In every historic house ever

Feel free to distinguish however you like between USian "old" vs Euro "old," or even US East "old" vs US West "old."

I'm thinking of my childhood road trips to historic locations - generally but not exclusively Ye Olde Colonial. So for me it's:

Bedwarmers

Carpet-beaters

Butter churns

Hornbooks

stained glass

Chatty staff in period clothing

Ghost story of dubious historical plausibility

Outdoors:

Privy

Icehouse

Pump

Slave cabin with interpretive plaque

I went on a tour of the Pardee Mansion in Oakland (Former governor of California) and one person showed up literally one minute late and the docent said she would have to come back next month, he was not having any tardiness on his watch

they had ratty fur coats and persian rugs... also a water tower in the backyard

Slave cabin with interpretive plaque

ehh, not sure this is in every historic house

I invite you to review the previous every / ever threads for how literally the title gets taken; thanks.

“…and that’s the origin of the saying ‘sleep tight’”

Wigwam/tipi/longhouse replica outside with signage thanking the original inhabitants of this unceded land

* Ambitious monthly/seasonal programming, promoted by docent as "there's always something different going on," with the hope that you might return soon or even frequently

* One entire room has been dedicated to the awkward preservation history of said room - destroyed in a fire, everything you see is reconstructed or replaced, now let's learn about the specific provenance of the replacement punch-bowl, etc.

* Gift shop has oddly robust array of little books about this specific house, produced by a range of small publishers over the past sixty years, alongside 2-3 lavish coffee table books about historic houses generally, possibly not including this one.

Oh the gift shop!

Items in the gift shop will include

- candle-wax sealing kit
- quill pen and inkwell set
- tricorn hat
- faux parchment scrolled-up replica of a historic document
- olde-tymey stick candy, preferably in horehound flavor
- preteen kid giggling over the word "horehound"

Embroidered samplers; “fancy” draped-rope barriers on locally hand-turned wooden supports

Pass good for an entire year which represents a slight discount from the cost of two full-price tickets

“It seems Mr Jenbenson was quite the avid ____________”

i used to work at Monticello, AMA

(for real)

- dumbwaiter, go

Guide: "And now we're coming to my favourite room, the wine cellar."

Visitors struggling to pass each other in bottleneck hallways and stairs

Boring, that's amazing! When were you there?

1998-2000, I started just when the DNA thing hit

Ghost story of dubious historical plausibility

involving woman who was supposed to marry but betrothed died, and woman committed suicide, or similar. feel like 'the white lady' is p common also as a name for this ghost.

Frickin doilies

Whitewashing of dubious historical plausibility

Skirts on furniture and discussion of Victorian-era prudishness

x-post Alternately, deeply earnest if awkward attempts to explore the lives of women/the working class/enslaved people during the property's heyday.

(I worked at the Colonial Williamsburg research library in the 80s; AMA.)

Cool. Hull has the Wilberforce Museum, I know how the game gets played

walled garden area that's taken way too seriously/has a separate fee

which sometimes is, or is in addition to, “the orangerie”, which no longer contains any fruit bearing trees of any kind but does contain two benches and someone does appear to mow the grass

That's near the overpriced and disappointing café, right?

outside cafe there are bins that are always full, attracting swarms of wasps

there is an old well in the wooded area

There is a room/area where you're not sure if they're trying to leave the original features intact or they just can't be arsed to do anything with it

buses of american tourists

established but faded global coffee brand swing sign outside cafe

Small wing of the house that the owners actually live in, with no public access and a Range Rover parked outside

Disappointing range of scones and sandwiches in the café

Wedding party taking photos at the faux Roman ruin

Colonial plunder

A folly

Also in gift shop: potpourri

System of bells for summoning servants

x-post Alternately, deeply earnest if awkward attempts to explore the lives of women/the working class/enslaved people during the property's heyday.

(I worked at the Colonial Williamsburg research library in the 80s; AMA.)

visiting in the late 90s I think they were less awkward and more natural in broadening the scope. need to go back!

Tedious histories of families and their time owning the house.

