A Workshop in Ruins

Last month, academic historians and heritage professions gathered at Scotney Castle, Kent, for ‘A Workshop in Ruins’. Funded by the Royal Historical Society and hosted by The National Trust, this two-day event brought together museum and heritage site curators, ecologists, art, architectural, and documentary historians to consider the changing uses and perceptions of ruins in and with their surroundings,

With a focus on interpretation of these often-complex sites, particularly in relation to ruins and country houses, the primary outcome of the workshop is the development of a free online toolkit for heritage professionals.

Workshop members

As ‘gaunt relics of obsolete societies’ ruins can be imposing reminders of ways of life which no longer seem relevant in the modern world. [1] Therefore, the first day of the workshop focused on the historical context of ruins and country house estates. Starting with the English Reformation and the dissolution of the monasteries, we took looked in detail at the complex relationship of the country house to vestiges of the Popish past. This session examined instances of the incorporation of ecclesiastical ruins into designed landscapes and the fabric of country houses.

A thread between the destruction of the monasteries in the 16th century and the ruination of country houses in the late 19th and early 20th century quickly became apparent, particularly through the work of Roy Strong in his 1974 V&A exhibition The Destruction of the Country House, 1875-1975. Discussions developed around landed estates lost through personal ruination whether through debt, extravagant ambition or political leanings. The threat of this type of ruin haunted the owners of landed estates for generations and had far reaching consequences for the economically diverse local communities in which they were located.

The 18th and 19th century heyday of the great country house estates was a time of estate improvement rather than preservation. By contrast, while there remained a clear drive for modernisation in the later 19th and early 20th century, estate owners frequently drew on the past to create a sense of historical continuity and legitimacy. This ‘past’ was often heavily influenced by local folklore and gave rise to legends of concealed rooms, child ghosts, ‘white’ or ‘grey’ ladies, and headless horsemen roaming estates.

The final session of our first day explored how the ruins of military structures, such as castles, were often incorporated into the country house landscape. In the aesthetic and historical imagination, these ruins conjure up stories of heroism, horror and war, and are sites where key moments in local and national history are told. With central themes of memory and war, a case study of Battle Abbey, in East Sussex (a monastery turned country house turned school) enabled participants to consider battlefield tourism and country houses as war memorial sites.

Day Two of the workshop focused on the interpretation of ruins in our time. English Heritage use the model of a ‘virtuous circle of conservation’ to inform engagement with their audiences — a model which demonstrates how attitudes toward heritage change as people become more engaged.[2] Taking this as a central discussion point, we considered how to engage diverse communities and manage ruins in our current economic and environmental climate.

We began with a discussion of early interpretation and guidebooks for country houses which were produced in the 18th century. Particular attention was paid to the clergyman and artist, William Gilpin (1724-1804), whose principles of picturesque beauty inspired the garden design and view of the ruined castle at Scotney, which we were fortunate to tour tour with Scotney’s curator, Jerzy Kierkuc-Bielinski.

Gilpin View of Ruin at Scotney

In picturesque landscapes of the 18th and 19th century the overarching message was of mastering nature. This continues to influence how modern visitors expect to see country houses and their estates today, an expectation which adds to the challenges faced by estate managers alert to climate change and its causes.

The ruin as part of a wider landscape, as demonstrated by the art installation at Whitby Abbey, North Yorkshire, had been at the heart of our discussions over the weekend.[3] With ‘nature, beauty, history’ as its tagline, The National Trust and other heritage organisations encourage people to walk the landscape, listen to the sounds around them and observe the natural context of the ruin. The built and natural environment must work in synergy to benefit one another. Planting within ruins, for example, both promotes more biodiverse environments and mitigates the risk of people climbing on these historic, and sometimes fragile, structures. Re-wilding the landscape is an important aspect of increasing our biodiversity and providing ecological services.

