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Welcome back to the Anglotopia podcast. This week's episode is going to be slightly different than the previous episodes over the summer. So last autumn, John Goodall, who is the architecture editor of Country Life magazine, came to Chicago and did a lecture and book signing for his book that he was a co-author of called Country Life at 150. For those watching on video, this is what I'm holding up on the video. And it's a fantastic, massive coffee table book that's about the history of Country Life magazine and how it chronicles country life in Britain. Beautiful book, great book. And I got to talking to John and he agreed to do an interview with me after he had left Chicago.
And so last autumn we recorded the interview and then a few things came up afterwards. And with the Anglotopia redesign and a lot of other things and work situation, I wasn't able to get the interview published until this past summer. And when I published the interview and we had just resumed the podcast, because last autumn we weren't doing the podcast we hadn't for a few years, I realized that I had an audio and video recording of this interview that would make a great episode of the podcast because we talk about country life in Britain and all that wonderful stuff about the countryside and the English countryside.
So I asked John if we could use the interview as an episode of the podcast. So this is me introducing that. And then in a second, it's going to go to the interview that's been edited for brevity and whatnot to sound good for a podcast where we talk about John's career, chronicling heritage in Britain and all that wonderful stuff. So slightly different than how we've been doing podcasts this summer, but hopefully the result will be the same. Anybody listening to the podcast won't tell the difference, but anybody watching will see that my hair is much longer, my beard is much longer, and the camera angle is completely different because this was last, I think, December when we did this.
So if you want to learn about all things wonderful in the English countryside and how the magazine Country Life chronicles it and how John Goodall writes and chooses which great houses to cover for his architectural histories, then this interview is for you. And so I hope you enjoy. Thank you.
Let's start with, can you introduce yourself to our readers a little bit? Give us your background. What sparked your interest in architecture and the built landscape?
So I'm the architectural editor of Country Life. So I'm responsible for producing the weekly articles that appear in the magazine and have appeared in the magazine since the 1890s, which cover principally country houses in Britain and, you know, its surrounds. But we do, of course, go abroad as well, both in Europe and in the States. I have been doing this job now for 16 years, in fact. It's incredible to me. But it's and of course, you know, I've seen an enormous, you know, the great joy of it, as you see an enormous amount and you have to look at everything. But by training, I was a medievalist.
I did a doctorate at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London. And, you know, I initially, my first sort of writing was doing guidebooks. I wrote guidebooks for English heritage, which is the state body that looks after historic properties. And I did one also, one only for the National Trust on Bodiam a lot. But these are a long time ago, Bodiam Castle in Sussex. And so I suppose I became interested. know I lived I'm also the child of diplomats and we lived abroad a lot and I became very interested in buildings when I was living abroad and latterly we served in India and that's a place that I began to look at buildings that seem completely different to anything I was familiar with and I think also one of the great advantages of living abroad is that it made British architecture which many people take for granted, seem really interesting and unusual because I wasn't here all the time.
And it seemed to me quite as unusual in a way and exotic as the things I saw elsewhere in the world. So with those kind of different layers of experience, I became fascinated with medieval buildings. But as I say, the great joy of country life is you see so much, you meet really interesting people and you've got to write about everything. and that's a hugely valuable experience um and to me having spent a lot of time abroad traveling to remote parts of britain as you will appreciate seems to me quite as exotic as
Um the thing else yeah I mean uh that's that's definitely the appeal for me is you know I live in Indiana there's very little of architectural renown in Indiana we're more a bit more in Chicago but we famously just destroy our heritage I mean we everything is new here and so one of the things I love about traveling to Britain is that we can you know
See see old things yeah indeed indeed and and and I think that you know anywhere in Europe particularly wherever you travel there is so much to see you know even if you get stuck on a train in the train station somewhere you can just pop out and see a parish church and it will be nearly always have something nearly always have something amazing to see in it yeah that's always
Been really surprising no matter what small town or village you're in you know you've got a building with an unexpected architectural or cultural history that you didn't even realize and it's yeah so okay um so going back to your to your lecture you gave to the royal oak a few weeks ago you talked a lot about the early days of Country Life. Do you have any interesting anecdotes or stories to share about the more recent history of Country Life, about who the current owners are, who, you know, the stuff that you can't incriminate yourself with?
