Category: Design

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The Rembrandt Hotel Knightsbridge London + Ade Bakare Fashion Show

Whatever Happens

We love surprises. Who would have guessed Mexican and Japanese cuisine fuse so well? Not us, till after six hours of midweek lunching on ajo chipotle edamame and seabass ceviche in Los Mochis on Liverpool Street. Later, we will ask the bemused waiter at Annabel’s, “Where’s the rooftop terrace?” He will respond with glee, “You’re in it!” and immediately will press a button to slide back the ceiling, revealing a cloudy sky. Next, we’re filled with excitement when Queen Camilla arrives at Ascot but perhaps it shouldn’t be that big a surprise as she is handing out The King George VI and Elizabeth Stakes £668,400 prize to French favourite Mickael Barzalona riding Calandagan. It’s the 75th running of the race. Helicopter on standby of course.

We’re not at all surprised when Mary Martin receives her Damehood. Long overdue. On a hot Saturday evening we find ourselves in the front row of Ade Bakare’s summer show as Mary’s guests. It’s the Eighth Edition. We’re very Knightsbridge (think Giovanni or The Franklin) although The Rembrandt Hotel is new territory to us. Mary and Brenda Emmanus OBE are holding court in the lounge. That red sports car of Mary’s sure is raving up the kilometrage. The Queen of Fashion needs a helicopter! Ade speaks to the glamorous crowd: “I look forward to you wearing my latest collections. And that includes the exquisite perfume line that is available too. The T shirts have been inspired by African flowers. The jumpsuits come in vibrant pinks, blues and yellows.” It’s an eclectic show from casualwear, eyewear and millinery creations to the grand finale bridalwear. To quote Elizabeth Bowen in Bowen’s Court, 1942, “Like all stories told with gusto, it has its variations … I will give the version that most appeals to me.” In modern parlance, this is our authentic best selves’ truth. As always, we’re channelling our inner Deborah Turbeville.

The eponymous designer launched Ade Bakare Couture in 1991 with the assistance of a loan from the Prince of Wales Youth Business Trust and has grown it to a notable name in the global fashion industry. He had just majored in Salford University College Manchester following a history and education degree from the University of Lagos. The following year the fashion designer produced his first of many prêt-à-porter collections. He opened a high end boutique in Lagos in 2006. Ade was born in Britain to Nigerian parents: these two worlds combine in his clothing which fuses the elegance of British tailoring with the vibrancy of Yoruba culture.

London’s fashion scene is renowned for its eccentricity and inclusivity but in the past black designers have often had to carve their own careers. Then in 2011 along came Africa Fashion Week London and everything changed. Led by Queen Ronke Ademiluyi-Ogunwusi, this event promotes and celebrates black fashion excellence. Ade Bakare Couture makes frequent appearances on the annual catwalk. Headlining fashion artist Dame Mary Martin says, “Africa Fashion Week London is a fantastic launchpad for new collections and has become the go to event of the season. I’ve launched many of my collections at the show from The Hidden Queens to The Return.” As for Mary’s next collection, she shares, “It will be a surprise. A huge surprise!” Whatever it is, we know Dame Mary Martin will always obey Luann Countess de Lesseps advice, “Don’t be uncool. Be cool.”

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Architects Architecture Art Country Houses Design Luxury People Restaurants

Waddesdon Manor Buckinghamshire + Pablo Bronstein + The Temple of Solomon

Because Your Love Is Better Than Life

There are two principal Biblical temples: Solomon’s in the past; Ezekiel’s to come. God provides descriptions of both in the Old Testament. For example, Ezekiel 40:24 to 27, “Then he led me to the south side and I saw the south gate. He measured its jambs and its portico, and they had the same measurements as the others. The gateway and its portico had narrow openings all around, like the openings of the others. It was 50 cubits long and 25 cubits wide. Seven steps led up to it, with its portico opposite them; it had palm tree decorations on the faces of the projecting walls on each side. The inner court also had a gate facing south, and he measured from this gate to the outer gate on the south side; it was 100 cubits.”

