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...enjoying a cup of tea....in a cup not used for such a long time...but today the setting just called for it!
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Tonight however we have headed east of Cavendish Mews, down through St James’, past Trafalgar Square and down The Strand to one of London’s most luxurious and fashionable hotels, The Savoy*, where, surrounded by mahogany and rich red velvet, gilded paintings and extravagant floral displays, Lettice is having dinner with the son of the Duke of Walmsford, Selwyn Spencely to help celebrate his birthday. The pair have made valiant attempts to pursue a romantic relationship since meeting at Lettice’s mother, Lady Sadie’s, Hunt Ball. Yet things haven’t been easy, their relationship moving in fits and starts, partially due to the invisible, yet very strong influence of Selwyn’s mother, Lady Zinnia, the current Duchess of Walmsford. Although Lettice has no solid proof of it, she is quite sure that Lady Zinnia does not think her a suitable match for her eldest son and heir. From what she has been told, Lettice also believes that Lady Zinnia has tried matchmaking Selwyn unsuccessfully with his cousin Pamela Fox-Chavers. In an effort to prove that they are serious about being together, Selwyn suggested at a dinner in the self-same Savoy dining room a few months ago, that be seen together about town, and the best way to do that is to be seen at the functions and places that will be popular because they are part of the London Season. Taking that approach, the pair have discarded discretion, and have been seen together at many different occasions and their photograph has graced the society pages of all the London newspapers time and time again.
Lettice strides with the assured footsteps of a viscount’s daughter as she walks beneath the grand new Art Deco portico of the Savoy and the front doors are opened for her by liveried doormen. She still gets a thrill at being so open about her relationship with Selwyn amidst all the fashionable people populating the Savoy dining room, especially after the pair have been very discreet about their relationship for the past year.
Lettice is ushered into the grand dining room of the Savoy, a space brilliantly illuminated by dozens of glittering electrified chandeliers cascading down like fountains from the high ceiling above. Beneath the sparkling light, men in white waistcoats and women a-glitter with jewels and bugle bead embroidered frocks are guided through the cavernous dining room where they are seated in high backed mahogany and red velvet chairs around tables dressed in crisp white tablecloths and set with sparkling silver and gilt china. The large room is very heavily populated with theatre patrons enjoying a meal before a show and London society out for an evening. The space is full of vociferous conversation, boisterous laughter, the clink of glasses and the scrape of cutlery against crockery as the diners enjoy the magnificent repast served to them from the hotel’s famous kitchens. Above it all, the notes of the latest dance music from the band can be heard as they entertain diners and dancers who fill the parquet dance floor.
A smartly uniformed waiter escorts Lettice to a table for two in the midst of the grand dining salon, but Lettice stops dead in her tracks on the luxurious Axminister carpet when she sees someone other than Selwyn awaiting for her at the white linen covered table.
“Surprise.” a cool female voice enunciates, the single word lacking the usual joyful lilt when spoken. “Miss Chetwynd, we finally meet.”
Seated at the table is a figure Lettice recognises not only from old editions of her mother’s copies of The Lady** and Horse and Hound***, but from a more recent social engagement, when she attended the Royal Horticultural Society’s Great Spring Show**** in May. Her pale white face and calculating dark eyes appraise Lettice coldly as she stands, frozen to the floor.
“Lady Zinnia!” Lettice gasps with an involuntary shiver, before quickly recovering her manners and dropping an elegant curtsey. “Your Grace.”
“How very clever of you to recognise me, my dear.” Lady Zinnia replies with a proud smile that bears no warmth towards Lettice in it. “Please, do join me, won’t you? I was just arranging for some caviar to be served upon your arrival. You can serve the caviar now that my guest is here.”
“Very good, Your Grace.” the waiter answers with deference.
As Lettice allows herself, as if sleepwalking, to take her place adjunct to the Duchess of Walmsford with the assistance of the waiter withdrawing and pushing in her chair for her, she takes in the mature woman’s elegant figure. Dressed in a strikingly simple black evening gown adorned with shimmering black bugle beads with satin and net sleeves, her only jewellery is a long rope of perfect white pearls. Her careful choice of a lack of adornment only serves to draw attention to her glacially beautiful features. Her skin, pale and creamy, is flawless and her cheekbones are high. Her dark wavy cascades of hair only betrays her maturity by way of a single streak of white shooting from her temple, but even this is strikingly elegant as it leaves a silvery trail as it disappears into the rest of her almost blue black tresses. Her dark sloe blue eyes pierce Lettice to the core.
“You know, you’re even more beautiful in the flesh than you are in the newspapers my dear Miss Chetwynd,” begins Lady Zinnia. “Although I can still see beneath that polished, cosmopolitan chic exterior of yours, the wild bucolic child of the counties who dragged my son through the muddy hedgerows back before the war.”
“And I can still see the angry mother that bundled Selwyn away.” replies Lettice.
“Touché, my dear.” Lady Zinnia says with a slight smile curling up the corners of her thin lips. “I’m pleased that I left such a lasting impression upon you.”
“I was expecting to have dinner with Selwyn this evening, Your Grace.” Lettice says, deciding that there is no point in bartering barbs thinly disguised as pleasantries with the hostile duchess.
“Oh, I know you were, Miss Chetwynd, but I’m afraid that there was a slight change of plans.” Lady Zinnia answers mysteriously. “Oh, and I think we can dispense with the formalities. Lady Zinnia will be quite satisfactory.”
“A change of plans, Your Gr… Lady Zinnia?”
“Yes,” She chuckles quietly as she reaches down into her lap below the linen tablecloth and fumbles about for something. “So I will have to do, I’m afraid.” She withdraws a Moroccan leather case with her initials tooled on its front in ornate gilded lettering. “I know you don’t partake, but do you mind if I smoke, Miss Chetwynd?” She depresses a clasp in the side and it opens to reveal a full deck of thin white cigarettes. “It’s not so much of a taboo as it once was for a woman to smoke in public.”
“Feel free to catch on fire, Lady Zinnia.” Lettice replies as the older woman withdraws a silver lighter from the clutch purse she must have on her lap.
“Oh how deliciously droll, my dear Miss Chetwynd.” Lady Zinnia replies, apparently unruffled by Lettice’s own hostile barb. “Did you read that line in Punch****?”
“Where is Selwyn, Lady Zinnia?” Lettice asks, leaning forward, unable to keep the vehemence out of her voice.
“I’m afraid that my son,” She emphasises the last two words with heavy gravitas. “Had to go away quite suddenly, Miss Chetwynd.” Lady Zinnia screws a cigarette in an unconcerned fashion into a small amber holder with a gold end.
“Go away?”
“Yes, Miss Chetwynd.” She looks directly at Lettice with her piercing stare, as if she were pinning a delicate butterfly to a mounting board with a sharp pin. “He was suddenly offered an opportunity to showcase his architectural panache in a place far more accepting of this preferred new modernist style he favours than London ever will.”
“Where?”
“Durban.” Lady Zinnia answers matter-of-factly before placing the cigarette holder to her lips and lighting the cigarette dangling from it with her silver lighter.
“Durban!” Lettice gasps. “As in, South Africa?”
“I’m glad to see you know your geography, Miss Chetwynd.” Lady Zinnia says as she withdraws the cigarette holder from her lips and exhales an elegant plume of acrid silver grey smoke which tumbles out over itself. “Your father didn’t waste the money he spent on your expensive education.” She sighs with boredom. “Yes, Durban in South Africa.”
“But he didn’t indicate any of this to me.” Lettice mutters in disbelief.
“Oh, it was very sudden, Miss Chetwynd, and he hadn’t long to make up his mind.” the Duchess replies cooly. “As I indicated, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and they seldom come around, as I’m sure you know only too well yourself, Miss Chetwynd, being the successful young interior designer that you are.”
Lettice silently presses the book of architecture sitting on the chair at her side that she bought at Mayhew’s****** just a few weeks ago for Selwyn for his birthday, wrapped in bright paper and tied with a gayly coloured ribbon by herself.
“He really had no choice but to leap at the chance.” continues Lady Zinnia.
“He would never have gone without saying goodbye to me first.” Lettice insists.
“You’d be amazed what I can make people do, Miss Chetywnd.” Lady Zinnia replies threateningly and then takes another drag on her cigarette, before blowing out a fresh plume of smoke. “Even my own beloved son.”
“You?” Lettice’s eyes, glistening with tears that threaten to burst forth, growing wide in shock. “You did this?”
“Well, let’s be honest, shall we? I really had no choice, Miss Chetwynd.” Lady Zinnia replies. “No doubt you will despise me for it, but when you reach my age, my dear, you realise that you cannot be friends with everyone in this life. Besides,” she goes on, taking another drag on her cigarette, the paper crackling slightly as her cheeks draw inwards. “You cannot blame me entirely, when you yourself are at least partially to blame for this, Miss Chetwynd.”
“Me?” Lettice splutters hotly, her dainty hands clenching in anger at the older woman’s accusation. “How do you come to that conclusion?”
“Well, if you hadn’t blundered blithely into my son’s life, spoiling all my well laid plans,” Her dark eyes widen, increasing her look of vehemence towards Lettice. “There would be no need for him to go, now would there, Miss Chetwynd?”
“Durban. Durban!” Lettice keeps repeating hollowly.
“Yes, it’s rather a lovely place: beautiful sunny weather this time of year, although it a little out of the way, I must confess.” Lady Zinnia smiles at her own harsh amusement. “Perhaps when you one day get married, your husband will take you there for your honeymoon.”
Lettice looks with vehemence across the table at her companion, her view of her features slightly blurred by the tears in her eyes. “Yes, Selwyn can show me the buildings he designed during his stay there.” she replies with determination.
