Third Annual LectureThursday 24 November 2016, 6.30pmBowland Auditorium, Berrick Saul Building, University of York

Despite constituting an influential and popular proportion of Scotland’s built heritage, as well as being a major rural employer and tourism draw, Scottish country houses have been overshadowed by the land reform agenda, which has dominated rural debate since devolution in 1999.

This lecture will explore what this means for country house studies in Scotland, and for the position of owners and the heritage industry, questioning who sets the terms of this discussion. How and why are Scottish country houses framed – intellectually, socially, economically and politically – and how has this picture evolved? From the period of post-Jacobite house building in the mid-eighteenth century, through the ‘Balmoralisation’ of the house, and the influence of the hunting, shooting and fishing boom of the later nineteenth century, Scotland’s country houses have long been political as well as architectural structures.

Current legislation around community ownership and empowerment is ushering in a new age: how will country houses meet these new challenges and what can be learned from the rest of the UK and Ireland?

The lecture will be followed by a reception.

For further information please email: cridgway@castlehoward.co.uk

The event is supported by the HHA, and the Institute for the Public Understanding of the Past, the University of York.

www.ychp.org.uk www.hha.org.uk

The speakerDr Annie Tindley is senior lecturer in history at the University of Dundee, where her research focuses on modern rural Scottish history, with a particular examination of landed estates and aristocratic families. She is also the founder and Director of the Centre for Scotland’s Land Futures, a collaborative, inter-disciplinary body investigating Scotland’s land issues within a British and European context.

Where Stands the Scottish Country House in 2016?