#john vanbrugh

[thesixthduke]

[richwall101]

Bristol UK - Kings Weston House (Fully Restored)

Kings Weston House is a historic building in Kings Weston Lane, Kingsweston, Bristol, England. Built during the early 18th century, it was remodelled several times, most recently in the mid-19th century. The building was owned by several generations of the Southwell family. By World War I, the house was used as a hospital and then later used as a school by the University of Bath School of Architecture. The building is today used as a conference and wedding venue, as well as a communal residence. Following many years of neglect and subsequent dilapidation the building has now been fully restored as shown above

The house was built between 1712 and 1719, and was designed by Sir John Vanbrugh for the lawyer and politician Edward Southwell on the site of an earlier Tudor house. It was then remodelled in 1763–1768 by Robert Mylne and again between 1845 and 1850 by Thomas Hopper. Visiting the house in c. 1801, the author and inventor, George William Manby, remarked that its interior: "corresponds with the exterior for variety and elegance; its collection of paintings is numerous, highly finished, and extremely valuable, being by celebrated masters; they are in fine preservation"

The Kings Weston estate possesses one of the largest collections of buildings designed by Sir John Vanbrugh in the UK. Whilst the house and the majority of the estate's buildings are still standing, others have been demolished or have been heavily altered. Bristol is the only UK city outside London to possess buildings designed by Vanbrugh. A significant architectural feature is the grouping of all the chimneys into a massive arcade.

In April 2011 the Kings Weston Action Group (KWAG) was formed as a volunteer organisation with the ambition to conserve and enhance the Grade II Registered Historic Landscape around the house. The remains of the historic park consists of almost 220 acres split in ownership between Bristol City Council and the National Trust, whose 93 acres of Shirehampton Park are leased to Shirehampton Golf Club. The whole landscape is accessible as either public park or by public footpaths, and includes areas of common land at Penpole Point.

[quotesfrommyreading]

Considering all the upsides, where does the social climber’s bad rap come from? People who seek to improve their station in life have been the objects of suspicion or the butts of jokes since the dawn of social mobility itself.

Molière’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, performed for King Louis XIV’s court in 1670, may feature popular culture’s first social climber. The play satirizes Monsieur Jourdain, the son of a rich merchant, whose aim in life is not to accumulate more wealth, but to be accepted by the aristocracy. The title itself is an oxymoron: A member of the middle class can never become a gentleman. A joke, but one of great comfort to the audience at court. Yes, they have more money than the rest of you here, but they will never have access to this room. These relationships.

By the close of the 17th century, aristocrats, merchants, and servants were crowding into theaters to see bawdy satires like John Vanbrugh’s The Relapse, in which a buffoonish Sir Novelty Fashion squanders his fortune purchasing the more impressive title of Lord Foppington. The joke had evolved: Okay, maybe they can access this room, but everyone (including the servants) knows they still can’t buy class.

In 1722, Daniel Defoe published Moll Flanders, about a woman who cons and sleeps her way into the middle class. Moll might have been seen as unscrupulously obsessed with improving her station in life, but as a widow with no social standing or means, she was also desperate. She wasn’t posing as a gentlewoman to get into great parties; she was climbing to survive.

The social climbers I’m talking about are more like Moll than Sir Novelty. Motivated by economic necessity, we see access as a means to an end, not as an end in itself. We would never squander money to get into the party; we get into the party so that other people might squander money on us.

The scorn for the climber is rich—literally. It isn’t that the wealthy don’t utilize social capital for advancement; they just do so quietly. Or, perhaps more accurately, it’s perceived as their right. Wealth, and the things it can procure—elite education, invitations to private clubs, stays at exclusive resorts—come with a cascade effect of trust, merited or not. “If you are in this space, you must be one of us.” This was precisely the genius of Shonda Rhimes’s series Inventing Anna. You get to watch the character discover—just by dropping the right name or stepping onto the right yacht—what people were willing to offer her. No questions asked.

  —  The New Case for Social Climbing

[rosncrntz]

royal shakespeare company → plays [2/?]

the provoked wife (2019)

no man worth having is true to his wife, or can be true to his wife, or ever was, or ever will be so.

[elizabethminkel]

~ Early 18th Century Adventures, Part 2 ~

Through the sort of circuitous string of vaguely connected mental leaps that marks so many of our fandom experiences, I have found myself obsessed with the Kit-Cat Club, Whigs circa 1700, and specifically John Vanbrugh, playwright and architect (of, notably, Castle Howard, the Flytes’ house in both Brideshead adaptations, and Blenheim Palace, which was the center of a total shitshow during its construction, both for the Marlboroughs & JVan).  

Luckily my brilliant friend Natasha, who is more supportive of my JVan interest than she reasonably needs to be, suggested we go to Blenheim when I came to visit her in Oxford the weekend before last. I’d been to Blenheim a few years back, when Ai Weiwei’s greatest hits were on display there amongst the regular furnishings AND special holiday furnishings, which was...confusing. This trip, as you can imagine, was much more focused, and Natasha expertly made sure we didn’t have to engage with any Winston Churchill Content™ whatsoever:

[sozeugs]

Seaton Delaval Hall

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Seaton_Delaval_Hall

[famousborntoday]

John Vanbrugh : Born January 24, 1664 : Died March 26, 1726

Sir John Vanbrugh was an English architect, dramatist and herald, perhaps best known as the designer of Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard. He wrote two argument...

Link: John Vanbrugh

[cuartoretorno]

Castle Howard - Yorkshire 

Ex Condado de Carlisle, ahora Titulado por la Corona Windsor como Castillo del Barón y Duque de Wells! a por ellos Malón!