“Bravo, Miss Chetwynd.” Lady Zinnia rests her almost spent cigarette in the black marble ashtray she has been provided with by the Savoy staff and quietly slowly claps her hands, her white elbow length gloves muffling the sound. “Such spirited words. I must admire your pluck. No wonder my dear Selwyn is attracted to you. He is determined to create his own world, against social conventions too.”
Just at that moment, two waiters approach their table. One carries a silver ice bucket containing a bottle of champagne and two long crystal champagne flutes, whilst the other bears an ornate silver tray upon which stand a fan of biscuits, a plate of lemon slices and a bowl of glistening, jewel like caviar.
“Shall I pour, Your Grace?” the waiter with the champagne asks as he places the ice bucket on the edge of the table.
“Oh yes, please do!” enthuses Lady Zinnia jovially. “We are in a celebratory mood tonight, aren’t we Miss Chetwynd?” She does not even bother to look at Lettice as she speaks, and Lettice does not reply as her head sinks.
“May I be so bold as to ask what Your Grace is celebrating?” the waiter asks politely.
“Indeed you may,” replies Lady Zinnia. “My son is going to Durban for a year to design beautiful homes for South African families. He set sail this morning for Cape Town, and we are wishing him every success.”
“Congratulations to His Grace, Your Grace.” the waiter says as the cork in the champagne bottle pops and he pours sparkling golden effervescent champagne into the two glasses.
“Thank you!” Lady Zinnia replies, taking up her glass. “Well, Miss Chetwynd, shall we toast Selwyn’s success?”
She holds her glass up, and for appearance’s sake before the two waiters and the other guests of the Savoy dining room surreptitiously watching them from the nearby tables, Lettice picks up her own glass and connects it with the Duchess’, but she does not smile as she does so.
“Well, I don’t know about you, Miss Chetwynd, but I’m famished.”
Lady Zinnia proceeds to select a biscuit which she places on her gilt edged white plate. She places a small scoop of sticky black caviar on it and tops it with a thin slice of lemon. Lettice does the same, but unlike Lady Zinnia, she does not attempt to eat anything on her plate.
Once the pair of waiters have retreated, Lettice turns back to Lady Zinnia and asks, “Why do you dislike me so as a prospective wife for your son, Lady Zinnia?” She shakes her head. “I make him happy. He makes me happy. I don’t understand.”
“No,” the duchess releases a bitter chuckle. “I don’t suppose you do.”
“What’s wrong with me? I come from a good family. My father’s estate is still quite successful. Unlike many other estates, Glynes is still turning a profit year on year. I’m well educated, like you are yourself.”
“I don’t think you are entirely unsuitable, Miss Chetwynd,” Lady Zinnia concedes, eyeing her young companion with a fresh look of consideration. “Although I would prefer Selwyn to pick a girl from a more notable linage.”
“We can trace our lineage back to Tudor times.”
“And mine can be traced back to the Norman Conquest.”
“Then why did you send him to my mother’s Hunt Ball in the first place, Lady Zinnia?”
“Well, I only sent Selwyn as my emissary to support dear Sadie. I must confess that I never really had a lot of time for your mother. I’d hardly call her a friend: more of a polite acquaintance. She prattles on, like so many other women of our generation, about pointless, meaningless things which I find fearfully tiresome.” She sighs. “Ahhh… but I do have time for your father. He was always very witty and he believed in the emancipation of women, a cause we had in common. He wasted his intelligence on someone as blinkered and old fashioned like your mother,” She sighs again. “However, that was the decision he made. So, when Sadie sent an invitation to her first Hunt Ball since before the war, I didn’t want to attend myself and be stuck with her idle gossip, but I did want to support her in some way, on account of your dear father, so I sent Selwyn instead. I didn’t realise that she was using the occasion to attempt to find you a husband.” She pauses and takes a dainty bite out of the caviar covered biscuit. “If I had known, I would never have sent Selwyn. I have my own plans for him.”
“Pamela?” Lettice asks quietly.
“Yes. Selwyn told me that he had shared with you the plans that his Uncle Bertrand and I had made to match Pamela and him, thus uniting our two great families.”
“Selwyn will never marry her, Lady Zinnia. He doesn’t love her.” Lettice hisses quietly.
“Temper, temper, Miss Chetwynd.” Lady Zinnia cautions in reply. “As I said before, you would be amazed what I have made people do.”
“And Pamela doesn’t love him either.” adds Lettice.
“And that is a problem, even I must admit to. One reluctant party is one thing, but two is quite another.”
“She’s met a very nice banker’s son.”
“Yes, I know, my dear - Jonty Knollys.”
Lettice laughs bitterly. “Of course you know. You seem to have spies everywhere.”
Ignoring her remark, Lady Zinnia carries on, “So you see my dear Miss Chetwynd, I do not have anything against you perse, but you have been rather a fly in Bertrand’s and my ointment. When I saw you with your friend at the Great Spring Show, I knew you were going to be trouble, and when Bertrand told me that he and Rosamund met you at the Henley Regatta, and Rosamund told me that she had observed that there were little intimacies exchanged between the two of you, I knew that with Pamela taking an interest in young Mr. Knollys and Bertrand willing to break his and my long laid plans because Knollys is equally as wealthy as the Spencelys are, I had to step in to separate you two.”
“But why, Lady Zinnia?”
“As I said, I would prefer Selwyn to make a more advantageous match with a girl from a family not unlike that with the lineage and solid financial background of the Spencelys. Mr. Knollys may not have the lineage, but he does have the money to support Pamela handsomely, and she will cultivate enough social connections that people will overlook her husband’s lack of them. However, I am not without some understanding of the human heart, and I do admire a woman with spirit who is well educated and can stand her own ground, so I made a pact with Selwyn.”
“A pact?”
“Yes. I told him that if he went away for a year, a year during which he agreed neither to see, nor correspond with you, if he comes back and doesn’t feel the same way about you as he did when he left, he agreed that he will marry Pamela, just as Bertrand and I planned. If however, he still feels the same way about you when he returns, I agreed that I would concede and will allow him to marry you.”
“But if you knew that Lord Fox-Chavers was wavering towards agreeing to a match between Jonty Knollys and Pamela…”
“Aha, but Selwyn doesn’t, and now that he has made this agreement with me, even if you wrote to him, he will not break our pact and he won’t read your letters. He gave me his solemn promise, and he forfeits his right to marry you if he breaks it. Besides, I have made Bertrand make the same pact with Pamela.”
Lettice shakes her head in disbelief at what Lady Zinnia is saying between mouthfuls of caviar. “Why have you done this? All you are doing is making Selwyn, Pamela, Jonty and I miserable.” Lettice finally asks in exasperation. “If you love Selwyn, if you don’t really dislike me, why are you putting the pair of us through such pain unless you are an exceedingly perverse individual? I don’t understand your motives.”
“Perhaps I am perverse.” chortles Lady Zinnia. “I must confess, I actually quite enjoy being a little perverse. It’s really quite simple my dear Miss Chetwynd, I don’t want my son marrying an infatuation. I nearly made the same mistake and married for love, and I can tell you that if I had, I would not be in as advantageous a position socially or financially today. I want Selwyn to have a clear head before he proposes marriage, and I want him to follow the course I have firmly had set out for the last twenty years. I cannot let something as irritating as the first flushes of young love ruin my well laid plans.” She takes another bite of her caviar and after finishing her mouthful she continues, “Rest assured Miss Chetwynd that however perverse you may think me, I am as much a woman of my word as my son is of his. If he comes back from Durban in a year and he tells me that he still loves you as deeply and passionately that he wants to marry you, I shan’t stand in his way.” She takes out another cigarette from her case and screws it into her cigarette holder. “However, a year is an eternity for the flames of love, however strong you may think they are. A year is more than adequate time for it to be snuffed out and extinguished.” She smiles meanly as she lights her cigarette. Blowing out another plume of cascading grey smoke she concludes, “Don’t imagine for one moment that Selwyn will want to marry you upon his return. He will be a changed man: changed for the better I hope, and free of the shackles of foolish youthful love.” She spits the last word like it is something distasteful. “If I were you, I’d seek another suitor to marry you within the next year. It will help you save face and avoid unnecessary embarrassment.”
Lettice feels the grand Savoy dining room swimming about her as she tried to take in everything Lady Zinnia says. Without even saying a word in goodbye, she manages to raise herself out of her seat and begins to wend her way between the tables of diners, some of whom notice her elegant figure as she slips silently, unsteadily past. Never once does she look back. Never once does she allow her emotions to break free as her footsteps quicken, as she pushes more urgently past the elegantly dressed ladies and gentlemen milling about the room. It is only when, after what feels like a lifetime, she reaches the portico of the Savoy and she feels the cool air of the London evening on her cheeks that she allows the tears to fall, and down they cascade, like a dam that burst its banks, in an endless pair of rivulets.
*The Savoy Hotel is a luxury hotel located in the Strand in the City of Westminster in central London. Built by the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte with profits from his Gilbert and Sullivan opera productions, it opened on 6 August 1889. It was the first in the Savoy group of hotels and restaurants owned by Carte's family for over a century. The Savoy was the first hotel in Britain to introduce electric lights throughout the building, electric lifts, bathrooms in most of the lavishly furnished rooms, constant hot and cold running water and many other innovations. Carte hired César Ritz as manager and Auguste Escoffier as chef de cuisine; they established an unprecedented standard of quality in hotel service, entertainment and elegant dining, attracting royalty and other rich and powerful guests and diners. The hotel became Carte's most successful venture. Its bands, Savoy Orpheans and the Savoy Havana Band, became famous. Winston Churchill often took his cabinet to lunch at the hotel. The hotel is now managed by Fairmont Hotels and Resorts. It has been called "London's most famous hotel". It has two hundred and sixty seven guest rooms and panoramic views of the River Thames across Savoy Place and the Thames Embankment. The hotel is a Grade II listed building.
