Echoes of slavery... the stately home connection
PA258/13 Image of Bolsover Castle courtesy of English Heritage It may be over two hundred years since the abolition of the British slave trade but now untold stories about the trade's links to stately homes in the East Midlands and Yorkshire have come to light thanks to researchers at The University of Nottingham and English Heritage. The research by the University's School of Geography and Department of History was commissioned by English Heritage as part of a nationwide investigation of the slavery connections of English country houses. The work appears in a new book by English Heritage, Slavery and the British Country House edited by Madge Dresser and Andrew Hann which is published today. This new history also appears in exhibitions and guidebooks in English Heritage properties across the country. Unravelling an historical taboo. The two country houses under the microscope in relation to possible involvement in the Atlantic slave trade and connections to slavery of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries are Bolsover Castle in Derbyshire and Brodsworth Hall near Doncaster. Dr Sheryllynne Haggerty from the Department of History and Dr Susanne Seymour from the School of Geography have investigated the estates' links with slavery and the slave trade and the attitudes to slave-related wealth of the owners of these famous properties.
