diningtable photos on Flickr

This weekend, I came across a quite novel derelict inn. Which to it's great credit had a bizarre mix of modern and antique interiors. Themed dinning has never looked this good.

Palm Springs, CA by - Adam Reeder -

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A Toast to Success by raaen99

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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 southeast of Lettice’s flat at the Savoy Hotel*, where a lavish wedding breakfast** is being held for two of Lettice’s Embassy Club coterie of bright young things who have just been married at St. Mark’s Church, North Audley Street***: Dickie Channon, eldest surviving son of the Marquess of Taunton, and the newly minted Margot Channon, only daughter of Lord Charles and Lady Lucie de Virre.

“Cheers to you, dear Gerald.” Lettice remarks, raising her glass of glittering golden champagne to her friend.

“To me?” Gerald almost chokes on his last mouthful of cheese as he dabs at his mouth daintily with a fine damask napkin. “Whatever for, Lettuce…” He pauses mid nickname as he remembers they are not alone. As if pretending to clear his throat of water cracker biscuit crumbs he coughs. “Ahem… Lettice. Why me? Why not the bride and groom? This is,” He waves his hand about expansively. “After all, for them.”

“Oh, there will be plenty of that shortly with the dreaded speeches.” Lettice smiles, grateful that Gerald didn’t call her by her abhorred nickname within public earshot. “No, this is your moment too, as well as theirs.”

“I don’t see how you’ve come to that conclusion my dear. This isn’t my wedding.”

“Well no, it isn’t Gerald, not in name,” she indicates languidly over to Margot sitting at the bridal table next to Dickie, beaming with such happiness and looking radiant. “But it is your wedding gown that is on show today. And Margot is the perfect mannequin to show it off.”

“Do you really like it, Lettice?” Gerald barely dares to ask in a whisper, leaning forward his eyes sparkling with hope. “You aren’t just saying that because you’re my oldest and dearest chum?”

“Like it, Gerald?” Lettice stares at Gerald in amazement. “That daring asymmetrical hemline of satin and tulle, the cap sleeves, the boat neckline and that divine embroidery I’ve seen you work on for months: I absolutely love it! Margot will be the bride of the Season.”

“Do you really think so, darling?”

“You mark my words, Gerald. Just look at all the photographers outside St. Mark’s, waiting for a chance to capture the bride on the steps!” She thinks back to the last hour where the burst of flashbulbs that went off as Dickie and Margot stepped out of the chapel doors was blinding. “She’ll be in every society page up and down the country, in your dress, darling! A Gerald Bruton original.”

“Gosh! That is a rather thrilling thought.” Gerald smiles proudly as he tugs awkwardly at his collar.

A Savoy waiter discreetly reaches forth with white gloved hands and clears away the white gilt cheese plates and cheese and fruit knives.

“Thrilling? I’ll say Gerald! This will truly be the making of you, my clever darling. Cheers!”

Lettice raises her glass towards Gerald again, who this time lifts his own in return, the clink drowned out by the sounds of a string quartet playing salon music, vociferous chatter, and the scrape of silver against crockery as the wedding guests around them finish their cheese and fruit before desserts are served.

“Just think of all the future young brides here who will each want a frock equally as exquisite as Margot’s.” Lettice remarks before taking a sip of champagne. “Designed by you, of course darling.”

“Of course, darling!”

Sipping his own champagne, Gerald looks around the private dining room of the Savoy with its gold flocked wallpaper, gilt mirrors and Edwardian style Rococo inspired furnishings. Around the tables decorated with champagne and gold roses in crystal vases, several clusters of young women chat conspiratorially with heads as closely together as their picture hats will allow. He notices one group at a nearby table where a girl, caught pointing by his gaze, is indicating to him. She smiles shyly and quickly lowers her hand. He smiles broadly in return and raises his glass to her in acknowledgement. She takes up her own glass in return.

“See,” Lettice remarks proudly as she places a comforting hand upon her friend’s forearm. “You will have blushing brides-to-be and their mothers flocking to you before the fortnight is out.”

“Just the same, I don’t think the Marchioness of Taunton approved.” Gerald adds. “She did look rather grim throughout the ceremony as she watched Dickie and Margot get married.”

“Oh, pooh the Marchioness!” Lettice counters, looking to Margot’s mother-in-law who sits stiffly by her husband’s side wearing an old fashioned looking picture hat adorned with large silk flowers that perfectly match the powder blue shade of her very conservative and rather dowdy dress, a look of general distain on her sharp features as she looks down her nose at the happy wedding guests in her view. “I think she would look grim no matter what. Before the war, it was Harry who was heir apparent, not Dickie. I’m sure she imagined the heir to the Taunton title marrying someone more fitting than the daughter of a trade bought title like Lord de Virre. However, the dowery that that he brings to the marriage will be welcome in the Taunton coffers, I’m sure.”

“Lettice!” Gerald looks around him nervously, hoping that none of the other guests heard his friend speak so candidly about something that is commonly known, but seldom raised, especially somewhere so public.

“Lord de Virre told me so himself.” Lettice admits.

“Lady de Virre confided in me too,” Gerald adds quickly in an effort to change the subject. “That Vogue have asked for copies of the studio wedding photographs.”

“Well, that is exciting, Gerald! Your first appearance in Vogue!” Lettice enthuses. “The first of many, I’m sure. And today is Tuesday, so some of Margot and Dickie’s wealth is bound to rub off on you.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“Well, you know the old rhyme, ‘marry on Monday for health, Tuesday for wealth’**** and so on.”

“I didn’t take you for believing in such superstitious nonsense, Lettice.” Gerald cocks an eyebrow in surprise at her.

“Oh I don’t,” she flaps the thought away as if it were cigarette smoke with her elegantly bejewelled hand. “But it was always a rhyme I remember Nanny Webb singing to me, no doubt under the Mater’s influence.”

Lettice looks over to the table where her parents sit. Lady Sadie is engrossed in a conversation over an arrangement of golden yellow roses with a grey haired old dowager wearing several strings of pearls about her neck and a haughty look of distain on her face as she catches Lettice’s eye. Lettice cringes.

“Is Sadie playing matchmaker with Lady Faversham?” Gerald asks discreetly, looking in the same direction as Lettice.

“Scheming more like.” Lettice mutters. “Do you know she has asked Sir John Nettleford-Hughes to the Hunt Ball after Christmas as a potential suitor for me?” Lettice screws up her nose.

“Sir John Nettleford-Hughes! Isn’t he in his mid-fifties?”

“More like his sixties!”

“Well, he’ll be in good company with Lady Faversham’s unmarried eldest son.”

