If the cap fits.

 You know how sometimes when you go somewhere you can't help thinking that such and such a person would love it here. Well that was me two years ago when I first visited the William Morris gallery in London with my fabulous pal Julie. Last month I finally made it happen and brought my equally fabulous friend Lorra back to experience some of the magic....

William Morris lived in this house during his teenage years with his very wealthy parents. He followed the expected trajectory and went up to Oxford from where he was was expected to enter the church after he had graduated. However, young William had other ideas and much to the chagrin of his Mother he decided to become an architect instead. His family didn't go a bundle either when he announced that he was going to marry a poor girl from Oxford called Jane Burden in 1859. Marry her he did though and as we know she went on to become his artistic muse, the mother of his children and further on down the line the lover of Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

Thank goodness for all our sakes that Morris was a man with such vision and no qualms about following that through into the highly successful Morris & Co. His drive and those of his fellow artists who worked alongside him have left us with a body of work which continues to influence interior design taste today. The single thing which always impresses me is that these leaders in the Arts and Crafts field didn't impose limits upon themselves about what they would make so the company was able to embrace many different areas within this sphere. Whilst there are hints of some of the successes of the women involved in this movement at the gallery. I hope that one day their contribution is brought into the light. Behind the famous men's names many of us are familiar with are equally talented women. Please do check out the work of Evelyn de Morgan or indeed Morris's own daughter  May if you're interested and this article has some other leads https://www.homesandantiques.com/antiques/the-forgotten-women-of-arts-and-crafts. The carnation fabric below was designed by Kate Faulkner for them in 1875 and she was the sister of Charles who was one of the company founders.

Rather than showing rafts of pictures of the familiar wallpapers I thought people might enjoy a small selection of the other goods that were made and sold to show the range available which you could have bought for your home back in the day. There are separate displays for the printing press side of the firm and Morris's political activism.

Should you ever find yourself in Walthamstow this place is another gem and free of charge. Did my friend enjoy herself? I am guessing so because she was talking about going back again before we'd even left!

Arilx

 

A White Duck Sort of Day

 

[Image from Pixabay]

Yesterday was one of those very ordinary days which pass by in the slipstream of our everyday lives unremarkable and unnoticed. David carried on painting the TYM's old bedroom and I grumpily wrote Christmas cards [honestly I only have to do a few every year, but I give my inner Drama Queen the floor and make very heavy weather of it😜] in the morning. We chatted over lunch about what we might do exercise wise and my gentle running of late isn't happening for now as am recovering from the usual November sniffles. In the end we decided to go to our local nature reserve which has become a calm oasis in our lives this year. This is something we do quite often so the only thing of note was that we walked the 40 minutes there rather than drove.

In a nutshell that was our day....except it wasn't we decided because later on we chatted through what we'd enjoyed and not enjoyed about our day [and yes I moaned about the cards and yes I still haven't finished them]. For me it was listening to some of the Secret Sussex podcast episodes which a friend recently recommended, seeing a cormorant diving for fish on the millpond for the first time, hatching holiday plans for next year, meeting the chap on his first visit to the reserve who was so excited to have got his first photos of a pheasant and a woodpecker [he shared his beautiful photos he'd taken over at Newton Abbot with me] and yes a white duck. I've never seen a white duck on the pond before. It would seem that it is 'just' a 'white domestic duck' except that it wasn't....instead it was a beautiful snowy white with a zingy orange bill and it looked completely at ease swimming around in the middle of its gang of mallard mates. Whether it'll be there next time we go who knows...that's the joy of being in nature. You never know what treats she has in store for you and on that note we're are hoping to volunteer with searching for the eggs of the Brown Hairstreak Butterfly next year. Not everybody's idea of a fun day out, but it will suit me down to the ground. Hope you find the richness in your day today. Have a good one.

Arilx

Preston Manor

 We're heading back to the age of Edwardian Elegance today. Preston Manor was in the hands of the Stanford family for over 200 years. Following a major refurbishment and update in 1905 it looks every inch the Edwardian Manor house, but parts date back to the 1200s. It came into the possession of the Brighton Corporation in 1932 and remains in the council's ownership today. Under the strapline 'To the Manor Reborn' the house was reopened last year after a five year closure. Today it's presented as a single day in the lives of Ellen and Charles Standford during the week following the Titanic disaster and shows you life both up and down stairs. If ghostly encounters are your thing then I can also confirm that it's the city's most haunted building with reported sightings of an excommunicated nun [shortly afterwards a woman's skeleton was found by workmen and secretly reburied in the nearby churchyard], the predictable Grey Lady and a single phantom hand. 

As ever a few details for you which captured the essence of my time spent there. I hope that these give you a feel of the place.

Next stop Walthamstow...slowly catching up!

Arilx

Another skirt can't hurt.

There were no plans for me to treat myself to a preloved skirt today, but Oxfam is my friend and this will be perfect for the festive season.

