Berrington Hall: Where the "Duchess" Meets WWI

On this rather dreary cold and rainy day, we visited Berrington Hall, located in Herefordshire. This “modest” country house (I write “modest” because the house is still large, just not as big as some of the other estates we visited) was built between 1778 ~ 1781 and was designed by Henry Holland. To quote our itinerary, “ The existence of the estate in its current form goes back over 230 years to its creator Thomas Harley, who bought the estate around 1775. Harley commissioned ‘Capability’ Brown to lay out the park, which has spectacular views of Wales and the Black Mountains. Around 1778, he also called in Brown’s son in law Henry Holland, to design him a new house in the latest French influenced Neo-Classical style, using the finest London craftsmen.” The house was turned over to the National Trust in 1957.

The house is currently undergoing some restoration work

It also has A LOT of sheep roaming in the fields in front of the house

On arrival at Berrington Hall, we learned that the house was having an exhibition and displaying costumes from the 2008 feature film The Duchess. Considering that this is a Georgian manor, it seemed appropriate that these costumes were on display here.

Like the many country homes we had visited prior to Berrington Hall, my parents and I explored the house, wandering from room to room, marveling at a level of unfathomable wealth. Although I have visited DOZENS of these amazing and ginormous British country estates, it still blows my mind to think that people actually lived here and like this!

I love the fact that these books, which detail who's who in the aristocracy, existed!

While the downstairs of the house focused on the Georgian period, the upstairs period focused on the near past --- WWI. It seems that during WWI, Berrington Hall witnessed major tragedies. The Lord of Berrington Hall, at the time, had four sons, three of whom were killed during WWI! Such a tragic waste of youth! Actually, that is a theme that my parents and I noticed at all of these country manors.

Since 2014 marks the 100^th anniversary of WWI, there has been a large emphasis on WWI history this past year. At these country estates, there have been exhibits detailing the family histories of these homes and invariably many young aristocrats were lost during WWI, as well as in many other wars. Many young sons ended up inheriting estates because their older brothers were killed in military action. Oh fate, you are a truly cruel mistress.

The WWI family memorial, or history exhibit, was quite poignant. There are recreations of letters that the sons wrote from the battlefield that have been photocopied for your viewing and family photo albums have been made available for perusing. The uniforms of the deceased, as well as their personal histories and combat history have also been made public. Although the brothers (Harold, John, and Oswald), were killed in the line of duty --- protecting their country --- their memory lives on at their home. 

Memorial for the three sons who perished in WWI

Their uniforms and their portraits

Found this in one of the bedrooms and I thought it was very interesting

After exploring the “upstairs world”, we were directed towards the less attractive servants’ staircase and made our way to the “downstairs world.” Although I am well aware of the upstairs-downstairs society in Britain and in many other nations, it still find it hard to wrap my mind around the fact that this sort of world existed --- that what you see on Downton Abbey, Upstairs Downstairs, The Great Gatsby, or Gosford Park --- really existed! Wow. The basement of Berrington Hall is a recreation of what the house would have looked like in its heyday of domestic service, and it was truly fascinating!

Recreation of the head housekeeper's room

Old knife holder

By the time we left Berrington Hall, it was raining, which was a bit depressing. Berrington Halls is known for it’s grounds, which were designed by “Capability Brown”, however, due to the inclement weather, we were unable to explore the grounds! So tragic! Still, the house was lovely and being able to see the period costumes from The Duchess was pretty neat!