Visiting country houses is a popular leisure pursuit in the UK, and those who run such houses are becoming aware that their visitors are not just interested in architecture, paintings and furniture but in how the household and their servants lived and worked, inspired by TV programmes such as Downton Abbey and The Edwardian Country House.
During the 19th century many technological innovations, including gas and electric light, central heating, piped water supplies and sanitation, became available. Often far from urban centres of supply, many landowners were forced to make considerable changes to their estates and their houses to take advantage of new technology.
Led by Prof Marilyn Palmer, the study day will consider why some landowners were keen innovators and others not, and look at the surviving evidence for these various innovations.
• Marilyn Palmer MBE, FSA is a retired professor of archaeology and an adviser to the National Trust, English Heritage and the Council for British Archaeology as well as subject adviser in archaeology for the Third Age Trust. She has made a particular study of the ways in which technological innovation enabled country house owners to make their homes more comfortable to live in during the Victorian and Edwardian periods, and she runs a centre for this at the University of Leicester.
Cost: £10 (£12 to non-members)
See the Surrey U3A Network events page for more information and application form