***Horse and Hound is the oldest equestrian weekly magazine of the United Kingdom. Its first edition was published in 1884. The magazine contains horse industry news, reports from equestrian events, veterinary advice about caring for horses, and horses for sale.
****May 20 1913 saw the first Royal Horticultural Society flower show at Chelsea. What we know today as the Chelsea Flower Show was originally known as the Great Spring Show. The first shows were three day events held within a single marquee. The King and Queen did not attend in 1913, but the King's Mother, Queen Alexandra, attended with two of her children. The only garden to win a gold medal before the war was also in 1913 and was awarded to a rock garden created by John Wood of Boston Spa. In 1919, the Government demanded that the Royal Horticultural Society pay an entertainment tax for the show – with resources already strained, it threatened the future of the Chelsea Flower Show. Thankfully, this was wavered once the Royal Horticultural Society convinced the Government that the show had educational benefit and in 1920 a special tent was erected to house scientific exhibits. Whilst the original shows were housed within one tent, the provision of tents increased after the Great War ended. A tent for roses appeared and between 1920 and 1934, there was a tent for pictures, scientific exhibits and displays of garden design. Society garden parties began to be held, and soon the Royal Horticultural Society’s Great Spring Show became a fixture of the London social calendar in May, attended by society ladies and their debutante daughters, the occasion used to parade the latter by the former. The Chelsea Flower Show, though not so exclusive today, is still a part of the London Season.
*****Punch, or The London Charivari was a British weekly magazine of humour and satire established in 1841 by Henry Mayhew and wood-engraver Ebenezer Landells. Historically, it was most influential in the 1840s and 1850s, when it helped to coin the term "cartoon" in its modern sense as a humorous illustration. From 1850, Sir John Tenniel (most famous for his illustrations for Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking Glass”, was the chief cartoon artist at the magazine for over fifty years. After the 1940s, when its circulation peaked, it went into a long decline, finally closing in 1992. It was revived in 1996, but closed again in 2002.
******A. H. Mayhew was once one of many bookshops located in London’s Charring Cross Road, an area still famous today for its bookshops, perhaps most famously written about by American authoress Helene Hanff who wrote ’84, Charing Cross Road’, which later became a play and then a 1987 film starring Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins. Number 56. Charing Cross Road was the home of Mayhew’s second-hand and rare bookshop. Closed after the war, their premises is now the home of Any Amount of Books bookshop.
Fun things to look for in this tableau:
The caviar petit fours and the silver tray of biscuits have been made in England by hand from clay by former chef turned miniature artisan, Frances Knight. Her work is incredibly detailed and realistic, and she says that she draws her inspiration from her years as a chef and her imagination. The bowl of caviar and the two champagne flutes comes from Karen Ladybug Miniatures in the United Kingdom. The two slightly scalloped white gilt plates and the wonderful creamy white roses in the vase on the table come from Beautifully handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The cutlery and the lemon I acquired through Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop in the United Kingdom. The lemon slices I acquired through an online miniature stockist of miniatures on E-Bay. The silver champagne cooler on the table is made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. The bottle of champagne itself is hand made from glass and is an artisan miniature made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. The bottle is De Rochegré champagne, identified by the careful attention paid to recreating the label in 1:12 scale.
The two red velvet upholstered high back chairs I have had since I was six years old. They were a birthday present given to me by my grandparents.
The painting in the background in its gilded frame is a 1:12 artisan piece made by Amber’s Miniatures in the United States.
The red wallpaper is beautiful artisan paper given to me by a friend, who has encouraged me to use a selection of papers she has given me throughout the whole “Cavendish Mews – Lettice Chetwynd” series.
To view more of my images, of Sissinghurst Castle & Gardensl, please click "here" !
Vita Sackville-West, the poet and writer, began the transforming Sissinghurst Castle in the 1930s with her diplomat and author husband, Harold Nicolson. Harold's architectural planning of the garden rooms, and the colourful, abundant planting in the gardens by Vita, reflect the romance and intimacy of her poems and writings. Sissinghurst Castle was the backdrop for a diverse history; from the astonishing time as a prison in the 1700s, to being a home to the women’s land army. It was also a family home to some fascinating people who lived here or came to stay. Today you can take in the ruined architecture of the extensive original buildings, vast panoramic views from the top of the Tower, the current working farm and the 450-acre wider estate along with Vita and Harold's gardens. Now we're well into our new season there are lots of events for you to enjoy. The National Trust took over the whole of Sissinghurst, its garden, farm and buildings, in 1967. The garden epitomises the English garden of the mid-20th century. It is now very popular and can be crowded in peak holiday periods. In 2009, BBC Four broadcast an eight-part television documentary series called Sissinghurst, describing the house and garden and the attempts by Adam Nicolson and his wife Sarah Raven, who are 'Resident Donors', to restore a form of traditional Wealden agriculture to the Castle Farm. Their plan is to use the land to grow ingredients for lunches in the Sissinghurst restaurant. A fuller version of the story can be found in Nicolson's book, Sissinghurst: An Unfinished History (2008). The garden at Sissinghurst Castle in the Weald of Kent, in England at Sissinghurst village, is owned and maintained by the National Trust. It is among the most famous gardens in England. Sissinghurst's garden was created in the 1930s by Vita Sackville-West, poet and gardening writer, and her husband Harold Nicolson, author and diplomat. Sackville-West was a writer on the fringes of the Bloomsbury Group who found her greatest popularity in the weekly columns she contributed as gardening correspondent of The Observer, which incidentally—for she never touted it—made her own garden famous. The garden itself is designed as a series of 'rooms', each with a different character of colour and/or theme, the walls being high clipped hedges and many pink brick walls. The rooms and 'doors' are so arranged that, as one enjoys the beauty in a given room, one suddenly discovers a new vista into another part of the garden, making a walk a series of discoveries that keeps leading one into yet another area of the garden. Nicolson spent his efforts coming up with interesting new interconnections, while Sackville-West focused on making the flowers in the interior of each room exciting. For Sackville-West, Sissinghurst and its garden rooms came to be a poignant and romantic substitute for Knole, reputedly the largest house in Britain, which as the only child of Lionel, the 3rd Lord Sackville she would have inherited had she been a male, but which had passed to her cousin as the male heir. The site is ancient— "hurst" is the Saxon term for an enclosed wood. A manor house with a three-armed moat was built here in the Middle Ages. In 1305, King Edward I spent a night here. In 1490, Thomas Baker purchased Sissinghurst. The house was given a new brick gatehouse in the 1530s by Sir John Baker, one of Henry VIII's Privy Councillors, and greatly enlarged in the 1560s by his son Sir Richard Baker, when it became the centre of a 700-acre (2.8 km2) deer park. In 1573, Queen Elizabeth I spent three nights at Sissinghurst. Rose arbour in Sissinghurst's White Garden room, which set a fashion for 'white gardens' After the collapse of the Baker family in the late 17th century, the building had many uses: as a prisoner-of-war camp during the Seven Years' War; as the workhouse for the Cranbrook Union; after which it became homes for farm labourers. Sackville-West and Nicolson found Sissinghurst in 1930 after concern that their property Long Barn, near Sevenoaks, Kent, was close to development over which they had no control. Although Sissinghurst was derelict, they purchased the ruins and the farm around it and began constructing the garden we know today. The layout by Nicolson and planting by Sackville-West were both strongly influenced by the gardens of Gertrude Jekyll and Edwin Lutyens; by the earlier Cothay Manor in Somerset, laid out by Nicolson's friend Reginald Cooper, and described by one garden writer as the "Sissinghurst of the West Country"; and by Hidcote Manor Garden, designed and owned by Lawrence Johnston, which Sackville-West helped to preserve. Sissinghurst was first opened to the public in 1938.
An oast, oast house or hop kiln is a building designed for kilning hops as part of the brewing process. They can be found in most hop-growing areas and are often good examples of vernacular architecture. Many redundant oasts have been converted into houses
a journey into the past
visiting the ballenberg museum ....
Mon pays était beau
Mon pays était beau
D'une beauté sauvage
Et l'homme le cheval et le bois et l'outil
Vivaient en harmonie
Jusqu'à ce grand saccage
Personne ne peut plus simplement vivre ici
Il pleut sur ce village
Aux ruelles obscures
Et rien d'autre ne bouge
Le silence s'installe au pied de notre lit
O silence
Tendre et déchirant violon
Gaie fanfare
Recouvre-nous
Du grand manteau de nuit
De tes ailes géantes
Mon pays était beau
D'une beauté sauvage
Et l'homme le cheval et le bois et l'outil
Vivaient en harmonie
Jusqu'à ce grand saccage
Personne ne peut plus simplement vivre ici
Jean Ferrat
....in English classes....We made Christmas ornaments from salted dough, baked orange slices and angels from these magical wrapping papers, bought at Ikea years ago.
Well, the angels will actually be finished in the next week's classes. We need to make their cute, little heads from yarn.
The Los Angeles - Seattle Coast Starlight is the only Amtrak train that features a separate, elegant lounge car for the sleeping car passengers. Here the dining tables are set up for breakfast service on the second morning of the northbound journey, as the train is stopped at the Dunsmuir, California station stop.
January, 2018 Update: Sorry to report that the Pacific Parlour cars will be discontinued in early February. Amtrak cites maintenance expense and safety concerns with the cars.
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Taken at The Regency, Laguna Woods, Orange County,
California. © 2017 All Rights Reserved.
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Prints and Greeting Cards: joana-kruse.artistwebsites.com/?tab=artworkgalleries
Local call number: MP183
Title: Dining table set for Thanksgiving dinner - Miami
Date: November, 1953
Physical descrip: 1 slide - col.
