JAMES GRASBY: Hello and welcome to this special episode of the
National Trust Podcast. I'm James Grasby, building and
landscape curator for the National Trust.
And today, I'll be heading to Derbyshire to find out more
about Sudbury Hall, the historic home of the Vernon family. But
as I will soon discover, this property has a rather unusual
way of connecting with its visitors.
It's a chilly spring day in February and I'm standing in
front of a beautiful and rather grand red brick, Jacobean style,
mansion. This fabulous property, the National Trust never
disappoints, is set within these beautiful, extensive gardens.
But it's really what's inside the property that excites me as
it houses some of the finest examples of plaster work and
mural painting and wonderful woodcarving by an A-list of
celebrity craftsmen. And I can't wait to get my foot through the
door.
MAHNOOR: Hey James! Wait! Wait for me!
JAMES GRASBY: I should say a young girl is running towards
me. Yes. Can I help you?
MAHNOOR: I hope I'm not too late. But my name is Mahnoor and
I've been sent here to help Co-Present this podcast.
JAMES GRASBY: Gosh, I wasn't expecting a co-presenter.
Delighted to meet you, but forgive me. You're a young girl.
What do you know about Sudbury Hall?
MAHNOOR: I may be only 12 years old, but quite a lot as it
happens.
JAMES GRASBY: Really?
MAHNOOR: Yes. Lots of kids from the local area, including me and
my brother Idris, have been working alongside the staff and
creators to help give Sudbury Hall a bit of a glow up.
JAMES GRASBY: A bit of a glow up?
MAHNOOR: A makeover! A brand new look!
During the last few years while Sudbury Hall has been closed to
the public it’s undergone a huge transformation and it's now the
UK's first ever children's country house.
And it was this time last year, in February 2022, when all us
kids were invited back to Sudbury Hall to see it all
finished.
JAMES GRASBY: Mahnoor, I'm getting the picture.
MAHNOOR: Let's time travel back and find out how Sudbury Hall is
transformed through time.
NIKKI WALTERS: Hello, everybody. [Crowd shouts hello]
You guys have been amazing, helping us to test things.
Helping us to design things. Should we give ourselves a
massive round of applause for that?!
JAMES GRASBY: What's happening here?
MAHNOOR: It's the day I was telling you about, the very
final trial and testing day for Sudbury Hall before it opens to
the public again.
That's the general manager Nikki Walters and those as the
Children's Country House ambassadors. And they're about
find out what all their hard work looks like.
NIKKI WALTERS: And the most exciting thing about today that
makes a difference, the last time you might have come is that
we've got the museum open and we've got the gardens open and
we've got the hall open and we've got the activity hub open.
It's the first time we've got lots and lots of different
things for you to see and do. Most important thing is just
have a massive amount of fun! Can you do that? [Cheers]
Amazing!
MAHNOOR: And the best thing about the Children's Country
House is that it's a place that has been inspired by children
and designed by children and turned into a property that can
be enjoyed by visitors of all ages.
JAMES GRASBY: You realise, of course Mahnoor, that this isn't
the first time that Sudbury Hall estate has been reinvented.
MAHNOOR: Really?
JAMES GRASBY: Yes. You need to go back in time to 1660...
When King Charles II had been restored to the throne after the
Civil War, when a young man, George Vernon, had just
inherited the Sudbury estate. He was rich, had plenty of ambition
and design ideas. But what he didn't have was titles.
EDITH PARKINSON: George Vernon built Sudbury Hall right on the
road so people could see that he had money and he could then make
strategic marriages and then get those titles that he so
desperately wanted.
My name's Edith Parkinson and I am a senior collections and
house officer at the Children's Country House at Sudbury.
So the hall was built during the restoration of the monarchy. So
we call it a restoration mansion.
But the way George Vernon built it was to emulate older houses.
It has a long gallery which was starting to go out of fashion
and has a lot of features that sort of older houses would have
had rather than leaning into some of the newer trends.
