Archive for the 'Architecture' Category

We
have just had a very enjoyable evening at Moggerhanger House in Bedfordshire, where
as a current trustee I had been asked to help develop the cultural profile of
the historic house which has been beautifully restored over a number of years
by the Moggerhanger House Preservation Trust. The trust took on the restoration
from the Christian ministries (Harvest Vision) who gave Moggerhanger a purpose
after it had languished in a state of semi-dereliction after closure as a
hospital. The restoration led by architect Peter Inskip has taken this
masterpiece (designed by one of Britain’s leading architects, Sir John Soane,
one of my great personal heroes) back to something like its original form, with
all Soane’s ingenious, even playful use of space and light. As well being
involved in the trust’s general overseeing of this remarkable house, I have been
asked to help with the furnishing of the rooms, which can still be used for
events. Indeed our proudest achievement has been to furnish over twenty
bedrooms, helped by Jonathan Miles of Trumpington Gallery in Cambridge, with
antiques acquired from auctions and second hand shops: the result is
dazzling; the beds of course are new and very comfy. These can now be used by
conference and wedding parties. We have also re-furnished the old library for
use as a sitting room and introduced new books on architectural history and art
for visitors to enjoy – including our new book of essays on Moggerhanger Park
published in December 2012. We have been thinking of ways to help “curate”
Moggerhanger as a place of cultural resort and, at my suggestion, but with the critically
important help of Mary Burt and the very game Friends of Moggerhanger Park, we held a dedicated
Jane Austen evening at the house – the house was finished 200 years ago last
year, and Pride and Prejudice was
published 200 years ago this year so there is a synchronicity. A kind friend
and theatre director Steve Siddall devised a performed set of readings by the
talented young actress Emerald O’Hanrahan (the voice of Emma in the Archers), with selections from Austen’s
novels, her juvenile writings and letters. This was performed in the Eating
Room, newly restored after a beam had to be replaced, and accompanied with harp
music played by Armande Fryatt, and a performance of Regency dance by costumed
dancers. We were somewhat caught out by the enthusiasm of take-up and were sold
out a week in advance. Chairman of trustees the Countess of Erroll held a
buffet supper at Woodbury Hall for those attending the Austen event, and the whole party had a great
atmosphere: there is no probably better way for a Regency country house of this
character to be than thronged with happy, laughing people enjoying
entertainment and company, with food, music, wine and a sun setting against the
trees of Repton’s park. Emerald was a captivating performer and I think the
event left an impression on the whole audience – and the house too.

Best
Book: Rereading Charles Dickens, David
Copperfield, wept twice while reading the early chapters.

Best
Exhibitions Seen: Pompeii and Herculaneum at the BM & the Hermitage at
Houghton

Look
out for: my article on Jane Austen and Bonomi in this year’s Georgian Group
Journal, published at the end of May

Cambridge looks pretty good in the snow, but the pavements get alarmingly icy after a while. But it is curious how attractive it makes everything look, different cleaner, more unified. The melting of the snow has left all the fields around Cambridge very wet and the Cam fairly high.

I have been working on my forthcoming book The English Country House Drawing Room, which I am enjoying hugely, tracing the elusive origins of this important room type in inventories and other sources; the book will also include a selection of important drawing rooms in English country houses newly photographed.

Another project took me to the research department of the Imperial War Museum reading the correspondence of a first war officer Lt Col Herbert Trevor, who wrote regular letters home to his parents, Sir Francis and Lady Trevor, I am looking for the references to his home, but am immensely moved by the evidence of a life of full of action, promise and a sense of courage, dreadfully wasted when he is killed in 1917.

One of the threads I followed was the story of the horses he took out from Oxfordshire, and whose health and condition are frequently referred to until they were both killed by the same shell. His parents send out two dogs, who find life at the front quite hard, but are useful ratters. One is smuggled out in a general’s kit bag; much care is taken in trying to get the dogs home.

The handwriting gets increasingly looser as the young officer becomes more and more tired by endless trench warfare, and then a last note to his parents, I am well; then the notice of his death in action. What a terrible waste it all seems nearly a hundred years later. There is something very personal about the letters; it is a privilege to read them. I feel humbled.

Best Play: saw Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya at the Vaudeville with Sam West and Anna Friel, hugely enjoyed.

Recent articles: The Liberal Use of Colour: the history of the National Liberal Club and Anyone for Drinks in the Library, both in Country Life magazine.