King David was a man of war; his son, a man of peace, would be chosen to build the Temple. II Samuel 7:5 to 12, “Go and tell my servant David, ‘This is what the Lord says: You are not the one to build me a house to dwell in. When your days are over and you go to be with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for Me, and I will establish his throne forever.’” I Kings 6:1 states that in the month of Zif in the 480th year after the Israelites came out of Egypt, Solomon began to build the Temple. It was the fourth year of his reign, which likely spanned from around 1,015 to 975 BC.

The Bible provides dimensions and details and decorations. I Chronicles 28:11, “Then David gave his son Solomon the plans for the portico of the temple, its buildings, its storerooms, its upper parts, its inner rooms and the place of atonement.” The foundations were 60 cubits by 20 cubits (II Chronicles 3:1). The interior was covered with pure gold according to I Kings 6:21, and pots, shovels and sprinkling bowls were of burnished bronze (I Kings 7:40). Upon completion of the Temple, Solomon summoned the leaders of Israel to bring the Ark of the Covenant from Zion, the City of David, to its final resting place in the Temple on Mount Moriah.

Artist Pablo Bronstein (who was born in Argentina and lives in London) believes, “The reconstruction of ancient and Biblical structures says more about the societies that reconstructed them than it does about any long gone originals. My reconstructions of the Temple explore idealising tendencies in architecture across porous boundaries of styles relevant during a defining era of archaeology – roughly the 18th to 20th centuries. That’s precisely the time when nationalisms sought to tie themselves to particular architectural traditions and during which nascent professional archaeology informed our understanding of the past. I’ve tried to inhabit the ambitious contestants entering the Prix de Rome as they set about reconstructing the Temple entirely in their own image.” And where better to host such an exhibition rooted in the Tanakh than that most Jewish of English country houses, Waddesdon Manor?

Mark Girouard was a prominent country house architectural historian of the 20th century. His grandfather Henry Beresford, 6th Marquess of Waterford, owned one of the top estates in Ireland: Curraghmore. He records in Historic Houses of Britain (1979), “Baron Ferdinand, like other Rothschilds of the later generations, had largely detached himself from the Rothschild banks, except as places through which to invest his money. He was able to devote himself to sport, politics, philanthropy and pleasure. Like all Rothschilds he entertained lavishly. Waddesdon was meant for use, not just as a repository for treasures. Edward VII, who had a fondness for Rothschilds, came there frequently, and once fell down the staircase. Victoria was there for the day in 1890; her visit was something of a triumph for she was much less partial to Rothschilds than her son, and Waddesdon was the only Rothschild house she ever visited.”

He continues, “It is easy to envisage house parties at Waddesdon. It is harder to think of children playing there, or in general, to envisage a Rothschild nursery. Indeed there never was a nursery at Waddesdon. When Baron Ferdinand died childless in 1898 (he caught a chill on one of his regular visits to the grave of his wife), he left Waddesdon to his sister Alice, who never married. When she died in 1922 she left it to a French Rothschild, her great nephew James. James de Rothschild was married but had no children. It was he, on his death in 1957, who left the house, all its contents and an endowment to the National Trust – a legacy of almost unequalled munificence.”

Soon after they inherited the house, James de Rothschild and his wife Dorothy installed an electric servants’ bell system to replace the traditional manual bells. The indicator panel includes connections to Baron’s Room, Blue Dressing Room, East Hall, Low White Room, Portico Bathroom, Smoking Room, State Entrance, Tower Drawing Room, Turret Bedroom and many more. They also installed hot and cold water plumbing. The tradition of entertaining continues at Waddesdon with the Manor Restaurant on the ground floor of the Bachelors’ Wing. The wine list includes Waddesdon Rothschild Collection Viognier 2024 with hints of peach and apricot, sourced from the hills of Languedoc in the south of France.

In 1870, Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild had bought 2,500 hectares near Aylesbury (favoured family territory) from George Spencer-Churchill, 6th Duke of Marlborough, to build a country house designed by a French architect (the gloriously named Gabriel-Hippolyte Destailleur) filled with French furnishings (coordinated by interior design company Decour) and surrounded by gardens planned with the assistance of a French landscape designer (Elie Lainé). More Loire Valley than Aylesbury Vale. His wife had died in childbirth after a year and a half of wedded bliss: they had met at their mutual relatives’ London residence of Gunnersbury Park House. Cartoonist Osbert Lancaster even included Le Style Rothschild in Homes Sweet Homes (1939), referring to “heavy golden cornices” and “damask hung walls” and “fringed and tasselled curtains of Genoese velvet”. The tradition of supporting the arts continues with the Rothschild Foundation. CEO Roger White states, “There are still remarkable philanthropic initiatives happening at Waddesdon.”