Series Title: Miami Photographic Collection
Repository: State Library and Archives of Florida, 500 S. Bronough St., Tallahassee, FL 32399-0250 USA. Contact: 850.245.6700. Archives@dos.state.fl.us
Persistent URL: www.floridamemory.com/items/show/323714
Collection: A. D. White Architectural Photographs, Cornell University Library
Accession Number: 15/5/3090.00162
Title: Dining Room, Auditorium Hotel
Architect: Adler & Sullivan (1881-1895)
Photograph date: ca. 1890-ca. 1895
Building Date: 1886-1890
Location: North and Central America: United States; Illinois, Chicago
Materials: albumen print
Image: 6.875 x 8.875 in.; 17.4625 x 22.5425 cm
Provenance: Transfer from the College of Architecture, Art and Planning
Persistent URI: hdl.handle.net/1813.001/5sb1
There are no known U.S. copyright restrictions on this image. The digital file is owned by the Cornell University Library which is making it freely available with the request that, when possible, the Library be credited as its source.
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blogged here:
www.mydesignfolder.com/?p=3622
....made this picture while the bread was being toasted, on one of this weeks mornings..
The sousplas ( placemats, Heather for you dear..yes you guessed right! ) were bought from Habitat for my very first apartment - a small bangalow ( I know I 'll have to scan pictures, as I only got my first digital camera until the next apartment ) and hadn't used them at all....they even had their tags on!
As they are quite large, I fold them for breakfast in the middle and use them full for dinner meals.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today however, we have travelled twenty-five miles west of London into Berkshire to the picturesque town of Ascot, where the Ascot Racecourse is. The town, built up along meandering roads, is made up mostly of large red brick mansions nestled discreetly amidst well established manicured gardens behind trimmed hedges and closed gates. It is here that Lettice is visiting Mrs. Evelyn Hawarden, wife of fabric manufacturer Joseph Hawarden, who hopes to engage Lettice to redecorate ‘The Briars’, a red brick Georgian mansion in Ascot recently acquired by Mr. Hawarden, allowing he and his wife to relocate from Manchester to what they both consider to be a more suitable residence for their newly acquired social standing. Hawarden Fabrics have been embraced by the British public since first appearing on the market in 1919, for their quality and affordability, and have proved especially popular amidst the working classes who want colour and something better than what they have had in the post-war boom of optimism, including Lettice’s maid, Edith, who made her friend Hilda a new dance frock using some Hawarden Fabrics russet art silk*. This has raised the Hawarden’s social expectations.
Against her usual practices, Lettice forewent the initial meeting she would usually have had at Cavendish Mews with Mrs. Hawarden after the woman explained that she was simply too busy with her new house to come down to Mayfair, and implored Lettice to consider coming up to Ascot for the day, entreating her with a roast luncheon at the house. Upon arriving at ‘The Briars’, Lettice quickly had her attention drawn to Mrs. Hawarden’s overbearing nature and rather vulgar taste. ‘The Briars’ interiors are made up of the perfect blend of many generations of conscious consumption, culminating in an elegant country house style that others have paid Lettice and other interior designers to create. Yet Mrs. Hawarden seems determined to destroy all that: replacing hand painted Georgian wallpapers with bland oatmeal coloured hangings, disposing if beautiful old paintings in order to hang an expensive, yet uninspiring, modern art collection, and exchanging the soft lines of comfortable country house furnishings with the angular modernity that better suits a compact London flat like Cavendish Mews rather than a Georgian mansion like ‘The Briars’. Whenever Lettice suggested something to the contrary of Mrs. Hawarden, her voice was quickly drowned out by the Mancunian woman’s strident tones, or the loud yapping of her savage pet Pekinese, Yat-See. As she rode the train home to London through the rolling green countryside of Berkshire, Lettice sensed a growing unease as what felt like a boulder began to form in the very pit of her stomach. For the first time in her career as a society interior designer, she had a potential client with whom she was completely at odds with aesthetically. Now, as she takes the train again from Victoria Station to Ascot, that feeling of unease returns and Lettice isn’t quite sure how she is going to explain her difference in opinions and decline the commission of the insistent Mrs. Hawarden.
As like the first time she visited, Mrs. Hawarden’s chauffer, dressed in a smart grey uniform and cap, stood ready on the platform to escort her to ‘The Briars’. As the Worsley drove up the long and rutted driveway boarded by clipped yew hedges, Lettice’s feelings of unease only intensified. Her heart sank as the car pulled up before the lovely two-storey red brick Georgian mansion, for there beneath the portico over the front door stood Mrs. Hawarden in her ill-suited tweeds, clutching Yat-See who growled menacingly as Lettice was assisted to alight from the car by the chauffer.
Now we find ourselves in the dining room of ‘The Briars’, another lovely room with original Georgian wallpaper and fine furnishings that Mrs. Hawarden has plans for Lettice to redecorate in a more contemporary style. The Hawarden’s maid, Barbara, has set down a splendid roast luncheon before both ladies as they sit either side of the dining table which is set with the dinner service of the previous owner of ‘The Briars’, a widowed lady of gentility and refinement, and a large vase of roses, freshly cut from the garden outside by Mrs. Hawarden herself.
“I thought that since you enjoyed Cook’s roast so much last time, I’d have her serve it again.” enthuses Mrs. Hawarden. “And you like Cook’s roast too, don’t you Yat-See.” She addresses her red dioxide coloured Pekingese sitting in her lap lovingly, who in turn ignores his owner and stares fiercely at Lettice through his black button eyes and growls. “Yat-See! Don’t be such a naughty boy towards our guest, or you shan’t get any scraps from Mummy’s plate.”
Although Lettice has always loved and grown up with dogs, Lettice’s mother, Lady Sadie, would never have countenanced having any family pet present in the dining room, much less sitting on her lap when she dines, as seems to be Mrs. Hawarden’s habit, considering she did the same when Lettice last visited. Lettice cringes silently as her hostess tears at a stray rag of roast beef on her plate with her red painted fingernails and proceeds to feed it to Yat-See who gulps it down greedily after a mere moment’s deliberation and sniffing.
“Ugh,” the Mancunian woman continues as she wipes her greasy fingers on her damask napkin, also belonging to the former occupier of ‘The Briars’. “I cannot wait until this room is no longer bilious yellow.”
“You do realise, Mrs. Hawarden, that the papers in here are likely to be near original Georgian hand painted hangings, like those in the drawing room.” Lettice ventures gingerly as she picks up her own cutlery and cuts into a beautifully golden Yorkshire pudding on her plate. “They really are quite inspiring.”
“Oh you are too, too droll, Miss Chetwynd!” Mrs. Hawarden replies as she laughs loudly. “The only thing that this ghastly paper inspires me to do is throw up.” She laughs loudly again.
Lettice shudders at the subject of being sick being raised at the dinner table just as they are about to commence eating.
“You know,” continues Mrs. Hawarden as she lifts a large slice of roast beef to her lips. “I was almost beginning to think that you were avoiding me, Miss Chetwynd.”
As her hostess envelops the meat between her red painted lips Lettice remembers how upset her maid, Edith, was at having to answer the telephone whenever it rang in case it was Mrs. Hawarden, who had taken to telephoning Cavendish Mews nearly every day, and sometimes several times a day. It became such a problem that Lettice even asked Edith to lie and tell the overbearing woman that she wasn’t at home, even when she was, and on Edith’s day off, she simply didn’t answer the telephone at all, even if it meant that the calls of people she did want to hear from went unanswered.
“Then I heard from your maid,” Mrs. Hawarden continues, masticating quite loudly between her rounded northern syllables. “Ada is it?”
“Edith.”
“That’s it! Edith! Yes, Edith told me your uncle passed on, which of course explained your long absence. I’m so sorry for your loss.”
Lettice silently notes the use of the words ‘passed on’, giving away Mr. Hawarden’s aspiring middle-class origins** that she is so desperate to shake off. Politely ignoring it she replies, “Thank you Mrs. Hawarden.”
“Was it expected, Miss Chetwynd?” Mrs. Hawarden continues, cutting enthusiastically through a potato she has speared with the tines of her fork.
“Actually no. It was quite the opposite, Mrs. Hawarden. It is my Aunt Isobel who has always suffered ill health, so my Uncle’s death was quite unexpected.”
“It must have come as quite a shock then.”
“Yes, quite.” Lettice replies in a tight-lipped fashion, feeling uncomfortable talking about her private family affairs with a relative stranger.
“Well, that’s over now, thankfully, and you’ve probably had plenty of time to think about what I propose to do to ‘The Briars’. I simply cannot wait to hear what your thoughts on redecorating these fusty old fashioned rooms are.”
“Well I…” Lettice looks sadly around her at the well appointed and comfortable room, which like the drawing room she was asked to comment on last time, seems perfectly fine as it is in her mind. The room’s décor has grown with the house, mellowed and softened from a formal Georgian interior into a comfortable semi-formal Edwardian country house interior over the decades since its original construction. The queasiness roiling in the pit of her stomach makes the light piece of Yorkshire pudding she has just swallowed feel like a stone rolling about. Yat-See seems to pick up on her hesitancy and quietly growls at Lettice again from across the table.
“Yat-See!” scolds Mrs, Hawarden as she taps his head lightly. “Now, now Miss Chetwynd, there is no need to be shy.” She chortles. “I know you’re a modern designer.”
“A Modern Classical Revival interior designer, actually,” Lettice corrects her hostess. “As you may recall, Mrs. Hawarden.”
“Well it’s the modern I’m more interested in rather than the classical, Miss Chetwynd. The more modern the better.”