“from 1972 it passed into the possession of the eldest son, Zachary, who planned modifications to the boathouse, sadly never realised”

Four-poster bed

“from 1972 it passed into the possession of the eldest son, Zachary, who planned modifications to the boathouse, sadly never realised”

"due to the changing times, there was no longer a need for *short summary of whatever house was handwaving large societal changes* and the house was passed on to the state, who opened it to the public"

"after the brits were finally turfed out, the talbot family clung on to the past, with a series of general wasters refusing to leave the increasingly ramshackle house, until the seventies or eighties when they became characters in irish novels or short stories, before finally dying, at which point the house became a local park"

"And here is where the family kept a brown bear caged up for no reason other than a bit of pure cruelty"

Some item of modern infrastructure poorly concealed by faux-wood paneling (ye olde Coke machine, ye olde ATM)

@ Boring, re: Monticello, that must have been fascinating. I toured in 2017, was really not sure if I'd get undigested hero worship or what, but thought they did a good job centering it fundamentally as a plantation house and site of slavery, with Jefferson's other activities situated in relation to that. My secondhand impression is that most historic plantation houses (especially ones operating as wedding/event venues) are still stuck in the 1950s as far as the stories they tell.

great thread so far, btw

yeah we tried even in the late 90s to tell a fuller picture. i usually gave house tours but also did the Mulberry Row (the “slave street” tours. not one month after starting Old man Jefferson was proved to have fathered at least one kid through Sally Hemings so leadership made sure we had to address it honestly. The youngin’s like me (I and several other full-time guides were in our mid-20s) had no issue with it but some of the older guides had a real problem dealing with it.

Anette Gordon Reed’s book even before the DNA thing was a very convincing marshaling of the evidence.

the next summer some descendants came to visit and one was a six foot tall redhead who looked like the man himself.

i should clarify, it was one of the Hemings descendants who looked the spitting image

Enfilades
Marquetry
Dressing-up box
Bad painting of the owners in 1972
Exhibition by local ceramicist in stable block
Bed that a monarch once slept in, that has never been slept in again
Tin of Bisto Gravy Granules from 1958 in the larder, representing the olden days
Dried thistles placed on chairs, just in case you were thinking of sitting on them
20 minute queue in the cafe, staffed by three well-meaning ladies from the village, all clustered round the coffee machine because there's a problem with the milk frother

idk why these places are so evocative but this thread really stimulates the memory for me. i never really see places like this anymore but feel like as a kid i was brought to them a lot.

Laminated sheet of A4 in the Blue Drawing Room, telling you that the painting to the right of the fireplace is of the Third Marchioness of Anglesey
Giant statue of hare on the lawn, representing the current owners’ abiding passion for the arts
Incongruously dust-jacketed copy of The Country Diary Of An Edwardian Lady, on bottom shelf in library
Chinoiserie

I was really hoping for the Old World Stately Homes vibe as well, thanks.

@ Boring - thanks for sharing! Super interesting. Actually, "distant relative of house's former inhabitant is on the tour" might belong on the thread --- have had at least one tour totally monopolized by a well-meaning chatty character throwing all kinds of minutia from his own genealogical research at the docent.

Special Japan edition:
Repro shoji sliding doors
Open hearth
Looks like a barn
Bloody freezing

I grew up in one of these places - this one

https://whichweddingvenue.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/5067_Whitbourne-Hall.jpg.jpg

Well a bit of it anyway, it was something between a commune and a housing association, we had our flat and the function rooms downstairs were communal areas. So

Butter churns - Yes in the old kitchens
stained glass - on the roof, just a bit mind
Ghost story of dubious historical plausibility - sad to say I never saw it
dumbwaiter - just outside our flat, we used to play with it until one day it broke, oops
walled garden area that's taken way too seriously - "it's not a maze, it's the Italian Garden!"
Wedding party - this is how they stay afloat now, I remember a few and meeting random kids and hanging out for the day
Colonial plunder - sort of, there were two gazelle heads and two lion pelts with taxidermied heads, my cat used to go to sleep in the mouth of one of them
A folly - guess the "orangery" was essentially a folly, think it was operational for less than a decade
System of bells for summoning servants - we had the original victorian bell system on the front door and of course we sometimes pressed all of them then went to hide and watch the chaos unfold
Marquetry - yeah some of that, but didn't know what it was called
Bad painting of the owners in 1972 - yes! might even have been from 1972
Exhibition by local ceramicist in stable block - no but the woman who lives in the old gardener's cottage has a ceramics business
Incongruously dust-jacketed copy of The Country Diary Of An Edwardian Lady, on bottom shelf in library - there were many books in the library but they were all collected punch and the like and of no interest
Bloody freezing - oh god yes, the heating for our flat was basically just the rayburn

incredible!

Yeah, wow! That seems like such a fascinating setting for a childhood.

you were living my childhood dream too! (i was a weird early-American history obsessed kid)

* weird early-American history obsessed kids