In this remarkable study, Pamela Sambrook rescues from obscurity the contribution of a former member of Napoleon's Imperial Guard to the development of specialist hotels and catering in the formative years of the railway network in England and France. In doing so, she interrogates what lies behind some of Zenon Vantini's very real achievements, legacies and disasters. She asks how far he was driven by his familial background in Elba and his involvement in the political turmoil of early-nineteenth-century France, and to what extent his whole life was known to those around him. Vantini's extraordinary life encapsulates the change between two very different worlds - the old imperial past and the new age of entrepreneurial risk-taking. Never shaking off his old political loyalties, he believed resolutely that the mobility afforded by railway travel would change Europe fundamentally. In the long view he was a component part in the very early years of an industry which revolutionised England and Europe more than did even his hero, Napoleon.

Zenon Vantini: From Grand Tour to Package Holiday

History

Sambrook, Pamela

Europe

Lutterworth Pr

Details the equipment and activities of the self-sufficient English country house kitchen, featuring b&amp;w photos, illustrations, and floor plans. Describes methods for brewing, baking, dairy work, distilling, and storage, and discusses the evolution of the cooking fire and kitchen range, roles of kitchen staff, and the relationship between kitchen, serving room, and dining room. Most of the houses mentioned still exist and are open to the public. Distributed by Books International. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

The Country House Kitchen

Literature & Fiction

Sutton Pub Ltd

In 1851 there were over a million servants in Britain. This book reveals first-hand tales of put-upon servants, who often had to rise hours before dawn to lay fires, heat water and prepare meals for their employers, and then work into the small hours. Yet there are also heartwarming stories of personal devotion, and reward, and of how the servants enjoyed themselves in their time off. There are moments of great poignancy as well as hilarity: a steward's dawning realisation that the housekeeper he befriended is a thief; a young footman chasing a melon as it rolls through a castle's corridors into the moat; the smart manservant weeping at the station as he bids farewell to his mother. This was an era when footmen were paid extra for being six foot or over, and female servants had to wear black bonnets to church. Drawing on letters, diaries, and autobiographies "Keeping Their Place" provides a vivid insight into the day-by-day lives of country house servants between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries.

Keeping Their Place: Domestic Service in the Country House 1700-1920

Parenting & Relationships

The History Press

In 1851 there were over a million servants in Britain. This book reveals first-hand tales of put-upon servants, who often had to rise hours before dawn to lay fires, heat water and prepare meals for their employers, and then work into the small hours. Yet there are also heartwarming stories of personal devotion, and reward, and of how the servants enjoyed themselves in their time off. There are moments of great poignancy as well as hilarity: a steward's dawning realisation that the housekeeper he befriended is a thief; a young footman chasing a melon as it rolls through a castle's corridors into the moat; the smart manservant weeping at the station as he bids farewell to his mother. This was an era when footmen were paid extra for being six foot or over, and female servants had to wear black bonnets to church.

For the working-class housewife before the 20th century washing aids were few and primitive. A stout hedge, a grassy bank and a good fresh wind were the best she could hope for. Paralleling progress in other domestic equipment, washing, mangling and ironing techniques were developed during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to deal with the vast quantities of personal and household linen required by the increasing middle classes. Both public and private collections provide evidence of the continuous and sometimes bizarre efforts made by Victorian inventors and manufacturers to bring relie to the laundress. This book illustrates the simple, rare, but often extremely beautiful traditional laundry aids - the glass calendars, washing bats, mangle boards and goffering stacks - as well as examples of the multitude of flat, box, solid fuel, spirit, gas and electric irons, washing machines and wringers, which, still commonly survive from the nineteenth century and the first quarter of the twentieth...

Laundry Bygones (Shire Library)

Crafts, Hobbies & Home

Antiques & Collectibles

Shire

Trentham was the Staffordshire home of the Leveson-Gower family, the Dukes of Sutherland. In the mid-nineteenth century they were said to be the richest non-royal family in Britain. They owned many other country houses and estates, bound to each other by a large and loyal staff. The resulting archive is huge. Combining these records with family history sources, it is possible to reimagine some of the triumphs and tragedies of their servants and managers: who they were, what they did and what happened to them after their time at Trentham ended.With its strict social structure and its sometimes bizarre regulations, the world of Trentham in the 1830s can seem alien to us now, but families are always families, responsibilities can always be burdensome and sorrow is always around the corner. The stories of Trentham’s servants are not just family histories; they reveal experiences and unravel relationships to which we can all relate, and demonstrate how people coped in the face of the immense change to country-house life in the early years of the transition into a modern nation.

The Servants' Story: Managing a Great Country House

Amberley Publishing

Until the eighteenth century or even later, beer was the staple drink of most men and women at all levels of society. Tea and coffee were expensive luxuries while water might well carry disease. To supply the needs of both owners and servants, every country house with an accessible source of water had a brewhouse, usually close at hand. Although many of the brewhouses still stand, in some cases with the original brewing vessels (as at Lacock and Charlecote), their habitual conversion to other uses has allowed them to be ignored. Yet they are distinctive buildings - as much part of a country house as an ice-house or stables - which need both to be recognised and preserved.
The scale of brewing in country houses, which went on to a surprisingly late date in the nineteenth century (with odd survivals, such as Hickleton in Yorkshire, into the twentieth), was often considerable, if small besides that of commercial brewing. Copious records for both brewing and consumption exist. Pamela Sambrook describes the brewing equipment, such as coppers, mash tuns underbacks and coolers; the types of beers brewed, from strong ale to small beer and how they were kept; and the brewers themselves, their skills and attitudes.
English Country House Brewing, 1500-1900 shows the role beer played in the life of the country house, with beer allowances and beer money an integral part of servants' rewards. Generous allowances were made for arduous tasks, such as harvesting. For celebrations, such as the heir's coming of age, extra-strong ale was provided. This book, which is heavily illustrated, is an important and original contribution to architectural, brewing and social history.

Country House Brewing in England, 1500-1900

Cookbooks, Food & Wine

Beverages & Wine

Bloomsbury Academic

In this fascinating book, Pamela Sambrook focuses on Dunham Massey in Cheshire, and shows how the great house and its estate functioned in the late Georgian period. At the center is the family, the Earl of Stamford. But the various groups that made the household work fan out like ripples in a pool so that we can trace the responsibilities of the house steward, the housekeeper, and the land steward, each with their own teams—the butler and footmen, the housemaids and laundresses, the gardener and the blacksmith. Beyond them are the craftsmen who provided services great and small, from carpentry to sewing, and the tradesmen who supplied food, drink, luxuries, and necessities to a household that was far from self-sufficient. By delving into the minutiae of the household records and accounts, the author has uncovered the stories of individuals that contributed to the life of Dunham Massey, from the doctor who featured in Mrs Gaskell's novels to the hermit who over-indulged at a family wedding and fell down the stairs.

A Country House at Work: Three Centuries of Dunham Massey

Pavilion

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Sambrook, Pamela. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Sambrook, Pamela

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Sambrook, Pamela. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Zenon Vantini: From Grand Tour to Package Holiday

The Country House Kitchen

Keeping Their Place: Domestic Service in the Country House 1700-1920

Keeping Their Place: Domestic Service in the Country House 1700-1920

Laundry Bygones (Shire Library)

The Servants' Story: Managing a Great Country House

The Servants' Story: Managing a Great Country House

Country House Brewing in England, 1500-1900

A Country House at Work: Three Centuries of Dunham Massey