By Katie Tobin
During my initial year of university, I experienced a sense of boredom, which I attributed to my living situation. Unlike most students, our flat lacked a communal dining area, making meals even more isolated. However, I found solace in the fact that my halls of residence offered a picturesque view of the South Downs – rolling hills and dense woodlands outside my window.
To escape this loneliness, I delved into campus fiction as a form of literary refuge. Authors like Vladimir Nabokov, Jeffrey Eugenides, Donna Tartt, Elif Batuman, and, most notably, Evelyn Waugh captured my imagination. While Waugh’s Oxford differed greatly from my own campus with its aggressive brutalism, a manor house reminiscent of Brideshead Castle was located nearby. After finishing our daily lectures, my friends and I would often stroll around the grounds, envisioning how we would decorate our future homes. Brideshead, as portrayed in Julian Jarrold’s 2008 film adaptation, constantly came to mind.
Even a few minutes of Jarrold’s Brideshead Revisited evoke the reasons why I idealized academic life for so long. The film’s first half portrays the idyllic Oxford experiences of Charles Ryder (Matthew Goode) and Lord Sebastian Flyte (Ben Whishaw) punting down the Cherwell, enjoying late-night wine, eating strawberries, and smoking amidst the backdrop of lakeside elms.
Brideshead, the ancestral home of the Flyte family, displays its opulence throughout. We witness Sebastian luxuriating in a green and gold mosaic-filled bathroom, and his sister Julia (Hayley Atwell) reclining on a chaise longue, surrounded by flickering candles. As a hereditary Irish Catholic, I’ve always been drawn to religious interiors, and Brideshead’s Pre-Raphaelite chapel with its ornate filigree and vibrant colors, including William Morris designs on a golden tabernacle, is no exception.
Regardless of the portrayal of Brideshead – be it Jarrold’s film, Waugh’s novel, or the 1981 mini-series starring Jeremy Irons – its allure lies not only in the mansion’s grandeur but also in its ability to nurture intimate shared rituals. Charles reminisces about the “languor of Youth” during a summer vacation at Brideshead, a phrase that resonates with my own misadventures with friends and partners in the various houses I’ve lived in. While none of my student accommodations offered fountains to skinny dip in or picturesque fields to frolic through, I would have certainly embraced those experiences if given the opportunity.
Naturally, after seven years as a student, it’s only fitting that my dream home is inspired by a campus novel. However, just like Brideshead, the prospect of a permanent home seems like an indulgent fantasy. Even as a lecturer, a role I once naively assumed would provide more financial stability than it does, my sense of home remains tied to transience. Renting and living without a fixed income means that nowhere is truly permanent – a lesson I learned repeatedly during my involvement with a tenants’ union.
Nonetheless, I consider adorning my space, regardless of its size or duration, as an act of defiance. I decorate my rooms with personal belongings, including handwritten notes, framed prints, dried flowers, postcards, cinema and concert tickets, and a plethora of books. It’s a way of exerting control over my living environment, even if it doesn’t technically belong to me. These material possessions serve as mementos of memories created with loved ones, echoing Waugh’s idea that “we possess nothing certainly except the past.”
Sebastian abandons his belongings and Brideshead to sever ties with his family, whereas I yearn for my home to be a shrine that celebrates everything and everyone I cherish. Regardless of our religious disparities, the Flyte family and I share a common form of devotion within our homes. They dedicate themselves to God, while I dedicate myself to the people I welcome inside. To me, there is nothing more fantastical than a home that reflects that sentiment.
Photography: Alamy
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