No, well, I suppose, you know, the interesting thing about the magazine today is that it draws its inspiration from the book. from the past and the traditions of what it does, but all the time you're recording the way in which the past intersects with the present. And that, so for me, the, the two challenge, you know, the two delights of it are first of all, getting out and seeing so much and discovering how vibrant that, you know, Britain as a whole, and I mean, what wider things too, but Britain in particular is that there are so many things happening with country houses at present. It's not at all. a nostalgic world necessarily.
It's full of vibrancy and new initiatives. And I find that enormously rewarding. And the other thing that I suppose I find so wonderful is that because I'm commissioning photography each week of the very highest quality, that I have the opportunity somehow to see the things that I have just visited, to see them framed and recorded to a professional standard, very, very high standard. So all the time, I think I'm, you know, it's this privilege of experience and seeing things out in the field, but then also seeing them, as it were, in two dimensions back and back at home and realizing how special and magical they are.
I mean, you know, Country Life is a sort of extraordinary entity. It is the only public, I think, probably in the world, it is the only glossy weekly magazine. And, you know, for things such as the coronation, you know, at the beginning of the year, you know, we were producing the magazine, I think, at the end of April, the beginning of May, we had five issues, which were more than 1000 pages of advertisements and editorial. I mean, no other magazine is doing anything on that scale. And it's amazing to be part of that, to be with this very professional and really engaging team of people.
But also, as I say, that's, as it were, the engine driving what I do. But of course, the other joy of what I do is I'm always out. I'm always seeing things. I'm just seeing much, much more than most people would ever see. And that privilege of that access is something I don't underestimate at all. So it's a hugely, and because of the machine, because it's totally remorseless every week, it's a new issue. It means that you get everything as good as you can, but when it's gone, it's gone. And, you know, again, I think a lot of people can appreciate, you know, you don't trail weed in country life. It comes and goes each week and you kind of get it off and it's always a fresh beginning, always a fresh beginning. So the experience builds up and that's very, very stimulating.
Yeah, I've always believed that country life is a sort of a national treasure because, you know, it's a difficult thing to make a business case for if you're starting it from scratch. You never could. I mean, yeah, but it already exists. And so it's great that enough people wanted to continue to exist so that it's still there every week doing what it does. And, you know, I've read it on and off for 20 years, and it's remarkable how consistent and continuous the magazine is.
I mean, and as I talked about, you know, in Chicago, of course, you know, some elements of it have just gone absolutely unchanged. It does change all the time, and yet it's variations on the theme. And there are those points where you can say, yeah, this, the frontispiece or the architectural coverage, it really does run right back through that 125-year history. the garden coverage and things. And so that is, and it's good. I mean, somehow in a world where anything is theoretically possible, it's really good to have that, the disciplines of those threads that allow you to do what you do and sort of see the world in that, from that perspective and what you, and what you have to produce.
Well, and as you, as you mentioned and, and conveyed in your, in your presentation, the, even though the magazine's an ephemeral weekly thing, It's also an important historical record, even when you understand in context that the images are staged.
Yeah, no, indeed. It is. And actually also, I mean, you know, it is effectively a history of the last 125 years written from admittedly from a very particular perspective, but told week by week. And so, you know, particularly when it covers major episodes and I suppose doing the coronation of the Queen's funeral for me has been obviously very important in the last year. But I mean, if you look at the First World War, the Second World War, you know, how it covers those things before the outcome is known is really, really interesting. You sort of get that sense of a cumulative history. And of course, you know, in architectural and garden terms, it is, anyway, I would have thought, but it is just in terms of pages and images, it is by far the greatest published survey of British architecture that exists anywhere. You know, and, you know. I agree.
