A series of events on Saturday 23^rd June, including the launch of an online exhibition, have been organized at the National Trust Tyntesfield to update the public on the latest findings of our project.  ‘The Hispanic-Anglosphere: transnational networks, global communities (late 18^th-20^th centuries’ is bringing together historians in the British Isles, continental Europe, the Americas and Russia to develop a new critical conceptual framework – the ‘Hispanic-Anglosphere’ – to study individuals, networks and communities that made of the British Isles a crucial hub for the global Hispanic world and a bridge between Spanish Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas at a period marked by natural disasters, the dislocation of global polities, nation-state building and the rise of nationalism (late 18th to early 20th centuries).

Few people know, for example, that the founder of the neo-gothic Victorian mansion and parkland of Tyntesfield, William Gibbs, was born in Madrid and that his family made much of its fortune through trading Spanish wine and Peruvian guano. Throughout Saturday 23^rd June, visitors will have the chance to take a ‘Hispanic itinerary’ of the house, currently managed by the National Trust, as part of a pilot experience aimed at drawing wider attention to items within its collection (the largest of the National Trust) that most vividly illustrate the enduring entanglement of the Gibbs family with the global Hispanic world.

At 3:30 pm, the project will hold an open public meeting (at the Sawmill) to launch the online exhibition ‘Exploring the Hispanic-Anglosphere’ which has been prepared to provide through text, images and sound a small sample of the full extent of the contribution made by those who from any point of the British were closely engaged with the global Hispanic world, regardless of their birth, religion or political allegiance (often branded as ‘Hispanophiles’) as well as of those who came from the Hispanic world to the British Isles as visitors, exiles and/or migrants. The meeting will give the public the opportunity to learn more while also helping to shape future expert research with questions and suggestions.

To celebrate the occasion, those attending the open meeting at the Sawmill will be offered a little taste of Hispanic food (ex. a torta de aceite and a small shot of sherry or sangria, depending on the weather).

Free tickets for the open meeting on Saturday 23^rd June can be booked here  or call 01275 461 900. Visits to the house are only free for NT members.

For more about the project, visit http://hispanic-anglosphere.com  or contact Dr Graciela Iglesias-Rogers (g.iglesiasrogers@winchester.ac.uk ).