Err, well you have to go here to go to The Homewood, so I wanted around the trees for an hour.
It’s your typical landscape garden: lake, vistas, trees, benches, even an amphitheatre.
And on my visit also a gosling or two.
When visited: May 2013
Website: http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/claremont-landscape-garden/
“Do write about us and tell people about us” I was told/asked as I was leaving Princelet Street. My reply, “yes, I will indeed write about you”.
And so I am. And like the Dennis Severs House around the corner, like many of London’s town houses, the history of 19 Princelet Street is multi-layred.
First, a puzzle. If you had a Georgian terrace house built in 1719 with a late 19th extension covering the whole of the thin strip of rear garden, both of which were really on their last legs (very little plaster on the walls, broken glass in the ceiling light, acro props holding the floors up etc), what would you do with it?
If you knew that this house had first been occupied by wealthy Huguenot weavers (the Ogier family – possibly some distant relation of the Ogier law firm in The Channel Islands?) before being occupied by new waves of immigrants as the house was divided into smaller lodgings, workshops and an industrial school, how would you envisage use of the building today? Perhaps it could be an authentic house, such as 4 Princelet Street, further down the road, which is available for hire.
Here I’ll pause for a bit of house porn – looking at 4 Princelet Street. The interior is truly delicious (to my eye anyway). Picture credits all Tea for Joy blog.
If you’d like to spend a night in a similar house The Landmark Trust rent a house out on the same street.
Okay, I got distracted.
Returning to 19 Princelet Street.
Pictures weren’t encouraged in 19PS itself, though I’m not sure why (there isn’t much to photograph). All I could get is one picture from English Heritage’s ‘At Risk’ register.
Latterly, a group took out a lease of 19PS in 1869 and the house’s garden was covered over and turned into a synagogue.
This is where 19PS distinguishes itself from its neighbours. The neighbouring houses are now occupied by bankers and the wealthy with a passion for heritage (because these houses are not cheap – circa £2.8m for a 4 bedder, £1.8m for a 2 bedder). Dan Cruickshank lives in the area. I would not want to because the houses do not get enough sun on the lower floors: the problem with narrow streets. 19 Princelet Street was freezing when I visited, despite being on a north/south axis.
100 years later there was a single occupant, the caretaker. He left in 1969, no one seems to know where. In 1979 someone entered the house. This shows you how run down Spitalfields was in the 70s – 19PS was presumably one of many abandoned houses in the area.
Now a charity has the lease of 19PS. The trustees have created a museum of immigration, telling the story of the many communities that have lived in Spitalfields. Visitors are asked to walk around the rooms reading small snippets of information about the house’s history and then, and only then, ask questions. They are offered the chance of fill out a suitcase tag, listing the three things that they would take from their home if they were forced to leave suddenly (technology isn’t allowed). I’ve long realised I could leave with nothing but I tried to write three things down. The trouble is I could leave all three. As much as I love beautiful things, memories are more important than material objects (and warmth – I had to leave 19PS eventually because it was so cold).
The rooms I would most like to have visited, the rooms onto the street on ground floor and first floor levels, plus the attics were not open. I think they are the charity’s office. I wonder if they will ever be open?
I was intrigued by this house. Before I went I thought maybe it is the kind of property I could put my weight behind and contribute my efforts to. But alas, I don’t share the vision of the trustees. I asked if they are going for the Calke Abbey approach (preserve it as it is, peeling paint and all) or something sympathetic – maybe a room set in 1730, being a Huguenot’s home, another room a squalid lodging, another part the Jewish synagogue (this is the kind of approach Dennis Severs House takes). I was told the idea is to not add anything but to make the property sound and leave it largely at that. Even this will take a lot of money.
The charity is basing its vision on The Tenement Museum in New York (which I didn’t know exits, despite having been to New York on occasions when I’ve specifically sought ‘off the beaten track’ experience). There a house is displayed from the perspective of different immigrant populations. If this is correct, then the latter approach I enquired about is what is intended, rather than the Calke Abbey approach. Thus I’m not entirely sure what the trustees’ goal is. Perhaps they aren’t either.
And what would I do with this house? I’d suggest the trustees visit 68 – Deane Street. The house could make some money from location shoots (maybe it already does, I’m not sure – I asked a lot of question but one can only go so far before it becomes an interrogation) and also tell a story about history.
I’ll look this house up again in 10 years’ time (assuming it and I are both still around) and maybe find out what became of it. In the meantime, I reckon it’s worth a fiver of anyone’s money to see what the trustees can achieve, so check its website out for details of limited openings and make them a generous donation in return for a glimpse inside. If you’re lucky, one or two of the neighbours will have left their shutters open and you’ll get a slight heart flutter when you glimpse inside.