“She doesn’t have an unmarried son too, does she?” Lettice’s eyes grow wide and her face pales at the thought, until she sees the cheeky smile on Gerald’s face as he raises his napkin to his lips attempting to hide it. “Oh you!” she hisses, slapping his wrist playfully and smiling.

“At least I made you smile.” Gerald says kindly.

“You will come to the Hunt Ball, won’t you darling?” Lettice’s squeeze of her friend’s left wrist highlighting the desperation of her plea.

“If we’re invited. The Brutons of leaky roofed Bruton Hall don’t have the panache of Sir John Nettleford-Hughes, not to mention the bank balance.”

“Of course you’ll be invited!” Lettice replies in outrage. “It’s traditional. Why you’re practically family being our neighbours. I’ll invite you all if Mater doesn’t: you, your mother, your brother and your father! You must come and rescue me from all the horrors Mater is planning to invite.”

“As a penniless spare to the heir, who earns his living making frocks for his financial betters: I’m hardly a suitable match for you to dance with at the ball, Lettice.” He smiles assuringly at his friend across the table and then places his own right hand over hers as it rests across his left wrist. “Who else am I protecting you from the attentions of?”

“Jonty Hastings.”

“Good god! Howling Hastings! I haven’t seen him since we were in the nursery. Didn’t we used to lock him in the airing cupboard at Bruton Hall?” Gerald asks mischievously.

“I’d forgotten that!” Lettice muffles her laughs with her napkin. ‘I think that’s why we gave him that nickname.”

“I think that might be the reason why we haven’t seen him since we were children.” Gerald chuckles. “Who else is Sadie pulling out of mothballs for you?”

The discreet gloved hands of the Savoy waiter places a blackberry tart topped with clotted cream, garnished with thinly sliced citrus in front of Lettice and Gerald.

“Tarquin Howard, Edward Lambley, Selwyn Spencely.” Lettice elucidates after the waiter withdraws.

“At least they are more our age,” Gerald says hopefully. “And Selwyn is dishy to boot.”

“Oh, you’re as bad as Mater!” Lettice flicks her napkin at him as she prepares to take a mouthful of her tart. “Can you believe she actually offered to show me his photograph in one of her magazines?”

“Well, I shouldn’t have minded that.” Gerald replies, uttering a satisfied sigh as he tastes the delicious dessert before him.

“Better you than me, Gerald. Do you know what else Mater said to me?”

Gerald looks questioningly to her, waiting for Lettice to continue.

“She said that Dickie and Margot only asked me to decorate their country house because they are my friends.”

“Well, they are, Lettice.”

“Yes, but she implied that my decorating isn’t good enough for anyone to put up with unless they are my friends.”

“She only said that to make you pack it all in so she can marry you off more easily, like she did your sister. But you and I know better.” Gerald says comfortingly. He picks up his champagne glass again and points it towards Lettice’s. “Pick up your glass, darling.”

Lettice looks questioningly at her friend as she wraps her fingers around the stem of her glass.

“Here’s to your success.” Gerald says, clinking her glass. “To the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd, successful society interior designer, and the best friend I could ever ask for!”

Lettice laughs, awarding Gerald with her beautiful smile.

*The Savoy Hotel is a luxury hotel located in the Strand in the City of Westminster in central London, England. 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 luxury hotel in Britain, introducing 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.

**A wedding breakfast is a feast given to the newlyweds and guests after the wedding, making it equivalent to a wedding reception that serves a meal. The phrase is still used in British English, as opposed to the description of reception, which is American in derivation. Before the beginning of the Twentieth Century they were traditionally held in the morning, but this fashion began to change after the Great War when they became a luncheon. Regardless of when it was, a wedding breakfast in no way looked like a typical breakfast, with fine savoury food and sweet cakes being served. Wedding breakfasts were at their most lavish in the Edwardian era through to the Second World War.

***St. Mark’s Church Mayfair, is a Grade I listed building, in the heart of London's Mayfair district, on North Audley Street. St Mark's was built between 1825 and 1828 as a response to the shortage of churches in the area. The population in Mayfair had grown with the demand for town houses by the aristocracy and the wealthy, as they moved in from the country. The building was constructed in the Greek revival style to the designs of John Peter Gandy. In 1878 the architect Arthur Blomfield made significant changes to the church, adding a timber roof, and introducing Gothic style features. The thirty-four feet (ten metre) façade, together with the elegant porch, is known as one of the finest in London. Being in Mayfair, it was a popular place for the weddings of aristocratic families. It was deconsecrated in 1974, and today it is used as a mixed use venue.

****In the first few decades of the Twentieth Century, up until the Second World War, it was customary to hold weddings on weekdays. An old folk rhyme that many of the people at that time would have known went: “Marry on Monday for health, Tuesday for wealth, Wednesday the best day of all, Thursday for crosses, Friday for losses, and Saturday for no luck at all”. It would have been considered bad luck to get married on a Saturday, and bad form to marry on a Sunday.

This upper-class gustatory scene, with fare such as you could expect from the Savoy, is not what you may first imagine, for it 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 tableaux include:

The Chippendale dining room table and matching 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 table is set correctly for an Edwardian dinner, using cutlery, crockery and glassware from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering in the United Kingdom. Each glass is hand blown using real glass. The plates have been gilded by hand and the cutlery set is made of polished metal. The napkin rings were made by Karen Ladybug Miniatures in the United Kingdom, as was the champagne flute that is filled with glittering golden yellow champagne. The silver cruet set, which peeps from behind the yellow roses, has been made with great attention to detail, and comes from Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. The gold candelabra on the table is also a 1:12 artisan piece that I was given as a teenager. The gold roses are hand-made, and the bowl they sit in is made of hand blown and decorated glass. They also come from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures, as do the blackberry tarts which look real and good enough to eat!

The sugar castor on the table is 1 ½ centimetres in height and half a centimetre in diameter. Its finial actually comes apart like its life size equivalent. The finial unscrews from the body so it can be filled. I am told that icing sugar can pass through the holes in the finial, but I have chosen not to try this party trick myself. A sugar castor was used in Edwardian times to shake sugar onto fruits and desserts.

Get off the table! by Janet 59

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toy story by jennifer blakeslee

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i have a thing for veehickles, even if it's a dusty old toy found in a canadian antique shop.

Minnie’s Dining Room Faux Pas by raaen99

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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 headed north-west from Cavendish Mews, across Marylebone, past Regent’s Park, the London Zoo and Lords Cricket Ground to the affluent and leafy residential streets of nearby St. John’s Wood. It is here that Lettice’s Embassy Club coterie friends Minnie Palmerston and her husband Charles reside in a neatly painted two storey early Victorian townhouse on Acacia Road that formerly belonged to Charles Palmerston’s maternal grandparents, Lord and Lady Arundel.

