Country house study week

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Jeremy Howard speaking to a group of students

The country house study week is an intensive, residential study-week based at the University of Buckingham, which takes place in the fourth week of the first term. Students spend five days on campus in Buckingham, touring some of the great country houses of Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and neighbouring counties. Beginning with nearby Claydon House, famous for its eccentrically virtuoso carvings by Luke Lightfoot, students also visit Woburn Abbey, with its great collections of French and English furniture, silver and Sèvres porcelain and Waddesdon Manor, the great Rothschild country house near Aylesbury, with its world-famous collection of French royal furniture and Sèvres porcelain, comparable to that at the Wallace Collection. In Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire we visit two great ancestral treasure-houses famous for their furnishings and remarkably intact seventeenth-century schemes of decoration. We have a private tour of Boughton, the Northamptonshire seat of the Dukes of Buccleuch, and also visit Burghley House near Stamford, famous for its art collections, formed by successive Earls of Exeter, its highly important baroque painted interiors, and magnificent furnishings. The week culminates with a visit to Vanbrugh's masterpiece, Blenheim Palace and a private visit to nearby Ditchley Park, designed by James Gibbs with important surviving furniture by William Kent and later twentieth-century decorations by the American heiress Nancy Lancaster, John Fowler's business partner and one of the leading figures in decoration between the wars. The trips are complemented by some evening lectures on topics relating to the English country house and eighteenth-century design and decoration.

Costs

The admission charges to all properties and transport costs are covered by the programme fees as are the costs of travel between London and the University (by the cheapest reasonable methods). The costs of food and accommodation while on campus are not included.

The programme of visits may be subject to revision.