So. So next, let's talk about the book. So they can get your plug in for the book. um so what was the genesis of this book who who approached you was it the publisher did you guys approach them and and then whose job was it to sift through all the gorgeous thousands of pictures and decide what was going to be in it because it's i mean it's complicated
well i mean it's a sort of collective effort i mean obviously there was the 125th anniversary coming up and we could see that coming and we wanted to do something that would celebrate that we had done I'd done books with Rizzoli before and so it was a sort of natural match in a way they do these beautifully produced illustrated books and it was a natural match and Charles Miers who's the sort of commissioning editor there was very enthusiastic about the idea of doing 125th volume and then really it was up to Kate and I to try and work out how we were going to structure the book And that's, you know, as with everything, the frame determines the subject matter because, you know, you could you could go anywhere.
So it was she and I, you know, we obviously with Rizzoli's input that thought about this. And then a former archivist at Country Life, Melanie Bryan, was very helpful in kind of going through images. And I mean, I'm going through images all the time and I know what's been photographed under my watch. And I have responsibility in the way for the archive. compiling all that expertise and familiarity that's basically where the book came from and uh and Rizzoli too you know they had a particular vision I think for it and they have infilled some of the images too because they wanted the building to the book to conform to their you know vision of of what they wanted to create and the designer um Rob Dalrymple you know has put together you know he's brilliant and he has put together, he's used his images to stupendous effect. I mean, as you've seen with looking at the book.
I agree. It's, it's gorgeous. As a, as a small scale publisher myself, I was very envious. I'm like, oh man, love the, I'd love to put out a hardcover like this one day. Cause it's just, it's so beautiful. And, and, you know, that's with Rizzoli has done books like that before. And the other publishers who do out through the big coffee table books, you know, It's just they're like a way for people who can't visit Britain to kind of inhabit it for at least a temporary amount of time. So thank you for all the hard work that goes into these because they're they're a joy.
So let's let's change tack a little bit. And I'm, as an expert on British architectural heritage, I'm interested to know what are some interesting American buildings and stately homes that you particularly admire? Did you see anything when you were here that really excited you?
Well, I mean, of course, predictably, I was really interested to see Frank Lloyd Wright's buildings. And I mean, they do speak to, obviously, what's going on with contemporaries in Britain and the late arts and crafts movements, as I think is well recognized. I did wonder whether one aspect of them that is underappreciated in America, and I certainly didn't see disgust, was the connection with imperial and colonial bungalows. That, in fact, what's called the prairie style does actually look very like the kinds of things that British people are building in colonial settlements in India and, you know, in Southeast Asia. That long, low creation of buildings for the climate.
You know, I did wonder whether there's a resonance there that you could pick up on. In other words, it's not entirely novel. It's it has a kind of colonial foundation. And I wonder whether Frank Lloyd Wright was aware of that. But they're such delight. I mean, I did think they were delightful buildings. I really enjoyed seeing I'd been to New York before, but I'd never been to Chicago before. And I did think also in the gap between the time I was last in New York, that there has been another leap for the sky with the skyscrapers there. And I was struck by the degree to which even buildings such as the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building in New York are vanishing in the skyline of New York.
And I thought it was so wonderful to go to Chicago and see the skyscrapers actually legible. You know, you could see them. They weren't overwhelmed by, because I mean, after what happens is you get one or two really interesting skyscrapers and then lots of weeds that grow up between them. And if the weeds begin to choke the imaginative buildings, it seems to me you do lose something. And I did wonder in New York as to whether the skyline had just gone completely crazy in a way that things were no longer intervisible.
