Making Maritime Memories: The British Country House and the Sea

View of Portsmouth Harbour with Admiral Anson returning with the captured French fleet, 1747.

Reproduced with the permission of the National Trust

Julie Farguson (Faculty of History) has been awarded a Social Sciences Division’s Knowledge Exchange Fellowship (Business and Industry) to implement an innovative collaboration between OCMA and the National Trust, PI’d by Linda Hulin and Helena Hamerow.

The project will work with staff at properties that celebrate their maritime connections: Buckland Abbey, one time home of Sir Francis Drake (1540-1596) and Shugborough Hall, owned by Thomas Anson, younger brother of Admiral George Anson (1697-1762), who circumnavigated the globe. The project brings a specifically archaeological and contextual perspective to these properties and their collections, recasting objects—and the absence of objects—at both properties within cycles of remembering and forgetting, as time and changes in fashion negated or reanimated earlier maritime heritage. The KEF will work with curators to co-produce new tools and resources with the specific aim of enhancing visitor experience and increasing footfall. Planned activities include:

• workshops on Admirals and their Families (Shugborough Hall) and Heroes and Heritage (Buckland Abbey), which will include gallery sessions
• staff and volunteer training
• enhancing content on the National Trust’s collections catalogue
• the creation of a database of National Trust houses with maritime connections
• visitor impact surveys

More information: 

Buckland Abbey, National Trust

Shugborough Estate, National Trust