair: Rob Iliffe
Location: B274

  • Alexander Samson (University College London), ‘(Pens)hurst: Sidneys in the garden’
  • Nicolle Jordan (University of Southern Mississippi), ‘Anne Finch and the fallen country house’
  • Carly Watson (University of Birmingham), ‘‘Nuneham by ev’ry muse belov’d’: the Harcourts of Nuneham Park and manuscript circulation, 1765-1826’

Session 4b: Power, politics & influence
Chair: Mat Dimmock
Location: B217

  • Alden Gregory (freelance architectural historian), ‘William Warham’s Otford Palace: an archbishop’s motivations for building (c.1514-26)’
  • Katrina Marchant (University of Sussex), ‘Hill Hall: Sir Thomas Smith and the birth of the commonweal’

12:30 – 13:30   Lunch
Location: B217

13:30                Travel to Petworth House
Assemble outside Arts B, north entrance

15:15 – 16:15   Plenary 2: James Raven (University of Essex), ‘Country houses and the beginnings of bibliomania’
Chair: Brian Cummings
Location: The Marble Hall, Petworth House

16:15 ­– 17:30   Reception

17:30                Return to Brighton

 

Day 3 – Friday 15th July

9:00 – 10:30     Session 5a: Progresses & print
Chair: Angus Vine
Location: B274

  • Barbara Kennedy (University of Sussex), ‘‘With wings of musick raise’: Thomas Campion's Relation of the late royall entertainment at Cawsome-House neere Redding
  • Elizabeth Zeman Kolkovich (Ohio State University), ‘The country-house entertainment in print’
  • Caroline Adams (University of Chichester), 'The royal progress of 1591 in West Sussex'

Session 5b: Seventeenth century plays, entertainments & masques
Chair: Alexander Samson
Location: B217

  • Cathy Parsons (University of Sussex), ‘Both Widow, Maid and Wife’: sexualised religio-political imagery and country/court opposition in late Caroline England’
  • Zoe Hawkins (University College London), ‘Masking the masque: the political poetics of Milton’s Comus
  • Nicola Boyle (Loughborough University), ‘The country house and the touring practices of the Lady Elizabeth’s Men’

10:30 – 11:00    Tea & coffee
Location: B274

11:00 – 12:45    The intellectual culture of the country house: then & now

Round-table discussion with:

  • Mat Dimmock (University of Sussex)
  • Andy Loukes (House and Collections Manager at Petworth House)
  • Nicholas Pickwoad (University of the Arts; former Conservator at Harvard University Library and Advisor to the National Trust on book conservation)
  • Mark Purcell (Libraries Curator to the National Trust)

Chair: Andrew Hadfield
Location: B274

12:45                Conference closes.