8 minute read
DECK THE HALLS
There’s nowhere better to soak up the atmosphere of Yuletides past than in a stately home decorated for Christmas
WORDS SANDRA LAWRENCE
NATIONAL TRUST IMAGES/PAUL HARRIS/ANDREAS VON EINSIEDEL © : PHOTOS T hat festive scene in every historical drama: our hero and heroine enjoying Christmas celebrations at the Big House: feasting, dancing, a sparkling tree, presents for everyone and Blind-Man’s Bluff. How true is the fantasy? As with anything historical, it depends. Christmas has swung in and out of fashion with the British gentry, but regular folk have never forgotten how to celebrate.
The winter solstice (21 December) was important enough for ancient people to align great monuments like Stonehenge with the sunset. The Romans celebrated Saturn, god of agriculture and plenty, at the raucous winter festival of Saturnalia, and feasting gave country people an excuse to eat the meat of any animals that would not survive a long winter. There was little work to do in frozen fields so labourers could take a well-earned rest and let off steam with games and merrymaking.
The early Church did not want such pagan-influenced traditions to continue but knowing there would be riots if they stopped the fun, turned the celebrations towards Christianity, designating a midwinter ‘Christ Mass’ to mark the birth of Christ. It was mainly a religious affair, but workers needed rest after the long harvest, so Christmas became a twelve-day festival, ending with boisterous fun and games on Twelfth Night. Medieval halls hung evergreen decorations and ‘kissing boughs’ of greenery, fruits and, later, mistletoe, quietly forgetting any pagan roots.
Henry VIII was a huge fan of Christmas, dancing, feasting, and decorating his castles for the full twelve days. His daughter Elizabeth celebrated no less joyfully and the great Tudor houses of England followed her lead, inviting travelling players, musicians and storytellers to entertain their guests.
Previous page, left to right: Holkham's Marble Hall, decked out in spectacular fashion; Holkham Hall runs festive tours at Christmas This page, left to right: Powis Castle will be celebrating its Tudor past this Christmas; Packwood House in Warwickshire
For more stories of stately homes, see www.britainmagazine.com
Left to right: Powis Castle's Long Gallery was once a place for Tudor ladies to promenade; the Morning Room at Standen House decorated for this year's 1930 theme; Chatsworth House decked out for Christmas
Packwood House in Warwickshire will be delving into its from the countryside to the cities, there was less time to Elizabethan past for this year’s decorations. Each room will celebrate. Factories did not shut down and there was no be decorated differently, down the ages to the present day. longer a natural period of rest before Plough Monday, the In the 1930s, Packwood’s last owner, Graham Baron Ash, traditional start of the agricultural year following started celebrating ‘Tudor’ Christmas again. The family Epiphany. Twelfth Night diminished, surviving mainly visitor’s book proves that Packwood was ‘Open House’ at through the spiced ‘Twelfth Cake’. This tasty treat, the Christmastime, and Ash even burned a traditional Yule Log spectacle of many a baker’s shop window, has come down in his ‘Great Hall’, created from a derelict barn. to us in much-reduced form as Christmas cake.
Christmas suffered a severe setback during the At Powis Castle in Wales, the family did not go in for Commonwealth (1649-1660), following the execution of Christmas. Eleven-year-old Charlotte, daughter of Lady Charles I, when Puritan laws forbade any kind of fun. It Henrietta Herbert and Edward Clive, does not mention would take a couple of hundred years for the festival to Christmas once in her diary. The only time she records recover. At Dyrham Park near Bristol, the focus of anything on 25 December, the entry merely reads celebrations are on the wedding of William Blathwayt and “Colonel Close and a party dined with us.” Sugar plums Mary Wynter that took were certainly not dancing place after the Restoration Whether through Dickens, in her head. of Charles II, at Christmas 1686. The house will be Prince Albert or just a general Everything changed in the 19th century. Whether decorated with evergreens to recall both celebrations. change of mood, the Victorians through Charles Dickens, Prince Albert or just a
Christmas Day still very became obsessed with Christmas general change of mood, the much focused on church Victorians became obsessed services, though the end of with Christmas. ‘Ancient’ the twelve-day period saw an opportunity for estate traditions were re-adopted and reinvented. Medieval ‘plum owners to hold parties for their tenants. They presented porridge’ became Christmas pudding. Mince pies morphed ‘Christmas boxes’ (tips) to apprentices, servants, tradesmen from meat with a little dried fruit and sugar to the exact and the poor. The gentry themselves, however, found opposite. The only ‘minced meat’ that survives in today’s Christmas rather ‘common’ and celebrated less, preferring pies is suet. small parties for friends, recitals, a little carol singing, card By the 1890s Christmas was in full swing and George, games and home theatricals. Dyrham will be recognising 4th Earl of Powis, spent every Christmas at the Castle. He this difference by decorating the kitchens with wreaths and started a new Powis tradition: a Christmas Day shooting greenery, as though preparing for the estate feast, while in party which, of course, meant that everyone on the estate the newly redecorated Great Hall, there will be a selection now had to work on Christmas Day. At least they got to of 17th-century harpsichord music. decorate a large Christmas tree in the castle courtyard, a
In the 18th century, as labourers increasingly moved tradition continued to modern times. On Boxing Day,
Top to bottom: The Great Hall at Ham House in Richmond; visitors to Holkham Hall this Christmas will be treated to festive scenes in the Old Kitchen
estate workers and their families were invited to the castle to see the tree, and the Earl presented the children with gifts. The staff had to wait until New Year’s Day, however, for their party in the Servants’ Hall. Servants’ gifts were generally small – children might expect an orange or a small toy, while servants might receive a dress length, woollen jumper, piece of meat or an umbrella. Sometimes such presents were randomised into a ‘lucky dip’ tub filled with bran beside the twinkling tree.
