Category: Jo Manning

GUEST BLOGGER JO MANNING VISITS POLESDEN LACEY IN SURREY

AND HERE IS POLESDEN LACEY, A STATELY HOME IN SURREY WITH A BEAUTIFUL VIEW AND A CONNECTION TO REGENCY PLAYWRIGHT AND POLITICIAN RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN…

Polesden Lacey, the Edwardian country estate on a spectacular natural site overlooking a deep valley in Great Bookham, near Dorking, in Surrey, is best known for its influential hostess-with-the-mostest, Mrs Ronald Greville (aka “Mrs Ronnie”), who was an intimate of the royal family and anyone else who could claim to be anyone at the turn of the 20thcentury.
But it actually has a very long history dating back to Roman times – and, indeed, would it not have been a perfect site for a Roman temple? – though documentation of buildings on that site date back only to the 14thcentury or thereabouts.

One of Oliver Cromwell’s roundhead officers – the Parliamentarians who fought against the Cavalier forces of King Charles I in the English Civil War – bought this divine property in 1630, keeping the existing farm and constructing a new residence in situ.

The Regency-era playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan – after a long line of other owners and leaseholders – came into the picture in 1797, when his trustees, one Lord Grey and a Mr Whitbread, bought the Polesden Lacey lease for 12,384 pounds, using the 8,000 pound dowry of Sheridan’s second wife, Hester Jane Ogle, and money raised from the sale of shares in the Drury Lane Theatre, which he owned. (another source stated a higher price of 20,000 pounds was paid.)
The Rivals and The School for Scandal are Sheridan’s best-known plays, still widely performed today.  In my opinion, the world lost a literate and witty wordsmith when Sheridan decided to enter the world of Whig politics, but there was perhaps another motive to his service in parliament.  As an MP he was safe against arrest for debt, and the playwright was chronically in debt.  When he lost his seat in 1812 his creditors showed up in droves to claim what was owed them. Hence the loss of Polesden Lacey after a leasehold that spanned almost twenty years.
The breathtakingly beautiful Elizabeth Lynley, from the painting by Thomas Gainsborough. Elizabeth was from a very well-known family of musicians in Bath with whom the painter was extremely friendly;
 he painted many family members.


This sympathetic piece in the theatrehistory.com website sums him up:
“The real sheridan was not a pattern of decorous respectabilty, but we may fairly believe that he was very far from being the Sheridan of vulgar legend.  Against stories about his reckless management of his affairs we must set the broad facts that he had no source of income but the Drury Lane Theatre, that he bore from it for thirty years all the expenses of a fashionable life, and the theatre was twice rebuilt during his proprietorship, the first time (1791) on account of its having been pronounced unsafe, and the second (1809) after a disastrous fire.  Enough was lost in this way to account ten times over for all his debts.  The records of his wild bets in the betting book of Brooks’ Club date from the years after the loss,     in1792, of his first wife [the incomparable       beauty Elizabeth Lynley] … the reminiscences of his son’s tutor, Mr Smyth, show anxious and fidgetty [sic] family habits curiously at variance with the accepted tradition of his imperturbable recklessness. He died on the 7thof July 1816, and was buried with great pomp in Westminster Abbey.”
If you are so inclined, you can pay Sheridan a visit in the Poets’ Corner at Westminster Abbey the next time you are in London:
Although Sheridan began to demolish parts of the house around 1814, he did not get very far owing to burgeoning ill health and those always-problematic finances. He is credited, however, with extending the charming Long Walk to 1,300 feet from 900 feet. This walk was first laid out along the valley in 1761 on the 1,400 acre estate and it remains a very popular hiking trail with national trust visitors from far and wide as well as with local families and walking groups. Parallel to the Long Walk is another, called the Nun’s Walk, which is lined with beech, yew, and holly trees.  (And, yes, for those of you who like to know these things, there is even a ha-ha, below a yew hedge that marks the garden’s boundary.)
Sheridan also made some attempts at landscaping the Polesden Lacey garden.  In respect to that garden – and to his legendary reputation as a ladies’ man – the National Trust booklet attributes this quote to him:  “Won’t you come into the garden? I would like my roses to see you.”  Sheridan to a beautiful female guest at Polesden Lacey

