Dream role on offer at Harewood House
Yorkshire stately home featured in hit TV series Victoria seeks new head of collections and exhibitions
JOB: The charity that runs Harewood House has launched a search for the ideal candidate to oversee its historic collections and help to tell the fascinating stories behind one of Britain’s most treasured stately homes.
The 18th century property recently playing a starring role as the backdrop for ITV’s lavish production of Victoria.
IT IS one of Britain’s most treasured stately homes, recently playing a starring role as the backdrop for ITV’s lavish production of Victoria.
Now, the charity that runs Harewood House has launched a search for the ideal candidate to oversee its historic collections and help to tell the fascinating stories behind the 18th century property.
The Harewood House Trust is advertising for a new head of collections and exhibitions – a dream job for many – which will see the successful candidate curate its priceless artefacts and promote them to a wider audience.
While there has always been someone to oversee the collections, the role has been expanded to include developing inspirational and exciting experiences for visitors in an effort to encourage more people to explore the home’s cultural riches.
Jane Marriott, director of the Harewood House Trust, who comes from a background working in galleries and museums, said: “The idea of storytelling using our collection is really important.
“We are looking for someone with the academic skills and experience to look after our collections, including our Renaissance paintings and beautiful objects, but also someone who is going to tell people the story of Harewood.
“It is about care and preservation, but also storytelling and the ability to create great programmes.”
Mrs Marriott said the ideal candidate would also form partnerships with the region’s schools, colleges and universities and take inspiration from Harewood’s extensive grounds and beautiful gardens.
“It’s not just about the house and its great works of art, but the beautiful landscapes surrounding it. We want someone who can tell the story inside and outside – that’s highly important to us as well,” she said.
Harewood House is renowned for its magnificent Robert Adam interiors. It also boasts an impressive range of Thomas Chippendale furniture and a world-class collection of paintings by, among others, JMW Turner, Reynolds, Titian and El Greco. However, recently the stakes have been upped a little.
The estate was among a number of Yorkshire locations which provided the setting for the ITV series Victoria with various rooms at Harewood standing in for both Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace as Jenna Coleman’s young queen took her first – and sometimes faltering – steps as a monarch.
Its current programme sees the stately home play host to a Victorian exhibition, which organisers hope will cast new light on an often overlooked chapter in the history of the house and the people who have lived there.
It is this initiative – to use the series as a springboard to explore that same era in the life of the house – that forms an important part of the new role.
Mrs Marriott said: “Queen Victoria came to stay here as a young princess. It’s about telling visitors ‘this is the bed she slept in’ so visitors can really picture her visit to the house.
“We have also got a lovely first edition of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s
Adventures in Wonderland, which was Queen Victoria’s favourite, so we are going to create a programme of events for families around Alice, which includes an opportunity to feature the estate’s flamingos, as they appear in the book.
“It’s about picking out wonderful objects from our archives and building up these stories around them and really bringing them to life.”
We are looking for someone who is going to tell the story of Harewood.
Jane Marriott, director of the Harewood House Trust.