New Book: pleased to announce the publication of Moggerhanger Park, which I have co-edited with Jane Brown with essays by a group of distinguished authors on the history of this important Sir John Soane designed house

July
On July 4, we celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary with a cocktail at the Ritz and supper at the Wolseley. It doesn’t seem 20 years at all – life has been so full.
On the first weekend of July I contributed to a panel in a conference on amateur theatricals convened by Professor Judith Hawley of Royal Holloway at the London hq of the University of Notre Dame; I am very interested in the different ways in which country houses were used for entertainment and creativity in their history – the day ended with a performance of one of the late Georgian romantic comedies popular in the Regency country house. Papers were wide ranging and scholarly and one of the most surprising was given by Dr Hugh Denard about using digital imaging to recreate the private theatricals performed in an ancient Roman villa.
The following week I had the great excitement of rowing in the Cambridge Town Bumps for the first time in a crew under the aegis of the Champion of the Thames Club, we were the very modest novice-and-new-recruits crew, the 9th Men’s Boat; we have been rowing together as an eight only since Easter (three of us complete novices), but have enjoyed having a goal, and the good offices of Oliver Harwood and David Levien as coaches; we chose the name Automaton in honour of our Greek stroke and our hope that we can row like a robot; we earn a place after our first timed race, and are entered in the Bumps with a new cox, Jane Risdall; we begin at the bottom of the bottom Men’s Division: I am happy to say that we bumped each night, “earned our blades” and on the last day rowed as the sandwich boat in the next division, and bumped again, five bumps in a row something of a club record. This has been one of the proudest achievements of my life – I was not much of a sportsman as a child, too much of a day dreamer and always the last to be picked for teams; I can never thank our coaches or my fellow crew members enough. Our gallant men’s captain, Gez Wynn Story supported us through the week and made a video for anyone who might be amused to see it – this shows the fourth bump which is what you need to do, to “earn our blades”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pagQnf3MJ58&feature=youtu.be

May

One of the highlights of May was attending the retirement event for Brian Allen of the Paul Mellon Centre in London, held at the Royal Academy, a gathering of the art and architectural history world in the “Fine Rooms” at Burlington House; Brian Allen has been the godfather of British art studies for decades and everyone in the room seems to have been touched by his discerning support. In the same fortnight I also managed to get to the launch of Todd Longstaffe-Gowan’s new book published by Yale University Press on historic London squares, and catch up with many old friends including Mark Girouard, Simon Bradley, Michael Hall and others.

Much of this month has been devoted to research and writing but travels in May included a visit to Cliveden, the handsome Italianate mansion built in the mid nineteenth century to designs of Sir Charles Barry, and also the former home of the Astors, owned by the National Trust and for some time a grand hotel, now in new management; the view from the terrace is still quite stupendous. When Harold Macmillan was told by a journalist what he thought of Cliveden becoming a hotel said, “it always was, dear boy.” This was a month for great Victorians and I also had a tour of the National Liberal Club designed by the Alfred Waterhouse, which has some wonderfully preserved and evocative interiors, with numerous busts of Gladstone peering down quizzically in almost every room.

I have been immensely proud of my daughters over the past few weeks, the oldest ploughing her way through AS-levels, and the youngest exhibiting a beautiful collage portrait of my late mother in her school scholarship art event, the first in the new art school with was opened by Anthony Green RA – her design for the logo for the new art school was also chosen.

Best Book Read: Collected Works of Saki

Best Exhibition: Picasso and Modern British, Tate Britain, exploring Picasso’s impact on Duncan Grant, Graham Sutherland, Ben Nicholson, Henry Moore at others.

Best Pub visited: The Falkland Arms at Great Tew in Oxfordshire

Later April, down to Dorset for the annual bucket and spade. I wake early to work on my current book project, a history of a remarkable London house and find that I am absorbed in that other world quite easily despite the distance.

We come to Dorset every year, the same house, the same beach. We usually catch up with some good friends who live down here, and often bump into other friends too. I especially enjoy catching up with architect Stuart Martin and his portrait painter wife, Binny Matthews, and we admire the handsome long room which they have added to their remote farmhouse, with a light-filled painting studio above. I hugely admire Binny’s paintings, which I first saw at Castle Drogo many years ago, where she painted the last Drewe to live in the house.

When down in Ringstead, we spend most of time down on the beach, walking the cliffs or playing lawn cricket with the nephews and niece, and am pleased to catch up with one of my godsons who lives down in Devon. Easter service is up on the cliff as every year, and despite some rain it clears up for the Sunday morning. The rain is a pain! Working on the London house book when we get back and investigating the bombing of central London in 1940, and the extraordinary story of the refugees from Nazism who were interned in 1939/1940 – not a great chapter in English history.

Recent Highlights:

Best Fun: Rowing strokeside with the Champs Rowing Club – especially as the weather improves!

Best Pub Visit: I was very lucky to be able to spend a night at the King John’s Inn in Tollard Royal, elegant and comfortable, with a really excellent menu and wine list; the pub is hung with black and white sporting photographs by Charlie Sainsbury-Plaice who also took the photographs for my collecting column in The Field. Service is down to a fine art here, and the pub is popular with local shooting parties (which explains occasional sightings of pop stars here)
Look out for: My feature on Loseley Park, Country Life, May 20 issue.
My next public lecture is on English Ruins, and is on the evening of June 20 at the Little Shop of Horrors in Hoxton, see link for Hendrick’s lecture series