One of the best times to have been staff at Christmastime seems to have been the 1930s, despite what was, for many, the beginning of the end for the grand country house lifestyle. Estate children at Powis were invited to the castle for a tea party, hosted by Mervyn, Viscount Clive. Gathered in the ballroom, they waited excitedly for Father Christmas to arrive with a giant cracker on a sledge.
This year, Standen House in West Sussex will be celebrating a 1930s Christmas as celebrated by the Beale family. Built in 1894, the house remained in the same family until it was passed to the National Trust in 1972, and there are many first-hand accounts of the people who lived or worked there. The Trust even has the original present lists made by Mrs Beale for her children and servants. Standen’s festive decorations are based on specific memories, including the story of Mr Beale (the grandfather) dressing as Father Christmas and ‘coming down’ the chimney. The children, herded in the hall, listened with mounting excitement to a dreadful clattering coming from the fireplace next door. “We rushed in and there he was just as expected standing by the big Christmas tree, and gruffly presenting each one with splendid presents,” remembered one overawed child many years later. The suit ‘Grandfather’ Christmas wore that magical day will be on display. Standen is lucky in that it has documentary evidence of Christmases past. Most old houses do not come with such riches. At 17th-century Ham House, Richmond, there is no specific reference to what must have been many Christmas celebrations. Sticking rigidly to 17th-century decorations would mean missing out many features modern visitors would miss – not least our adored Christmas trees, which were only popularised in Victorian times – and Ham have chosen to create a more general festive feel. This allows both swags of traditional foliage in the house and a selection of sugar treats that would have formed the classic Twelfth Night celebrations. After all, these houses have seen all these joyful traditions – and more – across many centuries, and modern celebrations are as important as any that may have gone beforehand.
THE BEST DISPLAYS OF CHRISTMAS PAST
Powis Castle, Wales The castle’s Long Gallery, decked out in greenery and scented with dried oranges and cinnamon, will revisit its Tudor past as a turnabout promenade for ladies. www.nationaltrust.org.uk Chatsworth House, Derbyshire This year, Chatsworth is celebrating a Nordic Christmas, with pieces from the Devonshire collections woven into the displays. www.chatsworth.org Chastleton, Oxfordshire The house will be dressed for a 1960s country Christmas, a reminder of the parties hosted by one-time owners the Clutton-Brocks. www.nationaltrust.org.uk Holkham Hall, Norfolk The columns of 18thcentury Holkham’s Marble Hall are wrapped in fairy lights, while Christmas trees line the staircase and giant baubles dangle from the ceiling. Christmas candlelit tours of the house are magical. www.holkham.co.uk Moseley Old Hall, Staffordshire The year is 1652 and Oliver Cromwell has banned Christmas, but Moseley is celebrating regardless, with board games in the Parlour and 17th-century sweet treats to taste too. www.nationaltrust.org.uk Belvoir Castle, Leicestershire This grand Regency castle will be kitted out with Regencystyle decorations, its state rooms adorned with festive lights. www.belvoircastle.com The Vyne, Hampshire Transformed for a Victorian Christmas, The Vyne’s rooms will be filled with decorations and Christmas trees dripping with beads, candles, cornucopias and cherubs. www.nationaltrust.org.uk
