Modern Times
Powderham Castle has been a Grade I listed building since 1952, and recognised as an internationally important structure. The staircase, hall, music room and master bedroom of the house were used as locations for the 1993 film The Remains of the Day. The house was also used as a setting for a recent film comedy, Churchill: The Hollywood Years.
The castle's licence to host wedding ceremonies was revoked with effect from 1 January 2009 after Hugh Courtenay, 18th Earl of Devon, refused a gay couple use of the building to hold their civil partnership ceremony because it did not fit with his religious beliefs. It is still used as a venue for wedding receptions. On 29 September 2009, the Earl auctioned 113 treasures from the castle, at Sotheby's in London, in order to cover debts accrued in running the 14th-century home. The sale of family silver, furniture, antiques and paintings made a total of £1,013,638.
Read more about this topic: Powderham Castle
Famous quotes containing the words modern times, modern and/or times:
“How little do the most wonderful inventions of modern times detain us. They insult nature. Every machine, or particular application, seems a slight outrage against universal laws.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Any historian of the literature of the modern age will take virtually for granted the adversary intention, the actually subversive intention, that characterizes modern writing—he will perceive its clear purpose of detaching the reader from the habits of thought and feeling that the larger culture imposes, of giving him a ground and a vantage point from which to judge and condemn, and perhaps revise, the culture that produces him.”
—Lionel Trilling (1905–1975)
“Simply because our times are complex, does it follow that our parenting must also be? Must we reject the common sense that what worked so well in the past just because our times are high-tech? We live in such fear of being called “old-fashioned” that we are cutting ourselves off from that which is proven.”
—Fred G. Gosman (20th century)