Saturday 29 November 2014

Breathless Beauty, Broken Beauty - Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Forty years ago, architectural historians John Harris, Marcus Binney, Peter Thornton curated the exhibition 'Destruction of the Country House' at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The aim of the exhibition was to raise awareness of the significant architectural losses that had and were rapidly taking place. In twentieth century Britain, the country estate, lost much of its relevance and the financial costs required to maintain such sites made it increasingly difficult to preserve them. While this troubled the owners, this was of little concern in post war Britain. The 1974 exhibition, 'Destruction of the Country House', painted a bleak future but fortunately these expectations have not been fully realised and there is still hope for what survives. Today, Country Houses are popular destinations and regarded as national treasures. The phenomenon of productions such as Brideshead Revisted and more recently, Downton Abbey represent a new era of heritage television, which create a romantic nostalgia for an idealised past.

It is important to reconsider historical interpretation. Much too often a visit to a country house fails to communicate how these spaces were used and the implications of the ownership of such sites. Even the label we apply, is misleading - these structures were far from the notion of home that we understand today. The use of the term 'country seat', is perhaps more appropriate, considering that these places were temporary sites of residence, built purely for the purpose of display and public engagement.

I believe there is much more to be challenged about how we understand these spaces and their role in British history. If approached critically, these houses can unlock knowledge of architectural, design and landscape history as well as social, political and economic history. In a country which somewhat lagged behind its European counterparts, these estates remain one the finest examples of British design and art.

A display of the houses exhibited in the 1974 exhibition which have been rescued and preserved.
This year, as part of the London Design Festival, the Victoria and Albert Museum exhibited a display entitled Breathless Beauty, Broken Beauty. This exhibit celebrated how far conservation for these estates has come, how this has been done and how our attitudes towards them has changed over the past forty years. I was ashamedly late in visiting this display and am grateful I managed to see it before it was taken down. So if you did miss it, you can find more about the project and the artist here.

Vanessa Jane Hall's sculptural installation in the British Galleries at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Breathless Beauty, Broken Beauty is a 4k film video art installation by artist film maker Vanessa Jane Hall. Viewers are invited inside the Palladian like structure (echoing so many eighteenth century country seats) to view Hall's film as it is played out on three surrounding walls. The three walls work as a triptych, depicting stills of the various houses she visited across the country. The houses which feature in this film and remain intact are Chatsworth HouseCastle Howard, Houghton Hall and Holkham.

The film is narrated by Catherine McGoohan and Neil Dickson and takes the viewer on a journey. It begins with images of neglect and decay and gradually transports the viewer into the restored interiors of today's surviving estates. Where previously forlorn and empty, in the revitalised house we see fantastical apparitions who embody our new love affair with an exotic and imagined past.

Houghton Hall, Norfolk 

The ceiling of Castle Howard's stone hall.
Castle Howard, Yorkshire 
The use of the triptych in the film helps to create a feeling of movement through the houses and gives the viewer a sense of being enclosed within all four walls. When describing her experience of filming in these locations, Hall writes;

'The country houses of faded grandeur were shot in varying ways, sometimes fully lit, sometimes with little lighting. The quirks of working in faded grandeur environments are many, there isn’t always be a piece of floor where you need to put a light,  so you have to take each house as it comes, and work with it.'

As the film draws to a close, we are taken away from these glittering interiors and into the broken, neglected spaces of country houses which have not been as fortunate to have been saved by heritage funding and restoration.

Among the lost houses Hall filmed, only Poltimore House in Devon is named. You can find out more about their restoration work and how to get involved here. The images depicting 'Broken Beauty' were of great interest and a poignant reminder of the current state of some of these significant sites.

