In the cellars of one of England’s grandest country houses will be a recreation of a university library destroyed by militants in Mosul, Iraq. In a nearby corridor are copies of a bestseller censored by the Pentagon. Upstairs a book banned in China has been inserted in a bookcase of innocuous 19th century volumes.

The displays are at the National Trust’s Blickling Estate, part of an immersive six-month art project exploring the importance of books, which opens to the public on Tuesday.



For some, it may not sound very National Trust. But for organisers it completely fits in with the trust’s mission to programme things that can be bold, provocative and surprising.

A copy of Winnie the Pooh has been placed in a bookcase of 19th century books to highlight it being banned in China. Photograph: Rah Petherbridge Photography

“Our underlying intention is to challenge our visitors,” said Helen Bailey, general manager of the Blickling Estate in north Norfolk. “To try to make them think differently about some of the things the National Trust has to do in order to look after these places for everyone.”

Blickling has one of the most important country house libraries in the UK, around 12,500 books acquired in the mid-18th century which have been plagued by damp and deathwatch beetle for years.

But the project also fits in well with the wishes of the man who gave the magnificent Jacobean house and estate to the trust in 1940. He was Lord Lothian, a politician and during the early years of the war, the UK’s ambassador to the US.

He was the driving force behind the laws which allowed the transfer of country houses to the state in lieu of death duties. Importantly he stipulated that Blickling should be a place from which arts could go forth.

The new art installation is the work of the innovative theatre company Les Enfants Terribles, a group that normally works with actors.

Rather than just focus on the story of Blickling and its books, the project leader, Joe Hufton, said he was keen to tell wider contemporary stories about the threats to books and libraries across the world.



So visitors will stoop to get in the normally out-of-bounds cellar to enter a recreation of the university library in Mosul that was destroyed by Isis militants. After it was liberated, students carefully retrieved and saved around 2,000 volumes from the ashes.

Upstairs a copy of Winnie the Pooh has been placed in a bookcase of 19th century books to highlight it being banned in China after unflattering comparisons were made between the bear and the Chinese premier, Xi Jinping.

In a servants’ corridor are 14 copies of a 2010 book by US army Lt Col Anthony Shaffer, Operation Dark Heart, the memoirs of his five-month tour in Afghanistan. They are displayed to show how heavily redacted they were by the Pentagon.

In the Blickling library itself hundreds of books tumble defiantly across the floor. Ten minutes’ walk from the mansion, is a garden temple that has been given dramatically pink windows above a display that shines light on books in danger of being lost for ever.

A garden temple has been given dramatically pink windows. Photograph: Rah Petherbridge Photography

Hufton, an associate artist with Les Enfants Terribles, had been doing consultancy work with the National Trust before being approached to pitch for the Blickling commission.

“I was in two minds because I had really good year causing problems for the National Trust by asking questions I never had to answer.

“I go into a consultancy session saying its really easy ... rip up the ropes and let people go everywhere, everyone relax. Actually when you have to solve the problems it is a really different thing.”

• The Word Defiant is at Blickling Estate 1 May-28 October.