Stalling for time, Lettice looks again around the room and it is then that she notices a new painting hanging over the sideboard on which stand the roast, some lidded tureens of vegetables, bottles of champagne and a vase of red roses. Enclosed in an ornate gilded frame, the painting hangs in place of a rather dark, but charming Victorian English oil of a local landscape, and could not be any more at odds with the rest of the room’s décor. Looking out from the frame, an angular shepherdess dressed in pale pink toying with her equally pink crook lolls against a young man in red pantaloons and white stockings reading from a book which only covers part of his bulging chest which is revealed through an open shirt executed in a mustard colour. The pair sit on a stylised bank of grass dotted with flowers, whilst behind them an equally stylised sky of blue littered with fluffy clouds drifts by. Whilst not an unpleasant painting within itself, and obviously well executed by the artist, it nonetheless looks so awkward and incredibly out of place hanging between an Edwardian watercolour of London and another country scene painted in oils, and against the yellow and white foliate wallpaper of the Eighteenth Century.
Noticing her eyes focussing on the painting, Mrs. Hawarden follows Lettice’s gaze. “Oh, were you just admiring my new acquisition, Miss Chetwynd?” she asks with swelling pride. “Isn’t it divine? Bucolic charm meets modernity! I just had it shipped from the Forsythe Gallery, a most darling little place in Soho, this week. I don’t think the owner wanted to part with it, but a nice fat cheque from Mr. Hawarden soon put short shrift to that attitude.”
Lettice suddenly smiles in a bemused fashion as the sick feeling in her stomach begins to lessen as an idea forms in her mind.
Having not observed the change in Lettice’s attitude, the Mancunian woman goes on unabated, “I think it’s so much nicer than that awful daub that was hanging there before. Do you remember it, Miss Chetwynd? It was a rather dark painting of a mill and an Oxford hay wagon***.”
“Yes, I remember it Mrs. Hawarden.” Lettice replies, the smile creeping a little further across her lips. “It was quite charming as I recall it.”
“Charming? You thought it was charming, Miss Chetwynd?” the older woman asks with a hesitancy in her voice, self-consciously reaching up to the strings of pearls about her neck and worrying them with her fingers as she looks to Lettice.
“Why yes, Mrs. Hawarden.” Lettice replies, her voice becoming a little more bold. “Where did you hang it instead?”
“Hang it?” Mrs. Hawarden stutters in shocked reply. “Why no-where, Miss Chetwynd. I gave it to Barbara to put in the dustbin, but I suspect she has taken a fancy to it and probably took it home to her family.”
“Oh, that is a pity, Mrs. Hawarden.” Lettice says. “I much prefer it to your new painting. Your new painting can’t possibly stay in here. It really won’t suit.”
“It… it won’t, Miss Chetwynd?” stammers Mrs. Hawarden in surprise.
“Oh no!” Lettice exclaims, shaking her head. “I’ll find something more classically suitable, Mrs. Hawarden. Leave it to me.”
“Well, Miss Chetwynd, if you will recall, it’s modern that I’m really looking to capitalise on in our new designs for the drawing room, dining room and entrance hall, not classical. Now, whilst we are thinking of paintings,” she adds in a quavering voice quickly in an effort to stop Lettice saying anything further to disquiet her. “I was actually hoping you might be able to get me some paintings from the Portland Gallery in Bond Street, Miss Chetwynd. ”
Mrs. Hawarden’s protestations drift away in Lettice’s mind as she thinks back to the conversation she had with her sister, Lalage (known to everyone in the family by the diminutive Lally) at her Buckinghamshire home the week beforehand during a stay to keep her sister company for a few days after their ‘Uncle’, Lord Sherbourne Tyrwhitt’s funeral, whilst Lally’s husband and children were away. The subject of declining to accept Mrs. Hawarden’s commission to decorate ‘The Briars’ came up on conversation over a luncheon of pork pie and potato au gratin. Lettice had expressed her concerns over how she is going to explain her difference in opinions to the insistent Mrs. Hawarden and thereby decline her patronage. Lally suggested a ploy successfully used by her husband and father-in-law. “Show her that she is too modern for you, and convince her that you are too classical and old fashioned for her. Once the doubt is planted in her mind, it will quickly take root.” was her sage advice. Lettice felt the idea had merit, but it wasn’t until she saw Mrs. Hawarden’s latest artistic acquisition that she worked out a way to plant that seed of doubt in her woman’s mind. Now with every answer she gives, Lettice can hear the doubt growing in Mrs. Hawarden’s voice.
“Oh the Portland gallery isn’t my preference for art, Mrs. Hawarden,” Lettice replies sweetly, slicing through the beef on her plate.
“It.. it isn’t, Miss Chetwynd?” Mrs. Hawarden queries. “But I read in the Country Life**** that you used statues from the Portland Gallery.”
“Oh those?” Lettice says with a sheepish laugh. “Yes, well, they were Mr. Channon’s already you see. He was the one who specifically wanted to use the gallery for those art pieces, so it really was his doing, not mine. The Portland Gallery is a bit too modern for my tastes, Mrs. Hawarden. I can however see how Mr. Tipping’s***** article may have inadvertently misled you in thinking that it was my choice.”
“Yes, well…” gulps the older woman awkwardly as the colour starts to drain from her face. “I… I was rather hoping that you might be able to give me a foray into the Portland Gallery, Miss Chetwynd.”
“Well,” Lettice says as she raises a small morsel of meat to her lips. “That would really be up to Mr. Chilvers, the owner, Mrs. Hawarden, not me. Perhaps if you spoke to Mr. Chilvers.” she adds helpfully with a gentle smile before taking the mouthful from her fork.
“I did try that, Miss Chetwynd, but he did seem awfully pressed for time.” the older woman replies, making up excuses, blushing as she speaks.
“Well, never mind. I have some lovely Regency bronzes I’m sure you will like, Mrs. Hawarden.” Lettice replies after swallowing her mouthful. She picks up her glass of champagne. “Of course, you will have to come down to London and visit my warehouse. Then I can show you some of the pieces I had in mind to install here as part of the redecoration.”
Yat-See starts growling again, barring his sharp little white teeth, and staring at her with hostility with his sparking currant eyes, but for the first time Lettice doesn’t feel intimidated by him. Unusually, Mrs. Hawarden doesn’t tell him off for growling.
“I say, are you feeling alright, Mrs. Hawarden?” Lettice asks, placing her knife and fork against the gilt edge of her plate. “You do look a little pale all of a sudden.”
“Oh, do I, Miss Chetwynd?” the older woman replies, putting her hands to her cheeks.
The pair fall into an awkward silence, broken only by the muffled ticking of the grandfather clock in the hallway outside the open dining room door and the occasional twitter of birds in the garden beyond the sash window. Neither eat any more of their roast beef luncheon, which slowly grows cold and congeals on their plates.
“I say,” Mrs. Hawarden says at length, breaking the silence. “I must confess that I am feeling a little unwell all of a sudden, Miss Chetwynd. Would you mind terribly if I went upstairs and laid down.” She snatches Yat-See from her lap as she abruptly stands up, her Georgian dining chair’s feet juddering across the well-worn carpet beneath her.
“Oh yes!” Lettice rises to her feet also. “Yes of course, Mrs. Hawarden.”
“Barbara can show you out after you’ve had your luncheon and arrange for Johnston to return you to the railway station. I feel like a terrible hostess, but I really feel that I must go and lie down. I have a history of awful, debilitating headaches that can come on quite suddenly.” she lies as she thinks of an excuse to leave and reconsider her choice of interior designer.
“Shall I call Barbara to see you to your room, Mrs. Hawarden?” Lettice moves towards the servants bell next to the fireplace.
“No, please don’t bother, Miss Chetwynd.” She hoists the somewhat startled Yat-See up underneath her right arm like a clutch purse. “I’ll be fine.”
“Well then, I will bid you a good afternoon, Mrs. Hawarden.” Lettice says pleasantly.
“Yes, goodbye Miss Chetwynd.” Mrs. Hawarden replies very definitely.
Lettice watches as her hostess retreats through the dining room door with her dog and disappears. As her footsteps dissipate along the corridor and then up some stairs at the end of it, Lettice lets out a pent-up breath in relief as she takes to her seat again. She feels the house settle back comfortably around her, as like her hostess, the awkward tension leaves the room. It appears that thanks to Lally’s sage advice, Lettice has narrowly avoided the calamity of having to decorate the beautiful rooms of ‘The Briars’ against her own tasteful wishes. She glances about her once more at the elegantly appointed room. “Well, I’ve given you a stay of execution, my beauty.” she says to the empty room quietly. “I don’t quite know how long for, but at least your death knell will not come under my watch.”
Lettice rises again and depositing her serviette onto the polished tabletop next to her half-eaten luncheon, she walks across the room and rings the servants bell.
As Barbara helps Lettice on with her russet coloured travelling coat in the house’s vestibule she quietly asks, “Will we be seeing you again soon, Miss Chetwynd?”
“No,” Lettice replies as her lips, artfully reapplied with some lipstick matching the hue of her coat, grow into an exaggerated oval as she takes one final look lovingly around the cluttered hallway of ‘The Briers’. “I don’t think you will ever see me again, Barbara.”
“Well, I’m sorry to hear that, Miss Chetwynd.” Barbara replies, handing Lettice her hook ended russet satin parasol. “But at the same time, I’ll be glad to see the house left alone. I quite like it as it is.”
“So do I, Barbara,” Lettice says with a consoling smile. “So do I.”
“Well, goodbye then, Miss Chetwynd, and a safe journey back to London.”
“Goodbye Barbara.” Lettice replies.
Then she steps across the threshold of the house and with the confident footsteps of the daughter of a Viscount, Lettice strides across the crunching white gravel driveway and allows herself to be helped into the purring Worsley waiting outside by Johnston its chauffer. As he closes the door behind her, Lettice settles into the leather upholstery and takes one last look through the door’s glass pane at lovely two-storey red brick Georgian mansion with two white painted sash windows either side of a porticoed front door and five matching windows spread evenly across the façade of the upper floor. “May you rest in unaltered tranquillity, Briars.” she says quietly.
