Lumsden we… the Trust, its houses, its
coastline, its landscape… are, if not the model of England, at least its mitigation
Dorothy Country houses are window dressing.
They mitigate nothing. … England
is not my problem. I will not be metaphorised.
25 years ago this year Robert Hewison published ‘The
Heritage Industry’, a book that did more than any other to throw light on the
expanding market for heritage experiences. There is a whole chapter in the book
devoted to the story of the National Trust and the rescue of the country house.
In ‘Brideshead Re-revisited’ Hewison tells a story of ‘the power of the cult of
the country house’. ‘A building that can only be glimpsed becomes the erotic
object of desire of a lover locked out…’ he writes, ‘By a mystical process of
identification the country house becomes the nation, and love of one's country
makes obligatory a love of the country house.’
Hewison’s book raised some criticisms of the Trust, in
particular its stated desire to show collections ‘in the ambience of the past’.
This raised questions for Hewison of definition and interpretation – whose
past? How was its ambience being conveyed?
Hewison’s essay attempted to puncture holes in the pretences
of ‘the heritage industry’ (he claims to have invented the phrase), and in our
national reverence for ‘stately homes’. At a recent debate
held in Cambridge Hewison observed that his criticism was directed at the way
the past was becoming used as a comfort blanket for the nation: a new museum
opening every fortnight at the same time as manufacturing industry was on the
slide.
Alan Bennett’s new play ‘People’
explores similar territory. It concerns a country house, Stacpole House, and its owner, Dorothy Stacpoole, who is
contemplating whether or not it should fall into the hands of the Trust. (The
variant spellings of ‘Stacpoole’ are deliberate, evoking the aristocratic
tradition of Harewood/Harwood etc.) The ‘ouch’ moment for the National Trust
occurs in the character of Ralph Lumsden, the enthusiastic Trust
representative, who in making an inventory of the contents of the house is
given to waxing lyrically about the place’s significance in the history of the
nation.
In passing he makes reference to various angles on the
house’s presentation that may be familiar to aficionados of today’s National
Trust: stabilisation (not elimination) of the decay in the tapestries; the
scullery and the still room being as important as the drawing room; bringing
back the farm and growing stuff for the café etc.
‘While of course as a
growth organisation we are concerned to maximise the percentage footfall, do
please bear in mind these are not just people’, he reminds Dorothy, when she
voices concerns at the number of visitors who would be descending on the
property.
Many will enjoy the satire, and no organisation is immune to
this sort of critique, least of all one as big and popular as the National
Trust. The text of the play is sure to become a staple of heritage studies
undergraduate courses for years to come, just as Hewison’s book did. But does
Bennett add anything to what Hewison was saying 25 years ago?
At the recent Cambridge
event, Hewison amplified his thesis: he was not decrying history, just its
commoditisation as ‘heritage’. The National Trust has only survived because of
its ability to raise funding for its conservation work from private sources,
and through the generosity of millions of members, donors, volunteers, visitors and supporters. This is
the reality of the Trust’s work in rescuing special places and saving them
forever.
We’ll enjoy going to see ‘People’ (when we get a chance to). But People and Places are intimately intertwined in the
work of the National Trust, and not just in the ways that Alan Bennett
describes.