The text in that booklet emphasizes how much Sheridan loved his country home, which he called “the nicest place, within a prudent distance of town, in England.”  Notwithstanding his creditors, and the dual responsibilities of managing the Drury Lane Theatre and his parliamentary duties, he surely relished his role of country landlord and entertained, as they say, lavishly.
This “portrait of a gentleman”, by John Hoppner, has been traditionally
 identified as that of Richard Brinsley Sheridan
But, alas, the property was sold again, to a Joseph Bonsor (1768-1835), who commissioned the period’s master builder, Thomas Cubitt, to design and erect a new house, and this redesign formed the nexus of the current stately home. According to Bonsor’s obituary in The Gentleman’s Magazine, he was a self-made man, “the founder of his own fortune.”  His success in the wholesale stationery trade enabled him to secure the sale of Polesden Lacey from Sheridan’s son in 1818.
Thomas Cubitt rebuilt the house in the neo-classical style.  On the south front of the house, part of Cubitt’s villa is still visible:  six bay windows with an Ionic-columned portico.
Some repairs taking place recently on the neo-classical south front of Polesden Lacey 
                    (what you don’t see is the graffiti chalked by schoolchildren on the steps leading to the great lawn)

The next owner in line was a prominent Scottish physician (and, yes, a Scots theme runs through this history) named Sir Walter Farquahar. It was this good doctor who extended the walled garden and put more order into the various plantings. But more was to come for this splendid parcel of land.
In 1902 the estate became the property of Sir Clinton Dawkins, who commissioned the architect Sir Ambrose Macdonald Poynter, a major London architect whose grandfather was also an architect (a co-founder of the Institute of British Architects whose father was a distinguished painter) to make extensive renovations to Polesden Lacey.  He went on to build the Royal Over-Seas League, Park Place, St James’s, a few years later.
And then, in 1906, along came the redoubtable Mrs Greville…  who employed the architectural firm of Mewes and Davis (the designers of the Ritz Hotel in London) and the interior decorating firm of white, Allom & Co., to further gild the lily this house was becoming. (See below for the changes and expansions from the 1903 house to the present-day.)
This gives an even better idea of the expansion!
Some family background…  Margaret Helen Anderson was born out of wedlock in 1863 to a Scottish brewery multimillionaire named William Mc Ewan and a woman named Helen Anderson.  Mrs Anderson was said to be married to – or lived with – a man named William Anderson, who was a porter employed in Mc Ewan’s brewery.  Mrs Anderson and Mr Mc Ewan wed after the death of Mr Anderson in1885.  On Mc Ewan’s death in 1913, Margaret inherited his entire estate, becoming one of the wealthiest women in Britain.
This gorgeous portrait (above) painted in 1891 by Carolus-Duran (who was John Singer Sargent’s teacher) sits on the landing of the central hall, on the way to the dining room… exactly where MrsGgreville loved to make a dramatic entrance and meet her guests as they went in to dinner…
Margaret had been married in 1891 to the Honorable Ronald Henry Fulke Greville, a handsome gentleman identified as “a member of the racy Marlborough House set” who was said to have been “witty and good-natured.” Photos show him with a rakish moustache and piercing light blue eyes. He was the eldest son of the 2nd Lord Greville and a conservative MP for Bradford as well as a Captain in the 1st Life Guards.  Greville and Margaret were, by all accounts, happily wed for seventeen years, until he died suddenly from complications of an emergency operation.  She never remarried, though, as an immensely wealthy widow she probably had a number of men desirous of being in her company.
Why is this National Trust property, Polesden Lacey, important?
Well, for one, it is so closely associated with events in British history and with prominent historic personages – like Sheridan, like the assorted royals and foreign visitors with whom the Grevilles interacted – and Mrs Greville herself was an amazing character whose talent lay in bringing people together in an intimate salon setting and who was said to have had a remarkably sharp and witty tongue. 
We would, I think, like to know much more about what she thought about what and whom, living through those two horrific world wars that upended British society as she had known it, but, as all of her personal letters, diaries and other papers were destroyed after her death, at her request…
One can b
e sure. then that the many things that swirled about her, all the racy and intriguing political/private/scandalous goings-on/et al., of the Edwardian era and the reign of King George VI (father to the present Queen, Elizabeth II) will never see her viewpoint’s light of day.  It was too bad, because as an intimate of so many well-connected and powerful people, she was in a position to hear and see a great many things that could be illuminating, even obliquely.
She was, for one, very close to Elizabeth, the Queen Mother – Elizabeth and George VII (before he became king) spent part of their honeymoon at Polesden Lacey — and Mrs Greville left the Queen Mother and her daughters the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, her most precious jewels…one a diamond necklace  purported to have been owned by the French Queen Marie Antoinette. 
The widely-held expectation, in fact, was that she was going to leave Polesden Lacey to the House of Windsor in her will. (She and Ronald had no children.) However, she did not do that, gifting it to the National Trust instead.
(For those who want to know and see a little more than can be covered in this piece, there is an extensively-illustrated biography, published by the National Trust in 2013, written by Sian Evans:  Mrs Ronnie:  The Society Hostess Who Collected Kings.)
The Paterson Children, by Sir Henry Raeburn
One of the outstanding collections amongst the many exquisite and valuable collections at Polesden Lacey that I must mention hearkens back to that Scottish connection I mentioned previously, and those are the remarkable paintings in the dining room, many of them by the Scottish portraitists Sir Henry Raeburn (a favorite of King George IV), Allan Ramsay (a favorite of King George III), and by other Scots of lesser renown.
So, again, what is so special about Polesden Lacey?
Along with the above glorious paintings (and the fabulous collections of miniature paintings, ceramics, etc., and Polesden Lacey’s place in history and association with historical personages, it is also (and this is not such a minor thing), as the National Trust describes it:
                “an English estate in the traditional manner – a blend of open lawns and enclosed rose                gardens, mature native trees and exotic species from overseas, formal terraces and informal shrubs…. An appealing yet practical complete landscape.”
And this is very true:
            “the estate was bought by successive owners because it was beautiful… but…its maintenance      was only possible because of  Mrs Greville’s considerable personal fortune.” 
We must not forget that we visitors (including this child from London pictured below and the many families lounging on deck chairs in the background and those walking all the beautiful trails) are much the richer for it, as its maintenance – keeping it beautiful – was possible only because of Mrs Ronnie’s considerable personal fortune and her concern for future generations. It’s in trust for everyone in Britain and all should be very grateful it passed on to the people of Britain and not to the royal family of Windsor.
Jo Manning
Polesden lacey
April 2015
Click here to read a 2012 Daily Mail article about the brouhaha surrounding pheasant shooting rights on the Estate. 