Interior scene, Image by Vanessa Jane Hall, Breathless Beauty, Broken Beauty
Interior scene, Image by Vanessa Jane Hall, Breathless Beauty, Broken Beauty

Interior scene, Image by Vanessa Jane Hall, Breathless Beauty, Broken Beauty
Of course it is not possible to save every building that once stood. These estates demand enormous financial support. What to save and why is a matter of debate. I enjoyed Hall's installation and was left wondering whether the film was a plea for further restoration of other country estates or whether it was more concerned with dramatising how country houses can be cherished or neglected depending on the time and context. 

Interior scene, Image by Vanessa Jane Hall, Breathless Beauty, Broken Beauty
Further Reading:

R. Strong, M.Binney, J.Harris ed., Destruction of the Country House: 1875-1975, (London: Thames & Hudson, 1974). 

G. Worsley, England's Lost Houses: From the Archives of Country Life, (Arum Press Ltd, 2011).

J. Harris, Moving Rooms: The Trade in Architectural Salvages, (London & New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007). 

www.breathlessbeauty.co.uk








Friday 7 November 2014

Painshill Park, Surrey

A view of the serpentine lake in Painshill Park from the Gothic Temple
An entry on Painshill Park is perhaps a slight cheat in some ways on the general 'Missing Storeys' concept. The aim of this blog is to shed light on histories that have been lost. Painshill however, is an example of the amazing restoration work that can be achieved to revive a lost history and thus seemed worthy of commentary. Painshill is an eighteenth century park landscaped by Charles Hamilton between 1738 and 1773. Hamilton was the the fourteenth child and youngest of the nine sons of James Hamilton, 6th earl of Abercorn (c.1661-1734) and his wife, Elizabeth (1667/8–1754), daughter of Sir Robert Reading, first baronet, of Dublin.  

Although he was born into an aristocratic family, the number of siblings meant he did not benefit significantly from his fathers fortune and thus did not acquire the income necessary to secure the acquisition of a country estate. When his father died in 1734, Hamilton was in need of money and through his sister Lady Archibald Hamilton, the prince's mistress, gained a position in the household of Frederick, prince of Wales. When he was dismissed three years later, his friend Henry Fox (later first Baron Holland) provided him with a secret pension of £1200 a year as compensation.

Unable to acquire an estate, Hamilton began to acquire land that was considered desolate and near the River Mole. Horace Walpole described the site as a 'cursed hill'. However, Hamilton seems to have been undeterred by the lands condition and set about carrying out extensive landscaping to create a park to match those of the great country seats.

View from the grotto island towards the Gothic Temple
An eighteenth century visitor to Painshill could be forgiven for thinking they were on the grounds of an impressive country house like Houghton, Holkham or Blenheim. Hamilton's landscape possessed all the necessary qualities expected from such a landscape. By 1737, the  geometric garden designs which had been imitated from the Gardens of Versailles and proven so popular in the early eighteenth century had fallen out of favour. These gardens were considered to be unnatural and prohibiting nature from flourishing in its true form and beauty. Landscape designers such as William Kent and Charles Bridgman encouraged the notion of what was considered more natural gardens, less geometrical and with an emphasis on variety which stimulated the imagination and senses. The range of garden features at Painshill indicate that Hamilton too, perceived this to be of the utmost importance and thus introduced a Gothic Temple, a ruined abbey, a temple to Bacchus, god of wine, the Turkish tent, a Chinese bridge and the Crystal Grotto.

In 1773, Hamilton was faced with having to repay a large loan from Henry Fox, payment of which was settled through the sale of the magnificent park he had created. Painshill subsequently passed through various ownerships until the Second World War after which the land was sold off in pieces to pay for taxes. The grounds fell into decay and the architectural structures were subject to vandalism and neglect.

Restoration of these features and the landscape has been ongoing since 1981, when the Painshill Park Trust was formed. A year earlier, the local council had managed to purchase 158 acres of the 250 acre landscape and when the trust was set up, further grants of £25,000 from Surrey County Council and £45,000 from the Countryside Commission were obtained and the ambitious restoration work was able to begin. For copyright reasons, I am unable to share before and after views, however you can find detailed information and see images on the Parks & Gardens UK website.

