Letter of the week
Learn the lesson
JOHN GOODALL’S fine series on England’s country houses concluded with the moving attempt to save Harewood House by taking it into National Trust ownership in 1947 (The English home, 1939–2022, December 28, 2022). At the time, such houses were considered beyond purposeful use, hopelessly expensive and past saving. A few became schools and hotels, but 600 had been demolished in the half century to 1970, rising to a rate of one a week. The conservation movement in earnest was born.
The same issue of COUNTRY LIFE recorded sales of English country houses in 2022, those lucky to survive the grim 20th century. The prices fetched by the 15 houses featured varied from £8 million to
