• Introduction
• Early Views
• Russia
• The Crimean War
• The British Museum
• Excursions to Scotland and Wales
• Royal Portraits
• Sacred and Secular Architecture
• Orientalist Studies
• Stately Homes and Landscapes
• Late Works
• Final Years
• Selected Highlights
• Exhibition Information

Stately Homes and Landscapes, 1858 – 1860

Hardwick Hall, from the South East (detail) 1858, albumen silver print H. H. Richardson Collection, Frances Loeb Library, Harvard Design School

In the late 1850s, Fenton focused his interest in architecture on Britain's stately country houses, photographing Hardwick Hall and Wollaton Hall, both built in the late sixteenth century; neoclassical Harewood House of the eighteenth century; and Mentmore House, completed for the Baron de Rothschild only a few years before Fenton photographed its billiard room. The proud owners undoubtedly delighted in having Fenton, the most celebrated photographer in Britain, record their homes. He used the opportunities to offer glimpses into the lives of upper-class Victorians and reveal British prosperity and pride.

In 1860, Fenton traveled to the Lake District, a favorite tourist destination celebrated for its beauty by British painters and poets, most notably its native son Wordsworth. At the time, travel guides frequently included extensive quotations from literary and poetic descriptions of the area, which served as both a guide to the region and a souvenir of its pleasures. Fenton and other photographers realized that their photographs could function in much the same way, and he recorded many of the principal tourist destinations, including the Newby Bridge and Lake Derwentwater.