SHARING THE PILE AT CASTLE HOWARD

Added: (Fri Jul 04 2003)

Pressbox (Press Release) - Privately owned stately homes have received much criticism in the past in terms of their owner’s reluctance to share these bastions of elitism and privilege with the public. Whilst those that have opened their doors appear to welcome them in, what one finds too often are countless dusty rooms, full of dusty furniture and equally dusty guides who tolerate visitors and if asked, might provide a rather long, indigestible and complex answer leaving you wishing you hadn’t bothered. That, and the trademark red ropes that are strewn about to keep you out, conspire to put some people off, particularly younger people or those with children. Sure, there might perhaps be a soggy ‘adventure playground’ tucked away in a corner to keep the few children who’ve been frog-marched in with their cultured parents from total mutiny, but the overwhelming impression is ‘come in if you must, but please don’t make a noise or a mess’.

Castle Howard has decided to take on this perspective of the stately home with a vengeance. Perhaps inspired by the arrival of his twins, Merlin and Octavia nearly two years ago, The Hon Simon Howard has assembled a young and lively interpretive team who are set to change the traditional presentation of the stately home forever. Their subject matter is unrestricted and takes in the whole Estate, its approach, House, Grounds, statues, views, extensive archives and of course contents. This team, led by Richard Kemp who recently redeveloped the Jorvik Viking Centre in York, have devised a series of ways of looking at the stately home, specifically designed for children and aim to ensure the whole place is understood by its visitors. So confident are Howard and the team that they can engage their new and younger audiences they have made a guarantee that any child not loving their day out can claim their entrance money back.

Ironically perhaps, Castle Howard’s ‘more 4 kids’ doesn’t offer a single bouncy castle or a playground (actually there is one. a bit soggy, but not bad). It is based on providing children with hands-on activities designed to let them explore through new means what life was like, how the House and Estate were organised, why the gardens were laid out in the way they were, and how they were used.

In a series of book-able ‘discovery sessions’ (six every day of the summer holidays) children visiting Castle Howard can join any of a huge range of organised activities, including a behind-the-scenes opportunity to rummage the unseen archives by donning white gloves and handling items from the House, including statue fragments, ancient wallpaper, paintings, rare upholstery to studying letters and envelopes. These include for example unseen decorated envelopes decorated by the 9th Earl and sent to his Victorian children and covered with exquisite mythical dragons and toy soldiers. Children, on another ‘discovery session’ that the Castle Howard team are calling ‘Enveloptastic', will each design their own envelopes in similar style and post them home having handled the ancient source material first hand.

The imaginative activities also involve a day-long series that utilise the considerable resources of an in-house archaeological excavation at Castle Howard and (pretty uniquely) allow children to become archaeologists with organised sessions dedicated to sieving, pot washing, finds identification and survey work looking at what lies underground at Castle Howard. Already traces of the village that lay on the site have been found relating to life before 1699 when the villagers were relocated to make way for the House. The trenches will not be seeded with goodies; anything discovered by a child at Castle Howard will be real and will be contributing to the research programme.

All the sessions are expertly delivered by trained and lively personnel, and are also available to educational groups. Indeed at a teacher’s open day recently, the team were overwhelmed by some 700 local educationalists - all intrigued by the new approach and anxious to give it a try. Several groups have signed up for next term already.

Whilst Merlin and Octavia Howard may continue to live their lives at Castle Howard, one cannot doubt, having grown up with such approaches, that their attitude towards their inheritance will be radically different from that of any generation who have lived here so far.