Work & Play, Life On The Yorkshire Country House Estate, Harewood House until November 2

Not so at Harewood House, where 300 bales are playing a key role in a new exhibition at the country house estate near Leeds, courtesy of the research work of University of York PhD student Tim Tatlioglu.

Nigh on 250 years have passed since the foundation stone of Harewood House was laid in 1759, and this imminent anniversary has prompted the Work & Play, Life On The Country House Estate exhibition, an exploration of Harewood House and its estate in the wider landscape.

As part of the exhibition, the University of York has produced a 3D visualisation of Gawthorpe Hall, the predecessor of Harewood House, from a geophysical survey of the southern landscape.

Here is where the aforementioned straw bales come into play. While the majority of the exhibition is concentrated in the Terrace Gallery, the shape of the long-demolished Gawthorpe Hall building, with its 60-metre frontage, ranges and formal gardens, has been outlined outside in its original position in lines of bales.

“It’s the first time that a house, hall or building of that sort has been outlined within an historic house context,” says Tim.

“We thought it would be an interesting way of interpreting and disseminating this information from the research.”

Since 2006, Tim has spent time in the landscape around Harewood House, mapping its developments over the 18th and 19th centuries. Tim, 25, has undertaken this survey as the centrepiece of his course work for his PhD in a collaboration between the university’s archaeology department and the arts and humanities research council of the Harewood House Trust.

“The very interesting dynamic of this collaborative PhD is that both parties benefit,” he says. “From my end, I get a PhD, and that links in with a wider estate project that has been running in the archaeology department under Dr Jonathon Finch for four years.

“On the other side of the coin, the results of my work or any other work done on the estate can be passed on to the public.

“I very much like being able to convey what I’ve learnt, like on the two walking talks on Mapping The 18th Century Landscape at Harewood that I did last Sunday and Monday, rather than just providing blocks of text.”

Gawthorpe Hall was built in 1480 and demolished in 1771, having lain in a ruinous state for three years, blocking the views of the Lascelles family from their newly built home of Harewood House.

“All the history books had said Gawthorpe Hall was lost beneath the lake, but from the survey that myself and a colleague finished in January, we have used the results that we believe are fairly conclusive to distinguish the outline of where the old hall really was,” says Tim.

“The site beneath the lake was published in a couple of antiquarian sources and two geophysics studies by Bradford University and Keele University, which had found archaeological traces. But our non-invasive survey was the first on a scale large enough to say what we thought was the full outline of the hall and it certainly fits contemporary illustrations.”

Meanwhile, in the centre of the Terrace Gallery, a floor map will orientate visitors and direct them to images of Harewood including watercolours, architectural plans and photographs from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries and two important, large historic maps.

In June, electronic media artist Susan Collins installed a webcam, overlooking Harewood’s classical ‘Capability’ Brown landscape, to record images of the landscape and digital prints have since been produced with each image made up of pixels collected over 21.33 hours.

While her work explores the relationship between landscape, time and technology, The Work & Play theme is continued outside through a series of walks and talks.

This series has been devised to take visitors around the estate and village and incorporates views of buildings, including the icehouse, kitchen garden, glasshouses, lodges, Harewood church, and the village houses and farms.

On October 3, between 2pm and 4pm, Dr Ivan Hall, a leading expert in the history of Harewood village, will lead visitors around the housing built by York architect John Carr in the 18th century as a model village.

Tickets for Harewood Village: A Walk and Talk with Dr Ivan Hall cost £14.50, and guided tours of Harewood House can be pre-booked too on 0113 218 1010.

For all walks sensible footwear and waterproof clothing are recommended.

“The most important thing about the Work & Play exhibition is to understand that until recently country houses were considered to be isolated, both physically and socially, but the reality is that the village communities maintained the estate farms, the house and the lifestyle of the family, so through Work & Play you begin to hear and understand the forgotten voices that were generally underplayed,” says Tim.

• Work & Play, Life On The Yorkshire Country House Estate, runs at Harewood House until November 2. Opening hours: house, gallery and terrace café, 11am to 4.30pm; grounds and gardens, 10am to 6pm.