The new ‘mansion experience’ is coming to Sudbury Hall

Sudbury Hall, a seventeenth century country house with magnificent interior decoration, paintings and furnishings, is to be reimagined and rebranded as a ‘children’s country house’. Ropes and barriers are to be removed, along with some of the contents, and ‘fun, active games and activities’ will be installed within the richly elegant and historic rooms of the Hall.

Sudbury Hall’s decoration includes paintings by among others Thomas Gainsborough, John Griffier and John Michael Wright, plasterwork by Edward Pierce, a fine example of Grinling Gibbons’ carving in lime wood, as well as a remarkable nineteenth century library. Sudbury’s impressive long gallery, saloon and great staircase featured as the interiors of ‘Pemberley’ in the BBC’s 1995 production of ‘Pride & Prejudice’.

The Hall already hosts a Museum of Childhood in its Victorian wing and a playground in its grounds. Now the main house itself is to be turned over to children to explore the stories of Sudbury through an immersive experience that will require the removal of some artefacts historically associated with the Hall and the extensive protection of others. The library, for example, will have plastic covers. Adult visitors unaccompanied by children are to be discouraged, the emphasis will be on a schools programme and the Hall will open under a pre-booked model primarily at weekends and during school holidays: all bad news for many subscription-paying National Trust members.

Curatorial input has been put to one side as National Trust strives to change its visitor demographic. The Hall will be presented to appeal to children to the detriment of interested and discerning adult visitors. ‘Fun active games and activities’ will be juxtaposed with the remaining important and valuable works of art. The National Trust is seeking advice on the future presentation of the house from selected ‘child ambassadors’, some of whom are under school age. Meanwhile volunteers have left the property shocked by the plans and especially by the depletion of the house’s contents.

All considerations of aesthetic sense and historic verisimilitude appear to have been trumped by this new interpretation of the ‘mansion experience’. This is not the way to preserve the property for the enjoyment of future generations. The National Trust is showing a disappointing disregard for its role as custodians of an exceptional historic house: Sudbury Hall deserves better.