Roy Strong is no stranger to a challenge. After all, he is the museum maverick who revolutionised both the National Portrait Gallery and the V&A – and the writer of diaries that, when published in the 1990s, caused not so much a stir as a full-scale whirlpool. Yet, even he admits that looking after Eastnor Castle would be tough.
‘It’s a difficult house,’ he says. ‘Things like the first entrance and being confronted with a great staircase are quite difficult. You couldn’t live in the main bit at all.’ He pauses. ‘But James [Hervey-Bathurst] has done a fantastic job with it. Don’t forget, it was down to be demolished.’
Strong is one of the few people who have witnessed Eastnor’s transformation over the decades. A Ledbury local (a few years ago he sold his lauded property The Laskett and moved down the road), he has seen the castle evolve from boarded-up shell to opulent private-hire venue and popular day-visitor destination.
‘When I first went there, [James’s] parents were living in a tower. The rest of the house had been abandoned,’ he says. ‘A lot of it was then done by Bernard Nevill, who was a brilliant fabric designer. He was one of the real people of the ’60s – really terribly important. But James has had to turn it around and turn it into a full-time business. He works his pants off.’
Roy Strong as director of the National Portrait Gallery in 1969, © National Portrait Gallery, London
Saving Eastnor from destruction has been no mean feat. It has taken almost three generations of castle custodians to restore it painstakingly, room by room, to the grandeur it has today. But it was Roy Strong himself, a lifelong champion of country houses, who catalysed the change in public perception about them – a zeitgeist shift that made country piles like Eastnor seem worth saving.
In 1974, as director of the V&A, he commissioned and curated The Destruction of the Country House, 1875–1975. It was an explosive exhibition that focused the public’s attention on the fate of England’s historic homes; as he himself describes it, ‘it was a huge landmark moment’.
At the time, preserving country houses with their contents intact was far from a public priority. A new Labour government had been elected, promising wealth redistribution and higher inheritance taxes on estates – even as houses were disappearing at a rate of one or two per week, according to Country Life.
Thorington Hall before demolition...
... And after. Both images courtesy of Matthew Beckett / Lost Heritage (lostheritage.org.uk)
So, Roy Strong did what Roy Strong does best: thought about things differently, and convinced the world to do the same. He was already familiar with how to attract attention; an immersive 1968 Cecil Beaton exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, done in collaboration with exhibition designer and ballet critic Richard Buckle (‘who was absolutely outrageous but brilliant’), had drawn crowds, including Mick Jagger and the Queen Mother. He channelled the same flamboyant theatrics into the Country House exhibition.
‘The most stunning thing in that exhibition was the façade of a country house, every block of which was a photograph of one which had been destroyed and demolished,’ he says. ‘People just stood there with tears running down their faces. And all you heard was the sound of crashing timbers and then a litany of the 800 houses which had been destroyed. People came out the other end absolutely knocked sideways.’
But the impact of the exhibition went beyond an emotional stir. It helped to shift public attitudes. People began to view country houses as essential parts of the national fabric; culture that needed to be preserved and protected for future generations. Soon after, new mechanisms emerged to help houses survive – conditional-exemption tax arrangements, heritage grants and public opening schemes. The rate of country house demolition plummeted to one or two a year.
At the same time, Eastnor was on its knees. Post-war inheritance taxes had reduced it to a shell of its former self and it was struggling with a reputation as a High Victorian horror (it wasn’t). As with many country houses at this point, it needed to find its purpose; as Strong puts it, ‘it has to change for the society that inherited it’.
The cultural shift instigated by Strong, coupled with rising affluence and economic recovery in the 1980s, paved the path for the renewal and restoration of Eastnor. The Hervey-Bathursts moved in and slowly put the place back on its feet, restoring its splendour and diversifying it into a venue and visitor attraction – and in doing so, found Eastnor’s 21st-century purpose.
In more recent history (September 2025, to be precise), Strong was once again at Eastnor Castle. But this time, he was here to celebrate his 90th birthday alongside 50 guests he has known for decades – including author AN Wilson, and the creator of the National Portrait Gallery Australia, who flew in for the occasion.
‘We had the reception in that marvellous gilded Pugin room, with champagne and canapés,’ he says. ‘And then [for lunch] the tables were all for four – not more than eight – otherwise nobody speaks to anybody, and they can’t speak across. It was all done exactly as I would wish it – to the height of what I call elegance.’
For a man who once staged the sound of crashing timbers inside the V&A, a birthday lunch might seem a quieter affair. But his instincts are the same. Context matters. Atmosphere matters. Conversation is everything.
Eastnor may still be, as he puts it, ‘a difficult house’. But then the most fascinating houses usually are. Like Roy Strong himself, Eastnor has never had much interest in doing things the easy way.