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New National Trust display to explore Jewish country homes and families
The Country Houses, Jewish Homes project will take place at Upton House and Gardens just outside Banbury
September 3, 2023 12:21
The Country Houses, Jewish Homes project will take place at Upton House and Gardens just outside Banbury
September 3, 2023 12:21A new display at the Upton House National Trust home explores what owning an English country house meant historically for wealthy immigrant Jewish families to Britain.
The display, “Country Houses, Jewish Homes”, will run from September 4 to November 3 and will document how Jewish families navigated the society of their time and fought to acquire land and the political social status that came with it.
The National Trust website said: “Country houses are symbols of national identity, evoking the glamorous world of the landowning aristocracy. “Jewish” country houses tell a more complex story – of prejudice and integration, difference and belonging.”
Throughout the house, there will be information boards where visitors can learn about prominent Anglo-Jewish families and their “struggle for religious equality in Georgian Britain to the rise of modern political antisemitism and the tragedy of the Holocaust."
Families such as the Rothschilds will be featured alongside the Bearsteds, who lived at Upton House in the 1930s and 1940s. The house holds a significant art collection, assembled by Marcus Samuel, 1st Viscount Bearsted, the Ashkenazi Jewish founder of the Shell Transport and Trading Company and a Lord Mayor of London.
Research for the project was carried out by Marcus Roberts, founding director of jTrails, the National Anglo-Jewish Heritage Trail, and Abigail Green, Professor of Modern European History at Brasenose College, Oxford.
The Country Houses, Jewish Homes project is part of the Jewish Country Houses project at Oxford University, supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
No booking is required to enter but on busy days there will be timed tickets available on a first-come, first-served basis. Normal admission prices will apply.