Carnegie Mellon University

Ancient and Picturesque Edifices:
English Country Houses

Exhibit by Posner Center intern, Julie Bowman
Spring 2013

This exhibit explored the Victorian era’s interest in English manor and country houses as a destination for tourists, as spaces for cultivating a national history, and objects for debates about preservation and restoration. This project explored the importance of domestic spaces to public identity and asked how a culture narrates its buildings as objects of particular cultural value worth preserving. Central to the exhibit is S. C. Hall’s two-volume illustrated text, The baronial halls: ancient and picturesque edifices of England, which serves as a focal point for the questions the exhibit explored.

Baronian HallsBaronian Halls








Images: Posner Memorial Collection