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A fact from Destruction of country houses in 20th-century Britain appeared on Wikipedia's
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check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
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How about a list of demolished houses by county? It might give an idea of the scale of the destruction, and could link to individual articles on the houses. I keep finding references to 'disappeared' houses and it would be good to have a gathering together of them all somewhere. 81.129.133.146 ( talk) 09:13, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
Also, how about a parallel article on earlier pre-20th century lost houses - those demolished in previous centuries for differing sets of reasons eg Nonsuch Palace, Clifton Maybank etc? 81.129.133.146 ( talk) 11:10, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
Are there no other articles that would benefit our readers by being linked to from here? Silver seren C 00:58, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
It might well be worth adding in Waugh's comments in his introduction to the 1959 2nd edn., where he explains he had not anticipated that Brideshead would in fact have been absorbed by the heritage industry & had assumed it was doomed. Johnbod ( talk) 21:04, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
I can't see any mention of the National Trust, nor its cunning diversion from its original mission of preserving landscape. James Lees-Milne & his diaries deserve a plug.
I was a touch dubious about the passage on gentry vs magnate houses. So long as the family had resisted the temptation in Victorian times to knock down their nice Georgian box & build something twice the size, I would have thought these were about the safest type of country house, as there has always been a market for neat little manor houses in the 20th century, if only from those who had just knocked down their big, big houses (obviously not just them). It's unmanageable size that has been the killer.
There was some nightmarish piece of legislation under the Atlee government, whereby (possibly unintentionally) if you spent £X repairing your roof or on similar repairs, you had to pay another £X in tax. Don't ask me how they managed that, but one can put nothing beyond the Inland Revenue. I think that took off a good number.
You might mention Eaton Hall, Cheshire - Dukes of Westminster - 2 Victorian rebuilds, then replaced by a modernist effort in 1960 (designed by the Duke's brother-in-law) which has now been "recased and given the appearance of a French château" in the late 80s. Shows you what money can and can't do!
But great to see this finally hit articlespace. Johnbod ( talk) 05:33, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
I love this article. Great job, all! - Burpelson AFB ✈ 16:43, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
This article seems to set out to place as much of the blame as possible on the owners, rather than on the left-wing politicians and the haters of historical architecture in the 20th century modernistic architectural establishment who were really the two main causes of the demolitions. I am adding a POV tag for this reason, and also an essay tag. The article needs a thorough overhaul and review. Mowsbury ( talk) 20:18, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
This sentence: As far as general opinion was concerned, England's great houses came and they went; so long as their numbers remained, continuing to provide mass employment - I am wondering how England's great houses contributed to "mass employment". I seriously doubt that the jobs they provided were anything but a small fraction of a small fraction of total employment. Volunteer Marek ( talk) 20:39, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
This article is mostly unreferenced and have a unilateral tone that disdains the topic in question. Perhaps more cleanup is needed? -- George Ho ( talk) 08:21, 9 June 2013 (UTC)
I'm not sure what unilateral means in this context. There is of course room for improvement but the article is quite well written and organised, presenting clear enough reasons for the decline and demolition of these buildings. ProfDEH ( talk) 13:01, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
WP:LEAD is quite clear. The lead of an article, any article, should be no more than four (normal-sized) paragraphs long. A number of different editors have pointed out that this article is far from compliant, but User:Giano refuses to accept this, and has repeatedly removed the {{ lead too long}} tag, claiming the lead is "as it should be". This is patently untrue; there can be no doubt that the lead of the article is considerably too long. None of the Featured Articles on architecture topics that I have seen is anything like as long as this. Even an article on a very broad topic, such as castle, has a lead of only (!) 540 words in 4 paragraphs.