LOOK OF LOVE OPENS IN MINNEAPOLIS

Oval Gold Pendant surrounded by seed pearls.ca 1830

The Look of Love: Eye Miniatures from the Skier Collection 

The exhibition opens May 15, 2014, and runs through August 24, at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts  Click here for their website.

Gold Oval brooch and pendant surrounded by split pearls, ca. 1835-40

 

Here at Number One London, we have a close and affectionate feeling for this wonderful and unique exhibition.  Our frequent guest blogger Jo Manning wrote  some very special stories for the catalogue.
Here is Jo’s blog about the original opening at the Birmingham Museum of Art in March, 2012.

Bracelet surmounted with miniature in gold surround with drop pearl;
 plaited hairwork on reverse; gray right eye. n.d.
Victoria had a delightful meeting with Nan Skier at the original venue, the Birmingham Museum of Art in Alabama visited in April, 2012. You can read an account of that meeting here.


Jo attended the opening at the Look of Love Exhibitions’ second venue in Georgia, and wrote about it here.

Rose gold octagonal pendant surrounded by blue enamel with half pearls. Brown left eye.


The Look of Love exhibition was also shown at the Winterthur Museum in Delaware. September 21, 2013 – January 5, 2044. Click here for more information.


Gold oval brooch surrounded by foil-backed red pastes, ca. 1790. Blue left eye
surrounded by curls. Attributed to Richard Cosway.


Here’s hoping you have had an opportunity to see this outstanding collections of treasures!


All photos, ©Birmingham Museum of Art, Sean Pathasema, photographer

A Look at The Look of Love

 A guest blog by Jo Manning

Jo Manning (with Lily)

The LOOK OF LOVE exhibit has opened in Birmingham, Alabama, at the Birmingham Museum of Art.  I was fortunate enough to be there for the opening and the first couple of days of the show, which runs until the end of June.  For museum information, click here.

Dr David  and Nan Skier
Before discussing this spectacular exhibit – the first of its kind in the world – and one that, with its accompanying catalog, sets the standard for research on this unique portrait miniature-cum-jewelry that has been, up until now, so little known in either the art or jewelry worlds, some backstory…
I often tell people that one never knows, after one’s book is published and sent out into the marketplace, who will see it, who will be affected by it, and what repercussions it will generate.  My biography of Grace Dalrymple Elliott, a notorious courtesan of the late 18th-early 19th centuries, was sold in bookstores and museum gift shops. 

At one of the latter, the Bass Museum of Art’s gift shop in Miami Beach, Florida, it was seen by Dr David Skier, an eye surgeon from Birmingham, who thought his wife would enjoy it. One of the things he noticed in the book was a sidebar on Lover’s Eyes — eye miniatures – with a photo of a ring in the “collection of the author”.

