Paper short abstract:

Pengersick Castle, Cornwall, is transforming from home to museum. Instead of conforming to the cult of the country house, it is an eclectic mix of ontologies. Will it still be visitable while retaining all of its eccentricities, from dowsing to spiders webs?

Paper long abstract:

Pengersick Castle, Cornwall, is an ideal candidate for the "cult of the country house" (Smith 2006, 158), possessing a medieval granite tower set in pleasant gardens. Yet on the death of the last owner, the tower was left to trustees in order to "preserve the magic and mystery" of Pengersick as they opened it to the public, an approach which can best be summed up as "alternative". Research has encompassed archaeological, historical, folklore and literature strands. These sit with dowsing and ghost hunters and a policy of leaving spiders webs on show to make this an absorbing but complex place. This paper explores some of the guiding principles of the trust and the plans for transformation, to ask if they reconcile with Dicks' analysis of "Visitibility". Do the plans conform to just another representation of dominant culture, or do they truly offer something new?