Having taken her future sister-in-law, Arabella Tyrwhitt, to her old childhood chum and best friend Gerald Bruton’s couturier in Grosvenor Street Soho for her initial wedding dress consultation, Lettice has left the two together to discuss designs whilst she visits Minnie in St John’s Wood. Minnie, a highly strung socialite, has redecorated her dining room in a style not to her husband’s taste, or so she was told by Minnie over a luncheon Lettice hosted for Arabella last week. Known for her melodrama, Lettice quietly ponders whether it really is as awful as Minnie implies as she pays the taxi driver the fare from Soho to St John’s Wood and alights the blue vehicle onto the street.

The day is bright and sunny, and the street is quiet with only the occasional bark of a dog and the distant rumble of traffic from busy Finchley Road in the distance as Lettice strides across the road and walks up the eight steps that lead up to Minnie’s black painted front door. She depresses the doorbell which echoes through the long hallway inside and waits. Moments later, there is the thud of Minnie’s hurried footsteps as she flings open the door dramatically.

“Lettice darling!” she cries, standing in the doorway in a beautiful may green day dress which compliments her red hair and green eyes, with cascades of green and black bugle beads tumbling down the front. “Come in! Come in!” she beckons her friend with enthusiastic waves which make the green, black and gold bangles on her wrist jangle noisily.

“Minnie.” Lettice leans in for a whispery kiss on the cheek as she steps across the threshold and follows Minnie’s indications and steps into a drawing room off the hallway, the room filled with diffused light from a large twelve pane window that looks out onto the street. Looking around her, she quickly takes in the overstuffed cream satin settees, nests of occasional tables, clusters of pictures in gilt frames in every conceivable space on the William Morris style papered walls and the potted parlour palms. “Oh yes,” she remarks as she removes her green gloves. “I do see what you mean. Very Edwardian.”

“Isn’t it ghastly, Lettice darling?” Minnie asks as she steps into the drawing room. “Here let me take your, umbrella, coat and hat.” She helps her friend shrug off her forest green coat and takes her rather artistic beret with its long tassel. “I think Lady Arundel could walk in here and not find a thing out of place!”

“It could be worse,” Lettice remarks, looking up at the crystal chandelier suspended from the ceiling high above. “It could be decorated in high Victorian style and lit with gasoliers*.”

“True darling.” Minnie calls from the hallway where she hangs up Lettice’s things on a heavy Victorian coatrack. “But you have yet to see my dining room faux pas.”

“Now Minnie, no matter what I say, I want no histrionics today like we had over luncheon last week,” Lettice chides her friend with a wagging finger. “Poor Bella didn’t know where to look.”

“Oh I am sorry.” Minnie apologises. “Coming from the country, she probably isn’t used to our London ways.”

“Your emotional outbursts have nothing whatsoever to do with London ways, so don’t go foisting it off.” Lettice replies, cocking one of her delicately plucked eyebrows at her friend.

“You sound just like Gladys.” Minnie says.

“Well, I hope I’m not as shrill sounding as her,” Lettice replies with a chuckle.

“And how is the beautiful bride-to-be?”

“Happily ensconced with Gerald in his Soho atelier, no doubt talking about all the finer details of the dream wedding frock I have already heard about from dear Bella.”

“She seems quite lovely, Lettice darling.”

“Oh, I adore Bella.” Lettice agrees with a wave of her hand. “Given we grew up running in and out of each other’s houses, living on neighbouring properties, it was inevitable that she would marry one of my brothers, or Lally or I marry one of Bella’s brothers. I’m just glad that it wasn’t the latter. All Bella’s brothers, whilst charming, take after their grandfather, and he was not a handsome man. Bella has her mother’s delicate and pretty genes and she and Leslie are well suited. They both love the country, and as you know from luncheon last week, Bella likes the county social round. As Pater says, Bella will one day make a wonderful chatelaine of Glynes**, supporting Leslie as a dutiful wife, hosting important county social functions like the Hunt Ball, opening fetes and awarding prizes at cattle shows.”

“How does Lady Sadie feel about her usurper?”

“Oh Mater loves Bella as much as we all do.” Lettice replies breezily. “Of course, Pater doesn’t dare express his appreciation quite so volubly in front of Mater, but I’m sure she is silently thinking the same thing, not that she would ever share that with any of us. No, the problem will be if Pater decides to pop his mortal clogs before she does. I don’t know how happy she will be to hand over the mantle of lady of the manor to her daughter-in-law, even if she does love her.”

“Well, let’s hope we don’t have to worry about that for a good while yet.” Minnie says soothingly.

“Indeed yes!” agrees Lettice. “Now, show me this dread dining room of yours, Minnie darling. I’m famished, and I’m intrigued to see just how much of a faux pas it really is.”

“Come right this way, interior decorator to all the great and good of this great country of ours,” Minnie says rather grandly as she walks towards a door that leads from the drawing room to the next room. Suddenly she pauses, clasping the brass doorknob in her hand and turns back to Lettice who has trailed behind her. “Prepare yourself my dear for l’horreur!” And she flings the door open.

Minnie and Lettice walk into the townhouse’s dining room, which like the adjoining drawing room has a high ceiling. Lettice is surprised that after the grandeur of the drawing room, it’s a much smaller room, perhaps more suited for intimate dining rather than a large banquet. She glances around and quickly takes in the mixture of old and new. An Edwardian dining setting in Queen Anne style fills the majority of the space, whilst a late Victorian sideboard and spare carver chairs press against the wall. To either side of the new Art Deco gas fireplace stand two modern stands on which sit rather old fashioned urns. Modernist paintings in bold colours hang on the walls, but Lettice can barely see them for the bold wallpaper of red poppies against a black background with green and white geometric patterns.

“Oh I see.” Lettice remarks, neither enthusiastically nor critically, but in a rather neutral way.

Lettice walks around the dining table on which stands a Georgian Revival tea set with steam snaking from the spot of the pot, a small carafe of water and glassware, crockery and cutlery for two at the head of the table. She stands before the Streamline Moderne fireplace surround and runs an elegant hand over one of the bold red blooms, feeling the slightly raised pattern. She sighs as she contemplates what she sees.

“Do you think it looks like something out of Maida Vale, Lettice darling?” Minnie asks hesitantly.

For a moment, Lettice doesn’t answer as she traces one of the green lines towards the gilt edge of a frame holding a painting of a tiger. “Tyger Tyger burning bright***,” she murmurs the beginning of the William Blake poem.

“Yes,” Minnie acknowledges her friend with a sigh of pleasure. “He’s rather glorious, isn’t he?”

“He is,” Lettice agrees. “However his gloriousness is diminished somewhat by the wallpaper which draws away attention from him, and the red fox.” She points to a larger canvas hanging over the sideboard.

