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Harewood’s Electricity Story

Visit Yorkshire to see rare Georgian chandliers
Science and technology are not topics typically associated with historic houses or their inhabitants. They are often well known for their fine furnishings and great works of art, but it is perhaps quite unusual, and unexpected, to think of them as thriving hubs of technological advancement.

New research undertaken at the University of Leeds has focused on the unique relationship between country houses and the history of innovation and experimentation. With inhabitants who could often afford to invest financially and socially in new and somewhat mysterious technologies, country houses became some of the earliest venues for the installation of electrical appliances. They also exposed its householders (sometimes reluctantly) to the enormous social change and development that these innovations brought with them.

Visit Yorkshire to see Chippendale lights at Harewood

Harewood House Trust, in collaboration with Dr Michael Kay from the University of Leeds, has recently been awarded a grant of £5000 from The Culture Capital Exchange to research and explore the little known story of electrification at Harewood House. Initial research has established a basic timeline of electrification and has already revealed some fascinating stories: from the intriguing routine of Harewood’s Lamp Man to the curious practice of employing electricians to ‘stand by’ during dinner parties.

The first phase of the House’s electrification took place in 1901, commissioned by the 5th Earl of Harewood. Archival evidence shows that there was seemingly fierce competition between early electrical contractors to obtain the job, and the merits and weaknesses of utilising hydropower was carefully considered. The installation of electricity was continued in the early 1930s when the 6th Earl of Harewood and his wife, Princess Mary, moved into Harewood House. The Princess Royal made a specific request for electric lighting in her new dressing room along with other modern conveniences, such as the installation of a lift and the purchase of a Hoover vacuum cleaner was made.

Dr Kay’s interesting research will inform a number of workshop events at Harewood House and the University of Leeds, featuring a short drama performance exploring the story of electrification from the perspective of staff and servants.

Visit Yorkshire to see Below Stairs in the House at Harewood

Join us on the 21 August at Harewood for a day of illuminating activities that will explore the theme of electricity within the House.  You will be able to try your hand at making cup and string telephones in our crafts activity, and also have a go at a new technology trail. Our family friendly drama performance, taking place in the Steward’s Room, will be followed by an opportunity talk to the characters and ask them questions. Participants will then be able to handle some early electrical equipment with Dr Kay and Harewood staff. There will also be a special display of Harewood’s historic light fittings and related archival documentation, both Below Stairs and on the State Floor, as well as a 10 minute Discovery Talk focusing on Dr Kay’s research.
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Similar workshops will also be taking place at the University of Leeds on 11 August for Year 5 and 6 pupils from the IntoUniversity charity‘s summer educational programme, and 11 September as part of the Heritage Open Days programme.

A new pond for the Harewood Learning Garden…

Work has continued today in the Learning Garden, with the help of Audrey, Trevor and his team.  Today, the focus was clearing the pond area, and preparing the vegetable plot.

After last week’s session, and our battle with the Philadelphus shrub, Trevor and his team were today successful in removing the plant from our pond area.  In addition to this, the team cleared the rest of the pond area, and dug the hole read for the pond to be put in place.

With Trevor’s expertise, the shrub is finally removed from the pond area

Once the pond area was cleared, work then began on the plot in the opposite corner of the garden.  This plot will become our vegetable garden.  Before any planting of vegetables could start, the area needed to be cleared, and Audrey spent the morning raking the leaves and weeding the flower beds, ready for the digging to begin.

The corner of our garden to become our vegetable plot, cleared by Audrey

Next session, we hope to put the pond lining in place, and finish preparing the plot ready to plant some vegetables!

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The Harewood Learning Team.

Progress in the Learning Garden!

The Harewood Learning team have this Monday begun work on the Harewood Learning Garden, and have learnt first hand the hard work of gardening!

Our aims of the first gardening session were to clear the corner of the garden ready for our pond area to be built, and begin work on our habitat pile.  The corner of the garden in the picture below is going to be where we dig our pond, so the first job of the day was to clear everything from this corner, before any digging could begin.  After raking leaves up from the area to become our pond, we soon came up against a large barrier in the form of a very troublesome shrub called a Philadelphus.  With very deep roots, this shrub was well and truly rooted in the ground, and consequently delayed our preparation of the pond area, as we were unable to remove it!

The Philadelphus shrub, which needed to be removed before the digging of the pond could begin

All the leaves raked from the area and the Philadelphus shrub still not removed!

After battling with the Philadelphus shrub, our next job in the garden was to rake the many dead leaves that had fallen in the flower beds.  This was a long job, as the piles of leaves were very deep, and we had been told to watch out for toads, who liked the damp piles of dead leaves!

The flowerbeds of the Learning Garden, ready for raking

All the leaves we raked had to be collected, as we would be using them to make our habitat pile, in another area of the garden.

For the habitat pile, we needed to rake all the leaves into a very large mound, in our wilderness garden.  Once the leaves were all in a pile, we gathered lots of branches and twigs from the garden, and laid them on top of the leaf pile, to creat our habitat pile, which we will continue to add to next week.

Further progress on the garden to follow…

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A new Learning Garden at Harewood…

The team at Harewood House are excited to introduce our new project for 2012, our Harewood Learning Garden, based in the garden of our Second Hand Bookshop at Terrace Cottage.

Trevor Nicholson, our Head Gardener here at Harewood will be leading this project, along with Jennifer Auty, Head of Learning,and the team at the Bookshop, fronted by Audrey Kingsnorth.

Using the proceeds from the extremely successful Second Hand Bookshop the team at Harewood will develop a ‘Learning Garden’, with local schools invited to take part in the care and growth of the garden.

The garden will be a focussed biodiversity and wildlife garden used for teaching children about the importance of gardening, wildlife, habitats, insects and plants.

Biodiversity is defined as the variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, meaning that different plants and wildlife species will create a multi-layered habitat in the garden.

By combining sustainable practice with planting and features to increase biodiversity, the garden will offer a species-rich habitat for a range of garden insects and mammals. It will also provide a unique and rich learning experience for its visitors. The garden will offer a wealth of habitats for wildlife including:

  • Insect boxes
  • A pond
  • Bee and butterfly friendly plants
  • Log shelters/habitat piles
  • Compost heap
  • Bird boxes
  • Bat boxes
  • Hedgehog hides

The garden of the Second Hand Bookshop at Terrace Cottage is the site of our new Learning Garden

The garden will be split into two areas –

The ‘formal’ garden behind the bookshop will continue to have a lawned central area, but the borders will become a vegetable plot, herb garden, flower border, mixed shrubs, and a fern and woodland area.

The ‘paddock’ area to the side of the garden, accessed via the wooden gate will become a ‘wilderness’ garden. This will contain compost bays (for leaf mould and general compost), a wormery (potentially suppied by Willyworms), an insect lodge, habitat piles, and willow sculptures and nature themed artwork.

Our Learning Department and Gardening Team will be starting work on the garden from this Monday, to begin our fanatstic new project.

We will keep you updated with all the progress of our garden – subscribe to our blog!

The Harewood Learning Team.

Digging Up the Past..

In April this year Harewood will become the field-study school for the whole University of York Department of Archaeology. Over 80 students as well as the University of York archaeologists will be digging the site of ‘Gawthorpe’ the medieval manor house that stood on the site before the current Harewood House was completed in 1771.

Education sessions will allow school groups to explore the dig, get their hands dirty digging and talk to the archaeologists. Workshops, lectures and public tours of the dig as well as exhibits of finds will make up part of our Medieval Festival event taking place on Sat 16th & Sun 17th July so join us then to find out more!

Visit our What’s On webpages for details of all our forthcoming events…