With a rev of its engines, Johnston turns the steering wheel of the Worsley as it slowly begins its journey back down the rutted driveway and out into the township of Ascot, bound for the railway station.
*The first successful artificial silks were developed in the 1890s of cellulose fibre and marketed as art silk or viscose, a trade name for a specific manufacturer. In 1924, the name of the fibre was officially changed in the U.S. to rayon, although the term viscose continued to be used in Europe.
**Before, and even after the Second World War, a great deal could be attained about a person’s social origins by what language and terminology they used in class-conscious Britain by the use of ‘”U and non-U English” as popularised by upper class English author, Nancy Mitford when she published a glossary of terms in an article “The English Aristocracy” published by Stephen Spender in his magazine “encounter” in 1954. There are many examples in her glossary, amongst which are the word “died” which is a U (upper class) word, versus “passed on” which is a non-U (aspiring middle-class) words. Whilst quite outdated today, it gives an insight into how easily someone could betray their humbler origins by something as simple as a single word.
***An ‘Oxford’ hay wagon was a type of cart with an elegant arch over the rear wheels and were often painted canary yellow like many gypsy caravans. They began appearing in Buckinghamshire, over an area from the Thames to beyond Banbury. As well as being known as an ‘Oxford’ hay wagon, it collected a variety of names, including: Cotswold, Woodstock and South Midland hay wagon.
****Country Life is a British weekly perfect-bound glossy magazine that is a quintessential English magazine founded in 1897, providing readers with a weekly dose of architecture, gardens and interiors. It was based in London at 110 Southwark Street until March 2016, when it became based in Farnborough, Hampshire. The frontispiece of each issue usually features a portrait photograph of a young woman of society, or, on occasion, a man of society.
*****Henry Tipping (1855 – 1933) was a French-born British writer on country houses and gardens, garden designer in his own right, and Architectural Editor of the British periodical Country Life for seventeen years between 1907 and 1910 and 1916 and 1933. After his appointment to that position in 1907, he became recognised as one of the leading authorities on the history, architecture, furnishings and gardens of country houses in Britain. In 1927, he became a member of the first committee of the Gardens of England and Wales Scheme, later known as the National Gardens Scheme.
Contrary to what your eyes might tell you, this upper-class country house dining room scene is actually made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures, some of which come from my own childhood.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
The Chippendale dining room table, matching dining and carver chairs are very special pieces. They came from the Petite Elite Miniature Museum, later rededicated as the Carol and Barry Kaye Museum of Miniatures, which ran between 1992 and 2012 on Los Angeles’ bustling Wiltshire Boulevard. One of the chairs still has a sticker under its cushion identifying which room of which dollhouse it came. The Petite Elite Miniature Museum specialised in exquisite and high end 1:12 miniatures. The furnishings are taken from a real Chippendale design.
The dining table is correctly set for a two course Edwardian inter-war luncheon, using cutlery and crockery, from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering in the United Kingdom. The delicious looking roast dinner on the dinner plates and on the console in the background have been made in England by hand from clay by former chef turned miniature artisan, Frances Knight. Her work is incredibly detailed and realistic, and she says that she draws her inspiration from her years as a chef and her imagination. The two glasses of sparkling champagne are made of real glass and were made by Karen Ladybug Miniatures in the United Kingdom. All the wine and water glasses I have had since I was a teenager. I bought them from a high street stockist that specialised in dolls’ houses and doll house miniatures. Each glass is hand blown using real glass. The Georgian style candlesticks are artisan pieces made of sterling silver. Although unsigned, the pieces was made in England by an unknown artist.
The sideboard featuring fine marquetry banding and collapsible extensions at either end was made by an unknown miniature artisan. This piece I acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop in the United Kingdom. The Georgian style silver lidded tureens, wine cooler and three prong candelabra on the sideboard’s surface I also acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop. The bottles of Deutz and Geldermann and De Rochegré champagne in the cooler are artisan miniatures and made of glass and some have real foil wrapped around their necks. They are made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire.
The very realistic floral arrangements around the room are made by hand by the Doll House Emporium in America who specialise in high end miniatures.
The three paintings on the wall came from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop. The wallpaper is an authentic copy of hand-painted Georgian wallpaper from the 1770s. The Georgian style silk carpet comes from an online stockist of 1:12 miniatures on E-Bay.
The 'Provence' Dining room set items from the home show are now available on our marketplace page :)
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today however we are to the west of London, in nearby Buckinghamshire, at Dorrington House, a smart Jacobean manor house of the late 1600s built for a wealthy merchant, situated in High Wycombe, where Lettice’s elder sister, Lalage (known to everyone in the family by the diminutive Lally), resides with her husband Charles Lanchenbury and their three children, Harrold, Annabelle and baby Piers. Situated within walking distance of the market town’s main square, the elegant red brick house with its high-pitched roof and white painted sash windows still feels private considering its close proximity to the centre of the town thanks to an elegant and restrained garden surrounding it, which is enclosed by a high red brick wall.
Following the death of Lord Sherbourne Tyrwhitt, patriarch of the family living on the estate adjunct to that of Lettice’s parents, Lettice and her sister Lally returned to their grand Georgian family home of Glynes in Wiltshire to attend the funeral of the man they have both grown up calling Uncle Sherbourne even though he was no blood relation. Indeed, the Chetwynds and the Tyrwhitts were only formally joined in November last year by the marriage of Lord Sherbourne’s only daughter, Arabella, to Viscount Wrexham’s eldest son and heir Leslie. With the funeral over, Lettice has agreed to keep Lally company in her empty home for a few days whilst her husband and children are away. And so, we find the siblings sitting at the round Georgian table of the bright and airy breakfast room of Dorrington House with its Dutch yellow painted walls, Chinese silk carpet, elegant Eighteenth Century furnishings and artwork as luncheon is being served.
“Will there be anything else, Mrs. Lanchenbury?” Edgars, Lally’s butler, asks politely as he deposits a partially filled decanter of red wine on the table.
“I don’t think so, Edgars, but I’ll ring if I do.” Lally replies with a reassuring smile from her seat at the round table. “Thank you.”
Lettice and her sister sit quietly at the table, backs straight in their Georgian chairs, not commencing either to serve themselves luncheon or to speak until the butler has retreated discreetly through the door and closed it behind him. As his footsteps echo down the hallway outside, the siblings release the pent-up breath they both have held within their chests whilst Edgars was serving their luncheon. They look at one another and both laugh, a glint in their eyes.
“Mater would be pleased with us, wouldn’t she Tice?” chuckles Lally.
“Don’t talk in front of the servants, dear.” Lettice imitates their mother’s overly plummy intonations, making them both laugh again.
“What astonishing bad luck we have,” Lally remarks a little despondently. “Arriving back here on cook’s day off. With only cold pork pie,” She gingerly lifts the scalloped edge of the covered serving dish at her right and peeps at what lies beneath it. “And some warmed potato au gratin to serve you. I’m sorry.”
“Oh, I don’t mind.” Lettice bushes her sister’s apologies aside. “One of Mrs. Sawyer’s pork pies is a feast in itself, Lally. Edith is a good plain cook, but nothing beats pastry made by a woman born and bred in the country.”
“And you don’t mind us dining in the breakfast room, rather than the dining room?” Lally asks with a lilt of concern in her voice.
“Goodness no, Lally!” Lettice replies in an effort to assuage her sister’s worries. “What’s the point when it is only, we two here. No, this is a nice cosy room with a cheerful fire going, which is perfect. We can take all our meals in here whilst I’m stopping if you like. Shall I pour?” She indicates to the crystal decanter containing a rich red wine in its bulbous base.
“If you would, Tice.” Lally acquiesces.
“So where has Charles gone? I know you told me before Uncle Sherbourne’s funeral, but I’m afraid with everything that went along with that, for the moment I can’t remember.”
“Oh, I don’t expect you to. Plate, Tice.” She indicates with a gesticulating hand for Lettice to pass her dinner plate - Lally’s everyday dinner service - to her, accepting it and depositing a scoop of steaming golden yellow potato au gratin onto her plate. “He and Lord Lanchenbury have set sail for Bombay on the P&O*.”
“And why have they gone to India?”
“To look at a new tea plantation.”
“Why?”
“Well, ever since Maison Lyonses** at Marble Arch and in Shaftesbury Avenue have accepted Lord Lanchenbury’s Georgian Afternoon Tea blend to serve as their own on the beverages menu, he can’t seem to supply enough of the stuff for the tea drinking populace of London. He and Charles are looking to expand the tea export business there.”
“Isn’t it funny, Lally?” Lettice remarks, accepting back her plate and pushing her sister’s full glass of wine across the table.
“What is, Tice?”
“That you still call your father-in-law Lord Lanchenbury, just as I do.”
“Well, with those glowering looks of his, his Victorian mutton chops*** and his equally severe and old fashioned manners hardly endear him to me or make me want to call him anything less.” She glances at her sister with serious eyes. “And, I don’t think he would appreciate me calling him ‘my dear George’ either.” Both girls chuckle at the thought. “Even Charles calls him Sir, in preference to Father or Pappa.”
“Too many years an old bachelor for Lord Lanchenbury, with no female company to soften the hard edges since his wife’s death.” Lettice pours herself a glass of wine.
“Oh I don’t think he’s short of female companionship.” Lally remarks as she stands up, reaches over and lifts the plate on which the pork pie sits and brings it closer to her. “If you understand my meaning, Tice.”
“Lally!” Lettice gasps, almost dropping the carafe in her hands, as her sister resumes her seat.
“What?” replies her sibling with a peal of laughter. “Don’t tell me that I’ve shocked you, Tice?”
“You have!”