There are lots of features on the outside of the building that
hint at George Vernon's wealth, one of which being the amount of
windows.
So not only does this create symmetry in the hall, but it
also shows how wealthy he was as glass was quite an expensive
commodity at the time.
As George Vernon's ambition grew, he started contacting
London craftsmen. The woodcarver, Edward Pearce, who
did the Fantastic Staircase. Even the hall was mostly
complete. George still felt there were finishing touches to
be made and commissioned Louis Léger to add painted murals to
the staircase in the hall.
JAMES GRASBY: The very same Léger who painted those
wonderful murals in the grand hallway at Petworth. They are a
sight to behold, a wall of gods and goddesses, heroes and
villains.
MAHNOOR: That sounds amazing, James, but let's get back to the
story. What happened next?
EDITH PARKINSON: So for about 200 years, Sudbury Hall remained
unchanged. But with the fashions of the Victorian era and the
changing way that the upper classes were living, it was
decided that a new service was needed. The Vernons brought in
architect George Denby in 1876 to build on what we now know is
the Museum of Childhood.
MAHNOOR: Me and my brother loved the museum, especially climbing
up the chimney where it's dark and only lit by a few lights,
then sliding down the slide to get to the other end.
JAMES GRASBY: A chimney?
MAHNOOR: Yes, and lots of other brilliant exhibits too! Both the
museums and gardens were a huge hit with everyone. But it seems
that very few families were that keen to spend time looking
around the historic hall itself.
GENERIC: A lot of the little ones before, when they came
through with their parents, would just be ready to go.
With younger children. We tended not to, they just scream all the
way around and grab hold of things.
I would say I find it a bit boring because there's not much
interactive stuff.
JAMES GRASBY: Oh, those families have missed out on experiencing
Sudbury Hall's wonderful interiors. What a tragedy!
MAHNOOR: They just weren't displayed in a way that made
them relevant to us kids. They were either closed off behind
ropes or hung from a wall at a height that was difficult for us
to see.
JAMES GRASBY: So we've got a property with a fascinating
history, renowned for its 17th century craftsmanship and looked
after by the National Trust. But it's not getting quite so much
love from visitors as it should do.
MAHNOOR: Exactly. So fast forward to 2019, and this is
when the child ambassadors like me come in. Here’s general
manager, Jodie Lees, talking about how the grown up staff at
Sudbury came up with a wild idea.
JODIE LEES: Sudbury is a much loved place and it always has
been, but actually it wasn't a unified experience.
Back in 2019, I joined the team to start developing what the
Children's Country House could be, should be. So we developed
the ambassador programme where we worked with over a hundred
children, community groups and schools over a two year period.
We recruited them in lots of different ways. We did lots of
shout outs on social media. We got in touch with local
communities. We went on TV and did a little bit of a shout out
as well.
GENERIC: I'm Lexi and I'm 11. Jodie asked me to make a
PowerPoint asking people to come join and be the ambassadors. I
put a lot of things to do, like drawing, dancing, baking.
I am Poppy, I am aged nine. My mum saw something on Facebook
and told about me and asked if I wanted to do it and I said yes
and I was really excited.
JAMES GRASBY: How did you become involved Mahnoor?
MAHNOOR: Well, it was my mum and she said to me, oh there’s an
opening at Sudbury Hall for being an ambassador and me and
my brother said, "Oh yeah, why don't we give it a try?" And I'm
so glad we took the opportunity.
JODIE LEES: The ambassadors worked with us in lots of
different ways. We had poetry parties. We had activities with
artists on site. We sent out packs for them to design things
in the garden.
One of my favourite parts of the project is our trialling and
testing days; where we worked with the ambassadors to create
them as almost as mini inspectors, so they would come
on site at certain points in the project and feedback on ideas,
or they would help us develop and debate certain things.