Senior Curator Janet Carey introduces The Temple of Solomon and Its Contents exhibition: “In this room are Pablo’s two different versions of the Temple of Solomon. In order to create them he has imagined himself in the personae of prize seeking students of 19th century architecture. We have extraordinarily detailed instructions from God written down in the Bible but of course nobody actually knows what the Temple looked like. So what Pablo has done is read those instructions and make these incredible works of art conjured up from the hands of imagined individuals.” Divine design.

Erudite quotations range from the portico of Palais Garnier in Paris to William Blake’s painting The Great Architect. Styles include Adamesque, Indo Egyptian and Persian. “Pablo uses the famous spiralling Solomonic columns,” Janet notes. Or is he inspired by the spiralling copper pipes of Gabriel-Hippolyte Destailleur’s architecture? “His Veil of the Temple is quite provocative: here it is interpreted as a very froufrou Waddesdon style curtain with glorious red tassels. The Veil separated the world from the Divine and was torn in two at the moment Christ died.” And what about the Greek key tile pattern around the courtyard? A nod to Sir William Chambers, perhaps? She smiles, “The pattern comes from the band around those ubiquitous New York takeaway coffee cups! It’s this blend of high and low references that is really fun.”

There are also acrylic on paper paintings of specific Biblical objects. Janet states, “You can read in the Bible how God gives very precise instructions to Moses about how the candelabra should be designed and Pablo follows to incredible detail how many branches and so on should be on this. It is an oil lamp, not a candle lamp, so God specifies that each of the cups for the oil at the tops of the seven branches must be almond shaped. Pablo interprets that very literally as a cast for an almond. He’s really obeyed the Divine instructions in the Bible while deriving some detailing from the objets d’art of Waddesdon.”

“In the space adjacent is this extraordinary selection of drawings and books from Waddesdon’s permanent collection,” she adds. “They’re mostly 18th century French works of art which Pablo chose himself from about 1,000 design and architectural works. The moment you see those works you will understand why he has chosen them. Each one has some very clear visual relationship with Pablo’s own work. Some of the drawings have never been displayed before.”

Another attraction feature of the exhibition space is a model of the Supreme Court in Jerusalem made by James Burke. Completed in 1992, the building was designed by Ada Karmi-Melamede and her brother Ram Karmi. The Supreme Court was proposed and funded by the Yad Hanadiv Foundation established by Dorothy de Rothschild in 1960 and chaired by Jacob 4th Lord Rothschild until his death in 2024. In the gallery on the floor above, 18th century Jewish Italian embroidered hangings from the Rothschild Collection depicting the Temple of Solomon and the Second Temple (built after the First Temple was destroyed by the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II in 586 BC) are on display. Waddesdon Manor continues to evolve and expand.

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Eels Restaurant Paris + Le Déjeuner Le Plus Magnifique Imaginable Sérieusement

In Honour of Anguilliformes 

It’s a restaurant to design a weekend around. Eels. On the corner of Rue d’Hauteville and Rue Gabriel Laumain in the Grands Boulevards district, rows of windows lighten the interior and brighten the pavement. This establishment has the electric atmosphere of a new venue but it’s actually been going strong for eight years. So strong that the owner has opened another restaurant on Rue du Faubourg Poissonnière which runs parallel with Rue d’Hauteville. On a Saturday lunchtime Eels is a microcosm of Arrondisement 10 society. The beautiful people – staff and patrons – are out in force.

The dining room exudes that effortless chic Parisians somehow manage to pull off with aplomb. Decoration is kept to a bare minimum. Exposed brick and stone columns add patina. The vertical tubes of the radiators resemble rows of shiny white eels – or at least they do after the second glass of Vin de Savoie Domaine Chevillard 2021. Piped pop music adds to the electricity in the air as the staff set about making gastronomic magic. “I started to cook at the age of 15 right after secondary school,” says owner Chef Adrien Ferrand. “I then went to train at a catering college and after a few days I knew I wanted a career as a chef.” No man is an île and Adrien has left a pool of talent in charge today.