“So you do think it’s middle-class Maida Vale then.” Minnie pronounces in a downhearted fashion.

“No, I don’t.” Lettice clarifies, turning around and placing a comforting hand on the slumped left shoulder of her friend. “And I think it was very unkind of Charles to say so. The wallpaper is beautiful, Minnie. It just doesn’t suit this room.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, this is quite an intimate room: taller with these high ceilings, rather than wide. This wallpaper would suit a longer room with low ceilings, where expanses of this pattern could be exposed uninterrupted.”

“Like a mansion flat?”

“Exactly, Minnie! I did something similar for the moving picture actress, Wanetta Ward last year. She had a long, exposed wall and the bold pattern I used worked beautifully. And this wallpaer does nothing to show off yours and Charles’ beautiful paintings. It detracts rather than enhances. The paintings and the wallpaper vie for attention. Think about the National Gallery, or the Tate Gallery****. When you see pictures hanging on the wall, what do you notice about the surrounding to the painting?”

Minnie thinks for a moment, screwing up her pert nose with its dusting of freckles. “Well, I can’t say I’ve ever actually noticed the walls, Lettice darling.”

“Correct again, Minnie. No-one thinks about the walls because you’re not meant to. Your focus is meant to be on the paintings.”

“So you think I should strip the walls and paint them? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Well, you could, Minnie.” Lettice replies. “Or you could paint the walls and decorate the upper edge with a nice frieze paper.”

“Then it really would look like Maida Vale.” Minnie argues. “Only people who can’t afford wallpaper get friezes hung.”

Lettice considers her friend’s remark for a moment. “Mmm… yes, you’re quite right Minnie. Well, Jeffrey and Company***** do stock a range of beautiful papers in vibrant colours with pattern embossed into them. They look very luxurious.”

“Oh!” Minnie clasps her hands in delight. “I do like the sound of that! What colour would suit this room do you think?”

“Oh I should imagine a nice warm red or orange to go with this.” Lettice taps the top of the tiled fireplace surround. “And that colour range would also compliment your polished floors.”

“And I could get black japanned furniture like you, Lettice darling! I do like your chairs.”

“Oh no.” Lettice shakes her head. “Black japanned furniture is fine, but not my chairs. They are far too low for this room. You need an equivalent high backed chair.” She reaches out and pats one of the dining chairs. “Lady Arundel chose these well as they echo the height of the room. Perhaps if you had something high backed padded with a complimentary fabric to the paper: say red or orange.”

“Oh Lettice you are so clever!” enthuses Minnie. “When can you start.”

“Don’t you want to ask Charles before you go spending his money on redecorating, Minnie?” Lettice laughs. “Surely he’ll want a say.”

“Oh Charles told me today when I reminded him that you were coming for luncheon before he left for the office, that he’ll happily pay for anything you recommend, or better yet your services. So you don’t need to worry on that account.”

“Well, I would have to finish Dickie and Margot’s.” Lettice tempers.

“Oh, of course.” Minnie agrees.

“Well, I don’t have another redecorating assignment after them, so let me contemplate it.”

“I’ll go and get luncheon whilst you contemplate.” Minnie exclaims with a clap of her hands before scuttling away through a second door to the left of the fireplace.

With her exuberant friend gone, Lettice looks around the dining room, contemplating what she has suggested, picturing what embossed wallpaper in a rich red or vibrant orange would look like as a backdrop for the paintings. “Pity.” she muses as she again runs her hands over the stylised poppies in the pattern on the wall. Turning around she looks across the room. “Sorry Lady Arundel,” she remarks, tapping the top of the nearest dining chair again. “But it looks like your granddaughter-in-law wants to modernise.

“I’m afraid it’s Cook’s afternoon off today,” Minnie says apologetically as she walks back through the door through which she went, carrying a tray of tomato, ham and cucumber sandwiches. “So we’ll have to settle for these.” Looking down at the plate of appetising sandwich triangles as she places them on the dining table’s surface she adds. “I do hope she remembered not to make tongue****** ones. She should remember that I can’t stand cold tongue.”

Lettice peers at the fillings of bright red tomato, vivid green cucumber, and pink ham. “I think we’ll be safe.”

“Well, there’s half a trifle left over for dessert just in case they aren’t nice.” Minnie adds hopefully.

Lettice is suddenly struck by something. “Minnie?” she asks. “Minnie, why are you carrying the tray? And come to think of it, why did you answer the door? Where is Gladys?”

Minnie blushes, her pale skin and smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose reddening. “She handed in her immediate notice the week before last.”

“Oh no! Not another one Minnie?”

“She said she couldn’t work for a woman who had such histrionics as I do, and she’s gone back to Manchester.”

“Oh Minnie!” Lettice shakes her head dolefully.

“See! I told you, you sounded like Gladys, Lettice. I’ve been getting by with the tweeny*******, but Cook grumbles, so I can’t keep pinching her. That’s why I’m so grateful you gave me that telephone number for that domestic employment agency in Westminster. I’ve a new maid starting next week. Her name’s Siobhan, so I figured that she can’t complain about my histrionics as she’d be used to them, being Irish.”

“Well, let’s hope so Minnie.” Lettice chuckles as she pulls out her dining chair and takes her seat. “I can’t keep up with the revolving door of maids that come in and out of this house. How long have you been here for now?”

“Seven months or thereabout.” Minnie replies vaguely as she takes her own seat in the chair at the head of the dining table.

“And how many maids have you had in that time?”

“Nine.” Minnie replies with a guilty gulp.

“No wonder Charles feels his club is better suited to entertain prospective business associates.” Lettice shakes her head disapprovingly. “A tweeny waiting table.”

“Well hopefully, with Siobhan starting next week, and you agreeing to redecorate my dining room faux pas,” She looks around the room with glittering, excited eyes, as she imagines the possibilities. “Charles will be happy to start entertaining here.” She pauses and thinks for a moment. “You will won’t you?”

“Will I what, Minnie?”

“You will redecorate my dining room, won’t you?”

Lettice reaches around Minnie’s teacup and squeezes her friend’s hand comfortingly. “Of course I will. I’ll come up with some ideas of what I think might suit this room and then I’ll show you and Charles. Charles has to have some input, even if he has told you that you that I have carte blanche when it comes to redecorating.”

*A gasolier is a chandelier with gas burners rather than light bulbs or candles.

**Glynes is the grand Georgian family seat of the Chetwynds in Wiltshire, and the home of Lettice’s parents, the presiding Viscount and Countess of Wrexham and the heir, their eldest son Leslie.

***”The Tyger” is a poem by English poet William Blake, published in 1794 as part of his “Songs of Experience” collection and rising to prominence in the romantic period of the mid Nineteenth Century. The poem explores and questions Christian religious paradigms prevalent in late 18th century and early 19th century England, discussing God's intention and motivation for creating both the tiger and the lamb. Tiger is written as Tyger in the poem as William Blake favoured old English spellings.

