Your Places or Mine

• Alone At Last: Privacy and the Country House

  Send us a textThese days, privacy is high on the agenda.  There are huge concerns over data, images, digital identity and personal space, all of which should be kept private.  But how was this possible in previous ages when almost all of life took place in the presence of other people.  This was as much the case for the social elite as it was for ordinary families.  As court records of divorce cases in the 18th century reveal, very little happened that was not known to servants.  Privacy, as we understand it today, would have been a rare luxury at almost any period before the Second World War.        In this episode, John and Clive trace the idea of privacy to devotional practices in the Middle Ages.  Kings and other magnates could also escape to hunting boxes and pleasances.   But privacy only became a feature of domestic planning with the introduction of corridors – such an unfamiliar word to the Duchess of Marlborough that the architect Vanbrugh had to explain it to her as a foreign term. There were recluses, hermits and others who wanted to keep themselves ot themselves.  But it was only with the emphasis that the Arts and Crafts Movement placed on “home”, symbolised by the domestic hearth, that architects began to design for what we would now call a normal life.

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• Hot History: The Great Fire of Northampton 1675

  Send us a textEveryone has heard about the Great Fire of London – but what about the Great Fire of Northampton…or Marlborough…or Blandford Forum?  Fire has frequently wrought destruction on towns, cities and country houses, and this was particularly the case in the 17th century.  Clive and John discuss why this should have been—what caused the fires, what the consequences were for the places concerned and how they were rebuilt.  Northampton was a spectacular example, not only because over 80% of the town centre was destroyed but (as John has discovered from rarely seen drawings) ambitious designs were commissioned by the Earl of Northampton who was closely concerned in the town’s welfare.  A contemporary account describes the progress of the fire, as the bells of the church tolled in the heat:All Hallows Bells jangled their last and doleful Knell, presently after the Chimes had gone Twelve in a more pleasant Tune: And soon after the wind which did flie swifter than Horsemen, carried the Fire near the Dern-Gate, at least half a Mile from the place where it began, and into St Giles-street in the East, and consumed every house therein, save one, whose end-Walls were higher than the Roof, and by them preserved. Afterwards, however, phoenix really did arise from the ashes, thanks in part to the 1,000 tons of timber that Charles II donated towards the rebuilding of the church.  When Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe and an inveterate traveller who may also have been a government spy, visited Northampton in 1724, he declared it to be the ‘handsomest and best built town in all this part of England… finely rebuilt with brick and stone, and the streets made spacious and wide’.  

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• A Royal Romanian Affair: Why Charles III Treasures Transylvania

  Send us a textThe then Prince of Wales first came to Transylvania in the late 1990s on an official visit.  It’s the only time he’s come on business.  He fell so much under the spell of the place that he bought a house here, in one of the wooden villages, settled, many centuries ago, by Saxons from Germany.  Then he acquired another property, which he has turned into a comfortable, folksy lodge.  He makes a private visit every year, if he can.  Clive and John discuss King Charles III and his passion for this outpost of the former Soviet Union.  What has hooked him?  The sense of prelapsarian idyll, the vitality of local crafts, the unselfconscious devotion to traditional building methods, or the existence of species-rich wildflower meadows of a kind that barely exist in the UK, unless specially planted by conservationists? Or the thought that the Carpathian Forest is home to more brown bears than anywhere else in Europe?  Or the fairytale character of villages like Viscri and Zalanpatak – looking like England did around 1800 - in both of which he owns homes?All those things, no doubt.  But locals don’t want roads which break the springs of your car.  Nor do they always see the charm of draughty, wooden houses, which need constant attention, preferring concrete villas with all the modern amenities.  Is the idyll inevitably on a collision course with the 21st century?  If so, which will win?

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• Great British Builders: Lutyens, Wren and The City of London (LIVE at The Ned's Club)

  Send us a textFor the first time in the history of this podcast, Your Places or Mine has gone on location.  John and Clive have been invited to The Ned's Club, the amazing complex of hospitality venues, including restaurants, hotel and private members’ club, which occupies the former head office of the Midland Bank in the City of London.  This provides the podcast with an opportunity to examine Britain’s commercial centre as it evolved between the Wars.  Nearly every major financial institution was being rebuilt in the 1920s, not least the Bank of England itself.  Structures such as the Midland Bank head office were begun in a spirit of optimism, as Britain found its feet again and needed finance to recover from the effects of war.  They were often completed in a different era, when the Depression had set in and rooms that were intended to entertain the captains of industry were instead used to put together rescue packages to stop them from going broke.Clive and John also discuss Lutyens’s relationship with the Midland’s Chairman, Reginald McKenna, who had married Gertrude Jekyll’s niece Pamela, and their shared admiration for Sir Christopher Wren.  At the end of the show, they parry questions from the audience who has joined them on one of the hottest days of the year.

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• Sovereignty in Stone: The Kings of Windsor Castle

  Send us a text Windsor Castle has been imbued with symbolism since William the Conqueror founded it after the invasion of 1066. He took the name of Windsor from an existing Anglo-Saxon palace which stood on a different spot.  On a bluff overlooking the Thames, Windsor Castle continues to play a central role in Britain’s national identity, being a great inheritance from the Middle Ages, which no one generation could have the resources or imagination to build.   It has always been there, was always important, it seems to transcend time.  Both a formidable stronghold and a sumptuous palace, it is a universe in itself. No one could be better placed to describe Windsor Castle’s evolution and meaning than John Goodall, author of a mighty work of scholarship on The English Castle.  In this episode of ypompod– the first of a projected two on Windsor Castle – he examines its evolution from early years until the Civil War in the mid 17th century.  A key figure is Edward III, who founded the Order of the Garter in the mid 14th century as an expression of chivalric romance. He identified Windsor with King Arthur’s Camelot and gave it a round table.  Tournaments or mock battles were fought in splendid costumes, displaying the luxury that was possible after the English victories over France at Crecy and Poitiers.  After the Civil War, Parliament ordered that Windsor Castle should be demolished.  This did not happen. Instead Charles I’s body was taken there for burial after his execution, which only strengthened its association with monarchy.

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