Historic House Childhoods: Uncovering New Heritage Narratives

Historic House Childhoods: Uncovering New Heritage Narratives

Knowledge Exchange Fellow
Dr Sian Pooley   |   Faculty of History |   University of Oxford

Partner Organisation
The National Trust   |  Emma Slocombe and Katherine Sharp

Project description

This project forms the next stage of a partnership between the University of Oxford’s Centre for the History of Childhood and the National Trust to research and communicate histories of childhood. The project uses the National Trust’s rich collections to reveal both fresh perspectives on properties now in the care of the National Trust and original insights into the lives of children and young people in the past.

In 2022-23, a toolkit, ‘Histories of Childhood: Uncovering New Heritage Narratives’ directed a spotlight on innovative approaches to histories of childhood within properties and museums across Britain. This research also revealed that it is relatively rare for country houses to tell the stories of the diverse children who lived in, worked for, and grew up around these properties.   

This Knowledge Exchange project focuses on one little-known aspect of the history of country houses and of the Second World War: residential war nurseries. Between 1939 and 1945, country houses became homes for thousands of evacuated babies and children under five. This project seeks to understand what this experience meant for children, their families, and those who were entrusted to look after them in these unfamiliar spaces, many of which are now in the care of the National Trust.

Attribution Credit: © IWM Art.IWM ART LD 263