This was of great interest to Dr Skier because he and his wife Nan had quietly been collecting these beautiful objects for many years and had accumulated some 70+ of them. (They now own 100+ of these miniatures.)  Assuming that I had a collection of these objects, they wrote to my publisher Simon & Schuster, asking for my contact information.  The publisher referred them to my agent, Jenny Bent of the Bent Agency, and she contacted me.  I responded promptly with the news that, no, I owned just the one ring, and that I’d become interested in them after seeing the eye miniatures in the collection of my writing colleague Candice Hern, who owned several lovely brooches.  I was also entranced by the story of how they came about and their subsequent history.
 
The Skiers became friends, and when I was asked to contribute to the catalog for an exhibition of their collection called The Look of Love, I said I would be happy to do so, but that I did not in any way consider myself an expert on the subject.  No, they said, we’d like you to write some stories, vignettes, inspired by the eyes in their collection.  I thought this was a brilliant idea, frankly, because each of the eyes had a story – an unknown story for the most part, to be sure, as sitters and artists were mostly unidentified – and the eyes do speak to the viewer.  I gave my imagination full rein and wrote five stories for their consideration.  To my knowledge, this is another first; I know of no fiction in the catalogs of art shows. Essays on the art and history, yes, those are standard, but bits of fiction…nope!
 I have to confess that the stories came very easily, which does not always happen to a writer.  But the eyes drew me in, and I chose the most eloquent, in my opinion, and wrote away.  My goal was to illuminate how these objects of love and affection came about, what they meant in a society with mores quite unlike our own, who the artists might be and why they painted them, what the symbolism involved meant to people in that era, and, yes, the aura they held of clandestine love tokens was very appealing to me, as a writer of historical romance.
The stories are:  “Pippa and William”; “Ursula Engleheart Prepares Tea For Her Artist Husband George…”; “I Mourn Your Loss, My Beloved…”; “My Mother, Mariah Norcross”; and “The Grey Eye in Great-Aunt Lavinia’s Jewelry Box”.
 Pippa and William are star-crossed lovers (not to be confused with Pippa Middleton and Prince William J) who meet as children, fall in love, but cannot marry because of dynastic “rules” governing marriage; Ursula Engleheart is the story of a prolific painter of miniatures (an estimated 5,000 of them in his lifetime) who paints eyes for clandestine lovers but doesn’t sign them to avoid trouble with his patrons, their parents; I Mourn Your Loss tells a sad tale of two of the many young men who perished in the Napoleonic Wars and how all that remains of one of them is the lover’s eye he gave to his fiancée; My Mother, Mariah Norcross is another bereavement story that also illustrates the perils of epidemics in that Georgian era and its horrific costs to families; and, finally, the last story, of what was found in Great-Aunt Lavinia’s Jewelry Box by careless heirs, speculates on the possible unfortunate fate of many an eye miniature.
The exhibition, and the beautifully illustrated 208 page catalog – a proper coffee-table book! – have each garnered wonderful publicity.  The catalog will probably become a collector’s item as well as an important research source on the subject of eye miniatures; the essays by Dr. Graham Boettcher, the curator, and Elle Shushan, a dealer in portrait miniatures, are outstanding, detailed, and most readable.
Graham Boettcher
Elle Shushan
The exhibit is exquisite, mounted with extreme delicacy and care by the professionals at the Birmingham Museum of Art, and the oohs and ahhs of those visiting the jewel of a room in which it is housed brings joy to everyone who’s been involved in its creation and implementation, but most of all to Nan and Dr David Skier, who collected these gorgeous pieces that combine art/history/and jewelry in such a unique manner. Plans are underway to bring the exhibit to other cities; the catalog can be ordered through Amazon, where it has been Number One in its category – Art  and Antiques – for weeks. It can also be ordered from the English publisher
D Giles Ltd here.
Nan Skier talks about the collection here. Scroll down half a page for the presentation.

There are special events surrounding the Look of Love which can be found on the museum’s web site  here.

The coverage has been overwhelming: Take a look at the Vanity Fair web article, for example, here.
A beautiful article appears in Antiques & Fine Arts which requires an online FREE registration.  Here is the online site:  http://www.antiquesandfineart.com/
Many other articles area available on the internet and through the museum’s website.
A postscript:  One of the several delightful people I met – including dealers/art consultants/appraisers Reagan Upshaw, Michael Quick, and Sonja Weber (the book is dedicated to her late husband Barry Weber, who often appeared on Antiques Roadshow) — was Thomas Sully, a painter and direct descendant of the English-born American painter of the same name.