I think our position on Lake Michigan helps with that because all the lakefront is a big park. It allows the skyline to be framed in a way that it can in other cities. So, you know, the distinctive buildings, even the really tall ones that aren't near the lakefront can still be seen. And you can actually see them from across the lake here in Indiana. You know, it's it's yeah, we're very proud of our skyline in Chicago. it is quite nice and then there have been some big changes to it in the last few years um with like the saint regis hotel tower but again most the planning seems to to be not allowing other skyscrapers to overshadow others um and even even abomination like the trump tower doesn't
necessarily dominate the environment i think no i i mean i agree i mean i'm not trying to talk down New York because of course New York is so astonishing for its energy and I'm happy to do that but I mean I so it's but I I think I I found um you know I I did enjoy walking the streets of Chicago in a way that New York is slightly overfacing um but I mean I enjoyed New York for other things and uh um but I as I say I mean the Frank Lloyd Wright was was really wonderful to see. I went also around some of the University of Chicago and was amazed by the scale of those
buildings and that sort of sub-Oxbridge. Yeah, it's bizarre walking around there because you're like, wait, this looks like, this doesn't belong here, but I like it. Well, it is quite incredible
and on such an enormous scale. I mean, yeah, absolutely unbelievable. And I think, you know, it's almost a, you know, it's almost platitudinous to say it, but I mean, the scale of everything in the States, both in New York and Chicago, there is, you know, something completely extraordinary. It makes the visitor feel belittled somehow. It's amazing. You just look at it. You feel like a tiny ant beneath these enormous buildings.
And then you leave a city like Chicago, and then for hundreds of miles, it's flat, empty fields. You know, it's like, it's weird that there's this, you know, there's all these massive buildings and then there's nothing for hundreds of miles. You know, it's, we're literally a free city. It's nice.
It's interesting. Incidentally, Jonathan, when you came to the lecture, how did you come? Did you drive around the edge of the lake, basically? Is that what you did? Yeah.
I actually live closer to Chicago than a lot of people who live in Chicago suburbs do. And so where I am, I'm kind of at the bottom of the arc around the lake. And there's a toll road that goes right from my house right to downtown Chicago. I can be downtown in an hour. And it's a direct route. It takes a bridge that goes over all the infrastructure. And then you're in Chicago. So we can, like we're going to the opera on Friday at the Lyric Opera in Chicago. And, you know, we'll leave at 4 o'clock. We'll have dinner at 5, opera at 7, and we'll be home in bed by 11 o'clock. It's great.
Actually I also I went to the um a friend very kindly got me a ticket to the frankenstein at the lyric oh okay how was it and I I mean I I really really enjoyed the performance but I mean
also the opera house yeah the building itself is worth the price of admission it's totally
astonishing and indeed that sort of opulence i mean again it brought home scale right the scale Well, I mean, I think, you know, it's easy to forget in Britain that in the, I think in the 10s and the 20s and the 30s, people really were looking at, you know, architects and patrons were so aware of what was happening in the States. And that sense of looking to that and trying to find a place for some of those ideas is absolutely apparent in British design. I mean, it's really fascinating. And it's sort of the, I tend to think of the relationship the other way around, but not at all. I think it's very much informing what's going on in Britain.
Yeah. Yeah, I actually grew up down the street from a Frank Lloyd Wright house here in Indiana. And, you know, it just sits there in the landscape perfectly, perhaps built on a hill to design to kind of go with the hill. And it was just amongst the trees. And you kind of wouldn't even notice it was there unless you were really looking for it. And then it was bizarre that, you know, there's this World Heritage architecture just out the street from my house. I grew up, you know, I lived in a typical two-story American, you know, newer built house. Yet, you know, a thousand feet away was a Frank Lloyd Wright masterpiece. It was recently for sale, too. It sold for quite a bit.
Do you know the other thing I really enjoyed? I went to the Driehaus Museum. I mean, I saw it. Oh, good, good.
And I thought that was fantastic. I mean, I really, I mean, completely overwhelming. You know, I don't think you could live in such a place, but I thought it was stunning. I mean, you know, the use of different finishes and, you know, so rich and opulent. I'm really, really astonishing. And I love the house opposite, which I think was, which was used, wasn't it, as his office? There's one immediately on the opposite block on the corner. 1900s building. I thought, sorry, one other answer to this question is that I was really amazed by the quality of the churches that I visited in New York. And I struggle to find any publication that has looked seriously at those buildings.
And I mean, there was some, there was, is it the Dominican church in Chicago with a great crucifix? It's near the Board of Trade building. I can't remember what it's called. It's either Franciscan or Dominican church with a massive crucifix incorporated into the frontage. It was absolutely astonishing. And I can't find out anything about these buildings. The Chicago churches are less impressive, I think, than the new... I think the fires have meant that they're slightly more diminutive somehow. But the New York ones are absolutely astonishing.