When visited: March 2013
Address: 19 Princelet Street, London E1 6QH
Website: www.19princeletstreet.org.uk
Further reading: http://thebrimstonebutterfly.blogspot.co.uk
Theme tune: A little time
That is how people responded to Bess of Hardwick’s house when she first built it.
It’s not hard to see why.
Her family crest involved the stags.
Some rooms are a bit “Victorian” (hiss).
Bess of Hardwick had four husbands and accumulated wealth to rival Elizabeth I. She also oversaw the building of (old) Chatsworth House and Hardwick Hall: a fortune-teller once told her that if she ever stopped building, she would die – something she would never forget.
Bess was born at what is now Hardwick Old Hall - a simple country manor house in Derbyshire. Its skeleton is now looked after by English Heritage and stands eerily just outside the garden wall of Hardwick Hall.
At 20, Bess married a local man, Robert Barley, who died leaving her penniless. Sir William Cavendish, who had bought Chatsworth in 1549, became her second husband, but he also died. Sir William St Loe, her third husband, died in 1565, leaving her seriously rich.
Bess moved on to the Earl of Shrewsbury, guardian to Mary Queen of Scots, but when shesought to orchestrate the marriage of her daughter to the brother of Lord Darnley, Mary’s ex-husband and father(?!) of James I of England, the Earl objected to her scheming and left her in protest.
That was the bud that created Hardwick
Bess moved away from Chatsworth to Hardwick Old Hall, which she remodeled. When the Earl died in 1590 the septuagenarian employed Robert Smythson to design Hardwick Hall for her. It was completed in 1597 and Hardwick Old Hall left to rot.
Bess could give Elizabeth I a run for her style!
We talk about double height spaces being impressive – look at the height in here. Bess made her main entertaining space high up. We needed a rest once we got up here!
There is a lot of sea grass carpeting.
While I don’t like kitchens I do like storage rooms and the bespoke estate furniture.
When visited: September 2012
Website: http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/hardwick/
Theme tune: Glass
I’ve only ever been in a couple of other houses anywhere near like The Homewood – 2 Willow Road in North London and Villa Necchi Campiglio near Milan, Italy. Perhaps the interiors of Eltham Palace come close. However, last year I watched an hour-long programme in a series called ‘National Trust: National Treasures‘ and so I couldn’t resist a trip to Surrey at the first opportunity I had to book a place on an elusive tour to this house.
I’m a classicist when it comes to my true tastes. I despise concrete. However, there is something within me that appreciates a curved sofa (I have one) and therefore I don’t always dislike 1930s architecture. I like the multifunctional rooms.
I really liked how at The Homewood storage and functionality was woven into the furniture (all designed by Gwynne), how the rooms were built for purpose (bedrooms facing east to catch the morning sun, the sitting room facing south and the dining room west, to get the midday and evening sun respectively; the staff and kitchen face the north, where the warmth of the sun at any time of the day wasn’t considered necessary).
The outdoor kitchen
The house was completed in 1938, at a cost in excess of £10,000 (to put that into perspective, local houses sold for circa £350 at the time and the family had to sell a whole village in Wales to fund the build). Patrick Gwynne’s parents built the house of his design because Mrs Gwynne wanted to move (she was fed up of the noise from the Portsmouth Road outside her current Victorian roadside house rattling her china every time a lorry went past) and Mr Gwynne didn’t want to leave the garden he had spent 20 years creating Patrick was 24 and wanted a commission. He suggested to his parents that he build them a house at the back of the garden, as far away as possible from the road. He promised them the house of their dreams.
The Gwynnes senior had one glorious year of parties before WW2 broke out. They both died during the war but Patrick came back, living as a bachelor and partying his way through a rather glamorous life at The Homewood until he died in 2003.
He built 40 luxury modernist homes.
65 years in one house and still he had some parts of it that he didn’t know how to finish, such as a weird mural at the top of the spiral staircase that he left covered in the crayon doodle of a visiting artist friend’s assistant because he just didn’t know what else to do with it. Reminds me of the very big white wall I have with nothing on it still 10 year later; I think I need to paint a Cezanne one afternoon.
The National Trust spent 10 years working with Patrick towards the end of his life to get the house back into good repair and they chose the custodian, who Patrick specified must a family. The live in the house (with a young child) VERY CAREFULLY.