The Gothic Temple
Visitors to Painshill are provided with a map which marks out the route designed by Hamilton for visitors to follow during the eighteenth century. The first architectural feature you come across when following these historic footsteps, is the Gothic Temple. Although it looks like stone from a distance, the Gothic temple was in fact constructed of timber with five sides paneled to direct the visitors gaze towards the serpentine lake below (see first image) and the Sabine statue.
                               
The interior timber paneling of the Gothic Temple
View of the Gothic Temple from the Sabine statue


The Sabine statue
Other restored works on the site include the Ruined Abbey, the Five Arch Bridge and the Turkish Tent, a site designed by Hamilton to allow visitors to rest, overlook the serpentine lake and contemplate the landscape they had seen. This notion was one which was imperative to the more natural landscapes that were adopted later in the eighteenth century. Reflecting on a landscape was perceived to be a noble pursuit which meant that an individual was well educated and understood the mythological and symbolic qualities of the landscape and its architecture.

The Turkish Tent
View of the Serpentine lake and the five arch bridge from the Turkish tent
Beyond the Turkish Tent, lies the site of where Hamilton's Temple of Bacchus, once stood. This was perhaps a celebration of the vineyards Hamilton had planted at Painshill, near the Gothic Temple, and which were described by the French Ambassador as comparable to "un vrai Champagne". In 1754, Richard Pocock also commented on Hamilton's vineyards stating; 'There are ten acres of vineyard here in two places, the grape gently press'd makes an excellent champaign, and pressed out, and left on the husk, produces a very good Burgundy; five or six hogsheads have been made in a year, and it sells at the inns here at 7s 6d a bottle.' Restoration work has yet to be carried out on the Bacchus Temple but no doubt it will be a significant addition to the revived eighteenth-century landscape. 

The site where the Temple of Bacchus once stood. Watch this space!
The ruined Abbey
All the features in the park deserve detailed commentary but I have chosen to focus on the Crystal Grotto which was reopened to the public in June 2013. This decision has been made based on my own personal preference and desire to not make too long winded a blog entry, and secondly, because my current research work is trying to reconstruct an understanding of how the grotto at Wanstead may have appeared. Painshill's crystal grotto is so far, the closest physical example I have found.

You can reach the grotto by proceeding down the winding path from the Gothic Temple. The path leads you through a garden, over the Chinese bridge and onto an island in the serpentine lake. Grottoes were designed as intermediate structures in a landscape. Given the rise of more natural landscapes, it seemed appropriate to introduce structures in the landscape that encapsulated the union of man made art and nature. These ideas were expressed as early as 1709, in the 3rd Earl Shaftsbury's essay in The Moralists in which he states that "the rude rocks, the mossy caverns, the irregular unwrought grottos and broken falls of water, with all the horrid graces of the wilderness itself" as more representative of nature than "the formal mockery of princely gardens". The design of the grotto was intended to appear as if it had risen from the ground and it certainly feels that way as you walk along the winding path and approach the grotto. 

Grotto Island
Construction of the crystal grotto began in 1760 and took over several years. It was built by Joseph Lane to a design by Hamilton. Grottoes were inspired by the Italian Renaissance Gardens which Englishmen visited whilst on the Grand Tour. Hamilton, made two Grand Tours, the first in 1725-27 in which he traveled to Rome, Padua, Venice and Verona. The second tour was made between 1732 and 1735. The influence of these tours is explicit throughout the Painshill landscape. Grottoes were designed much like cabinets of curiosity, and were full of minerals, crystals, shells and petrified rocks. But from the outside they were structures of intrigue intended to encourage the eighteenth century visitor to explore, to stimulate their imagination and awaken their senses. The grotto sprawls out across two islands in the lake and whilst it may have looked like a natural form, it was in fact structured with brick walls and covered with oolite limestone. 