Yeah, because we don't really think a lot about our churches. And a lot of them have closed down or, you know, they've lost their congregations.
And there's even churches in places like Gary, Indiana, which used to be a thriving metropolis. And now it's an abandoned ruin. And now they film movies there because it's artfully abandoned, you know. And it's, yeah, we don't really think about our cathedral heritage, especially in Chicago. You're right. the fire did sort of wipe the slate clean, you know, in fairly recent history. And so it's, we do have, I think, one or two of note, but I think a lot of people, I think the most famous Catholic church in Chicago is not even in Chicago. It's the church at Notre Dame in South Bend, because that's like where a lot of the Irish Americans in Chicago kind of identify with. And that's a pretty, it's a beautiful church.
I mean, I came away certainly from New York thinking I'd like to find out more. And I deliberately went to lots, all the churches I could in Chicago. And I was interested by them, but they were generally a bit less impressive.
Well, and we don't really have any that are a tourist attraction that we visit, you know. I've never been in a church in Chicago, not even, I mean, to visit. because we're not really tourists in our own Midwest.
But it's sort of interesting. I mean, for example, the Anglican or the Episcopalian Cathedral, I can't remember what its dedication is, it has an absolutely stupendous open timber roof. I mean, absolutely amazing, but it's not a particularly notable building. The building is basically the roof, and it's extraordinary. And then St. Patrick's, the Catholic Cathedral, has bits and pieces that look, the side vaults look very like William Burges things. You know, I mean, again, the way they're finished. Anyway, it's just an interesting aside, because I thought even in New York, people were not very interested in the churches. Actually, they are pretty stupendous things. And we forget how much money was invested in these buildings and the way they were often conceived to be permanent. you know they are building you're building for eternity in every sense and uh yeah and i i'm
jury house is an interesting example like it's amazing that it's still there because you know the chicago has no qualms about tearing down everything to build something new you know we've had skyscrapers torn down to build new skyscrapers so it it's the fact that the jury house is still there is remarkable and I hope it continues to stay there. I'm glad you got to see it because
Okay. All right. A couple more questions here. This is more as a fellow, you know, publisher of a publication. This really interests me. Can you tell me about the editorial process you kind of go through to do a house feature in country life? Like, how do you decide what house to look at, you know, on a week to week basis? What, how do you decide what angle to take? And, you know, what do you, what do you do differently when you've covered pretty much every house at some point in the magazine's history? How do you, how do you make it interesting and different than what's been done before?
So the answer is that, you know, houses sort of bubble up in the system in all kinds of different ways. Sometimes people write to me about new initiatives. Sometimes I'm aware of them happening. Sometimes there's a house that I am aware, you know, that somehow just for some reason, I suddenly think, gosh, I've never seen that. And wouldn't it be interesting to revisit? The house, writing up the house always has to begin with a house visit, because until you've seen the house, you don't know really what it is and you can't come to terms with it. So that's, To my own mind, that's the crucial thing.
And sometimes a house visit can tell you that it's not worth writing up again or there is nothing new, or that something you thought was marginal actually turns out to be really interesting. I mean, I'm always struck by the degree to which people unintentionally sit on stories. You know, they do all kinds of amazing things, and then they'll write you about something completely different and quite trivial. And then you turn up and you think, goodness me, why didn't you tell me that you've done all this other stuff? do and they say oh I never thought of it you know that are we're all guilty of this it's not just you know other people we fail to see the stories in our own lives because they're so close to us so when you've had a house visit it seems to me you know what's remarkable and the house visit allows you also to plan the photography and what you're going to photograph it is amazing but I mean every year we're still covering several new houses that we've never covered before and there There still are, you know, the well of houses is bottomless and it's being added to all the time.
There are new ones being built. So, you know, you can't, there's never any danger of running out, which is, I remember thinking when I first took the job, maybe I would. But I mean, I just don't see any chance of that happening. Once you've seen a house as well, I think you're not only aware of how to photograph it, but what to say about it. And it's, you know, great houses of all kinds. I mean, I would draw an analogy with a novel. You know, if you read a great novel at different stages in your life, you will see different things in it because it has many stories to tell.
