The Woman's Domain: Women and the English Country House

by Trevor & Jean Marsh. Lummis

"The Woman's Domain" shows with the use of archive material and personal recollections the role of women in country houses. The period covered is from the late 16th century to the mid 20th century with the woman's roles varying from mistress to serving maid. Seven National Trust country houses have been used for the purposes of the research; to show how women's stories illustrated the wide range of their responsibilities, amusements and achievements. It is hoped that visitors to the National Trust houses will have a better understanding of life in the houses in earlier periods.

Genres: History, British Literature

240 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1993

Reviews

[Zella Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fascinating book that I bought on a whim. It's a mixture of social history, women's history, and architectural history focusing on 7 county estates in England. The author focuses on the women of each estate and tends to focus on specific time periods for each home, from the Elizabethan period to the 20th century. There's a good range of experiences covered, ranging from servants to ladies of the house to mistresses to poorer relations who had the awkward position of living in the house as family but not really being treated like family.

The author does a great job of examining how attitudes concerning the purpose of these houses, servants, and families changed and how the houses themselves and the way they were run reflected these changes. So, for instance, Elizabethan-period homes don't have the separate servant's quarters and staircases that typify Georgian and Victorian homes.

I found that refreshing because so many people assume Victorian-era attitudes toward these topics were reflective of earlier periods of English history, and that's simply not true.

Lots of fascinating details on the logistics of how these homes were run, as well, drawn from primary sources.

[Cate Meredith · Rating 3 out of 5]

A basic survey of some of the better known country houses.

[Lesley-Anne McLeod]

Subtitle: Women and the English Country House--National Trust book Trevor Lummis and Jan Marsh

[Julaine]

Source: Allan Gould