Paper short abstract

Bevere Manor, on the east bank of the Severn in Worcestershire, was transformed into a liminal landscape - simultaneously public and private - in the nineteenth century. This paper explores the processes that formed this landscape and how the landscape itself reified this liminal state.

Paper long abstract

The landscape of Bevere Manor on the east bank of the River Severn and north of the City of Worcester underwent a transformation in the mid-nineteenth century as the distinction between public and private life increased at the waning of the Georgian era and the onset of the Victorian. What had once been a working farm and a status symbol for successful gentleman farmers grew increasingly insular and hidden from the coarse world of commerce that plied the Severn. This process was wrought by changes to the landscape of the manor that rendered the Bevere household and the public waterway adjacent to it mutually invisible and disassociated.

However, the divide between these two realms was not discrete. Rather, the outskirts of the lands of the manor were transformed into a liminal space, simultaneously public and private. This paper will investigate the processes involved in the creation of this liminal landscape and how it functioned as a border between public and private.