Approaching the grotto entrance, my niece already exploring inside!
Hamilton designed two entrances and exits for his grotto. One was for the use of mortals, and the other for the ancient gods and goddesses. We of course, entered via the mortal entrance, a discreet and narrow opening by the lake. 

Beneath the grotto bridge, facing the opposite island
Entrance tunnel of the crystal grotto
The entrance takes you into a dark, narrow chamber covered in crystal , calcite, gypsum, quartz, fluorite and other minerals and stones. Passing through this passage you reach the main chamber. The roof of the main chamber collapsed in the 1950's and thus the grotto interior was subject to significant damage. Restoration of the grotto began during the 1980's when it was cleared of vegetation, surveyed and excavated. In 1988, conservation work began on the entrance tunnel (pictured below), the rock bridge (pictured above) and the main chamber. The roof of the main chamber was reconstructed in 1992 using steel frames to support the brick work. It was not until the Heritage Lottery Fund provided Painshill Trust with a grant in 2011 that restoration of the crystal interior began. 

The main chamber of the crystal grotto
William Gilpin's description in 1765 of the grotto as a 'whimsical little object, procured at great expense', seems to poorly represent the impressive design of the grotto's main chamber. Standing in the main chamber today, it is hard to be critical of Hamilton's design and the extensive restoration work that has been carried out . Reference to visitor descriptions by the likes of Arthur Young and the illustrations made by Elias Martin in 1777 have proved essential in reconstructing the grotto. It is often the case with lost histories, that whilst the physical structure may be missing or damaged, one can frequently find a wealth of evidence in the form of contemporary accounts, newspaper articles and artworks to piece together what once stood on the site. The restoration of the crystal grotto at Painshill demonstrates just how fruitful the results of such research can be. 

The main chamber
In order to restore the stalactites which hang from the ceiling, wooden cones were constructed. These were then covered in limestone mortor and then emblazoned with crystal fragments. The openings of the grotto which allow the natural daylight to enter hit these crystal stalactites and give a glittering effect, making it the magical environment Hamilton envisioned. In each corner of the main chamber are small fountains. Prior to advanced hydraulic engineering, Hamilton employed a gardener who, when aware that Hamilton and his guests were approaching the grotto would have to pump the water into the grotto to create the effect of a natural stream running through the chamber.

The restored crystal stalactites which adorn the grotto ceiling
Exiting from the grotto is via the God's entrance to the grotto. This leads you back outside onto a view of the Serpentine lake. I found the visit to Painshill grotto inspiring and wondered if such restoration work could ever be achieved on the grotto at Wanstead. Even if this may not ever be possible, the Painshill grotto gave me a valuable insight into how these popular structures were likely to have appeared to eighteenth century visitors. The restoration work carried out by the Painshill Trust has effectively demonstrated that some lost histories can indeed be restored to their original glory and I sincerely hope that such work inspires others to consider the possibilities of similar revivals.

View of Painshill Park at dusk.
You can find out more about the Herritage Lottery Fund restoration work at Painshill here.
See here for further information about the park and its visiting hours.

Further reading:

John Dixon Hunt, The Italian Renaissance Garden in the English Imagination: 1600-1750, (London, 1986).

Diana Balmori, ‘Architecture, Landscape and the Intermediate Structure: Eighteenth Century Experiments in Mediation’, Journal of Society of Architectural Historians, Vol 50, No.1, (Mar., 1991), pp. 38-56.

Alison Hodges, 'Painshill, Cobham, Surrey: The Grotto', Garden History, Vol.3, No.2, (Spring, 1975), pp.23-28.

Alison Hodges, 'Painshill Park, Cobham, Surrey (1700-1800): Notes for a History of the Landscape Garden of Charles Hamilton', Garden History, Vol.2, No.1 (Autumn, 1973), pp.39-68.

Max Nicholson, 'Hamilton, Charles (bap. 1704, d.1786)', rev. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http:www.oxforddnd.com/view/article/37504, accessed 5 Nov 2014].