And it's not just one narrative with one analysis. You see different things in different ways because you have different experience and you see it with different eyes. And so you can't endlessly revisit the same houses, but you can go back to major houses and look at particular things and just see them completely differently. And that's a really important thing. And it's not that what was written before is wrong. It just saw that that building with a different pair of spectacles. And, you know, you can always go in afresh. And I suppose also photography, you know, there's a big division, I think, now between colour and black and white photography. black and white photography basically looks dated.
And so getting colour photography immediately means that photography looks modern. And I think actually in many ways, the most important thing I'm doing is recording things photographically. And even in my own short time as editor, as it were, I mean, I've already covered various buildings that have been destroyed or remodelled or lost or, you know, all sorts of things have happened, sold on. And so in that moment, you just kind of capture something in that moment in time. And that's really important. And it will, you know, the photographic archive of country life is interesting in large part because you know that a photograph was taken in about 1984 or because it was taken in about 1922 or 1897.
There aren't really other archives that allow you to reconstruct how buildings have changed in that way. So I think you can go back to places, you see them with different eyes, But crucial to the, and the photography is the most important element of what I do. But, you know, you'll never get to an end of what's there. There's always fresh stuff to see. And, you know, and seeing things in new ways is part of the excitement of working for the magazine.
Always always but then I think there's also a real as a brutal reality about photographing houses and putting assembling them in a magazine is that you realize how quickly images repeat themselves so it's really difficult finding shots of rooms that show everything but convey the detail and that's a really skillful image but once you've got that photograph that shows the framework and the detail what else do you need to illustrate well I know uh my when we write articles about
Houses that I visited um my stance is that the photographs are nice we should have very nice photographs but you can have too many and then they just become one more picture of a nice room and that you should also let the writing uh guide you through the house not just the pictures because is what, you know, you can only learn so much staring at the picture, you know. Like you said, visiting is such a crucial aspect of getting a sense of place and space that it's indispensable. And I've visited far too many stately homes by this point.
No, well, also I think, you know, they repeat themselves. You know, if you have a house which is just neoclassical and you go into lots of rooms with pairs of columns halfway down, it becomes very repetitive. And you do need that real sense of variety to make things visually interesting. And in fact, a lot of houses you can cover quite comfortably in six or seven photographs. I mean, there are obviously some that need many more. But, you know, it's an interesting thing when imagery becomes wallpaper.
Yeah, for every Blenheim Palace, there's Stourhead, you know, which is the house is the least interesting part of the whole attraction there, you know. It's a perfectly fine, lovely house. But, I mean, when you have the garden, like, the house is an afterthought, you know? Indeed, indeed, indeed, indeed, indeed. I don't mean to...
Love a flower head. That's my favorite National Trust property, you know. Yeah. So. What are some challenges you see for great houses and the English countryside in the coming years? You know, what are some big issues that you think we should be, that Americans should be paying attention to?
Well, I mean, there are some issues like, you know, rewilding and things that are becoming obviously very contentious politically here and land ownership and how and access to land. But I mean, for an outsider, I think those things are arguably less, you know, less interesting than, I mean, you know, the tax regime in Britain has for the last 30 years favoured country houses and made it possible to run country houses profitably, you know, and doing all kinds of things from providing holiday accommodation to wedding venues and so forth. And that, of course, that's not guaranteed. You know, if country houses lose political support in Britain, that is something that could change and it would totally transform the landscape in which these buildings are being managed.
I mean, it has in the past. And it has in the past. Exactly. And it could again. I suppose it's important to acknowledge that, you know, at the present moment, everybody is feeling the, you know, the pandemic has made a huge difference. It created a complete hiatus in everybody's activities. There's a lot of reassessment going on of what people do, but it also broke patterns of behavior. And I think the whole question, you know, everybody is struggling a little bit. You know, visitor numbers are down across the board practically in many areas and particularly in urban centres, less in the countryside, I think. But, you know, everything is, you know, everything is reorganising itself.
