In June 2020, the statue of 17th-century slave trader Edward Colston was toppled in the southwestern city of Bristol in England. Before this, the statue sat on a plinth in a prominent public park, before being hauled into Bristol Harbour by Black Lives Matter protestors. This act has led to a long-overdue reckoning in the UK and other Western nations, a reckoning that has necessitated a deeper analysis of monuments that line cities, and how deeply imperialism can be interlinked with parts of the built environment. The ever-green question is, what do we do with these buildings?
The United Kingdom is home to a wide array of grand country houses – large mansions in the British countryside that typically belonged to the nobility or landed gentry. They have been popular leisure destinations, with people flocking to them to appreciate their architecture and landscaping. Before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, for instance, English Heritage sites had more than 10 million visitors each year.
