‘A fascinating exhibition made incomprehensible by historical inaccuracy and bias’

Prof. Lawrence Goldman has been to see the exhibition of African textiles at Dyrham Park and was shocked by the cavalier and partisan approach to history

An exhibition of Fante textiles at Dyrham Park is presented with a political agenda

Prof. Goldman writes,

The National Trust’s depiction of British domestic and colonial history are both found wanting in permanent and temporary exhibitions at Dyrham Park, Gloucestershire.

To Dyrham Park, a National Trust property I’d not visited before. It’s a gem of a place, set in a fold of hills in the southern escarpment of the Cotswolds, a few miles north of Bath. It isn’t a grand palace but a comfortable country house, the fruit of toil on behalf of monarchs and the nation in general by its owner and builder, William Blathwayt (c. 1649-1717).

My visit was not an innocent, pleasurable jaunt, however, because I’d been tipped off that Dyrham’s history was being distorted in all the usual ways. I was disappointed to find that this is doubly true: not only is the account of William Blathwayt and his age deformed, but a fascinating temporary exhibition in the house was made incomprehensible by historical inaccuracy and bias.