****In 1892 the site of a former prison, the Millbank Penitentiary, was chosen for the new National Gallery of British Art, which would be under the Directorship of the National Gallery at Trafalgar Square. The prison, used as the departure point for sending convicts to Australia, had been demolished in 1890. Sidney R.J. Smith was chosen as the architect for the new gallery. His design is the core building that we see today, a grand porticoed entranceway and central dome which resembles a temple. The statue of Britannia with a lion and a unicorn on top of the pediment at the Millbank entrance emphasised its function as a gallery of British art. The gallery opened its doors to the public in 1897, displaying 245 works in eight rooms from British artists dating back to 1790. In 1932, the gallery officially adopted the name Tate Gallery, by which it had popularly been known as since its opening. In 1937, the new Duveen Sculpture Galleries opened. Funded by Lord Duveen and designed by John Russell Pope, Romaine-Walker and Gilbert Jenkins, these two 300 feet long barrel-vaulted galleries were the first public galleries in England designed specifically for the display of sculpture. By this point, electric lighting had also been installed in all the rooms enabling the gallery to stay open until 5pm whatever the weather. In 1955, Tate Gallery became wholly independent from the National Gallery.

*****Jeffrey and Company was an English producer of fine wallpapers that operated between 1836 and the mid 1930s. Based at 64 Essex Road in London, the firm worked with a variety of designers who were active in the aesthetic and arts and crafts movements, such as E.W. Godwin, William Morris, and Walter Crane. Jeffrey and Cmpany’s success is often credited to Metford Warner, who became the company’s chief proprietor in 1871. Under his direction the firm became one of the most lucrative and influential wallpaper manufacturers in Europe. The company clarified that wallpaper should not be reserved for use solely in mansions, but should be available for rooms in the homes of the emerging upper-middle class.

******Beef tongue (also known as neat's tongue or ox tongue) is a cut of beef made of the tongue of a cow. It can be boiled, pickled, roasted or braised in sauce. It is found in many national cuisines, and is used for taco fillings in Mexico and for open-faced sandwiches in the United States.

*******A tweeny is a between maid, who works in the kitchen as well as above stairs, assisting at least two other members of a domestic staff.

This rather bright dining room is perhaps a little different to what you might think, for it is made up entirely of pieces from my 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures collection, some pieces from my own childhood.

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

The Queen Anne dining table, chairs and sideboard were all given to me as birthday and Christmas presents when I was a child.

The three prong Art Deco style candelabra in the sideboard is an artisan piece made of sterling silver. Although unsigned, the piece was made in England by an unknown artist. The vase of flowers to the left of the candelabra is beautifully made by hand by the Doll House Emporium. The carafe to the right of the candelabra is another artisan piece made of hand spun glass. I acquired it as a teenager from a high street dollhouse stockist.

The ornately hand painted ginger jar is one of a pair and comes from Melody Jane Dollhouse Suppliers in Britain. The tall stand on which the ginger jar stands was made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, Bespaq.

The paintings on the walls are 1:12 artisan pieces made by Amber’s Miniatures in the United States. The stylised floral and geometric shape Art Deco wallpaper is a real Art Deco design which I have sourced and had printed in high quality onto A3 sheets of paper.

On the dining table the tray of sandwiches are made of polymer clay. Made in England by hand by former chef turned miniature artisan, Frances Knight they are very realistic with even the bread slices having a bread like consistency look. 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 water carafe came from the same high street stockist as the carafe on the sideboard. The Art Deco dinner set is part of a much larger set I acquired from a dollhouse suppliers in Shanghai. The Georgian Revival silver tea set on its tray I acquired from Smallskale Miniatures in the United Kingdom.

The Streamline Moderne pottery tile fireplace surround I acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dollhouse Shop in the United Kingdom.

Distortion # 1 ... ; (c)rebfoto by rebfoto

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after a number of drinks .... distortion ...

in my Diner Series and Distortion Series ; Pic # 1 ...

Taken Dec 30, 2016

Thanks for your visits, faves, invites and comments ... (c)rebfoto

Kitchen Dining, Hampton Court Palace, East Molesey, London, England UK by Stuart Smith.

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Part of Market Square, Leyburn_DSC_2220_LR by Roger Perriss

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Please don't use this image on websites, blogs or other media without my explicit permission.

The Last Supper by Christina

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Secret Desires and Despises at the Wedding Breakfast by raaen99

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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 at Glynes, the grand Georgian family seat of the Chetwynds in Wiltshire, and the home of Lettice’s parents, the presiding Viscount and Countess of Wrexham and the heir, their eldest son Leslie. Lettice is visiting her old family home for the wedding of Leslie to Arabella, the daughter of their neighbours, Lord Sherbourne and Lady Isobel Tyrwhitt. Today is the big day, and earlier in the morning Lettice was amongst the guests to watch her brother and his now wife exchange vows at the chapel in Glynes village. Now the wedding guests have repaired to the grand country house where the couple’s wedding breakfast* is being held in the Glynes grand dining room.

“I say, Sadie has been busy!” exclaims Gerald as he walks through the doors of the dining room.

“The whole household has been busy.” corrects Lettice as she walks proudly on his arm. “I could barely get a cup of tea, a slice of toast and a scraping of jam for breakfast,” she moans. “Which I had to take in my room because in here was out-of-bounds.”

The Glynes dining room, a large space, has been transformed into an indoor winter garden with tributes to the house’s gardeners with hothouse flower arrangements everywhere. Cascades of soft lilac wisteria, white blossom and pastel roses spill from vases on the mantlepiece and from jardinières on stands placed around the walls. The usual dining table used by the Chetwynds for dinners and banquets has been transformed into the bridal table, whilst several other smaller oblong tables have been brought in to serve as places for the other wedding breakfast guests. Each table is covered in crisp snowy white linen tablecloths taken from the Glynes great Elizabethan oak linen chests and pressed by housekeeper Mrs. Casterton’s staff, and upon their surfaces fine gilt white china, glassware and silver gleam, with each place setting carefully arranged by Bramley, the Chetwynd’s butler and Marsden, the first footman. Each table is graced with more fresh floral arrangements created by Lady Sadie herself and the parlour maid Emmery, whom the Countess has discovered has an aptitude for flower arranging. On the bridal table stands a grand three-tier wedding fruitcake made by Mrs. Honeychurch, the Chetwynd’s cook, its white royal icing edges decorated with pale yellow icing swirls and golden orange sugar roses.

“They look so happy,” Gerald remarks as they walk in front of the bridal table where Leslie and Isabella sit before the cake.

