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I looked up Tottenham House to discover more about the house, and was redirected to Tottenham, Wiltshire, a redirect done by Lobsterthermidor in November 2015 after adding Descent of the estate and Sturmy's Horn / Savernake Horn sections. I left a message for Lobsterthermindor five days ago saying that I thought I could see what they were doing - that they had some information which in some way related to the house, and felt it would be best placed there, which then necessitated changing the name (and the scope) of the original article. However, I'm not seeing how the material sits comfortably in the article, especially as it obscures the original subject matter, and makes finding out information about the house somewhat confusing. It looks to me that almost all of the material added belongs elsewhere, perhaps in a new article. A search of sources does confirm that Tottenham House is the notable subject. I am unsure if the estate has quite enough notability for a stand-alone article; however, the Seymour family does have notability, and indeed we do have an article on that family - Seymour family, to which the bulk of the material could be moved. The Savernake Horn material could possibly be moved to a stand-alone article as there are a few sources which describe it in detail. Lobsterthermindor has been inactive since 7 November, so there's been no response yet.
Looking at the situation, my suggestion would be to create a Savernake Horn article and move the Sturmy's Horn / Savernake Horn there; merge the Seymour family details to the Seymour family article, and to restore Tottenham, Wiltshire to Tottenham House, keeping all relevant material from the existing article. I will notify significant contributors. SilkTork ( talk) 13:15, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
Ah yes. I see that. Tottenham House was a part of the estate, which is Savernake Forest. Thanks for that. Is there actually a Tottenham estate? I had difficulty finding information on a "Tottenham estate" because results kept giving me things such as Glenfarne and Broadwater Farm. The results I had which related to Tottenham House, refer to a "Tottenham Park estate", though I'm not entirely sure of the use of the word "estate" in referring to Tottenham Park, which appears to be the name of the garden around the house, rather than the entirety of the land belonging to the Seymour family. SilkTork ( talk) 17:13, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
Hi, I'm back to add my penny's worth. This appears to be the solution: One article on the bricks and mortar, as now exists here, another for a more detailed history of the occupants, basically descent of the manor, I've done dozens and dozens of them. I don't meet many people just interested in bricks and mortar, as houses usually acquire their fame and interest from the deeds of their illustrious occupants, but we'll strip all that out if required for any dry-as-a-bone Saab-driving architect readers. If you visit any country house open to the public the visitor's guide-book is mostly about the past occupants, their portraits, marriages, etc., not about the building.
The idea of an article on the Seymour family is a non-starter, the family is too large, diversified and far too complex, as is often the case with these large and historic estates. That family needs to be dealt with branch by branch, by estate/residence. That is how genealogists generally deal with families: by estate. That's what I was doing here. I will go ahead and move the previous text on the descent of the manor, etc to a new article Manor of Tottenham, Wiltshire, with an approriate "main article" tag in this one. By the way I think the new article on the Horn is excellent and very helpful. Thanks to SilkTork. Lobsterthermidor ( talk) 16:46, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
I moved the talk to a subpage here and have transcluded the content below for now, for ease of reference. Explanations are at the end. — SMALL JIM 15:51, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
This is the history of a bunch of families that coincidentally happened to hold Tottenham manor, not an account of the manor. The whole history from the Esturmys all the way down to Bruce, ostensibly more than 500 years of history of Tottenham, never once mentions Tottenham. This is a clear case of losing the plot, of coatracking - using a page about a manor as an excuse for presenting a bunch of family history with no attempt whatsoever to link it to the ppage's subject. Agricolae ( talk) 17:13, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
No, that isn’t so. There is indeed a lot in a VCH article about the descent of land, but it is usually not as much as a tenth of the article, which also covers the history of the manor itself in as much detail as it can find. Someone has to pay for VCH articles to be written, and one which was *exclusively* about land ownership would not get funded or published. You say you intended the page to be about the descent of the manor, so perhaps you should have called it that? Descent of the manor of Tottenham, Wiltshire, would not be of great interest, but it would comply with WP:N. I agree with Agricolae that topographical articles should not be overwhelmed by genealogy. I do think the answer to the problem is more separation. Moonraker ( talk) 05:45, 17 May 2020 (UTC)“This article was intended by its creator (myself) to be about the descent of the manor, i.e. the same format as in the Victoria County History series, under the heading "Manors". That's mainly (exclusively in the case of VCH) about genealogy.”
