Visitors to the Country House in Ireland and Britain Welcome and Unwelcome

Country houses have always been a magnet for visitors. In early days individuals with the correct social credentials could gain entry, while visitors such as royalty were self-invited guests. With the rise of the railway and then the motor-car, houses became accustomed to mass visits, spawning the heritage industry of today. However, houses have also attracted less-welcome incomers: looters, arsonists, emigrés, revolutionaries, the politically undesirable, carpetbaggers, and even photographers whom one owner described as worse than burglars. This volume explores the many kinds of visitors who have crossed the thresholds of country houses, and how they have recorded their impressions—whether in sketches, journals, guest-books, works of fiction, or photographs.

Christopher Ridgway is adjunct Professor at Maynooth University and curator of Castle Howard in Yorkshire. Terence Dooley is Professor of History at Maynooth University and director of the Centre for Historic Irish Houses and Estates at Maynooth University.

Elizabeth Gaskell’s visit to Chatsworth The northern tour of Thomas Sandby and Theodosius Forrest Lady Louisa Egerton and the Devonshire Collections Gloomy inhospitality in the country house Visitors’ descriptions of country house gardens in the eighteenth century Christopher Hussey’s visits to Country Houses, 1920–1970 Building ‘collections of visitors’ in the Irish country house The Irish country house and its visitors in a time of revolution, 1879–1923 Thomas Pennant’s Tour in Wales Entertaining at Holkham Hall Turlough O’Carolan: the quintessential visitor Private and public guests in 1850 Travers Blackley and the Farnham estate: an Englishman in Cavan Royal visits to Scottish country houses, 1837–1901