Of all the things that foreigners find puzzling about the British, it is British taste that they find perhaps the most baffling, and if there has been a more potent influence on the aesthetics of the nation than the romantic imagery that surrounds the English country house it’s hard to think of what it might be. From the council-house dweller to the urban loft-living sophisticate, the successful sportsman in his Cheshire mansion or the business tycoon in his Notting Hill villa, myths of English country-house style have subliminally shaped the aesthetic thinking of much of the nation. Country-house style in its imagined platonic form, if you think about it, exemplifies what the British do best. To start with they are perfect expressions of the interests
of their owners, which is to say they are idiosyncratic – idiosyncrasy being a universally admired British virtue. The British don’t take easily to diktats of any kind. While many of these houses were built as status symbols (the equivalent, says Michael Snodin, head of design at the V&A, of owning a private jet today), their owners were minded to impress and mostly nonetheless followed their own tastes and inclinations, so what fascinates still is that no single country house is like any other. What today we think of as old money and traditional taste, we have to remember, was once spanking new money and often very avant-garde, adventurous taste. Today Chippendale is revered as the master cabinet-maker of all time, but once he was the new upstart and it took courage to commission him. ►
Walpole British Luxury
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Pictured ► Goodwood House, West Sussex. The seat of the Duke of Richmond is a Grade I listed building.