This section all seems to be duplicated from the Tottenham House page, perhaps as part of a strange pattern of page moves. In any event, Tottenham House is a house, certainly an aspect of the manor, but as it has its own page I see no reason why it can’t be dealt with in one short paragraph, with a link as above. Moonraker ( talk) 05:56, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
@ Agricolae, Lobsterthermidor, Moonraker, and SilkTork: per the last para in above transclusion, I've just nominated Manor of Tottenham, Wiltshire and Estate of Tottenham, Wiltshire for deletion at WP:RFD. I also made a few minor changes to this article to match those on the other. There were, as far as I could see, no significant changes to make to House of Seymour. — SMALL JIM 16:18, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Tottenham House article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
![]() | This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to multiple WikiProjects. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
I looked up Tottenham House to discover more about the house, and was redirected to Tottenham, Wiltshire, a redirect done by Lobsterthermidor in November 2015 after adding Descent of the estate and Sturmy's Horn / Savernake Horn sections. I left a message for Lobsterthermindor five days ago saying that I thought I could see what they were doing - that they had some information which in some way related to the house, and felt it would be best placed there, which then necessitated changing the name (and the scope) of the original article. However, I'm not seeing how the material sits comfortably in the article, especially as it obscures the original subject matter, and makes finding out information about the house somewhat confusing. It looks to me that almost all of the material added belongs elsewhere, perhaps in a new article. A search of sources does confirm that Tottenham House is the notable subject. I am unsure if the estate has quite enough notability for a stand-alone article; however, the Seymour family does have notability, and indeed we do have an article on that family - Seymour family, to which the bulk of the material could be moved. The Savernake Horn material could possibly be moved to a stand-alone article as there are a few sources which describe it in detail. Lobsterthermindor has been inactive since 7 November, so there's been no response yet.
Looking at the situation, my suggestion would be to create a Savernake Horn article and move the Sturmy's Horn / Savernake Horn there; merge the Seymour family details to the Seymour family article, and to restore Tottenham, Wiltshire to Tottenham House, keeping all relevant material from the existing article. I will notify significant contributors. SilkTork ( talk) 13:15, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
Ah yes. I see that. Tottenham House was a part of the estate, which is Savernake Forest. Thanks for that. Is there actually a Tottenham estate? I had difficulty finding information on a "Tottenham estate" because results kept giving me things such as Glenfarne and Broadwater Farm. The results I had which related to Tottenham House, refer to a "Tottenham Park estate", though I'm not entirely sure of the use of the word "estate" in referring to Tottenham Park, which appears to be the name of the garden around the house, rather than the entirety of the land belonging to the Seymour family. SilkTork ( talk) 17:13, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
Hi, I'm back to add my penny's worth. This appears to be the solution: One article on the bricks and mortar, as now exists here, another for a more detailed history of the occupants, basically descent of the manor, I've done dozens and dozens of them. I don't meet many people just interested in bricks and mortar, as houses usually acquire their fame and interest from the deeds of their illustrious occupants, but we'll strip all that out if required for any dry-as-a-bone Saab-driving architect readers. If you visit any country house open to the public the visitor's guide-book is mostly about the past occupants, their portraits, marriages, etc., not about the building.
The idea of an article on the Seymour family is a non-starter, the family is too large, diversified and far too complex, as is often the case with these large and historic estates. That family needs to be dealt with branch by branch, by estate/residence. That is how genealogists generally deal with families: by estate. That's what I was doing here. I will go ahead and move the previous text on the descent of the manor, etc to a new article Manor of Tottenham, Wiltshire, with an approriate "main article" tag in this one. By the way I think the new article on the Horn is excellent and very helpful. Thanks to SilkTork. Lobsterthermidor ( talk) 16:46, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
I moved the talk to a subpage here and have transcluded the content below for now, for ease of reference. Explanations are at the end. — SMALL JIM 15:51, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
This is the history of a bunch of families that coincidentally happened to hold Tottenham manor, not an account of the manor. The whole history from the Esturmys all the way down to Bruce, ostensibly more than 500 years of history of Tottenham, never once mentions Tottenham. This is a clear case of losing the plot, of coatracking - using a page about a manor as an excuse for presenting a bunch of family history with no attempt whatsoever to link it to the ppage's subject. Agricolae ( talk) 17:13, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
No, that isn’t so. There is indeed a lot in a VCH article about the descent of land, but it is usually not as much as a tenth of the article, which also covers the history of the manor itself in as much detail as it can find. Someone has to pay for VCH articles to be written, and one which was *exclusively* about land ownership would not get funded or published. You say you intended the page to be about the descent of the manor, so perhaps you should have called it that? Descent of the manor of Tottenham, Wiltshire, would not be of great interest, but it would comply with WP:N. I agree with Agricolae that topographical articles should not be overwhelmed by genealogy. I do think the answer to the problem is more separation. Moonraker ( talk) 05:45, 17 May 2020 (UTC)“This article was intended by its creator (myself) to be about the descent of the manor, i.e. the same format as in the Victoria County History series, under the heading "Manors". That's mainly (exclusively in the case of VCH) about genealogy.”
This section all seems to be duplicated from the Tottenham House page, perhaps as part of a strange pattern of page moves. In any event, Tottenham House is a house, certainly an aspect of the manor, but as it has its own page I see no reason why it can’t be dealt with in one short paragraph, with a link as above. Moonraker ( talk) 05:56, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
@ Agricolae, Lobsterthermidor, Moonraker, and SilkTork: per the last para in above transclusion, I've just nominated Manor of Tottenham, Wiltshire and Estate of Tottenham, Wiltshire for deletion at WP:RFD. I also made a few minor changes to this article to match those on the other. There were, as far as I could see, no significant changes to make to House of Seymour. — SMALL JIM 16:18, 25 September 2020 (UTC)