I had hoped that Giano would be prepared to amend the lead as needed, because I am sure that he/she has the best grasp of the article as a whole. It would be particularly helpful if this could be done by Giano, because there appears to be material in the lead that is not covered elsewhere in the article, which should certainly be moved (rather than copied, I would say) to the relevant section lower down. (There should eventually be little need for inline citations in the lead, which should be introducing nothing that is not referenced later.) However, if Giano is unable or unwilling to carry out the remedial work, then I am sure someone else can be found to take it on. -- Stemonitis ( talk) 22:28, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
Unfortunately, your opinions are contradicted by the site-wide style guide, which states:
There is a case for occasionally ignoring rules, but not for riding roughshod over them, or pretending that they don't apply when they do. The lead is not well-written, and does not summarise the article adequately (which entails doing so concisely). This topic is not exceptional, and does not require a seven-paragraph lead; moreover, you have made no meaningful attempt to justify a lead of this length. You claim that the lead needs to be accurate, which is true, but it does not need to be lengthy. Surely, when several different editors independently point out a failing of an article, you ought to give that view some consideration. The majority view here is that the lead is in need of improvement, and, whether you agree with that view or not, you ought to abide by it. That said, it seems that you are unwilling to make the necessary changes yourself. I will work on a better lead, but in the meanwhile, the cleanup tag must be restored (I'll do that, too). Please do not remove it without fixing the problem that undoubtedly does exist. (I, for one, would consider any removal of the cleanup tag without fixing the underlying problems to represent disruptive editing, since the tag is intended to bring about improvement.) -- Stemonitis ( talk) 09:17, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
You are missing the point. The lead is bad. This is not a question of one person's opinion; it is matter of site-wide consensus. The fact that you refuse to acknowledge that consensus is a worrying sign. Your sneaky dig at an unnamed admin in your edit summary could qualify as a personal attack. All in all, I see little evidence that you are capable of compromising in the manner required of a collaborative project such as this. I have tried to demonstrate a fairly simple way of improving the article, but you have rejected it for no reason I know of. In fact, some parts of your edits are unjustifiable, and were clearly part of a (disguised) revert. I can't see that I can do any more, so I will have to leave this article in the sorry state it is currently in.
A word on image sizes: MOS:IMAGES (specifically WP:IMGSIZE) recommends not specifying fixed pixel widths of images, to allow user-set preferences to be implemented; images set to 450 px wide are certainly too large. This is another thing I fixed, but which you have undone. I'm not about to start a fight on this, because I doubt you are open to the change. However, someone else may comment on this in the future. Please don't dismiss their concerns as you have dismissed mine. -- Stemonitis ( talk) 12:59, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
@Stemonitis.
Johnbod changed and shortened the over-long lead quite drastically (and IMO sensibly) earlier today by dividing the material into lead + an "Overview" section. That was a couple of hours before you posted above that "The lead is bad. This is not a question of one person's opinion; it is matter of site-wide consensus."
I have trouble with both statements. How can there be any site-wide consensus on the present lead (which remains basically Johnbod's version), when nobody except you yourself has commented on it? Also, I noticed that you edited after Johnbod (surely having studied his version), to add some material. You said then in your edit summary that you're "not sure which solution is better". That's being reasonable. Yet here on talk, later, you're calling the lead bad, in italics, and speaking of the "sorry state" the article is in. I'm confused. Have you assumed Giano has reverted Johnbod's changes? He hasn't. What's wrong with the current lead, in your opinion?
Bishonen |
talk 13:34, 4 August 2013 (UTC).
Due to the massive size of the first two images on this article, the opening paragraphs on my screen are just three words wide in some places (or two in the case of "unmanageable size", which is ironic). It's beyond poor. It's a good job Wikipedia is free is all I can say. You'd never get anyone to willingly subscribe to a product as poorly put together as this, certainly not the sort of person actually interested in article topics like this. I bet this would even annoy the sort of person who comes here to read about the new Doctor Who. Randy from Jacksonville ( talk) 19:59, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
The headings "Loss of political power" and "Death duties" are also pushed into the middle of the article by the massive images, whose sole purpose here seem to be to force the reader to agree that any section where text occupies a smaller area than graphics, is a good section. Randy from Jacksonville ( talk) 20:05, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
It is not about the accuracy of the title as much as the convenience of the title or any other, like concisiveness. Why not "20th-century destruction of British country houses"? -- George Ho ( talk) 03:48, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
Would "demolition" be a better word than "destruction"? -- George Ho ( talk) 01:02, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
"It was impossible to foresee, in the spring of 1944, the present cult of the English country house. It seemed then that the ancestral seats which were our chief national artistic achievement were doomed to decay and spoilation like the monasteries in the sixteenth century. So I piled it on rather, with passionate sincerity. Brideshead today would be open to trippers, its treasures rearranged by expert hands and the fabric better maintained than it was by Lord Marchmain. And the English aristocracy has maintained its identity to a degree that then seemed impossible. The advance of Hooper has been held up at several points. Much of this book therefore is a panegyric preached over an empty coffin. But it would be impossible to bring it up to date without totally destroying it. It is offered to a younger generation of readers as a souvenir of the Second War rather than of the twenties or of the thirties, with which it ostensibly deals."
