Household Management

LOW QUANTITY

The theme of this book is the domestic arrangements in country houses.  The author concentrated on looking at how a country house was run through the centuries, the realms of the housekeeper, the butler, the cook and the nursery maids.

Our own domestic arrangements have become so streamlined and relieved by machines that it is hard to imagine what life was like one hundred years ago, let alone five centuries back.  Keeping a house clean and running smoothly was the responsibility of the housekeeper with her housemaids - their hours were long, their tasks complex and sometimes backbreaking.  Just imagine what it would be like to be one of the most junior maids in a large household, faced with piles of washing-up in a cold and damp scullery.

The author states "I have drawn on National Trust guidebooks and Trust knowledge to pull together all the threads of this book.  Inevitably two houses stand out because they are such good examples of domestic architecture:  Erddig in Clwyd, where not only the service rooms but also the household accounts are so complete; and Lanhydrock in Cornwall, where even the attic bedrooms of the servants have been restored to provide a vivid picture of household life at the end of the last century.

Margaret Willes

1996, 8" x 8", paper, 48 pp.

ISBN: 9780707802411

111-W0241