“I’d hardly expect you to be shocked by the idea of a gentleman, even if it is crusty old Victorian Lord Lanchenbury, accepting a little paid female company, Tice. After all, you are the adventurous and worldly one, living amongst all the Bright Young Things**** up in London, whilst I have a much more sedate and conventional life here in Buckinghamshire.”
“Oh it isn’t the act itself, that shocks me, but rather hearing it spoken of from my sedate and conventional sister’s mouth, that does.”
“I’m not that unworldly, Tice.” Lally giggles.
Lally slices the pie generously, the silver knife cutting into the crisp golden crust with a satisfying crunch, revealing the richly coloured spiced meat interior and releasing the delicious smell of the cooked pork. Lettice lifts her plate and Lally plonks a slice of the pie on her plate before depositing one onto her own.
“I really can’t thank you enough, Tice, for agreeing to come and stay with me for a few days, directly from Glynes.”
“Oh I was only too happy to get out from under Mater’s own glowering stares, Lally.” She lifts her glass to her sister. “Cheers to happy sisterly relations.”
“Cheers indeed, Tice.” She raises her own full glass.
Their glasses clink cheerfully.
“Although admittedly, I probably wouldn’t have come if you’d asked me a few years ago.” Lettice admits with a tinge of guilt. “But only because of that poison Mater injected on purpose to strain our relationship.”
“Yes, I’m glad all that bad blood between us, created by Mother’s games of one-upmanship between us, is over and done with. I like having my little sister back again, Tice.” She smiles gratefully at Lettice.
“And I’m glad to have my elder sister’s confidence again too, Lally.” She reaches out and wraps her hand around Lally’s and gives it an encouraging squeeze.
“I just don’t think I could have faced coming home to an empty house after Uncle Sherbourne’s funeral.”
“Yes, it is a rather disparaging thought, isn’t it? Coming back to a silent house after all the dourness of the last few days. Where are my beloved nephew and niece, by the way?”
“After hearing about Uncle Sherbourne’s turn and knowing I had to get to Glynes quickly, I hurriedly packed a valise and gave Nanny money enough to take the children to Lyme Regis for a few days.”
“They’ll have the sun in their cheeks and the sea air in their hair when they get back.”
“They should be back the day after tomorrow according to the note Nanny left, so you will get to see them.”
“That will be nice, Lally, and it still gives us a whole day to ourselves before they do.” Lettice remarks.
“Yes,” muses her sister. “It will.”
The two sit in companionable silence for a little while, the sound of their cutlery scraping against their plates, their quiet chewing, and the crackle of the fire in the grate all that breaks the quiet peace of the breakfast room. Occasionally birds twitter from the shrubbery outside the window, and somewhere in the village beyond the high stone front wall, a horse clops by on the street, the scratch of cart or carriage wheels reminding Lettice of just how much of a world away High Wycombe is from the hustle and bustle of London, even if it is only twenty-nine miles away.
“You know, I always thought it would be Aunt Isobel who would go first.” Lally says, breaking the silence.
“I think we all thought that, Lally. After all, Aunt Isobel is the one who has always been sick.”
“Yes, and Uncle Sherbourne was always so hale and hearty.”
“Oh must you use that term, Lally? Hale and hearty, is all I’ve heard to describe poor Uncle Sherbourne for the last few days from every villager, mourner and well-wisher I’ve shaken hands with or spoken to throughout the whole ghastly ordeal.”
“Oh, I’m sorry Tice.” Lally apologises. “I guess the term must be catching, as now I think about it, it isn’t one that I usually use myself. Like you, I think I’ve just heard it so much over the last few days.”
“Well, do desist, my dear sister, of I shall be forced to reconsider my stopping here with you.” Lettice jokes as she cuts another thin sliver of pork pie and puts it to her mouth.
“Garstanton Park won’t be the same without him, will it?”
“Indeed no, especially the musical evenings Uncle Sherbourne was known for.”
“Will Nigel carry on do you suppose?”
Lettice looks anxiously at her sister, before quickly glancing back down at her plate, focusing upon the creamy white potato au gratin. She silently wonders how Lally knows about the financial difficulties the new Lord Tyrwhitt, Sherbourne’s only surviving son Nigel, has uncovered. From everything Nigel confided in her when they were in Gartsanton Park’s library cum music room after the funeral, Lettice thought she was one of the very few to be in his confidence and know the truth about the financial straits the Tyrwhitts now find themselves in.
“Having musical soirees, I mean.” Lally clarifies, sensing a lack of comprehension from her sister.
Lettice quietly releases a long breath before replying, “Well, Nigel does love that Bechstein***** as much as his father did. And even though I don’t really wish to say this with Uncle Sherbourne only freshly laid to rest, but Nigel plays it far better and more naturally than either Uncle Sherbourne or Aunt Isobel ever did.”
“Oh, Aunt Isobel always preferred the violin anyway. That was her instrument when she was younger before her hands became riddled with arthritis.” adds Lally. “But going back to my point, Garstanton Park will be awfully empty, with just Nigel and Aunt Isobel rattling around inside of it, with no Bella now she’s married to Leslie and living in the Glynes Dower House, and no sign of Nigel settling down and having a family yet. If I can feel lonely here at Dorrington with Charles and the children gone, I can only imagine what it will be like in such a big and drafty old place like Garstanton Park.”
“I imagine they’ll make the best of it. Nigel is often in their London house anyway, so no doubt he’ll just bring Aunt Isobel up with him when he comes, now.”
“Aahh yes,” Lally murmurs. “I tend to forget that you see Nigel quite often because he spends more time up in London than in Wiltshire. That will have to change.”
“Why should it change, Lally?”
“Well,” Lally scoffs. “Nigel can’t very well carry on a bachelor life in London and manage Garstanton Park at the same time, now can he?” She pauses and thinks for a moment. “They will stay on, won’t they?”
Lettice wonders whether she should disclose what Nigel told her about his doubts around keeping his great Victorian family home in his possession, but decides that discretion is better, even with her elder sister, considering the fact that he told her in confidence. “How can you give life to such a thought, Lally?”
“Oh I know, Tice.” Lally dabs the edges of her mouth with her damask napkin. “I feel like such a traitor by even uttering it, but ever since the war, with death duties being so high******.” Her voice trails off.
“Oh, I’m sure Nigel will make a good fist of it*******.” Lettice defends her friend with a false joviality that does not reflect the feeling growing in the pit of her stomach. “For as long as we and Pater can remember, there have always been Tyrwhitts at Garstanton Park. Why should the status quo change?”
“I know a number of people who have sold off their country houses since the end of the war and reside in reduced circumstances in London,” Lally remarks dourly, picking up her glass. ‘Not badly off of course, but certainly not in the style of the old family estates that they used to have before the war. Father is very lucky that Leslie made suggestions to modernise the Glynes estate.”
“Leslie was lucky that Pater could be persuaded.” Lettice replies.
“Well, that’s also true. I know Mother thinks it a poky little place, but I’m only grateful that Dorrington House,” She waves her hand around expansively about the tastefully decorated room with Dutch yellow walls and Georgian furnishings and artworks. “Is a more modest residence. I don’t need a whole retinue of staff to run it, nor a vast fortune to maintain it, so Charles and I can live very comfortably here, even with post-war economic inflation.”
“Oh let’s talk about something else, Lally.” Lettice remarks, trying to change the subject as she feels Mrs. Sawyer’s delicious pork pie start to turn to stone in her stomach.
“Yes, let’s talk about something jolly instead. We’ve been so consumed by Uncle Sherbourne’s death these last few days. Gerald was telling me at the wake that you have a Mrs. Hawarden who wants you to decorate her house in Ascot, but you don’t want to accept her commission?”
Lettice rolls her eyes. “I thought you said we were going to talk about something jolly, Lally.”
“Well, I’m intrigued.” her sister replies, placing her cutlery on the painted edges of her plate as she sits back in her chair and looks to Lettice with undivided attention. “It seems your article in Country Life******** has done your reputation the world of good if you are now being selective as to whom you decorate for.”
Lettice settles back in her own seat and cradles her glass of wine in her hand thoughtfully as she contemplates how to reply without sounding conceited. “It is true that Henry Tipping’s********* article about the interior designs I created for Dickie and Margot has certainly been a boon for business, but I would turn down Mrs. Hawarden even if the article had never been.”
“Why Tice? What’s wrong with her? Gerald tells me that she’s the wife of a fabric manufacturer from Manchester.”
“Yes, Mrs. Evelyn Hawarden is the wife of Joseph Hawarden of Hawarden Fabrics, and she is positively ghastly, Lally. Absolutely ghastly!”
“How so, Tice?” Lally asks, her interest piqued.
“Well, she wants me to redecorate rooms that I feel should really be left as they are, but she is a tinkerer. She keeps talking to me, no, at me,” Lettice corrects herself. “Demanding that I ruin them with inferior fabrics and, quite frankly, ghastly ideas about what she thinks makes for tasteful redecoration and modernisation.”
“Which evidently aren’t tasteful, looking at your expression, Tice.”
“Far from it, and I want to turn her down.”
“And what is it that’s stopping you.”
Lettice sighs and shakes her head. “She is horribly domineering, I’ve discovered. She is quite convinced that I am the only interior designer who has her vision.”
“Which you don’t.”
“Which I don’t.” Lettice sips her wine. “I have made a few suggestions that counter her own opinions as to what is tasteful and what is not, but she just talks over the top of me. She telephones almost every day in an effort to wear me down. I make Edith answer the telephone all the time now, which she hates, and lie to Mrs. Hawarden and tell her I’m not at home, which she hates even more, just so I don’t have to speak with the ghastly harridan.”
Lally picks up her own glass and contemplates for a few moments before answering. “Well, maybe you’re going about refuting her the wrong way, Tice.”
“What do you mean, Lally?”
“You say that she has some ghastly ideas that you have tried to counter. Why don’t you agree instead?”