From Waugh's introduction to the 2nd edition. Though it doesn't reflect the fact that 1957, only two years earlier, is generally reckoned (the catalogue to the 1975 V and A exhibition, or Harris' "No Voice from the Hall" for example) to be the blackest year, with two and a half houses being demolished every week. Ghughesarch ( talk) 21:38, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
I found a quote about destroyed houses from the novel (page 264, Harper Perennial paperback edition):
-- George Ho ( talk) 06:08, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
All right, moving on... Shall the novel be included as example in this article? -- George Ho ( talk) 03:55, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
Are they too big or enough for people to see? I see images interfering the prose, so I can't shrink them without a consensus here. -- George Ho ( talk) 21:15, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
This image has undetermined date, and I don't know when it was created and/or published. It should be called possibly unfree. -- George Ho ( talk) 22:35, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
I did request that quote from Rebecca be added, but it got rejected. Probably, since Brideshead Revisited is used, perhaps add comparisons of destroyed real-life houses and du Maurier's novels, Rebecca and Hungry Hill? I found sources: [4] [5] [6] [7]. If not needed, then which quotes and pages from few final chapters Brideshead indicate the fall of power? -- George Ho ( talk) 23:04, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
While the choice of images and their captions is certainly interesting, they are all in different sizes. It makes for a rather uneven and rambling appearance. Can this be improved somehow? Gryffindor ( talk) 09:22, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
In anyone was curious. Many of these don't have wikipedia articles but there are photos on the internet of them. http://lh.matthewbeckett.com/lh_complete_list.html -- 98.246.156.76 ( talk) 03:55, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
This is a fascinating article. However, I can't help but wonder how it fits into what was happening the big houses elsewhere in Europe. Was the British experience exceptional or was there a Europe-wide destruction of big houses in the 20th century? I don't have French, German, Spanish or Italian to be able to find the answer myself. The article would benefit hugely from this context. 188.141.10.11 ( talk) 10:47, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
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This article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's
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A fact from Destruction of country houses in 20th-century Britain appeared on Wikipedia's
Main Page in the
Did you know column on 17 December 2010 (
check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
|
How about a list of demolished houses by county? It might give an idea of the scale of the destruction, and could link to individual articles on the houses. I keep finding references to 'disappeared' houses and it would be good to have a gathering together of them all somewhere. 81.129.133.146 ( talk) 09:13, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
Also, how about a parallel article on earlier pre-20th century lost houses - those demolished in previous centuries for differing sets of reasons eg Nonsuch Palace, Clifton Maybank etc? 81.129.133.146 ( talk) 11:10, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
Are there no other articles that would benefit our readers by being linked to from here? Silver seren C 00:58, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
It might well be worth adding in Waugh's comments in his introduction to the 1959 2nd edn., where he explains he had not anticipated that Brideshead would in fact have been absorbed by the heritage industry & had assumed it was doomed. Johnbod ( talk) 21:04, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
I can't see any mention of the National Trust, nor its cunning diversion from its original mission of preserving landscape. James Lees-Milne & his diaries deserve a plug.
I was a touch dubious about the passage on gentry vs magnate houses. So long as the family had resisted the temptation in Victorian times to knock down their nice Georgian box & build something twice the size, I would have thought these were about the safest type of country house, as there has always been a market for neat little manor houses in the 20th century, if only from those who had just knocked down their big, big houses (obviously not just them). It's unmanageable size that has been the killer.
There was some nightmarish piece of legislation under the Atlee government, whereby (possibly unintentionally) if you spent £X repairing your roof or on similar repairs, you had to pay another £X in tax. Don't ask me how they managed that, but one can put nothing beyond the Inland Revenue. I think that took off a good number.
You might mention Eaton Hall, Cheshire - Dukes of Westminster - 2 Victorian rebuilds, then replaced by a modernist effort in 1960 (designed by the Duke's brother-in-law) which has now been "recased and given the appearance of a French château" in the late 80s. Shows you what money can and can't do!
