Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2010

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trent_Park gives a potted history.
As does http://www.enfield.gov.uk/448/cockfosters%20a%20history.htm

I know it well.  Mrs Cat and I both studied at Middlesex, and she was
based on the Trent Park site, which was a centre for teacher training,
though we didn't actually meet until a year after we both left.  It was
well known that the Sassoon family had lived there - and the WW1 poets
are always heroes to literature undergraduates.  She's just told me the
story was that they had a private zoo on the Trent Park estate at one
point.  I've an idea Edith Sitwell was connected with Trent as well -
I'm sure the net can reveal more details.

Most likely as a tax settlement.  The society Waugh portrays is not the
one we live in now.  As many of the landed families slowly ran out of
cash over the course of the 20th century, estates were sold off and big
country houses passed to other uses.  Trent isn't the only example of
one such being used as the home for an educational institution - on a
less grand scale, I studied drama at Middlesex' then Ivy House site in
Hampstead, former home of Anna Pavlova.  Last year I worked for Bath
Spa University, where the main campus, Newton Park, has a very similar
set up to Trent Park, with a park built round a once private country
house:

http://www.bathspa.ac.uk/about/campuses/newton-park/ .

I’m currently reading a fascinating book about the 'Lost Gardens of
Heligan' -

http://tinyurl.com/yzaqgc7
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lost-Gardens-Heligan-Tim-Smit/dp/0575402458/ref=
sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262441246&sr=8-2 .

Heligan was a country estate in Cornwall with especially beautiful
gardens.  The estate supported an entire, almost feudal, community but
never recovered from the loss of manpower of the First World War.  The
original family finally sold off the house in the 1930s; it was
converted into separate apartments and the huge gardens were completely
abandoned, until a project began in the 1990s to restore them, and now
the 'Lost Gardens of Heligan' are a very successful tourist attraction:

http://www.heligan.com/

We visited during the summer; not just an especially beautiful
landscape, but also a fascinating journey into a completely different
society, now just at the edge of living memory.

DC
--

Many old estates and houses have been sold to universities, businesses
and heritage organisations. In many cases the owners/inheritors could
not afford to maintain them. The family's source of income which paid
for the house and estate may no longer exist.

Some of the larger of such houses are known as "stately homes". As
Wikipedia says:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stately_homes

   These country houses are usually distinguished from true "castles",
   being of later date, and having been built purely as residences.
   These houses were a status symbol for the great families of England,
   who competed with each other to provide hospitality for members of
   the Royal Household.
   
   Famous architects and landscape architects ... were employed to
   incorporate new styles into the buildings. Great art and furniture
   collections were built up and displayed in the houses.
   
   The agricultural collapse towards the end of the nineteenth century,
   the First World War and then World War II changed the fortunes of
   many houses and their owners, and now they remain as a curious mix
   of living museums, part-ruined houses and castles, and grand family
   estates.
   
   The following organisations are responsible for the upkeep of
   numerous stately homes:
   
       * English Heritage
       * National Trust
       * Treasure Houses of England
       * The Landmark Trust
       * Historic Scotland
       * National Trust for Scotland
   
   However, many stately homes are owned and managed by private
   individuals or by trusts. The costs of running a stately home are
   legendarily high. Many owners rent out their homes for use as film
   and television sets as a means of extra income, thus many of them
   are familiar sights to people who have never visited them in person.
   The grounds often contain other tourist attractions, such as safari
   parks, funfairs or museums.

It was a teachers' training college when my sister went there c.1962.