Tom Sully self-portrait miniature

Tom Sully paints portrait miniatures, amongst other painting genres and has lately begun to do eye miniatures. I asked him, “How do you do this? Isn’t elephant ivory  [which was used for most Georgian eye miniatures] endangered?”  He replied that the Russians are selling woolly mammoth – yes! woolly mammoth! – ivory and that is what he is using. Not endangered. Extinct. But not endangered.&
nbsp; I saw some samples of his work and it is very fine, indeed.  Check him out   here.

 





And do consider commissioning a lover’s eye – or two – for yourself.

Downton Abbey… Upstairs, Downstairs and/or Brideshead Revisited Redux? A Personal Opinion

It’s Ba-a-a-aa-aack!
PBS is re-running the first episodes of Downton Abbey in

December 2011, as a prelude to showing the latest season, seen in the UK last fall.  I expect a big fuss on many loops and blogs as again we re-hash our opinions — both positive and negative — on the show.

Our frequent guest blogger, Jo Manning, was in England to see season two — and here is her view of the new episodes.

Downton Abbey… Upstairs, Downstairs and/or Brideshead Revisited Redux?  A Personal Opinion
by Jo Manning
As I put fingers to computer keyboard, I am reminded of that line in the vice-presidential debate in 1988 between Texas Senator Lloyd Bentsen and Indiana Senator Dan Quayle, where Quayle kept making references to himself as a new Jack Kennedy.  Bentsen delivered the scathing putdown:
            “Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy, I knew Jack Kennedy, Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.”
In relation to this 2011 ITV mini-series, Downton Abbey, I am moved to paraphrase that excoriating putdown:  
            “ITV, writer Julian Fellowes, the cast of Downton Abbey, I watched Upstairs,         Downstairs and Brideshead Revisited devotedly, and many, many times.  Gentlemen, ladies, you are neither of those truly wonderful productions, not by a  very long shot.” I would add, “You are absurd and unrealistic, for starters!”

I saw the second episode of this series – which had begun with the repercussions of the sinking of the Titanic upon the fortunes of a wealthy earl – the Earl of Grantham — and his family – an American-born heiress wife and three daughters – with my daughter in West London.  She’d warned me, “You have to see this to believe it.”  She was correct.  We could not stop laughing at the terribly clichéd plot, the wooden acting, the stereotyped characters, and the overall, well, yes, the overall silliness of this production.  And I’m not talking de gustibus…here; this is more than a mere matter of taste.
But the amazing – and, truly, unbelievable aspect – of this venture is that most people – especially those Anglophiles in the United States – ADORE IT! It has received awards, including prestigious US Emmys for outstanding t.v. mini-series/movie, for writing, for directing, and for the incomparable Maggie Smith in the supporting actress category. Smith is the only palpable reason for watching this awful production; her chewing up and spitting out the scenery is a highly seasoned tour de force, simply delicious. (The mini-series also won for cinematography and costumes at the Creative Arts Emmys.)

How did it happen that it beat out Pillars Of The Earth, for heaven’s sake, a magnificently produced mini-series with outstanding acting that was based on Ken Follett’s popular novel?  It has to be Anglophilia, simply that.
And the awards did not stop there. Downton Abbey entered the Guinness Book of World Record as “the most critically acclaimed television show” of the year. (Brideshead Revisited garnered this honor in 1981 for the original t.v. series.) Well, no one was polling a certain family in West London, for sure!
To compound this unbelievable love-fest, ITV confirmed in November that a third series has been commissioned and will air beginning in September 2012. Truly, I am gobsmacked L

Where do I start, not wanting to give away what happens in the second series… Well, there’s Hugh Bonneville – never the most accomplished of actors — as the Earl of Grantham, who acts as if he has an iron rod up his bum and whose monologues to the servants and others are stunningly stupid; Lady Mary, his eldest daughter, played by Michelle Dockery – whose acting gamut runs from A to D, arrogance to disdain — gives us no reason whatsoever to sympathize with her plight as the eldest-daughter-who-has-to-marry-well. She has obviously matriculated from the same acting school as Mr Bonneville. Chemistry between Lady Mary and anyone simply does not exist. She is a cold fish, with nothing lovable about her; the idea that she would fall into bed with a young handsome Turk she has only just met is totally off the wall. And, too, chemistry is also sadly lacking between the youngest (and wannabe social activist daughter) and the Irish chauffeur. Their “attraction” is excruciating, painful, non-existent.
Poor, still beautiful Elizabeth McGovern is the Earl’s rich American wife…  She used to be a pretty good actress – remember how exquisite she was when only a teenager, in Ordinary People? — but the dialogue coming out of her mouth lays her low. How does she not choke on it?
The servants also have their share of pretty awful characters. The butler, played by veteran character actor Jim Carter, has the same rod up his bum that the Earl of Grantham and Lady Mary strut around with, and don’t get me started on the whiny, sycophantic valet! His performance…oh, gag me with a spoon!