Arilx

The twins and the rockery

 A recent trip to Brighton took me to a part of the city which is quite a way out of the centre and I have only ever passed through in the car or on the bus. However, thanks to Ellie Seymour's 'Secret Brighton' book that I borrowed from the library a while ago, I had more than one reason to stop and tarry a while.

Preston Park has long been known for its 'Preston Twins' which up until 2018 were a pair of 400 year old elm trees which has somehow miraculously escaped the ravages of Dutch Elm disease in the 1970s. Sadly though, for one, its luck ran out and it finally succumbed and the decision was taken to cut it down to prevent the spread of the elm beetle. Such timber needs to have all its bark stripped away after it's felled and that maybe might have been where its story ended. Thankfully the artist Elpida Hadzi-Vasileva had the vision to reimagine it and now it's returned to its home as the 'gilded elm' . It's been left open on one side so that you can see the burrowings of the beetle within the interior which caused its eventual demise. It's rather impressive and heartwarming to see it back standing side by side with its twin once again.

Its surviving twin is now part of the Queen's Green Canopy which is a network of seventy ancient treees chosen to celebrate the late Queen's Platinum Jubilee in 2022.

Whilst there we crossed the road to seek out the Preston Park rockery which is a bit of a hidden gem really. It was designed and landscaped by Captain B Maclaren in 1935 and is based upon the Chinese Willow Pattern. Its claim to fame is that it's the largest municipal rockery in the country. We were there a few weeks ago when there were more autumn leaves still hanging on, but it's worth an explore if you're passing.

More about our time here in a separate post.

Arilx

What a wrench!

Take one old mole wrench and then reimagine it as a fish....

This came to join us at GBT after my most recent birthday a few weeks ago. We don't often buy new stuff for our home, but when we do we try to buy handmade and unusual.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Arilx

Loss

 

A couple sang this song at the folk club on Sunday for Remembrance. Harvey Andrews wrote this about his great Aunt who lost her fiance in WWI. A photo of him hung on the wall which, over the years, had been destroyed by sunlight. Over the last 30 years she had lost her sight so when she asked everyone always reassured her that her beloved was still smiling down upon her. It's very moving, but not very  well known.

Arilx

 

Bare faced Cheek

 Sometimes the right word comes along at just the right time....callipygous. The perfect adjective to describe this cheeky chappie who's to be found in Steyning's parish church. 

Sometimes the world can feel like a heavy place so I'm here just bringing a drop of light relief today.

Arukx

Natural wonder

Another wonderful thing that I was blessed to see a few days ago. Orange peel fungus...not only the perfect colour🟠, but it also has the slightly waxy texture you get with citrus peel🧡

Hope everyone has a lovely weekend. We will be staying here as David has his latest biopsy being done today. He's usually back to his normal busy self within a couple of days.

Arilx

 

Third Time Lucky

 I have been trying to visit Chawton House in Hampshire since June 2020. With the original date and a subsequent one cancelled, we finally met my friend Jane there this year. Persistence really does pay and perhaps, seeing that it's the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen's birth this year, it was more apt this time around.

Jane never lived here, but she, her unmarried sisters and widowed mother, were settled in the old baliff's cottage nearby from 1809 which gave her a period of stability in her life which she hadn't experienced for many years. Hers was an itinerant existence following the death of her father as the ladies were shuttled between different houses and very much reliant upon the good will of family members to keep them. During these settled times she was very productive and produced many of the novels which would see her star rise and her place secured on the all time classics list.

The connection between this large and desirable property is that it was inherited by Edward Knight in 1794 along with several other houses in the county and Gomersham Park in Kent. He was born as Edward Austen in 1767 and was indeed Jane's brother. However, he was adopted by the childless Knight family who were distant relatives of his father's and they made him their heir. Part of the agreement was that he would alter his surname upon his adoptive father's death and to this very day the house remains within the ownership of the Knight family. Here we have the lucky chap and the back view of the house. I had the very best of intentions of taking a photo of the front too, but I was too busy gassing with my pal and the thought wandered out of my head....I had one job to do😀

Despite her never having lived here it's clear from Jane's correspondence that she spent a great deal of time here especially with her eldest niece Fanny.

One of its main draws both for her and for me was the library. It holds the largest collection of books written by women [about 4500] on wide ranging topics anywhere in the world. Amongst its tomes are ones that rare or even unique. In total the library has 16000 books with many of them written by men about women's lives and issues. The room steward pointed out one such volume written by a male about how old maids should conduct themselves. Apparently there are a series of increasingly acerbic handwritten notes written on the pages by Jane herself. I take it that she wasn't best pleased by the content. Due to the fragility of the shelf contents there are no photos allowed, but the house does permit two or three academic fellowships per year. Applicants put in a bid outlining which books they need access to for their research and then the lucky ones are chosen.

It's always worth taking a second look at any painting.....this one is stuffed full of extra details that could be easily missed!

Hopefully some of my photos have conveyed what a delight this place is and the Jane Austen museum is literally just round the corner. If you have a BBC Gardener's World 2 for 1 voucher this covers the entry for both inside and out. I am gradually catching up with my backlog ...in the next post we're off to Brighton!

Arilx