“Agree? I don’t want to agree with her. Then she’ll have a pot of wallpaper glue and a brush in my hands quicker than you can say knife!”
“What I mean is, why not agree that her taste is very modern and forward thinking, far too modern and forward thinking for you. Remind her that you are a,” Lally pauses again as she tries to recall the description from the Country Life article. “A Classical Revivalist, was it?”
“A Modern Classical Revivalist.” Lettice corrects her sister.
“There you go! Show her that she is too modern for you, and convince her that you are too classical and old fashioned for her. If this Mrs. Hawarden is looking to use your skills to help her advance herself socially by modernising her home, you just need to plant the seed that you aren’t as forward thinking as she is, or that she thinks you are. Once the doubt is planted in her mind, it will quickly take root.”
“Do you think so, Lally?”
“Trust me, Tice. I’ve seen my father-in-law and my husband do it when they have had business propositions and advances from men they don’t wish to deal with.”
Lettice considers what her sister has said, and a small smile teases the edges of her mouth upward ever so slightly as an idea begins to formulate in her mind. “I do declare, Lally, you may be right in your way of thinking.”
“Of course I am, Tice,” Lally purrs as she takes another sip of her wine. “I’m your elder sister.”
*In 1837, the Peninsular Steam Navigation Company first secured a Government contract for the regular carriage of mail between Falmouth and the Peninsular ports as far as Gibraltar. The company, established in 1835 by the London shipbroking partnership of Brodie McGhie Willcox (1786-1861) and Arthur Anderson (1792-1868) and the Dublin Ship owner, Captain Richard Bourne (1880-1851) had begun a regular steamer service for passengers and cargo between London, Spain and Portugal using the 206 ton paddle steamer William Fawcett. The growing inclination of early Twentieth Century shipping enterprises to merge their interests, and group themselves together, did not go unnoticed at P&O, which made its first major foray in this direction in 1910 with the acquisition of Wilhelm Lund’s Blue Anchor Line. By 1913, with a paid-up capital of some five and half million pounds and over sixty ships in service, several more under construction and numerous harbour craft and tugs to administer to the needs of this great fleet all counted, the P&O Company owned over 500,000 tons of shipping. In addition to the principal mail routes, through Suez to Bombay and Ceylon, where they divided then for Calcutta, Yokohama and Sydney, there was now the ‘P&O Branch Line’ service via the Cape to Australia and various feeder routes. The whole complex organisation was serviced by over 200 agencies stationed at ports throughout the world. At the end of 1918, the Group was further strengthened by its acquisition of a controlling shareholding in the Orient Line and in 1920, the General Steam Navigation Company, the oldest established sea-going steamship undertaking, was taken over. In 1923 the Strick Line was acquired too and P&O became, for a time, the largest shipping company in the world. With the 1920s being the golden age of steamship travel, P&O was the line to cruise with. P&O had grown into a group of separate operating companies whose shipping interests touched almost every part of the globe. By March 2006, P&O had grown to become one of the largest port operators in the world and together with P&O Ferries, P&O Ferrymasters, P&O Maritime Services, P&O Cold Logistics and its British property interests, the company was, itself, acquired by DP World for three point three billion pounds.
**J. Lyons and Co. was a British restaurant chain, food manufacturing, and hotel conglomerate founded in 1884 by Joseph Lyons and his brothers in law, Isidore and Montague Gluckstein. Lyons’ first teashop opened in Piccadilly in 1894, and from 1909 they developed into a chain of teashops, with the firm becoming a staple of the High Street in the United Kingdom. At its peak the chain numbered around two hundred cafes. The teashops provided for tea and coffee, with food choices consisting of hot dishes and sweets, cold dishes and sweets, and buns, cakes and rolls. Lyons' Corner Houses, which first appeared in 1909 and remained until 1977, were noted for their Art Deco style. Situated on or near the corners of Coventry Street, Strand and Tottenham Court Road, they and the Maison Lyonses at Marble Arch and in Shaftesbury Avenue were large buildings on four or five floors, the ground floor of which was a food hall with counters for delicatessen, sweets and chocolates, cakes, fruit, flowers and other products. In addition, they possessed hairdressing salons, telephone booths, theatre booking agencies and at one period a twice-a-day food delivery service. On the other floors were several restaurants, each with a different theme and all with their own musicians. For a time, the Corner Houses were open twenty-four hours a day, and at their peak each branch employed around four hundred staff including their famous waitresses, commonly known as Nippies for the way they nipped in and out between the tables taking orders and serving meals. The tea houses featured window displays, and, in the post-war period, the Corner Houses were smarter and grander than the local tea shops. Between 1896 and 1965 Lyons owned the Trocadero, which was similar in size and style to the Corner Houses.
***Nineteenth Century sideburns were often far more extravagant than those seen today, similar to what are now called mutton chops, but considerably more extreme. In period literature, "side whiskers" usually refers to this style, in which the whiskers hang well below the jaw line. The classic mutton chop is a type of beard in which the sideburns are grown out to the cheeks, leaving the moustache, soul patch, and chin clean-shaven. As with beards, sideburns went quickly out of fashion in the early Twentieth Century. In World War I, in order to secure a seal on a gas mask, men had to be clean-shaven; this did not affect moustaches.
****The Bright Young Things, or Bright Young People, was a nickname given by the tabloid press to a group of Bohemian young aristocrats and socialites in 1920s London.
*****C. Bechstein Pianoforte AG (also known as Bechstein), is a German manufacturer of pianos, established in 1853 by Carl Bechstein (1826 – 1900).
******Modern inheritance tax dates back to 1894 when the government introduced estate duty, a tax on the capital value of land, in a bid to raise money to pay off a £4m government deficit. It replaced several different inheritance taxes, including the 1796 tax on estates introduced to help fund the war against Napoleon. The earliest death duty can be traced back to 1694 when probate duty, a tax on personal property in wills proved in court, was brought in. When the tax was first introduced it was intended to affect only the very wealthy, but the rise in the value of homes, particularly in the south-east of England, it began to creep into the realms of the upper middle-classes. From 1896, it was possible to avoid estate duty by handing on gifts during the life of the donor. To counter avoidance through last minute transfers, gifts handed over a limited time before death were still subject to the tax. Initially the period was one year but that rose to seven years over time. Freshly recovering from the Great War, the hefty death taxes imposed on wealthy families such as the Tyrwhitts in the post-war years of the 1920s, combined with increases to income taxes on the wealthy, caused some to start to sell off their country houses and estates, settling in more reduced circumstances (still very luxurious by today’s standards) in their smaller London homes.
*******It is seldom heard in the land of its origin — the United States. When you make a good fist of something, you succeed in doing it. You do a good job and achieve a certain degree of success. According to some scholars, the word 'fist' in the expression is used in the sense of 'hand' — someone who does physical work.
********Country Life is a British weekly perfect-bound glossy magazine that is a quintessential English magazine founded in 1897, providing readers with a weekly dose of architecture, gardens and interiors. It was based in London at 110 Southwark Street until March 2016, when it became based in Farnborough, Hampshire. The frontispiece of each issue usually features a portrait photograph of a young woman of society, or, on occasion, a man of society.
*********Henry Tipping (1855 – 1933) was a French-born British writer on country houses and gardens, garden designer in his own right, and Architectural Editor of the British periodical Country Life for seventeen years between 1907 and 1910 and 1916 and 1933. After his appointment to that position in 1907, he became recognised as one of the leading authorities on the history, architecture, furnishings and gardens of country houses in Britain. In 1927, he became a member of the first committee of the Gardens of England and Wales Scheme, later known as the National Gardens Scheme.
This neat Georgian interior may appear like something out of a historical stately country house, but it is in fact part of my 1:12 miniatures collection.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
The round breakfast table in the centre of the room, which tilts like a real loo table, is an artisan miniature from an unknown maker with a marquetry inlaid top, which came from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop in the United Kingdom. On its surface the crockery, silver cutlery, two glasses and decanter of red wine, which are made from real spun glass, came from online stockists of miniatures on E-Bay. The serviettes with their napkin rings also came from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House Shop, as does the silver tray on which the decanter of wine sits. The Georgian style silver lidded serving dish and the Georgian style gravy boat come from Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. The pie at the forefront of the image has been made in England by hand from clay by former chef turned miniature artisan, Frances Knight. Her work is incredibly detailed and realistic, and she says that she draws her inspiration from her years as a chef and her imagination.
The Chippendale style chairs surrounding the round breakfast table, and the carver chair in the background, are very special pieces. They came from the Petite Elite Miniature Museum, later rededicated as the Carol and Barry Kaye Museum of Miniatures, which ran between 1992 and 2012 on Los Angeles’ bustling Wiltshire Boulevard. One of the chairs still has a sticker under its cushion identifying which room of which dollhouse it came. The Petite Elite Miniature Museum specialised in exquisite and high end 1:12 miniatures. The furnishings are taken from a real Chippendale design.
The sideboard featuring fine marquetry banding and collapsible extensions at either end appears to have been made by the same unknown artisan who made the round table. This piece I acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop at the same time as the table. The Georgian style silver lidded tureens on the sideboard’s surface I also acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop. The vase on the sideboard is made by M.W. Reutter Porzellanfabrik in Germany, who specialise in making high quality porcelain miniatures. Made of polymer clay the irises and foxgloves in the vase are moulded on wires to allow them to be shaped at will and put into individually formed floral arrangements. They came from a 1:12 miniature specialist in Germany.
The Regency corner cabinet with its elegant gilt detailing and glass door is made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, Bespaq. The beautiful collection of china on display inside the cabinet, like the vase on the sideboard, is made by M.W. Reutter Porzellanfabrik in Germany.
The Georgian style paintings of silhouettes hanging around the room came from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House shop, and the Chinese silk carpet came from an online stockist of 1:12 miniatures on E-Bay.