“I think Bella’s is your best wedding frock yet, Gerald.”

“Oh, do you really think so, Lettice?”

“I do.” she concurs proudly as they pass the bride and groom, admiring the creamy white satin boat neck of Bella’s wedding gown, trimmed with accents of antique lace, a gift to Isabella from Lady Sadie, taken from her own wedding dress.

‘Well, Bella was perfect to fit.” The pair move around to the table adjunct to the bridal table where they take their places. “She already had her ideas, which, unlike some women I see, were good ones, and I just had to bring them to life. She’s never has been a girl into fuss, and let’s be honest, she has so much natural beauty that no matter what I made for her would look wonderful on her.”

“And of course, I love my outfit too, Gerald.” Lettice smooths the pale buttery yellow crêpe of her frock which matches the pretty rose decorated wide brimmed straw hat made for her by Gerald’s friend Harriet.

“I should hope you do!” Gerald replies as he settles himself into his Chippendale style dining chair.

The pair watch as the country wedding guests, a mixture of family from both the Chetwynd and the Tyrwhitt clans, county society, guests from London and a smattering of local village folk, leisurely wend their way to their places, each marked with a handwritten card in Lady Sadie’s elegant copperplate script.

“I must say Lettice darling, I am grateful that you managed to convince Sadie to lift her embargo on me after the Hunt Ball and allow me to come.” Gerald remarks as he and Lettice nod at two of her distant spinster cousins from Guernsey as they make their way around them to their place much further down the table Lettice and Gerald are near the head of.

“Oh don’t thank me, Gerald.” Lettice replies. “Thank Leslie. He’s the one who confronted Mater and said that if he had to have cousins Eurphronia and Ethelreda from Guernsey,” She nods to the two rather horsey looking ladies now taking their places at the far end of the table. “Whom we haven’t seen nor heard from since Lally was married, then he and Bella were entitled to invite whichever guests they wanted, without question. And of course that included you.”

“Gosh! I must thank Leslie later then.”

“I still don’t know,” Lettice queries. “What was it you said to Mater that night of Hunt Ball that set her so against you. I’ve never known her to take against anyone so vehemently, except perhaps Aunt Egg.”

Gerald blushes, remembering the altercation he had with Lettice’s mother, Lady Sadie, at the ball. In a slightly inebriated state he told her that neither she nor Lettice had any sway over Selwyn Spencely’s choice of a wife, any more than Selwyn did himself, explaining that it was his mother, the Duchess of Mumford, Lady Zinnia, who would choose a wife for him. “I keep telling you, darling girl. I really don’t remember,” he replies awkwardly, covering his tracks as best as he can. “If you remember, I was rather tight** that night on your father’s champagne.”

“And I hope you will do so again today.” Lettice says cheekily, picking up the freshly poured glass of champagne set at her place just prior to her arrival.

“Try and stop me, darling!” Gerald picks up his glass and the two clink their glasses together in a conspiratorial toast.

“Lettice! Lettice stop that!” hisses her father, the Viscount, from his seat next to his wife at the bridal table, flapping his hand at her in an effort to gain her attention and growing red faced in the process. “Not until I make my speech.”

Lettice rolls her eyes and shakes her head, and like two admonished children, she and Gerald return their glasses, untouched, to their places with lowered heads.

“I am glad that Aunt Isobel was well enough to see Bella get married.” Lettice says with a satisfied sigh.

“Yes, I am too.” Gerald looks over the top of the wedding cake to see Isabella’s mother, whom they all call ‘Aunt Isobel’ despite her not being a blood relation, smiling proudly next to her husband, Sherbourne, as she looks down the table to her daughter and new son-in-law. “The radiotherapy*** seems to be having a positive impact on her health. Although evidently not enough for the Tyrwhitts to host the wedding breakfast.” he notes a little critically.

“Well, Mater thought it might tire poor Aunt Isobel out to arrange the wedding breakfast by herself, so she offered, and Isobel was probably too unwell at the time to refuse her.”

“Who would dare contradict Sadie’s wishes? Look, she is positively in her element, playing Lady Bountiful****, lording herself over all her minions, the great and good of the county.” Gerald says, nodding to Lettice’s beaming mother swathed in romantic soft pink floral silk de chiné wearing a floppy picture hat covered in satin roses in a matching shade.

“I do think Uncle Sherbourne looks rather tired though, don’t you Gerald?”

“Well, it isn’t every day that one loses one’s only daughter,” Gerald says dismissively. “He’s probably had a few sleepless nights worrying about her dowery and whether she has made the right decision.”

“Gerald!” Lettice slaps her friend playfully with her pale yellow kid gloves. “You surely can’t be suggesting that Leslie is a cad!” she laughs.

He chuckles in return and flashes her a beaming smile.

Returning her gloves to her lap, she glances up and over to where her eldest brother sits proudly in his morning suit gazing with fondness and laughing with his bride. Glowing can be the only adjective suitable to describe Leslie and Isabella as they radiate happiness.

“You must feel a little jealous,” Lettice remarks discreetly as she observes a slightly wistful look in her dear friend’s eyes as he too observes the happy couple.

“Of the sanctity of marriage?” Gerald scoffs with a dismissive snort. “Pray save me from that hell, Lettice darling!”

“You know what I mean, Gerald,” Lettice retorts. “Now that you’ve finally met someone.” she adds in a hushed tone.

Lettice bore witness to an exchange of affection between Gerald and a young oboe player named Cyril whilst visiting Gerald’s friend Harriet in Putney recently. As well as making hats, Harriet runs a boarding house for theatrical gentlemen where Cyril resides, and it is through her that Gerald met the handsome young musician.

“I hardly think we are at the marriage stage yet, Lettice darling.” Gerald whispers sagely. “Not that we could, mind you. We’ve only recently met. Anyway,” He glances meaningfully again at Leslie. “What’s the point in wishing for something you know you cannot have.”

Lettice reaches across to Gerald’s lap beneath the crisp white linen tablecloth and places her hand atop her friend’s, giving it a consoling squeeze. She sometimes forgets how her friend pined for many years with unrequited love for her eldest brother. Gerald has no more chance of marrying Cyril even if he does return Gerald’s affections, and Lettice can only imagine how careful her friend needs to be to avoid the authorities punishing him with imprisonment with hard labour just for loving another man.

“I wish Selwyn was here.” Lettice continues softly, casting her eyes down into her lap as she feels the sting of tears.

“What?” Gerald asks with a melodramatic gasp, quickly noticing Lettice’s sudden rush of emotion and trying to keep her from crying in front of her family and the rest of the county’s and the village’s society. “Am I not good enough for you as your squire?” He pouts at her and bats his long, dark eyelashes.