At the same time, there are tensions between environmental priorities and visitor expectations in terms of aesthetic convention for country house estates. In this section of the workshop, our discussions focused on raising public awareness and making ‘rewilding’ the new ‘Picturesque’. In some cases allowing nature to take its course is the only option. This includes on the Sussex coast, at Birling Gap, where the National Trust is following a process of managed retreat.[4]

Planting at Scotney

Country houses can seem very distant to many groups and communities. We therefore explored interpretation strategies to engage with young, ethnically diverse, LGBTQIA+, and differently abled audiences. Inspiration was taken from some of the most engaging interpretation of heritage sites undertaken in recent years, including Runnymede Explored and the Five Stories in Five Rooms in Edinburgh’s New Town.[5]

At the heart of these spaces there is freedom for a wide variety of community responses. This community-led approach draws on internal and external expertise, allowing for a truly inclusive experience which opens heritage to and from multiple viewpoints and allows for a human-centred approach.

Our work on the online toolkit for heritage professionals is now underway. Central to this forthcoming resource will be the principal themes to emerge from the workshop and to which participants returned:

• Curiosity and discovery: by remaining curious ourselves and encouraging our visitors to do the same, we can continue to tell engaging and diverse stories, allowing people to discover new or different aspects of our heritage. Our ruins need to take people on a journey without a pre-conceived idea about where we will end up.
• Authenticity: we need to remain true to the history and context of the ruin while also making it engaging for diverse communities.
• Layers, depth and difference: how can we give ruins their historical context and represent the many stories and lives that are interwoven within them? How can we push back against societal norms and go against the grain?
• Listening and transparency: we need to make the most of internal and external expertise, actively listen to community groups, communicate why decisions around preservation, conservation and interpretation are made and admit when we get things wrong.
• Storytelling: there is no one single story for a ruin. How can we give up the narrative and hand it over to others?

With thanks to the co-organisers and attendees of ‘A Workshop in Ruins’: Joan Coutu, (University of Waterloo), Rowena Willard-Wright (National Trust), John Bonehill, (University of Glasgow), Charles Bain-Smith (National Trust), Jerzy Kierkuc-Bielinski (National Trust), Sarah Mayfield (National Trust), Nathalie Cohen (National Trust), Simon Coppard (University of Greenwich), Susannah Elliot (Interpretation Consultant), Kate Retford (Birkbeck, University of London) and Graham Sparks (Birkbeck, University of London).

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[1] Malcolm Hislop, How to Read Castles: A Crash Course in Understanding Fortifications (Herbert Press, 2013), p. 6.

[2] Historic England, ‘Places Strategy’ (2019), https://historicengland.org.uk/content/docs/planning/he-places-strategy-2019/, last accessed 08/11/24.

[3] https://www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk/news/heritage-whitby-abbey

[4] https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/sussex/birling-gap-and-the-seven-sisters/shifting-shores-at-birling-gap-at-the-seven-sisters

[5] https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/surrey/runnymede-and-ankerwycke/runnymede-explored-project and https://www.nts.org.uk/stories/five-stories-in-five-rooms

About the author

Claire Kennan is medieval historian and Honorary Research Fellow at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Claire specialises in the history of Britain between 1300 and 1500, with a particular focus on the social and cultural impact of the Black Death, the pre-Reformation parish, popular piety and medieval guilds. She is currently project co-lead for the £1.5 million AHRC-funded Inclusive Histories project and a Collaborator on the SSHRC-funded Environments of Change project.

Claire is also a recipient of an RHS Workshop Grant for 2024-25 which supported the ‘Workshop in Ruins’ project (October 2024)

About RHS Workshop Grants

Workshop Grants enable historians to come together to pursue projects of shared interest. Projects are broadly defined and may focus not only on academic research but also a wider range of activities. Grants offer £1,000 for hosting a day event. Workshops support a wider range of group activities relating to history.

These may include: discussion of an existing research topic or project; beginning and testing a research idea, leading to a future project; piloting work relating to the teaching, research or communication of history; planning and writing a grant application; and undertaking networking and building of academic communities.

The call for the next round of RHS Workshop Grants will open on Monday 25 November 2024. Applications for invited for activities to be held in 2025 or early 2026.