Disclaimer: my comment at the end of the video, specifically about American tourists, comes from my experience of volunteering as a Room Steward at Wentworth Woodhouse, a huge stately home in South Yorkshire (please watch my walk around Wentworth village). Obviously, over the years I’ve been interacting with visitors to the house, there are many more visitors from the UK than from the US and yet, I can count on one hand the number of British visitors who’ve turned up close to closing time who, passive aggressively, take their time to look around the house and then want to explore the garden etc, thinking that, because they’ve paid, they think the house should stay open that little bit longer. Despite the much smaller number of American visitors to the house, it’s amazing how many times this has happened with Americans. The last occasion was as I was walking to the car park after the house had closed and a taxi pulled up with several Americans in it so I informed them that the house was closed. Their response was that they’d visited several homes and had dashed over to Wentworth hoping to visit. I said they could always come back the next day if they’re still in the area but they said they’ll reluctantly take a few selfies of the place from the outside. It seemed so shallow, crass and demeaning that they appeared to see the visit as little more than a tick box exercise - get a few selfies in front of the house and then onto the next attraction. These places aren’t theme parks (although they may have theme parks on their land like Alton Towers), they have a long, varied and often convoluted history that is important to be understood and which is as vital as the bricks and mortar and surrounding landscape. Fortunately I see many American RU-vidrs who do seem genuinely interested in the history of these unique places.👍🏻
PS: the oldest part of Chatsworth House, the Baroque section, was completed in 1707.
1 окт 2024
