‘Role and Ritual: Function and Performance in Domestic Spaces of Elite Eighteenth-Century English Houses, 1750-1800’

This thesis offers an, albeit necessary brief, historical analysis of the eighteenth-century incorporation of ritual practises and sociabilities enacted in a few elite interior environments of what I consider to be six of the most interesting English houses, either newly constructed or extended during the course of the eighteenth century. Two of which houses are now demolished in whole, as is the case with Bulstrode Park, situated in Gerrard’s Cross, Buckinghamshire, or part, as is the case with Norfolk House, located in St. James’s Square, central London.
It is useful to note that before the start of the research for this thesis began it was assumed on the part of the author that eighteenth-century domestic space were increasingly segmented for inflexible and separate activities. There follows a focused discussion of the varying types of display, ritual and sociable interaction made manifest in; the ground floor spaces of the Entrance Hall, Library, State Bedchamber and Etruscan Dressing Room at Osterley House and Great Hall and Long Gallery of Syon House; the Music and Ball Room of Norfolk House; and, finally, the first floor Dressing Rooms of Bulstrode Park, No. 23 Hill Street and Montagu House in Portman Square. Discussion has a concern to establish the ways in which such material display and sociabilities may have served their owners for a variety of ends. Such interior (and exterior) commissions of assimilated materiality and resulting sociabilities are found to serve their male householder, or as is discovered, female head of house, in a number of different, distinctive and often adaptable ways.
Analysis of the specific spatial environments in each elite household discussed reveals that different types of social rituals were often adopted depending upon the individual interests of a patron, their gender and nature of relationship to the head of household. Often divergent strands of cultural influence overlapping forms of ritual practise were incorporated in modernised, areas within a grand household, like that of Bulstrode Park’s Dressing Room, which could be tailored to a surprising number of functions and usages, according to the nature of the relationship with the householder. It also emerges, somewhat surprisingly, that strong and educated female patrons included in this thesis incorporated most successfully different cultural forms of practise and unusual methodologies of aesthetic display within the most private spatial areas in their residences. Again, illustrated most notably with the case of Bulstrode Park, that enabled these women to effectively, and creatively, portray a memorable image and identity individual to themselves.