had changed. A large public appeal assured the preservation of Tyntesfield in 2002, and in 2007, Dumfries House and its collection were saved, after protracted appeals and debates. Today, demolition has ceased to be a realistic, or legal, option for listed buildings, and an historic house (particularly one with its contents intact) has become recognized as worthy of retention and preservation. However, many country houses are still at risk, and their security, even as an entirety with their contents, is not guaranteed by any legislation. Impoverished owners and a plethora of country houses When Evelyn Waugh's novel Brideshead Revisited, portraying life in the English country house, was published in 1945, its first few chapters offered a glimpse of an exclusive and enviable world, a world of beautiful country houses with magnificent contents, privileged occupants, a profusion of servants and great wealth. Yet, in its final chapters, Brideshead's author accurately documented a changing and fading world, a world in which the country house as a symbol of power, privilege and a natural order, was not to exist. As early as June 1940, while Britain was embroiled in the early days of World War II, The Times, confident of future victory, advised its readers that "a new order cannot be based on the preservation of privilege, whether the privilege be that of a county, a class, or an individual." Thus it was after the end of the war, as the government handed back the requisitioned, war-torn and frequently dilapidated mansions to their often demoralised and impoverished owners; it was during a period of not just mounting taxation, to pay for a costly war, but also a time when it seemed all too clear that the old order had passed. In this political climate, many felt it the only option to abandon their ancestral piles. Thus, following the cessation of hostilities, the trickle of demolitions which had begun in the earlier part of the century became a torrent of destruction. Destroying buildings of national or potential national importance was not an act peculiar to the 20th century in Britain. The demolition in 1874 of Northumberland House, London, a prime example of English Renaissance architecture, passed without significant comment. Town houses such as Northumberland House were highly visible displays of wealth and political power, so consequently more likely to be the victims of changing fashions. The difference in the 20th century was that the