Lettice cannot help but let out a burst of laughter at his sad puppy dog face. “Oh Gerald! You know I don’t man that.”

“I know.” he says with a melancholy smile.

“You’re so good to me.”

“Agreed.” he nods. He then proceeds to add as a joking after thought, “Far better than you deserve.”

When Lettice laughs a little sadly, Gerald returns Lettice’s squeeze comfortingly. “I know you want Selwyn here. However,” he adds seriously. “You know it would be improper for him to be at such an intimate family occasion as your guest unless there has been a formal intention of marriage.”

“I know.” Lettice sighs.

“And Selwyn hasn’t made any such overtures, has he?”

Lettice looks down again. “Not yet.” she mumbles glumly.

“Well then. You shall simply have to settle for me, Lettice darling. I know I’m a poor second, and probably not even that. However, I will just have to do.”

“And you do splendidly, Gerald darling. You always know how to pick my spirits up when I’m feeling glum.”

“Isn’t that what best friends and chums of old are supposed to do?”

“Exactly right, Gerald.” Lettice replies, withdrawing her hands and discreetly dabbing the corners of her eyes with her pale yellow kid gloves. “What a pair we are, Gerald.” She sniffs. “Both of us crying for what we cannot have.”

“Don’t worry, everyone will think you are crying tears of joy for the happy couple, and that is how it should be. But don’t make a habit of blubbing when there is no conceivable reason to be crying, will you?”

“How do you do it, Gerald darling?”

“Do what?”

“Not break down and cry, sometimes?”

“Well, aren’t men supposed to be the superior race?” Gerald asks, mockingly. “It’s always a stiff upper lip and all that, don’t you know?” He smiles sadly at his friend and companion. “I suppose the truth of the matter is that Father probably beat it out of me as a child. I knew if I blubbed at the wrong time, I was in for a thrashing, or Roland would tell Father I was blubbing, so I was in for a thrashing, so I kept it hidden until I was alone.”

“I’m sorry Gerald.” Lettice mutters.

“Oh don’t be, Lettice darling. This is a wedding for heaven’s sake. Were supposed to be happy, not sad. No,” Gerald continues with a stoic sniff. “I’m happy for them and wish them well. Truly I do. It was inevitable really. They have always been destined to be together. Bella and Leslie are well suited for one another. They are both country folk. She loves riding and is interested in animal husbandry and all that awfully dirty estate business.” He waves his free left hand dismissively with a look of disgust at the thought of pigs in their muddy styes. “Whereas what I find best about the country is when we leave it to go back to the comfort and bright lights of London.”

“Don’t even mention animal husbandry, Gerald!” Lettice gasps, a shudder of revulsion running through her as she remembers the conversation she and her hated older brother Lionel had in Lady Sadie’s morning room a few days ago, when he spoke of women as fillies and mares, waiting to be sired by stallions.

“Oh, sorry Lettice darling!” Gerald apologises with a sombre glance at her. “I forgot.”

“I certainly can’t, even though I want to.”

“I knew things must have been looking bloody***** for you here when you sent that note across to me asking me to meet you at the Folly****** after dinner.”

“I can barely stand to even be in the same room as Lionel.” Lettice bristles as she looks across the Glynes dining room to the table set up on the opposite side of the bridal table, where her brother Lionel sits between their Aunt Eglantine, their father’s beloved younger sister, and Aunt Gladys, their mother’s parsimonious widowed elder sister. Emboldened by his imminent departure back to his place of exile in Kenya, he doesn’t even try and disguise his boredom at whatever the self-absorbed Gladys is saying to him.

“How can Aunt Egg stand to sit next to him?” Gerald asks.

“Because she doesn’t know about Lionel’s fathering of three illegitimate children in 1918.” Lettice elucidates quietly. “Lally and I joke openly about being Aunt Egg’s favourite niece depending upon the way the wind blows, but when it comes to her favourite nephew, there is no doubt as to who it is.”

“But why?” Gerald’s eyes grow wide in surprise. “I mean, she’s so lovely, artistic, and kind. And Lionel…” He shudders. “Lionel is such a… a…”

“A beast, Gerald?” She shrugs. “I guess there is no accounting for taste sometimes, even in our families. No, it would break her heart if she really knew what Lionel was like.”

“But that’s not fair to Leslie.”

“Oh, but Leslie is complicit in the subterfuge, Gerald. He’s so good and kind himself that he doesn’t want Aunt Egg upset by the truth. Besides, if she was upset, then Pater would be upset, and if he was upset, we all would be in for a beastly time.”

“How do you all do it?”

“Luckily Aunt Egg is safely ensconced with her own life in London, and with Lionel in Kenya, he’s barely ever mentioned. And if Aunt Egg does ask after him, we always glaze all the beastliness over with tales of derring-do******* from his sporadic letters to Mater and Pater, or what we’ve heard from friends who have passed through Nairobi and seen him.”

“I have to say that the Viscount and Sadie don’t seem too concerned about having him here.” Gerald observes as he glances in the direction of Lettice’s father and mother.

“Oh don’t be fooled,” Lettice elucidates as she glances at the smiling face of her father and her mother as she proudly plays mother-of-the-groom and gracious hostess to all the guests. “It’s all bravado: a show for Bella and the wedding guests. No-one wants to see a monster like Lionel spoil Bella and Leslie’s big day, except perhaps Lionel of course.”

“He always was unscrupulous.”

“Well, the last three years in exile certainly haven’t tempered his feelings of resentment and anger towards all of us, me especially.”

“But it was his own foolish philandering that got him banished to Africa.”

“Lionel doesn’t see it that way. As usual, he thinks that if I hadn’t told Mater and Pater about,” Lettice blushes at the thought. “About his indiscretion with Nelly, then those with Margaret and that poor simpleton Dora wouldn’t have come out and he would have gotten away with it.”

“It seems to me he did get away with it, and lightly.” Lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper he adds. “Banishment and the absolution for three illegitimate children, all paid for by your father. It’s a rather splendid deal if you ask me. He could have done far worse.”

“Lionel doesn’t think so, and we’re all sick of his digs and barbs which he inflicts on us every chance he gets. Pater and Mater have been on pins and needles ever since Lionel arrived. I had to speak to Mrs. Casterton about cautioning the maids, and I still had to warn Moira, whom I caught making cow eyes******* at him.”

“That would certainly have encouraged him, the cad.”

“I’m sure it did, even though he swears to me that he’s only interested in older women now, and married ones at that.”

“Good god!” Gerald rolls his eyes and then stares harshly at Lionel who remains bored between his two aunts, totally unaware that he is being spoken of and scrutinised. “Can he get any more rakish?”

“Lally refused to come and stay as she finds him so abhorrent, and she doesn’t want the children exposed to his wickedness.”