There are bits of the house I really liked:
Detail on the outdoor seating
But other things I don’t like:
The front door
Tulips on the terrace
In fact, only the entrance hall, cream concrete spiral stair, study, sitting room-come dining room (separated by a folding screen) and one bedroom are open in this vast house. Entry is only by guided tour and shoes definitely have to be flat (to protect the sprung maple floor in the sitting room) and covered in plastic booties.
The Study
Once outside I played a “spot the white elephant” game from amongst the acer trees.
Monsieur Le Corbusier has a lot to answer for…
When visited: May 2013
Website: http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/homewood/
House * out of 5: ***
Garden * out of 5: **
Theme tune: Something French
Further reading: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/uk/2069203/UK-heritage-The-Homewood-Surrey.html
Further reading: http://www.c20society.org.uk/botm/the-homewood/
My Art Fund card opens my eyes to many council-run historic houses that I wouldn’t otherwise be aware of, offering a single site from which I can look-up places I’d like to visit. I often find councils’ own websites a little difficult to navigate when it comes to finding their historic houses.
One of the benefits of council-run museums-come-historic houses is that entry is usually free. You just have to look beyond the copious amounts of white gloss paint and linoleum.
On a trip to Crewes Hill I had once seen an historic house on the side of a mini roundabout. I intended to find out its name but never did.
After my 20 minute train journey from London Liverpool Railway Station to “Bruce Grove” station and a 5 minute cycle ride up Bruce Grove itself (past quite a few nice, large, once-grand Georgian houses (now flats) and rows of Victorian side streets), I arrived at the same place.
This is Bruce Castle.
I went because one of Henry VIII’s courtiers lived here, Henry having granted him the land. He might have built the turret in the garden, which might have been a mews for hawks – the wild birds that were caught for use in hunting would have been housed here. That guesswork is based on a painting that has been discovered of a similar building in Edward Tudor’s court. The house is mainly Georgian in appearance, the 16th century house having been pulled down. Inside are the local council’s community museum pieces, ranging from a stuffed turtle to an exhibition on local inventors to a display a about how the Queen’s coronation was watched in the local community.
I headed back down Bruce Grove, cycled through some ringroads, past B&Q and over a reservoir to the previously unvisited wilds of Walthamstow. At one point there was a fabulously flamboyant Turkishesque mosque amidst the shops but I didn’t fancy stopping to get my camera out (note to self: you need to get a small, cheap, light point and push camera for when you go off cycling and only want to take a couple of snaps).
Eventually (but it was only about 20 minutes; just felt like a long time) I arrived at my destination: The William Morris Gallery.
During 2012, when the William Morris Gallery had been closed for a multi-million-pound revamp thanks to Lottery Funding, I had visited 2 Temple Place on The Embankment in Central London, primarily to look at the architecture but also to look at the William Morris exhibits that had been moved there temporarily.
The house in which the William Morris Gallery is based, called Water House, dates from the 1740s and has a chestnut staircase at the back of the hall. The house is now a museum but there are some fireplaces. The restoration is sympathetic and to their credit the museum hasn’t completely ignored the house: in each room there is a small plaque dedicated to the architecture of the room.
William Morris lived in the house from 1848-1856.
I didn’t take any pictures inside, not because I don’t rate Morris (I do, particularly because he valued hand-made crafts, clean lines and because he helped establish the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (he also disliked cluttered Victorian interiors)), but because I think arts and crafts work of his period deserves being seen. It doesn’t photograph amazingly well.
I enjoyed looking at tiles, wallpapers, cloth, art and furniture (both by Morris and his contemporaries). There is a café and a small shop in the foyer. I really liked playing a game where one has to decide how to build the brand of William Morris, starting off with £200, over 4 years. The people before me ended up with £1,300. I couldn’t make more than £900…
I enjoyed watching the video about Morris, the SPAB and his socialism. Because I have a habit of people-spotting my spare time I noticed there were a lot of 20-something girls here with flowery skirts, mist in their eyes and a general sense of Victoriana about them (there were also a couple of groups of 50 something women with Morris print tops on!).
There is another local council museum nearby, Vestry House, but I didn’t make it there.
When visited: April 2013
Websites: Bruce Castle & William Morris Gallery
Theme tune: E17′s House of Love
Last month I visited RHS Wisley when the plants were suffering from the very cold start to spring.
Even some of the daffodils weren’t giving a full show until this visit.
I returned on a very different day, just under a month later, to capture the blossom and magnolias.
I plan to return in July to see the prairie meadow in full bloom.
When visited: 4 May 2013
