An Indian Walk Through the Cotswolds

Talk description: In this illustrated talk, Professor Corinne Fowler describes an Indian walk through the Cotswolds, featured in her book Our Island Stories: Country Walks Through Colonial Britain (Penguin, 2024). The walk begins in Bourton-on-the-Hill and crosses formerly enclosed fields, part-purchased with East India Company wealth. Continuing from here along the Heart of England Way, the path leads to Sezincote Manor, owned by two Cockerell brothers who each took different routes through the East India Company: one military and one financial. Corinne will explain what these brothers were doing in India and what they did when they got back home. The talk focuses on the human stories involved both here and in India and covers the brothers’ East India Company Cotswold neighbours as well as the architectural history of Sezincote Manor.

Corinne Fowler is Professor of Colonialism and Heritage in Museum Studies at the University of Leicester. In 2020 Corinne co-authored an audit of peer-reviewed research about National Trust properties’ connections to empire, which galvanized the heritage sector to address its colonial stories and became a major media story. The report won the Museums and Heritage Special Recognition Award, 2022 and an Eastern Eye Award 2023. Before this, Corinne directed Colonial Countryside: National Trust Houses Reinterpreted, a child-led history and writing project (2018-2022), resulting in a book of commissioned writing called Colonial Countryside (Peepal Tree Press, July 2024) which was funded by Arts Council England. Corinne’s new book Our Island Stories: Country Walks Through Colonial Britain was published on 2 May 2024 by Penguin Allen Lane.