Research in the country

So begins thesis #2. 

I headed out into the country for some quality time with my primary sources this week. Caught the train from London to Kettering, a small town in Northamptonshire, where I dropped my bag at a tiny bed & breakfast - Pennel's Guest House. 

After this, I hopped into a cab and headed back to Boughton House - remember this place from the last visit?!

It was not so sunny this time around, but still so peaceful. The gate into the estate was closed so I had the cab drop me off at the road and I walked the long driveway through the fields

which were filled with newly-sheared sheep!

cuties. 

The Duke was not there but I hung out with the house manager and archivist in the offices upstairs...my goals were to get through a pile of about 40 letters written in the 1750s from the son of the current Duke to his father...this son went on a "grand tour" of Europe (something all aristocratic young men did upon finishing at Eton) where he bought TONS of art. My thesis is going to connect the pieces of art he bought with letters and documents that mention that art - basically I'm trying to find documentary evidence for each of his purchases.

Here is a glimpse of what I was looking at...letters, receipts, and inventories from over 250 years ago.

For example, here is a letter where the son's tutor writes to the Duke and says "the artist Mengs has begun My Lord's portrait" (at the bottom of the second page)

and HERE is that exact portrait in the house!

Not all of the matching up is quite this easy - sometimes the descriptions of the paintings are very vague  (such as "italian landscape with figures"...that could refer to many different paintings in the house) so then I must go to old receipts from his dealer in Rome or inventories of the house made upon the young Lord's return to England. As you can imagine, these can be rather hard to read so I was lucky to have a trained archivist right next to me to read some of these!

It wasn't ALL work though...we had tea breaks at 11am and 3:30pm, with a lunch break in the garden at 1pm. I think I like the English country way of working.

Back at my b&b, I cozied up for the night with a cup of tea and reviewed all the information I had gone through that day. 

The next morning, I awoke to the smell of eggs, bacon, and coffee downstairs - great way to wake up.

I chatted with the owner of the b&b and her husband (so lovely, but they did have some choice words and opinions about the whole institution of country houses...the husband thinks them medieval, antiquated, and unnecessary in this modern world - he was also not so keen on the fact that the Duke owned literally all the land surrounding the house, including the village where I stayed. Really interesting to hear different perspectives - I think these country houses are such a novelty and so charming in the way they preserve history, but there are always two sides to every story).

In the cab heading back to the train, I snapped a shot of the house from the highway.

Goodbye for now, Boughton!