Marble Hill:The Material Culture of Tea in Marble Hill House. London Luminaries s4. Dr Olivia Fryman

This talk by Marble Hill is the sixth in the London Luminaries series 4 entitled the material culture of tea at Marble Hill House.

When Marble Hill was built in the late 1720s, tea was the most fashionable refreshment in England. For Marble Hill’s first owner, Henrietta Howard, taking tea was not only an important part of her daily routine, it also provided opportunities for socialising, and for indulging her great passion for porcelain. This talk will explore Henrietta’s collecting habits, as well as the ways in which tea making permeated polite portraiture, particularly eighteenth-century ‘conservation pieces’ of families at the tea table.

Olivia Fryman is a Curator of Collections and Interiors at English Heritage, with responsibility for Down House, Eltham Palace and Ranger’s House. She also worked on the representation of Marble Hill. Olivia specialises in the study of late 17th and early 18th century material culture with particular focus on the royal court and the history of tea.

The Thames west of London has been the resort of royalty, aristocrats, artists, writers and wealthy property owners for centuries. As well as building elegant villas, they developed gardens which provided a feast for the senses and supplied food for the table.

In our own times, issues of the sustainability of food production and equity of its distribution are hot topics. In this series of 14 talks, we explore how food was produced and consumed in the past by our Luminaries to help inform discussions on the future of food and drink. Much food was produced locally; great houses such as Chiswick House and Fulham Palace had their own kitchen gardens and Alexander Pope boasted of the sources of his meat supply: ‘To Hounslow Heath I point, and Banstead-Down, / Thence comes your Mutton, and these chicks my own.’ Yet modern luxuries such as tea and coffee stretched supply chains around the globe. Wining and dining also provided hosts with opportunities to display their hospitality and particular taste through the choice of menu and table setting.

This varied banquet of 14 talks thus also explore cultural dimensions of food and drink.