And I think that the opening of country houses is very complicated. I think I mean, the national the treatments, the national trust of its houses, you know, it spends an enormous amount on preserving its buildings and conserving them. But is it enough? Is it it's you know, it's renting out more of the properties that were open to the public. You know, it's having to come to terms with the economies of scale that make some properties worthwhile opening and others may are financially, you know, damaging to leave open to the public. So I think there are sort of odd shifts taking place, but it's very hard to see at the present moment really where things are going.
I think that my money at present is on the is, you know, for really exciting things is in the private in the sphere of private owners. You know, there are lots of really interesting initiatives being undertaken by private owners of country houses. And of course, historic houses represents a huge, I can't remember how many properties, but many more than even the National Trust own. And so that's, I think that's something to watch because there are lots of interesting experiments going on. And I think that, you know, for the National Trust itself, there are lots of interesting things going on within it and its attempts to present history in different ways and contested heritage, which is, of course, very much an issue in the States. is an issue here as well and how people are going to deal with that whether it becomes an echo chamber which in which rage simply grows with the status quo or whether people can you know overcome the undoubtedly darker side of of of our heritage is yet to be seen um i i think in fact i mean i think it's a peculiarity too that in that families find it much easier to acknowledge problems of the past than institutions.
So, I mean, for example, Harewood and Lowther were both doing exhibitions and research about slavery long before the Black Lives Matter movement. And their owners are able to acknowledge that their ancestors were far from being saints, but to get on with it. Whereas the National Trust, I think, struggles with houses that have an association with slavery, just as the British Museum is struggling with these issues, that somehow institutions find it very difficult to take ownership of problematic histories in a way that families, it's quite straightforward. You know, this person was my ancestor, but I'm not that person. Whereas an institution often feels that it sort of is the same institution or it's taken responsibility for that history, which is awkward.
So I think those are the, you know, in the world of country houses, I think that is a big issue. But I mean, I just think as ever, fundamentally, the whole issue is the economy of it all. How can it keep operating? How can it keep running? Has the pandemic knocked things off course in such a way that actually do public attitudes towards country houses change so that they no longer are seen as a public benefit? I think we're a long way from that ever happening myself. And I think that there is great interest still in country houses and their estates. But it's sometimes a complicated political mix.
And I don't know, an American audience will not be interested in this, but I mean, the charging of VAT on repairs to historic buildings, this enormous additional tax. I mean, it's been an iniquitous situation for decades now, and nobody ever does anything. If the government doesn't do anything about it, it feels it doesn't need to. But I mean, actually, it really does need to. And if there was one area where I would say, just doubling back on the conversation, possibly not of interest for you, but, you know, churches, the future of the English rural parish church. You know, it's felt dicey for a long time, but just at the present moment, it's never felt more precarious.
Right. And no one's doing anything. Well, I mean, lots of people are doing things about it and trying to see a way forward. But I mean, you know, if we were saving the country house in the 1970s, who's going to save the English parish church, the rural English parish church in the 2020s? Well, it's not apparently going to be the Church of England. You know, and that would be an enormous loss if if there isn't something orchestrated. But as ever, I think with human things, there have to be significant losses before anybody takes any notice. You know, things really have to start going wrong before anybody is prepared to admit that things have gone wrong.
Well, that's like you said, that's what happened with the country house in the 70s is, you know, people realize what they were losing.
Yeah. Okay. So what are you working on next that's really exciting? Do you have another book project planned, or is there a house history coming up that we should all be looking out for?
Oh, my gosh, what is going on? I do have various irons in the file, but none, I haven't signed any contracts yet, so I'm better not advertising those things quite yet. I mean, in the immediate future, it's, you know, there's just in the next couple of months, it's getting everything down into the magazine in the race towards Christmas. And so there's a lot going on with the magazine. I think next year there will be other things going on. We've got the Georgian Group Awards, which are the Georgian Group, which is an ameen society in Britain. You know, their major awards coming up later this month, which we were judging over the year. all these restoration projects and different categories of buildings, including country houses.
And so that's a big thing that's coming up aside from the magazine. So, I mean, there is a lot going on, but just at the present, I feel as though having that, this huge 125th anniversary volume just produced is enough for me.