GENERIC: We got to see the boathouse and the den and all
the new bits they added to the garden, and my sister wrote a
label and her label is actually in the gallery right now. It's
about a doll whose owner said he would never be loved, so they
never put her out.
JODIE LEES: So for our first session for ambassadors, we did
an online welcome party. It was during the pandemic.
And one of the ambassadors, believe it or not, had a little
brother that was born the day before the welcome party. So we
like to say that one of our ambassadors started when he was
one day old. Baby Jamie, he's called.
He's now two and a half. And I see him on Fridays come in and
tottering around.
JAMES GRASBY: You can never be too young to start learning
about heritage.
MAHNOOR: Ah, James, does that mean you're coming round to the
idea of a children's country house?
JAMES GRASBY: I think so. But I'm wondering, do children
understand the history and heritage more than they did
before all the changes?
MAHNOOR: I know just the person who'll be able to answer that
question for you.
ED HARKER: Children learn best when they're engaged in their
learning and when they see a connection between what they're
learning in their own lives.
And one of the key challenges for educators is to find what
are those connections and how do you make learning as engaging as
possible.
I'm Ed harker, I've been working in primary education for about
30 years as a reception nursery teacher and as a head teacher,
and now I do curriculum development and behaviour
support for schools.
Education at it’s best isn’t a process of handing stuff over to
children. It's actually drawing out a ducere.
So it's drawing out from the children. The best thing you can
draw out is good questions and a questioning mind will take
children through their life.
The learning shouldn't stop at the end of the school day. It
shouldn't stop during summer holidays and it shouldn't stop
when they leave school.
You want people to have an open questioning, problem solving
mind and that comes from giving them experiences which are both
relevant but also slightly intriguing.
I remember going to lots of National Trust houses as a
child. A lot of it was quite passive for a child.
Out of reach, hard to contextualise when you literally
couldn't touch the stuff. So the idea of democratising these
amazing buildings makes perfect sense.
And I think for some children to experience the sheer, wealth,
scale and quality of some of these places, it's like visiting
a cathedral.
It's a sense of awe. They're really good places for opening
up questions and provoking questions about privilege,
access, who made these things? Why are they living in such a
big house? And they also elicit creative responses that work
really well.
I think children have interesting reactions to some of
the more formal portraits and stuff like that, and I think
moving beyond just having a couple of dress ups or a small
handling collection is great. And to have the sense that the
children can be exploring it on their own terms is very
powerful.
MAHNOOR: You see, James, the Children's Country House is so
much more to offer than a dress up box.
JAMES GRASBY: I can see that. But I still have one more
question that needs answering.
As a curator myself, I'm a little concerned that allowing
children unrestricted access to the collection could put it at
risk of being damaged.
MAHNOOR: I can see why you might be a little worried, but curator
Lucy Armstrong-Blair will put your mind at rest.
LUCY ARMSTRONG-BLAIR: We chose Sudbury because it's a place
that was brought to the trust because of it's architectural
features. Not necessarily because of its collection or
that that has come into the house over time.
There are things on open display. There are some things
that are really precious we've put behind Perspex.
There are rooms completely open to people wandering through.
We've kind of enticed people away from the walls and actually
kind of put the experiences in the centre of the room.
So all the doing stuff is in the centre.
I want to have this place for children to start to learn about
country houses and to love them because there's so many lovely,
wonderful, amazing things in them. And then hopefully to
carry that love and interest into the other National Trust
houses.
JAMES GRASBY: I'm rather intrigued to hear what the
finished hall look like.
MAHNOOR: Hold on, James. Here's a sneak peek with Lauren Brewer
at the very last trialling and testing day back in February
2022, just before all us ambassadors arrived.
LAUREN BREWER: The time is now 9:54am, and the kids are going
to be starting to arrive in about 10 minutes.
A little frantic, but excitable, I would say.
This room we call the portal, once people arrive, they'll be
taken into here for a welcome.
