Living with the Laird: A Love Affair with a Man and his Mansion

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Belinda Rathbone. Living with the Laird: A Love Affair with a Man and his Mansion

Living With the Laird. A LOVE AFFAIR WITH A MAN AND HIS MANSION. Belinda Rathbone

Table of Contents

Author’s Note

ONE It’s All Yours If You Want It

TWO Heir and Spare

THREE Winter Light

FOUR The Blessing

FIVE The Garden

What should we do?

SIX These Woods, These Cultur’d Plains

SEVEN Home Economics

EIGHT The County

NINE Play Piece

TEN Tenants and Factors

ELEVEN Guests and Ghosts

TWELVE The Birthday

EPILOGUE

Sources. LOCAL HISTORY, COUNTY OF ANGUS

SOCIAL HISTORY, SCOTLAND

ARCHITECTURE AND LANDSCAPE DESIGN

THE COUNTRY HOUSE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

ARCHIVES

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Praise

Copyright

About the Publisher

Отрывок из книги

For John and Elliot

Title Page

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I had always thought of myself, having grown up in New England, as someone well prepared to confront the baggage and the bumps of an old family place. I had known enough old Boston families, old money, deeply imbued with the ethic of inconspicuous consumption, to appreciate the beauty of an unrenovated country kitchen, the charm of faded upholstery and the clutter of dusty heirlooms. But this was not the warm, drab grandeur of an old summer house in Manchester-by-the-Sea. This was not the cherished family retreat in the White Mountains of New Hampshire or the lakeside log cabin camp in the Adirondacks. Love must once have been felt for this place, but it was not the kind that passes like a gift from one generation to the next in the name of summertime pleasures and memories. This was the centrepiece of a system gone to seed, deeply suggestive of the forbidden desire to give up and get out. Some hidden force kept them there, but it wasn’t exactly love.

I felt a strong urge to start moving things around, but I didn’t know where to begin. I decided to take a walk.

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