This online lecture by Simon Baynes is based on his book The Forgotten Country House: The Rise and Fall of Roundway Park. Inaugural Lorna Haycock Memorial Lecture.
This fine Palladian house known as New Park was built between 1777 and 1783 and became part of the golden age of the Georgian country house. Its owner, James Sutton, was one of a new breed of landowners, benefitting from the proceeds of the boom in late eighteenth century trade and from local political influence.
The house was a celebration of the dynamism and success of Georgian Devizes, built on its thriving wool trade. As neoclassicism became the defining style for the late eighteenth English country house, New Park, later re-named Roundway Park, perfectly represented the high ambition of the age, the product of the prestigious architect, James Wyatt, and landscape designer, Humphry Repton.
The Forgotten Country House tells for the first time the story of Roundway’s rise and fall, the people who built and owned it, lived and worked there, and the contribution they made to their local community. It paints a vivid picture of the lives of gentry families who far outnumbered their more aristocratic counterparts and who played a central role in the rural communities that characterised much of Britain up until the mid-twentieth century.
Part family history, part love letter to the English country house, Simon Baynes draws on family papers and new research to pay a fitting, evocative tribute not just to his ancestors, but also to a lost world and the people who lived in it.
Roundway lies about a mile from Devizes town centre and until 2017 was a separate parish.
About the Author
Simon Baynes grew up in Montgomeryshire where his father ran Lake Vyrnwy Hotel. He was educated at Shrewsbury School and read history at Magdalene College, Cambridge. After a career at stockbrokers Cazenove & Co. and as Managing Director of the merged JP Morgan Cazenove investment bank, Simon moved back to Montgomeryshire where he now focuses on writing and the local community. He ran a second-hand bookshop for five years, is founder of the Montgomeryshire Literary Festival and co-author of Lake Vyrnwy Hotel: The Story of a Sporting Hotel.
Simon is Member of Parliament for Mid-Wales.
Tickets
Pre-book on line (see below) and cost just £7 (£4.50 WANHS members).
All proceeds to Wiltshire Museum to ensure we can keep Supporting Curiosity and Creativity – the theme of our 2020 Appeal.
* SPECIAL OFFER – buy a copy of the book from the Museum shop and get a FREE ticket for the lecture! Don’t delay – only a few copies available. *
Start Time – 7.30pm and last approx 45 minutes. There will be an opportunity to ask questions at the end.
Webinar Link
This lecture will be presented by Zoom Webinar and the link to join will be sent to ticket holders on the day of the lecture (so it doesn’t get lost in your email inbox!).
Dr Lorna Haycock
Dr Lorna Haycock, who died in 2019, had been head of history at Devizes Grammar School, published a number of books, including the History and Guide to Devizes and was a former vice chairman of the Trust for Devizes. For 20 years she was also Sandell Librarian at Wiltshire Museum where she opened up the treasures of the library to hundreds of researchers, and following her retirement in 2009 she continued to volunteer here. In recognition of her work for the Museum and Library this local history lecture is dedicated to her memory.