On the ceiling you've got this lovely oval shape. There's
actually a projection with some of the country house ambassadors
featuring in it. The idea of this seating here is that
children can lounge and really enjoy the projection up above.
So we would expect children to be slobbing about that is okay
by us.
Part of being closed meant that we could do a load of
conservation work on the stairs.
Now people can go up and enjoy all of the plasterwork and the
woodwork and the painting.
So we're going to go up the great stairs moving through into
the long gallery. One of the spaces that we're most famous
for. It's a very long, long hall.
People would have used it maybe on a rainy day, get their
exercise, so stroll up and down, maybe dance, maybe play some
games.
But what we have done in here is bring some of the portraits to
life by putting some speech bubbles underneath. For example,
you've got here, "It's hard being King Charles II favourite
girlfriend, but somebody has to do it!"
Just leaving the house to go round to the yard.
Lots of families raring to go. The sun is out. Thankfully we
can meet and greet them outside today the weather's good.
Everybody ready for a fun day!
JAMES GRASBY: And you were there waiting with all the other
ambassadors?
MAHNOOR: Yes, we were all so excited. And then we all
followed Lauren into the portal.
LAUREN BREWER: Welcome, everyone, to the world's first
children's country house... It’s a country house for you and the
grown-ups, too, but mainly for you guys.
MAHNOOR: It was at this point, we all looked up at the ceiling
and then we saw ourselves in the projection waving back down to
us.
It was magical. And then the day began.
LAUREN BREWER: So have an amazing day. And the Hall of
Wonder now awaits you... [Sounds of children playing]
GENERIC: My name's Ana and I'm here with my mum, my son, Oscar,
and my ten month old Jamie. We love Sudbury Hall here. We love
exploring things. We love finding out about things. Now
they've turned this a little bit more inclusive. It definitely
would be a place that I would bring him.
I’m called Poppy, i’m nine years old. There's a lot more children
friendly stuff that can be touched and played with and it
doesn't feel like there's ropes everywhere.
I'm Elenor and I'm eight. When we first came, there was only a
few interactive stuff, and now there's way more stuff that
children can do while they're here.
My name’s Heston, i’m eight and I think it's really good.
There's loads for them to do. You can see how excited they are
and they want to be here and if they're happy, we're happy.
I am really looking forward to coming back.
JAMES GRASBY: Am I right in saying that eight months later
in October 2022 the children's country house opened to the
public?
MAHNOOR: Yeah, that's right.
JAMES GRASBY: And how do you think it's been received?
MAHNOOR: Well, me and my family love coming here, but Jodie, the
general manager, may be able to tell you more.
JODIE LEES: It's been an amazing experience for everyone
involved. And there's nothing that beats those moments where
you're standing in the stable yard and you can just see over
700 people have an amazing day out.
And we're really looking forward to you doing more. I won't give
you too much of a spoiler alert, but we are definitely planning
on opening more spaces and more zones. So watch this space!
JAMES GRASBY: Oh, another space. What do you think's going to be
in there then? How about a giant Lego Sudbury?
MAHNOOR: They have one of those already James!
JAMES GRASBY: Do they?
I wonder if they managed to get all the windows in correctly.
MAHNOOR: Come on, James, let's go and have a look at it.
JAMES GRASBY: Oh good. I want to see all of it. I want to see all
of it again!
MAHNOOR: It's going to be so fun!
JAMES GRASBY: And what about the Grand staircase?
Oh, that's amazing!
Thanks for listening to this episode of the National Trust
Podcast. If you would like to experience the Children's
Country House at Sudbury yourself, it's now open every
weekend and most school holidays.
So please head to the National Trust website or search online
for Sudbury Hall, where you can follow the link to book a
visitor's slot or head to this episode's show notes.
If you've enjoyed this episode, please follow National Trust
Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts, or
whatever podcast app you use. Or find us at
nationaltrust.org.uk/podcasts from me, James Grasby-
MAHNOOR: And me, Mahnoor. [
Both] Goodbye.