How Trennels was built.

[jackmerlin]

I know this has been brilliantly covered in fanfic, but I have been searching back through old threads and can't see that it has ever been discussed in a thread here. In Peter's Room we are told as a casual aside, that Trennels was built by a Joshua Marlow, who made his pile in the slave trade

Comments

[anonymous]

A lot of country houses were built in the past through money making activities that are similar to capitalism today. The Spencer earls were

[jackmerlin]

Interesting answer. As you say, not every country house was built off slavery, which makes me wonder again why AF wanted Trennels to have been.
Some fairly casual googling reveals Harewood House and Blairquhan Castle are still lived in by the families who first built them using slave money. (And Benedict Cumberbatch's family were plantation owners, as an interesting aside.)(ETA There's an idea - a grown-up Lawrie gets cast in a film with BC, real life cross-over fic?)
Given the connection with and interest in Nicholas that Nicola shows, I am curious as to what she may end up thinking about a much more recent ancestor.

[antfan]

Fascinating thread. I wonder if Forest might have visited a stately home which was funded by slave money? She was inspired by particular locations, I think, and as these were typically in the West country, maybe more likely to be owned by families connected to the slave trade (Bristol being a big centre

[antfan]

By the way, I think the fact that Forest mentions the slave-trading Joshua, but for no apparent plot reason, is one of the things I love about her writing. Of course it doesn't have to be there, and might make some readers uncomfortable, but makes her writing feel so true somehow.

[jackmerlin]

That's a really full and interesting answer. I like the ideas of complex links between modern characters and their ancestors, and the ambivalence the modern Marlows feel towards their role at Trennels

[antfan]

the younger sons who joined the Navy when the Navy was trying to catch and stop slave ships

Is there anything in Hornblower? That - or another naval novel - might have put this in AF's mind. I do like the idea of a family feud on the issue!