Exhibition: Country Houses, Jewish Homes

Country Houses, Jewish Homes is the result of a 4-year research project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council which commenced in October 2019. The Exhibition was curated by Professor Abigail Green, from Oxford University, and Marcus Roberts, originator of the JTrails website, which includes Brighton & Hove.

Country houses are powerful symbols of national identity, evoking the glamorous world of the landowning aristocracy and its feudal origins. By contrast, this project focuses on a hitherto unidentified group of country houses in the UK and continental Europe: those owned, renewed and sometimes built by Jews and those of Jewish origin. Some are now museums of international importance, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors each year; many more have been demolished or repurposed. A few are modern ruins, hovering still between memory and oblivion, such as Nymans (pictured).

This project, which emerges from close partnerships with the heritage sector, is the first attempt to write these houses and their owners back into British, European and Jewish history and to establish their importance as sites of European – and Jewish - memory. More details can be found at https://jch.history.ox.ac.uk/. A book about the project will be published in November, and can be pre-ordered on Amazon.

The exhibition will be on display at Ralli Hall, 81 Denmark Villas, Hove BN3 3TH at the following times:

Monday 15th April from 2.00 to 5.00pm, and on Tuesday 16th April from 10.00am to 1.00pm and 2.00 to 5.00pm.

On Tuesday 16th it will then reopen at 7.00pm, followed at 8.00pm for a talk by Professor Green about the project (this will be streamed and you can join via Zoom). There will be an opportunity to view the Exhibition and to socialise before the talk, so please join us from 7.00pm for tea and coffee, cakes and biscuits, the talk will start at 8.00pm. 

We very much look forward to welcoming you at Ralli Hall or on Zoom for this event.