But great to see this finally hit articlespace. Johnbod ( talk) 05:33, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
I love this article. Great job, all! - Burpelson AFB ✈ 16:43, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
This article seems to set out to place as much of the blame as possible on the owners, rather than on the left-wing politicians and the haters of historical architecture in the 20th century modernistic architectural establishment who were really the two main causes of the demolitions. I am adding a POV tag for this reason, and also an essay tag. The article needs a thorough overhaul and review. Mowsbury ( talk) 20:18, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
This sentence: As far as general opinion was concerned, England's great houses came and they went; so long as their numbers remained, continuing to provide mass employment - I am wondering how England's great houses contributed to "mass employment". I seriously doubt that the jobs they provided were anything but a small fraction of a small fraction of total employment. Volunteer Marek ( talk) 20:39, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
This article is mostly unreferenced and have a unilateral tone that disdains the topic in question. Perhaps more cleanup is needed? -- George Ho ( talk) 08:21, 9 June 2013 (UTC)
I'm not sure what unilateral means in this context. There is of course room for improvement but the article is quite well written and organised, presenting clear enough reasons for the decline and demolition of these buildings. ProfDEH ( talk) 13:01, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
WP:LEAD is quite clear. The lead of an article, any article, should be no more than four (normal-sized) paragraphs long. A number of different editors have pointed out that this article is far from compliant, but User:Giano refuses to accept this, and has repeatedly removed the {{ lead too long}} tag, claiming the lead is "as it should be". This is patently untrue; there can be no doubt that the lead of the article is considerably too long. None of the Featured Articles on architecture topics that I have seen is anything like as long as this. Even an article on a very broad topic, such as castle, has a lead of only (!) 540 words in 4 paragraphs.
I had hoped that Giano would be prepared to amend the lead as needed, because I am sure that he/she has the best grasp of the article as a whole. It would be particularly helpful if this could be done by Giano, because there appears to be material in the lead that is not covered elsewhere in the article, which should certainly be moved (rather than copied, I would say) to the relevant section lower down. (There should eventually be little need for inline citations in the lead, which should be introducing nothing that is not referenced later.) However, if Giano is unable or unwilling to carry out the remedial work, then I am sure someone else can be found to take it on. -- Stemonitis ( talk) 22:28, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
Unfortunately, your opinions are contradicted by the site-wide style guide, which states:
There is a case for occasionally ignoring rules, but not for riding roughshod over them, or pretending that they don't apply when they do. The lead is not well-written, and does not summarise the article adequately (which entails doing so concisely). This topic is not exceptional, and does not require a seven-paragraph lead; moreover, you have made no meaningful attempt to justify a lead of this length. You claim that the lead needs to be accurate, which is true, but it does not need to be lengthy. Surely, when several different editors independently point out a failing of an article, you ought to give that view some consideration. The majority view here is that the lead is in need of improvement, and, whether you agree with that view or not, you ought to abide by it. That said, it seems that you are unwilling to make the necessary changes yourself. I will work on a better lead, but in the meanwhile, the cleanup tag must be restored (I'll do that, too). Please do not remove it without fixing the problem that undoubtedly does exist. (I, for one, would consider any removal of the cleanup tag without fixing the underlying problems to represent disruptive editing, since the tag is intended to bring about improvement.) -- Stemonitis ( talk) 09:17, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
You are missing the point. The lead is bad. This is not a question of one person's opinion; it is matter of site-wide consensus. The fact that you refuse to acknowledge that consensus is a worrying sign. Your sneaky dig at an unnamed admin in your edit summary could qualify as a personal attack. All in all, I see little evidence that you are capable of compromising in the manner required of a collaborative project such as this. I have tried to demonstrate a fairly simple way of improving the article, but you have rejected it for no reason I know of. In fact, some parts of your edits are unjustifiable, and were clearly part of a (disguised) revert. I can't see that I can do any more, so I will have to leave this article in the sorry state it is currently in.
A word on image sizes: MOS:IMAGES (specifically WP:IMGSIZE) recommends not specifying fixed pixel widths of images, to allow user-set preferences to be implemented; images set to 450 px wide are certainly too large. This is another thing I fixed, but which you have undone. I'm not about to start a fight on this, because I doubt you are open to the change. However, someone else may comment on this in the future. Please don't dismiss their concerns as you have dismissed mine. -- Stemonitis ( talk) 12:59, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
@Stemonitis.
Johnbod changed and shortened the over-long lead quite drastically (and IMO sensibly) earlier today by dividing the material into lead + an "Overview" section. That was a couple of hours before you posted above that "The lead is bad. This is not a question of one person's opinion; it is matter of site-wide consensus."
