Great Houses

Great Houses (1968) by Nigel Nicolson – Weidenfeld and Nicolson

There are houses.

There are large houses.

And then there are houses with enough staircases, wings, portraits and inherited obligations to require their own administrative structure.

Nigel Nicolson’s Great Houses, published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson in 1968, is a handsome exploration of the grand country houses that became some of the most recognisable symbols of British social history, architecture and aristocratic ambition.

These are not homes in the ordinary sense.

They are statements.

Very expensive statements.

A great house announces that somebody, at some point, had money, land, confidence and no objection whatsoever to heating forty rooms in winter.

Nicolson looks at these houses not simply as buildings, but as living historical objects shaped by generations of owners, architects, servants, fashions, fortunes and family dramas.

That matters, because the great country house was never just a pile of stone with a nice staircase.

It was an economic system.

A workplace.

A social machine.

A family stage.

And, occasionally, a very elaborate way of discovering that the roof needed replacing.

The architecture itself tells stories.

Classical facades suggest order.

Gothic towers suggest romance.

Enormous dining rooms suggest the terrifying possibility of formal dinner.

Long galleries suggest that somebody had both too many portraits and nowhere else to put them.

And every drawing room appears to contain at least one chair nobody was actually supposed to sit on.

Published in 1968, the book also comes from an especially interesting period for country houses.

By then, many great estates had already faced decades of taxation, changing social structures, wartime use, maintenance problems and the general difficulty of sustaining buildings designed for a world of servants, inherited wealth and very cheap coal.

So the book sits at a fascinating point between nostalgia and preservation.

These houses were no longer simply private symbols of status.

They were increasingly becoming part of the national historical landscape.

Places to be studied.

Protected.

Visited.

And, eventually, fitted with a tea room.

There is something wonderfully satisfying about vintage books on grand houses because they capture the buildings before heritage tourism became quite so polished.

No interactive app.

No timed entry.

No laminated family trail involving hidden mice.

Just architecture, history and enough decorative plasterwork to make modern minimalism look faintly embarrassed.

Nicolson brings both knowledge and affection to the subject, making the book suitable for readers who enjoy architecture but do not necessarily want to spend an afternoon learning every variation of pediment.

It is history through houses.

And houses, unlike politicians, tend to leave useful evidence behind.

Walls.

Rooms.

Gardens.

Furniture.

Portraits.

And occasionally a bill proving that somebody spent a terrifying amount of money on curtains.

This copy is in Good condition, with a complete but tatty dust jacket.

The jacket has certainly seen better days around the edges, but it remains present, which is always a bonus with an older illustrated book.

In other words, the house is sound.

The exterior needs attention.

Very appropriate, really.

Ideal for lovers of architecture, country houses, social history, interior design, stately homes or anyone who has ever walked through a vast drawing room and thought, “Yes, but imagine the cleaning.”

Sold by Crappy Old Books, where great houses are admired from a safe financial distance and tatty dust jackets are treated as the literary equivalent of weathered stonework.

ISBN: None
Condition: Good
Notes: Complete but tatty dust jacket

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