A major element of the first series was the problem with Lady Mary unable to inherit the earldom, since she is a woman, and male primogeniture prevails in England. (Recent events with the children of Prince William and Kate Middleton notwithstanding, as Downton Abbey is set in the first decades of the 20th century and the Earl and Countess of Grantham are not royals.)  Fellowes has the aristos try to get this changed. Well – and Fellowes should be well aware of this, coming from the class he does – you cannot do this, the conditions of inherited titles being what they are. Everyone, then, would know it!
It is patently absurd that the earl and his family should try to buck this, but take a look at this link to an article by A.N. Wilson for a possible clue as to why this storyline might have so interested Julian Fellowes:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2037077/Downton-Abbeys-creator-Julian-Fellowes-biggest-snob-Britain.html  It is all about how Fellowes is enraged that his wife cannot inherit a title.
The piece is scorching.  As well it should be.  Do note this comment of A.N. Wilson, too, which echoes exactly what I have been saying:
            “Fellowes is an absurd, rather than malign, figure in our public life, so one would not wish to respond t
o this latest bid for publicity with too much of a po-face. I acknowledge I’m in a minority when it comes to Downton Abbey, and that most of the nation will be gripped by the new series of this unrealistic depiction of upper-class life in the old days.”
For those who’ve not come across this expression, po-faced translates as humorless or disapproving. A.N. Wilson is an outspoken journalist and commentator and a prolific writer of fictional and biographical works. Look him up in WorldCat:  http://worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n77-3675.
 Will not go into the editing problems, the telephone poles in the village, etc.  That is sloppy film editing, nothing to do with the problems with Fellowes’ writing and the lousy acting that prevails. (Still cannot believe he got an Oscar for Gosford Park, an entertaining film with several great moments… It could be his one shining moment, though; so much else that he has done is so bad.)

When Anglophiles who love good English drama of the sort carried by PBS’s Masterpiece Theatre can anticipate with so very little difficulty the next line coming out of a character’s mouth, that’s…not good. As a comedy, Downton Abbey succeeds beautifully; as a drama, it is embarrassing. Drama should surprise us, enlighten us, and make us ponder possibilities, not bore us to death, in my opinion.

Really, need anyone say more?
Well, yes.  From a Daily Mail article – and, spoiler alert! – don’t click on this link unless you desperately do want to know – despite my caveats — what happens in Series Two:
“ ‘I know it’s a cliché,’ he cried at one point, shouting to be hear over the thundering ‘background’ music and Lady Mary doing her special blinking vole look.
“Cliché? That hasn’t stopped Fellowes before, we bellowed back.
“Oh dear. It’s terrible. It’s wonderful. It’s a disaster. It’s terrific. And without our Downton fix, what are we going to do to amuse ourselves on Sunday nights now?”
[Oh, be still my heart… “Lady Mary doing her special blinking vole look.”  Perfect, just perfect! Could not have put it more perfectly myself J]

Well, here’s a thought… Go out and rent the wonderful film of the Isabel Colegate book, The Shooting Party.  The book was published in 1980; the film was released in 1985. It is the real thing…English aristocrats seeing the ebbing of the world they knew, on the eve of the First World War, and they are both works of art, the book and the movie. Yes, really, they are genuinely works of art, not trumped up absurdities.

But did you know he was an actor before turning to writing?  Not a terribly successful actor.  Probably his most memorable role was as the overweight, annoying neighbor who tries to win the widowed Susan Hamps
hire’s heart in the television sitcom Monarch Of The Glen. Yes, that was Fellowes: Kilwillie!

