Strangely, it is the first time I have been asked to lecture on the Castle Howard mausoleum, a mere thirty three years after I published a book with a chapter, the key chapter of the book, on it.
I still find it a profoundly moving building – so considered, so resonant, so full of intent:-
| Charles | Saumarez | Smith | 
I’m sure this is a generational thing but I can never see photos of Castle Howard without hearing Geoffrey Burgon’s music from the 1981 TV adaptation of Brideshead Revisited. I was a textiles student in Manchester when if first aired and the six of us who shared a house gathered in the communal kitchen to watch it on a black and white TV (we couldn’t afford a colour TV license). It was a revelation to later see it in colour!
Yes, I think it did deeply influence the way the house, more than the mausoleum, was viewed and probably inaugurated the 1980s cult of the country house. Charles