2023 at least. All right. Well, let's move on to the lightning round. Because we're running out of time. Lightning round. Very good. So give these answers as quick as you want. I know you answered this at the lecture, but I'm going to ask it again. Your favorite country house or favorite building?
Yeah. And my answer in the lecture, I think, was the last one I've seen. And that's a total cheat. If I was, I do have a favorite, a place I would love. if I had endless sums of money and the means to purchase it and, and, and to live there, there's a beautiful Regency house created out of the ruins of a place called Brinkburn Priory in Northumberland. And it's in the dell by a river and it's an absolutely amazingly beautiful place. And it was, it has a monastic church, which had been restored in the early 20th century and, and right beside this beautiful house. And tragically, it's owned now by English Heritage or managed by English Heritage.
But the house is sort of stripped out partly because of dry rot and partly to find the archaeological features inside it. And so it's this absolutely marvellous house, but it feels like a carcass beside it. And it's just beautifully set. And if I had all the money in the world and the means to acquire it, I think I should invest my time in restoring it. and I would live a sort of sequestered life there. It'd be beautiful. Kevin McCloud would love it. Indeed. Anyway, look it up. It's worth seeing. It's wonderful.
Goodness. My favorite village. Goodness, goodness, goodness. What would be a favorite village? I would have to say somewhere near me. Oxwald in Yorkshire is an incredibly beautiful village. It's set within a few miles of the Cistercian Abbey at Byland. But the village itself, it's a very wide street with some wonderful houses. Shandy Hall, where Tristram Shandy was written, is at the head of the village. And the village runs uphill. There's Newburgh Priory, a country house just outside it. And as the road runs uphill, it comes up towards the church, which has this extraordinary octagonal tower. And it's a very, very beautiful English village, you know, buildings of every date and some very handsome individual buildings within it, but all relatively unpretentious. And at the very end, just as you leave, there's an oak tree with a dead oak tree with a clematis that grows through it, which is magnificent just on the road.
Sounds lovely. Now I want to visit. do you have a favorite cathedral in england yes durham but that's because i was at university
there and and you know you cannot beat the majesty of those great columns that draw your eye into the aisles and the neville screen and things i mean just stupendous do you have a favorite ruin yes it would well again it would be local but i should give a different it would be probably vine but I need to think of somewhere else hang on um uh what would what would so a really odd place I've only actually ever been there once is Piel Castle it's on an island um just off the Cumbrian coast and I went there I had to organize little boats to take me there across a riptide it was incredibly dramatic and you come to this island and the ruins just spectacular they sit there and it used to command the the route between liverpool um and ireland or at least you know the crossing to ireland from from the northwest of england it's a really
magnificent 14th century building and finally do you have a favorite movie set in a country house or country setting?
Yes. Yeah, now what would that be? I was going to say, again, I can't go back to Durham, but I'm always so amused by Harry Potter and spotting all the different buildings, such as Gloucester Cathedral cloister, Lacock Abbey cloister, even Durham Cathedral, pressed into service as Hogwarts. I'm so sad when it comes to spotting buildings. I just so enjoy doing it.
So that's it for my interview with John Goodall. Sorry for the abrupt cut there, but as this was not intended originally to be in the podcast, that was the best spot to sort of stop the recording and transition back to me.
So I want to say thank you to John Goodall for interviewing us, for interviewing with us.
It was a fascinating discussion about British heritage and architecture and history and the beautiful architecture we have Midwest and in the U S and so if I highly recommend checking out country life magazine every week, you'll see John's work in the magazine and you'll always read something interesting about a, about a fascinating country house or place. And I love country life magazine. It's like a little bit of British paradise every week. I highly recommend subscribing. I subscribe on my iPad and one of the magazine apps. So it's, it's easy to read it and whatnot. So again, thank you to John Goodall.
I will link in the show notes. I will put the link to the article that was adapted from this interview and also linked to Country Life and some examples of John's writing and a link to the book I also mentioned at the beginning. So thank you for listening to the Anglotopia podcast and we'll see you next time.
