How Britain's Own Army Destroyed More Country Houses Than The Luftwaffe скачать в хорошем качестве

How Britain's Own Army Destroyed More Country Houses Than The Luftwaffe

How Britain's Own Army Destroyed More Country Houses Than The Luftwaffe Between 1939 and 1955, Britain lost more country houses than in the previous four centuries combined. But the Luftwaffe wasn't responsible. When war broke out, over 1,500 of England's grandest estates were requisitioned by the British government. Stately homes that had survived the English Civil War, the agricultural depression, and two world wars became barracks, training camps, and ammunition depots overnight. What happened next was never supposed to be made public. Parliamentary records reveal a pattern of destruction that shocked even wartime officials: carved staircases burned for firewood, hand grenades thrown into greenhouses for sport, live ammunition fired into irreplaceable plasterwork. At one Derbyshire estate, departing troops left every tap running. The resulting water damage destroyed a house that had stood for two centuries. By 1955, one country house was being demolished every five days. One in six of all the great houses that existed in 1900 had been erased from the English landscape. This is the story no one tells about Britain's heritage. The houses that survived German bombs but couldn't survive their own army. The families who returned to find their homes gutted. And the quiet catastrophe that reshaped the English countryside forever. — 📚 Sources: Parliamentary Hansard records (October 1942), Army Council Instructions, National Trust archives, Lost Heritage database #BritishHistory #CountryHouses #WWII #EnglishHeritage #Documentary #HiddenHistory #StatelyHomes #WorldWarII #HistoryDocumentary