I have trouble with both statements. How can there be any site-wide consensus on the present lead (which remains basically Johnbod's version), when nobody except you yourself has commented on it? Also, I noticed that you edited after Johnbod (surely having studied his version), to add some material. You said then in your edit summary that you're "not sure which solution is better". That's being reasonable. Yet here on talk, later, you're calling the lead bad, in italics, and speaking of the "sorry state" the article is in. I'm confused. Have you assumed Giano has reverted Johnbod's changes? He hasn't. What's wrong with the current lead, in your opinion?
Bishonen |
talk 13:34, 4 August 2013 (UTC).
Due to the massive size of the first two images on this article, the opening paragraphs on my screen are just three words wide in some places (or two in the case of "unmanageable size", which is ironic). It's beyond poor. It's a good job Wikipedia is free is all I can say. You'd never get anyone to willingly subscribe to a product as poorly put together as this, certainly not the sort of person actually interested in article topics like this. I bet this would even annoy the sort of person who comes here to read about the new Doctor Who. Randy from Jacksonville ( talk) 19:59, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
The headings "Loss of political power" and "Death duties" are also pushed into the middle of the article by the massive images, whose sole purpose here seem to be to force the reader to agree that any section where text occupies a smaller area than graphics, is a good section. Randy from Jacksonville ( talk) 20:05, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
It is not about the accuracy of the title as much as the convenience of the title or any other, like concisiveness. Why not "20th-century destruction of British country houses"? -- George Ho ( talk) 03:48, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
Would "demolition" be a better word than "destruction"? -- George Ho ( talk) 01:02, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
"It was impossible to foresee, in the spring of 1944, the present cult of the English country house. It seemed then that the ancestral seats which were our chief national artistic achievement were doomed to decay and spoilation like the monasteries in the sixteenth century. So I piled it on rather, with passionate sincerity. Brideshead today would be open to trippers, its treasures rearranged by expert hands and the fabric better maintained than it was by Lord Marchmain. And the English aristocracy has maintained its identity to a degree that then seemed impossible. The advance of Hooper has been held up at several points. Much of this book therefore is a panegyric preached over an empty coffin. But it would be impossible to bring it up to date without totally destroying it. It is offered to a younger generation of readers as a souvenir of the Second War rather than of the twenties or of the thirties, with which it ostensibly deals."
From Waugh's introduction to the 2nd edition. Though it doesn't reflect the fact that 1957, only two years earlier, is generally reckoned (the catalogue to the 1975 V and A exhibition, or Harris' "No Voice from the Hall" for example) to be the blackest year, with two and a half houses being demolished every week. Ghughesarch ( talk) 21:38, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
I found a quote about destroyed houses from the novel (page 264, Harper Perennial paperback edition):
-- George Ho ( talk) 06:08, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
All right, moving on... Shall the novel be included as example in this article? -- George Ho ( talk) 03:55, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
Are they too big or enough for people to see? I see images interfering the prose, so I can't shrink them without a consensus here. -- George Ho ( talk) 21:15, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
This image has undetermined date, and I don't know when it was created and/or published. It should be called possibly unfree. -- George Ho ( talk) 22:35, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
I did request that quote from Rebecca be added, but it got rejected. Probably, since Brideshead Revisited is used, perhaps add comparisons of destroyed real-life houses and du Maurier's novels, Rebecca and Hungry Hill? I found sources: [4] [5] [6] [7]. If not needed, then which quotes and pages from few final chapters Brideshead indicate the fall of power? -- George Ho ( talk) 23:04, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
While the choice of images and their captions is certainly interesting, they are all in different sizes. It makes for a rather uneven and rambling appearance. Can this be improved somehow? Gryffindor ( talk) 09:22, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
In anyone was curious. Many of these don't have wikipedia articles but there are photos on the internet of them. http://lh.matthewbeckett.com/lh_complete_list.html -- 98.246.156.76 ( talk) 03:55, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
This is a fascinating article. However, I can't help but wonder how it fits into what was happening the big houses elsewhere in Europe. Was the British experience exceptional or was there a Europe-wide destruction of big houses in the 20th century? I don't have French, German, Spanish or Italian to be able to find the answer myself. The article would benefit hugely from this context. 188.141.10.11 ( talk) 10:47, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
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