Product Description

The story of the real Brideshead: one home, one family, and a thousand years.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3789 in Books
• Published on: 2008-06-02
• Binding: Hardcover
• 400 pages

Selina Hastings, Daily Mail
Scholarly, evocative and beautifully written...a thrillingly vivid historical portrait...a little masterpiece, as rich and rare as the house itself.

Synopsis
Madresfield Court is an arrestingly romantic stately home surrounded by a perfect medieval moat, in the Malvern Hills in Worcestershire. It has been continuously owned and lived in by the same family, the Lygons, back to the time of the Domesday Book, and, unusually, remains in the family's hands to this day. Inside, it is a very private, unmistakably English, manor house; a lived-in family home where the bejewelled sits next to the threadbare, the heraldic and feudal rest easily next to the prosaically domestic. The house and the family were the real inspiration for Brideshead Revisited: Evelyn Waugh was a regular visitor, and based his story of the doomed Marchmain family on the Lygons.Never before open to the public, the doors of "Madresfield" have now swung open to allow Jane Mulvagh to explore its treasures and secrets.

And so the rich, dramatic history of one landed family unfolds in parallel with the history of England itself over a millennium, from the Lygon who conspired to overthrow Queen Mary in the Dudley plot; through the tale of the disputed legacy that inspired Dickens' Bleak House; to the secret love behind Elgar's Enigma Variations; and the story of the scandal of Lord Beauchamp, the disgraced 7th Earl.

From the Publisher
This book came about when Jane Mulvagh met Lady Rosalind Morrison, the present owner of Madresfield Court, and allowed her full access to the treasures of this very private and ancient house of 160 rooms and is the result of five years of loving research. The most sensational part of the story of the Lygons is that of the scandal and disgrace of the 7th Earl in the 1930s, which inspired Evelyn Waugh, a friend of his children, to write Brideshead Revisited. But as Jane delved into the unexplored boxes of the Muniments Room hidden under the lavish painted frescoes of the Chapel, she uncovered many other riches in the story of this one house which has been in the hands of the same family for almost 1,000 years..

Customer Reviews

Madresfield
Jane Mulvagh's book should be called The Lygons to be more accurate. She offers only tantalising glimpses into the house itself, using suspiciously round dimensions to describe the rooms, an implausibly high drawing room ceiling and throws away a comment about 60 bedrooms in her descriptions. If you are looking for a history of Madresfield you'd be better to read 'The Last Country Houses' or the Country Life articles, the latter of which don't make a mention in her bibliography. Her links from the brief descriptions of the house to the various family members are facile and 2 dimensional.

However as a history of the Lygon's the book is very good. It makes fascinating reading, particularly on the 20th century Lygons and offers glimpses to a very different way of life that was broken apart by scandal. The Brideshead Revisited inspiration seem undeniable and offers a realistic basis to a 20th century classic.


All in all a good book, but misleadingly titled.