From the IMDB website, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088111/ :
            “Autumn, 1913: on the eve of the Great War, a small party of lords and      ladies gather at the Hertfordshire estate of Sir Randolph Nettleby. A code  of propriety governs all: dress, breakfast, relations with the estate’s   peasants, courtship, shooting, adultery. Lionel Stephens, who is courting   Sir Randolph’s daughter, gets into a shooting competition with Lord Gilbert    Hartlip; Lord Gilbert’s wife carries on discreet affairs; a pamphleteer          circles the estate calling for no more killing, and Sir Robert’s grandson   hopes to protect a wild duck he’s befriended. A way of life is ending: Lord Gilbert’s violation of the gentlemen’s code suggests internal rot as the real    world presses in.”

James Mason gives the performance of his acting career as Sir Randolph Nettleby, who hosts what will probably be the last gathering of his aristocratic family and friends as the world prepares to blow asunder. The cast of The Shooting Party is superb, absolutely first-rate – John Gielgud, James Fox, Robert Hardy, Cheryl Crawford, Gordon Jackson, Dorothy Tutin, to name only a few — and the story bittersweet and memorable.  No posturing, no bombast, no nonsensical plotting, and, best of all, that Julian Fellowes fellow had nothing whatsoever to do with it.

Thanks, Jo, for your uninhibited opinions and your suggestion of The Shooting Party.  We invite our readers’ opinons too — please comment on your views of Downtown Abbey.  Do you love it — or were you disappointed?  Come one, come all!  We want to hear from you. 

Visiting the Geffreye Museum by Guest Blogger Jo Manning

THE GEFFRYE MUSEUM, HISTORIC ALMSHOUSES * ON KINGSLAND ROAD, SHOREDITCH, A GEM IN THE HEART OF LONDON’S EAST END!
Geffrye Museum frontage, showing extensive lawns…a serene place of an afternoon to wander about or just to sit on a bench and contemplate life…

Blogger  Margarita  Lorenzo (her blog is here) writes:  

“13 years I have been in London, and never have visited the Geffrye Museum before, that is bad!! considering it is a bus ride away from home, free to visit and about a subject I adore, interiors.  [I] decided to venture to East London to discover a bit more about this area and the Museum. The venue is the right size, have gorgeous gardens, entrance, and rooms exploring each period of the English Middle Class houses and their decorations, different styles, ways of living etc. … “ 

Main entrance to Geffrey Museum, with statue of Sir Robert Geffrye, who was a Lord Mayor of London and Master of the Ironmongers Company, over the door


Ms. Lorenzo’s remarks are what one hears over and over again when the Geffrye Museum is mentioned in conversation… Yes, people have heard the name, but, no, they’ve never visited, and, gee, it’s so accessible using public transportation! 

And the exhibitions are always worthwhile.  In keeping with the dedicated educational purpose of the Geffrye, there are excellent demonstrations and talks.  Their holiday celebrations are not to be missed! (Though be warned that the herb gardens may not be open to the public at that time.) Click here for upcoming events. 
So, yes, if one has the time, walk…but take a good map.  There are some challenging blocks from the tube station to the Geffrye, many windings and turnings. (And some excellent Vietnamese restaurants, though I’d recommend eating in the brand-new, very nice restaurant at the Geffrye.)  This used to be the seat of the furniture trade and a Jewish area.  It was also home to Huguenot weavers. The little houses where the weavers lived and wove are now selling in the millions of pounds.

 Before lottery money, the Geffrye was these old almshouses bequeathed by a wealthy 17th century London merchant, a charming but rather modest low-key and free museum that was a must on school visit lists.  Its raison d’etre was the glimpse of the many rooms, by ce
ntury and decade, depicting life in London.  Since my initial visit some dozen or so years ago, the Geffrye has blossomed.  Yes, that lottery money!  It enabled the museum to put in more extensive herb gardens (a joy!), expand the educational nature of the museum with gallery space and a large room for crafts and other activities, add additional period rooms, exhibition space, and, last though certainly not least, to install a gorgeous restaurant where once there was only a modest café.

(See wwww.geffryemuseum.org.uk for a virtual tour, or, using the search term Geffryre Museum, click on to Google Images. The new website is amazing!)

Below is a good aerial view of the 1998 extension to the Geffrye. You are seeing the windows of the restaurant that look out onto the new herb gardens.  If you could see further, there’s a wall and beyond that, the new tube station. The church spire is St Leonard’s, I believe, and you can just make out some of the tall office buildings (the famed Gherkin is one of them) in the environs of Liverpool Street.  Directly across from the museum is well-maintained council housing. The architectural firm responsible for the extension done in 1998 was Branson Coates Architecture.
The Branson Coates extension to the Geffrye almshouse, above.

