Changing Faces

Britain’s country houses were almost like the pop music divas of today, constantly being reinvented for different eras as fashions waxed and waned. Yet rather than clothing or make-up changing from year to year, it was the interiors and even the very architecture of these already-grand properties that were given a regular facelift.

These homes belonged to the celebrities of their day too. They were owned by the swashbuckling, hedonistic aristocratic dynasties and frequented by the suitors and socialites that the landed gentry sought to impress with the latest décor and fixtures.

Wilton House is the perfect example of this peculiar practice where the most historic houses and the families who could trace their lineage back the longest were the slaves to fads and fashions. This constant state of reinvention gifted us not just one old castle that’s stayed the same since the