Prejudice & Pride: Celebrating LGBTQ Heritage

by Alison Oram, Matt Cook, Sarah Waters (Foreword)

Both celebratory and reflective, this captivating guidebook sheds light on the LGBTQ heritage of many National Trust people and places. It commemorates figures such as Vita Sackville-West and her husband Harold Nicolson, owners of Sissinghurst Castle in Kent, but also delves into the lives of lesser-known individuals associated with Trust landscapes and collections, such as William Bankes, who fled from his home at Kingston Lacy to avoid prosecution for homosexuality, and lived abroad for the last 15 years of his life. From Smallhythe, Monk's House and Nymans in the South East, to Mount Stewart in Northern Ireland and Ickworth in Suffolk, the Trust is exploring places that have been touched and shaped by the sexuality of their inhabitants, workers, owners and guests. This guidebook will bring to light turbulent stories of exile and tragedy, tales of loving relationships and family, and sometimes challenging histories of public front and private expression.

Genres: LGBT, Nonfiction

60 pages, Paperback

Published July 10, 2017

About the author

Alison Oram is Professor of Social and Cultural History at Leeds Beckett University and a leading scholar of gender and sexuality, popular culture, public history and intersections of these with LGBTQ heritage.

Reviews

[Isla · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read, but held back by its format of "60 page souvenir guide".

It whisks lightly over the subjects, never giving any one more than two pages of attention, which is nice for an introduction and a nudge in the right direction for further reading but left me frustrated more than once when something was mentioned and I wanted to know MORE! IMMEDIATELY!

As you'd expect from the National Trust, there is a definite class bias inherent in this exploration of LGBTQ heritage, but this admitted and explained nicely.

It's great that the National Trust is shining light on these more hidden histories of its properties, and I would love to see something more in depth from them on this topic.

[Barry Thorsness]

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