In May of this year, the Heritage Lottery Fund awarded £518,500 to the firm of renowned architect David Chipperfield for a new, major development.  The resulting museum will be renamed Museum of the Home. (Surely not! Will they really eliminate the name of the benefactor Geffrye from the museum’s name? Methinks it will be along the lines of:  The Geffrye, Museum of the Home.)

schematic of the design

According to the Geffrye Museum website: “The total project cost is an estimated £13.2m and is due for completion in April 2015.”


Masterplan by David Chipperfield Architects, 2010

A view of Sir Robert Geffrye’s almhouses, 1805

It was apparently owing to influential members of the Arts and Crafts movement in England, circa 1914, that the old almshouses became a museum.  One of the main ideas behind it was to honor the local furniture industry in the Shoreditch/Spitalfields area and “to educate and inspire the local workforce”.  The major consumers of such furniture were London’s middle-class, so the period rooms reflect middle-class taste and furniture affordable to them.  


1906 watercolour 

  

According to the Geffrye website:
   “The museum’s collections are presented in the context of period      rooms…Their purpose is to show the changing styles and tastes of this  urban middle class at different periods of history. They represent liv
ing rooms, known in the past as parlours, and later, drawing rooms, and  show examples of the furniture, textiles and decorative styles…in a particular period. Clearly there were always a number of designs, colours  and patterns to choose from, and these displays can only show a limited  selection.”

1790 Parlour
Again from the Geffrye website:
            “The use of the parlour remained much the same as earlier in the  century… the room where the family … gathered, received guests and taken meals. However, the way it was decorated and furnished had  changed considerably.
            “In diaries, journals and letters of the time people often referred to rooms and furnishings that they liked as ‘neat’, which meant bright and stylish as  well as clean and tidy. This taste required lighter colours and more delicate decoration. Wallpapered walls were particularly useful for achieving this effect, replacing heavily moulded panelling.  
            “In the museum’s room the wallpaper is a modern replica copied from a  fragment dating to around 1780. The plaster frieze is copied from a house in Cross Street, Islington. Interest in classical design and decoration was increasingly widespread towards the end of the century.”
Keep in mind that the primary visitors to the Geffrye are school groups.  I think that this description is clear but does not make the mistake of talking down to students. The rooms are accessible, the descriptions brief, and every child can surely relate to the concept of a living room.

And the gardens!  These are my favorite part of the Geffrye, to be honest. (A word of caution:  they are not open all year around, so check before visiting if this is would be an important reason for your visit.) When I first found my way to the Geffrye, there was only this (below).  When more funds became available to the museum, period gardens were put in place, and they are brilliant.
Entering the first (and original) herb garden

 And here is the 18th Century Period Garden:


This is rose “De Meux” with a box hedge

 “Town gardens were increasingly seen as an extension of the house, a place for recreation and entertainment … The evidence indicates that the prevailing taste was for simplicity and tidiness, with ornamental gardens featuring paved and/or rolled gravel paths, geometric beds with box edging and the use of evergreen shrubs, often clipped and kept distinct from  one another.”

Last year at the Geffrye  —  I am in the Period Gardens  —  over my left shoulder is the restaurant  — to my right and behind the brick wall, is  the brand-new and spiffy Hoxton Station, on the spur line coming from Liverpool Street Station
  
What else is there to do at the Geffrye?  And you will have to dedicate at least 2 hours to the galleries and gardens; 3 hours if you decide to have lunch. (Wish they’d post the menus online! It’s great English fo
od, the best.)

Well, there is a very fine shop.  (I’d recommend buying the beeswax polish, for starters, great for antique furniture!)  Nice ceramics and fun stuff for children like the Regency paper doll.  There are inexpensive and handy cutaways of period houses that can be very useful for writers of historical fiction, too.  Check here for items made exclusively for the museum.

 

 Above is a schematic map showing how to get there from Liverpool Street Station. The Geffrye stop is Hoxton Station. You won’t have to walk if you don’t want to do so. (Or, you could walk there, through that intriguing old East London area, and return to Liverpool Street by tube…)
I would also recommend walking around that Liverpool Street area, checking out all the (expensive!) trendy shops and restaurants, and don’t forget to take a photo under the famous Brick Lane sign.  You’ll be happy you did  — Jo

* I assume everyone reading this knows what almshouses were…but, just in case, here is the definition, from the online Cambridge Dictionary:

“A private house built in the past where old or poor people could live without having to pay rent.”  

It’s as good a definition as any, but I would add that both private individuals and local towns, villages, etc., would erect such houses.  Their distinctive style of architecture can be seen all over England and many have been converted to senior citizen subsidized housing.