“He wouldn’t…” Gerald scarlessly dares to speak the words. “Well, Lionel wouldn’t hurt the little dears, would he?”

“With Lionel,” Lettice shrugs. “You never can quite tell what his scheming and perverse little mind is planning next.” She sighs heavily. “That’s half the problem. Just when you think you have him worked out, and know his next move, he does something unexpected that throws you.”

“And the unexpected from Lionel is always nasty.” says Gerald wearily, remembering how horrible Lionel was to him as a little boy.

“Always. He’s so unpredictable, except in his predictability of being mean, nasty, spiteful or hurtful.”

“Well, he’ll be on board a train back to London tomorrow morning.” Gerald says with a sigh of relief. “When does he set sail?”

“The Walmer Castle******** leaves Southampton for Cape Town on Friday, and not a moment too soon with Lionel on board, if you ask me.”

The hubbub of the light chatter of the guests filling the dining room is suddenly shattered by the sharp and repetitious rap of metal against glass, silencing everyone as heads turn towards the bridal table, where Lettice’s father, Viscount Wrexham has raised himself to his feet, tapping his crystal champagne flute with a silver knife.

“Ladies and gentlemen, if I could ask you all to take your places please,” the Viscount calls out loudly with his booming orator’s voice, usually reserved for the House of Lords. “As host for today’s wedding breakfast, I would just like to say a few words as the first course is served.”

Lettice and Gerald settle back into their seats as the Viscount commences his welcome speech to the assembled guests, all of whom pay attention to him, except for his eldest son Leslie and his new bride Isabella, who only have eyes for one another as they sit, smiling at one another in the centre of the bridal table.

*A wedding breakfast is a feast given to the newlyweds and guests after the wedding, making it equivalent to a wedding reception that serves a meal. The phrase is still used in British English, as opposed to the description of reception, which is American in derivation. Before the beginning of the Twentieth Century they were traditionally held in the morning, but this fashion began to change after the Great War when they became a luncheon. Regardless of when it was, a wedding breakfast in no way looked like a typical breakfast, with fine savoury food and sweet cakes being served. Wedding breakfasts were at their most lavish in the Edwardian era through to the Second World War.

**’Tight’ is an old fashioned upper-class euphemism for drunk.

**By the 1920s radiotherapy was well developed with the use of X-rays and radium. There was an increasing realisation of the importance of accurately measuring the dose of radiation and this was hampered by the lack of good apparatus. The science of radiobiology was still in its infancy and increasing knowledge of the biology of cancer and the effects of radiation on normal and pathological tissues made an enormous difference to treatment. Treatment planning began in this period with the use of multiple external beams. The X-ray tubes were also developing with replacement of the earlier gas tubes with the modern Coolidge hot-cathode vacuum tubes. The voltage that the tubes operated at also increased and it became possible to practice ‘deep X-ray treatment’ at 250 kV. Sir Stanford Cade published his influential book “Treatment of Cancer by Radium” in 1928 and this was one of the last major books on radiotherapy that was written by a surgeon.

****The old fashioned British term “looking bloody” was a way of indicating how dour or serious a person or occasion looks.

*****Lady Bountiful is a term used to describe a woman who engages in ostentatious acts of charity to impress others, and was often used in Edwardian times by titled ladies to describe themselves when conducting their charity or ministering works.

******In architecture, a folly is a building constructed primarily for decoration, but suggesting through its appearance some other purpose, or of such extravagant appearance that it transcends the range of usual garden buildings.

*******The phrase derring-do comes from Middle English, dorring don meant simply "daring to do." The phrase was misprinted as derrynge do in a 15th-century work by poet John Lydgate, and Edmund Spenser took it up from there. A glossary to Spenser's work defined it as "manhood and chevalrie.") Literary author Sir Walter Scott and others brought the noun into modern use.

********The RMS Walmer Castle was a passenger ship for Union-Castle Line, launched on the 6th of July 1901 and completed on the 20th of February 1902. The British government requisitioned her in 1917 and she then served as a troop ship in the North Atlantic. She returned to mercantile service, including sailings between Southampton and Cape Town after the war. She was scrapped in 1932.

Contrary to what your eyes might tell you, this upper-class country house wedding 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 bridal table - covered by a fine linen tablecloth - and matching 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.

In centre stage on the bridal table stands a three tier wedding cake covered in white icing, decorated with yellow swirls of icing and orange roses. The cake is made entirely of plaster, and I have had it since I was given it for a Christmas gift when I was seven.

The bridal table is set correctly for a five course Edwardian wedding breakfast, using cutlery and glassware from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering in the United Kingdom. Each glass is hand blown using real glass. The cutlery set is made of polished metal. The crockery is made by an unknown English company and each piece has been gilded by hand. The linen napkins and napkin rings were made by Karen Ladybug Miniatures in the United Kingdom. The Georgian silver water jug in front of the floral arrangement and the cruet set which peeps from behind it, have been made with great attention to detail, and come from Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. The flower arrangement on the table in the gilt double handled vase comes from M.W. Reutter Porzellanfabrik in Germany, who specialise in making high quality porcelain miniatures.

The Georgian style fireplace I have had since I was a teenager and is made from moulded plaster. On its mantlepiece stand two 1950s Limoges vases. Both are stamped with a small green Limoges mark to the bottom. These treasures I found in an overcrowded cabinet at the Mill Markets in Geelong. Also standing on the mantlepiece are two miniature diecast lead Meissen figurines: the Lady with the Canary and the Gentleman with the Butterfly, hand painted and gilded by me. There is also a dome anniversary clock in the middle of the mantlepiece which I bought the same day that I bought the fireplace.

The pink and white roses in the Limoges vases were made by hand by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures, whilst the larger floral arrangements of roses and cascading wisteria to either side of the fireplace come from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House in the United Kingdom.

To the left of the photo stands a demilune table upon which stands a wine cooler also made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland. The bottle of Deutz and Geldermann champagne in it is an artisan miniature and made of glass and has real foil wrapped around its neck. It was made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. The other bottles of wine, also made of glass with great attention to their lables, come from Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures.

All the paintings around the Glynes dining room in their gilded frames are 1:12 artisan pieces made by Amber’s Miniatures in the United States and the wallpaper is an authentic copy of hand-painted Georgian wallpaper from the 1770s.

Not Much Happening on the Dining Table by Glenn Harris

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Maxine will have to look elsewhere for something to do.

On our diningtable, "French Ranunculus" by Fred Boonstra

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On our diningtable, "French Ranunculus"

Canon 70D with EF100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM

Falcon Eyes SKK-2150D flash set

Jinbei Diffusion jumbo umbrella, Jinbei White umbrella.

IMG_7525ddp

centrepieces by -liyen-

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