The Aristocracy - Letting in the Hoi Polloi: 1945-1970 2nd part

Quentin the least infested James Lee's Milne came and looked at it and met my grandparents and did mentioned in one of his Diaries rather musing view he took of my my grandparents they proteins rather eccentric we preferred him Michael was much shocked by the unmade beds and the fuzzy unbrushed Catholic hair of our histories a way the national class wouldn't touch of the barge pole with over thousand in diamonds and quite rightly needed a million pounds even to slightly restore it which I didn't have still had to pay the estate due to my grandfather's death and it was a case of demolishing it this picture of course is one of the last ones it was a hole taken and this shows the demolition in progress as there was a little option between 1945 and 1955 over 400 stately homes were demolished at one point they were coming down at the rate of one every five days the Labour government was surprisingly sympathetic to the plight of the houses it commissioned the gaolers report which set in motion a new view of the aristocracy in their houses like the National Trust the Gala's report argued that aristocrats should be helped to stay in their homes a reinvention of the purpose of the aristocracy was taking place aristocrats as guardians of our architectural heritage in the old families there is no sense of possession instead they belong to the homes which they receive in trust cherish and pass on thus the Great Houses make our history live to save them from death is the aim of the gaara's report just after the war these places were meant to be absolutely useless redundant never want it again nobody was interested in those sort of things it was thought to be terrible that one person should own or be responsible for a place like this and now if you'll try and keep the roof on you're meant to be a sort of hero the gaolers report led to actual government cash to help towards the upkeep of these houses at raggedly Hugh Hoff had applied for a grant to restore the roof when the money was slow to arrive he applied some pressure but I was asked to give a talk to the council for the preservation of all England in London and so I took the opportunity and I told the purse in advance that I was going to make a reasonably important statement and it was in fact televised as well as attracting a lot of press and I announced that unless I got government help vaguely would have to be pulled down which I must admit was Bluff luckily my bluff was not called I did get a very large government grant in fact at the time it was the Big East gone but it had everything given to anyhow it was I think a hundred thousand pounds were in LAN veganism Nord Harford's grant exemplified the change in attitude the Great Houses of Britain now represented our national heritage where possible their owners should be helped with public money but in return for a grant they had to let the public in the stately homes of England how beautiful they stand amid their tall ancestral trees or all this Pleasant land what they say today is this the stately homes of England how lucrative they stand all over Britain the Great Houses were opening their doors to the public and the public paid willingly by 1960 there were over two hundred thousand visitors a year at Chatsworth and nearly six hundred other houses were also anything and for the visitors the chance to snoop on the aristocracy at home was at least as enticing as the architectural splendors of house and garden and very glad to welcome you here to Chatsworth this afternoon and I feel very flattered that you would found the time to visit the house before going to it I would just say this that when you get inside I hope you will look at it not as you would look at a museum but if somebody's home because this house is my family's home and that although it has many beautiful things in it there are also many not so good and dutiful but just ordinary workaday things in it it is a home and not amusing at woven the Duke of Bedford capitalized on the best attraction of all the chance to meet a real live aristocrat probably the most popular sideshow is this the Dukes stepdaughter his Duchess and the Duke himself selling souvenirs all this puts the Duke of Bedford about 130,000 visitors ahead of his nearest rival the rivalry for the Publix half-crowns meant aristocrats were now having to market themselves as a tourist attraction dukes who once ruled Britain from behind their palace gates now would the public and charm the tearoom cubes that raggedly Hugh Harford had his work cut out to make the house ready to receive the public if the thing could possibly be covered in dark brown varnish was all dark barn paint and as you see the wallpaper was fairly dark and pretty shabby yes we have if the last 40 years done up just about a hundred rooms but we left this one on purpose because we thought nobody would believe that the hell has looked like this way back in 1956 Bragg Lee was largely read papered repainted and refurnished but not every member of the family shared hue Harford's enthusiasm for letting in the hoi polloi and my elder sister was absolutely genuinely horrified and not happy at all she hated the whole thing the first minibus that we bought for to get the staff to and fair I not only put waggly Hall on both sides I also had put it on the front and had a coven it carved to go above the sign saying the eglee hall remember my sister saying bitterly to me you might why don't you wear the collar net if you're so keen on it or something I said well I think it looked as silly as I'm wearing jeans you know if I'd thought it would help I probably would have gone around wearing it and I remember I sat in the Great Hall selling guide books to people who came in on that first Easter Saturday and um I think we had 200 visitors on the Saturday which was not very exciting and on the sandia we had a thousand which was wonderful and on the Monday Easter Monday we had I think 4,000 um we're just absolutely unbelievable but the public were fickle and easily put off their first summer it rained practically every night for six weeks and we lost all the money that we'd made during the summer we ended up after six months extremely hard work no better off at all come inside out okay thank you it was clear that to keep the enterprise afloat Hugh Harford needed to come up with unique attraction his solution water ski we got carrying and we built up a ski jump I fell in the first 17 times I went over and we put a flaming hoop over it where we store covered in time and so far to it and jump through that and thousands of people care and it was a huge success because about time 1960 nobody or very few people had ever even seen waterskiing in less than being from the south class or someone it was a new thing and Birmingham flocked in vast numbers and chairs at the time I tell him which is quite alone and I'm member the world one day after a whit Monday of bank holiday when we'd actually had 7,000 people watching the water skiing and I was driving down to the bank that evening with little clock from the estate office who came as my sort of escort be safe and I was as I was driving I was juggling these leather bags full of money and I said dear letters but we have taken enough money in one day to buy a new motorcar and little man he said yes oil or chip could use the overdraft course I bought the car I bought a wonderful day in the dart at Stafford Park in Leicestershire Lord Gretton used public opening as an excuse to indulge in his favorite hobby trains he did it on a grand scale there were nearly two miles of track which wound through the parkland and past the lake there were embankments and tunnels and at the far end of the line there was a bridge over the river there were turntables signal boxes and sidings Lord Gretton built four stations employed seven men and had three steam engines but the real highlight of a trip to Stafford Park was the train journey down to the lake where you could board a miniature liner for a 15 minute boat trip sometimes on a summer evening if the family were just here he'd say to my mum shall we take a chair drinks down on the onto the lake and go and have a little cruise before dinner and say we'd load up the ice bucket and gin and tonic and some glasses and some crisps and go down and take the boat out and it was lovely and I think he would sit there and imagine that we were cruising off the Isle of Wight or somewhere in the Mediterranean the boats were exact replicas of Northern Star liners and the trip on the lake was thrown in for the admission price of two and six it didn't pay not ours anyhow I think we were have so little extravagant in the way we did it Nord Gretton went well beyond what was needed to provide a good day out for all the family in the search for more and more detail he press'd retired farm worker Harry Taylor into service my

Channel: Winter

Views: 116,198

Keywords: aristocracy, nobility

Id: Fp0EYSHjTDo

Length: 11min 57sec (717 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 15 2012