He comments, “Eels is a bistronomic or semi gastronomic restaurant – you can call it what you want! The menu of Eels takes inspiration from Asia and the Mediterranean as well as French cooking. It was my father who introduced me to Asian cuisine. I love Asian food so much I have opened a fully Asian restaurant nearby – Brigade du Tigre.” The name of his first restaurant comes from Adrien’s fascination with the ray finned fish. The English word was chosen as it is a little easier to pronounce than the French “anguilles”. Most of the eels are sourced from Greece.

“The connection I make between cooking and smell is the rising of images and emotions,” Adrien relates. “My aromatic catalogue includes Thai basil, lemongrass and galanga which is a rhizome and a cousin of ginger. I also use cardamon and Voatsperifery pepper which comes from Madagascar.” It would be rude not to order his signature dish of charcoal smoked eel, liquorice, apple and hazelnuts with roasted butter sauce. All the right ingredients – scent, taste, texture, beauty, impact, originality – are present in abundance.

Marinated Corsican meagre, samphire, kohlrabi with elderflowers, dashi vinaigrette and sea lettuce followed by white chocolate crunch, rhubarb, rose marmalade and Bronte pistachio pralines continue this elevation of Franco Asian cooking status. The stars they are aligning. Starters range from €19 to €22 and mains from €33 to €43. Puddings are all priced €17. There’s a midweek two course lunch menu for €37. Plenty of bottles on the wine list will tempt the connoisseur: Échezeaux Domaine Jean-Pierre Guyon 2021 pinot noir for €1,053 or Bourbogne Domaine Arnaud Ente 2019 Chardonnay for €430. But there are reasonably priced wines too such as the Vin de Savoie at €62. Meals at Eels live up to the hype and eclipse the rave reviews.

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Architecture Country Houses Design Restaurants Town Houses

Ramelton Donegal +

Drop the Tea and the Haitch

Donegal County Council’s 2020 Ramelton Action Plan prepared by Dedalus Architecture of Moville states, “Ramelton is a town of significant built, social and cultural heritage with a unique regional character and comparable in quality to the most visited historic places in Ireland. The current town was founded as a Plantation settlement in the early 1600s by Sir William Stewart of Ayrshire on the site of an O’Donnell castle.” Sir William built Tullyaughnish Reformation Church on the edge of the town, now a scenic ruin. Dr Finola O’Kane of University College Dublin ruminates, “Ruins in Ireland have always been political in light of the country’s history.”

In his 2021 essay Beyond Pastness: Reuse in Ramelton, Gary Hamilton argues, “In the picturesque town of Ramelton, located in the northwest of Ireland, a hulking set of warehouses on The Quays are a tactile reminder of what this place used to be. In stone, shale, and concrete, they tell a story about the past: of bustling trade, industrialisation, and prosperity in rural parts of the country. After decades of dereliction, some of the warehouses have been recently repurposed into a heritage centre, a café, and even apartments. Two, however, remain in a state of decay, and one is on the brink of collapse. The tourism economy values the ‘pastness’ of rural Ireland, but preserving that pastness has the effect of consigning towns to a state of perpetual limbo.”

Lo, the tide was turning. The following year Donegal County Council was awarded the Chambers Ireland 2022 Excellence in Local Government Award for Heritage and Built Environment for an urban scale conservation project in Ramelton. A 2019 audit had demonstrated a high rate of vacancy (13 percent), dereliction (seven percent) and buildings at risk (20 structures). The Council worked with the local community to reverse this advancing decay and repair 14 of the historic buildings.

Most visible is the restoration of The House on the Brae in the centre of the town. Council funding was the catalyst for Ramelton Georgian Society bringing this 1760s building back to life for community use. In 2025, the restoration is nearing completion. The House appears on Bridge Street as a modest two storey over basement rendered block with very wide windows on the first floor. Generously proportioned window openings are a feature of 18th century houses in the town, possibly to maximise natural light for linen weavers at work. The House falls dramatically to the rear towards the riverside Shore Road, revealing its three storey plus attic full extent. Ramelton Georgian Society plans to reinstate a two storey block along Shore Road, enclosing the rear garden of The House on the Brae.

Shore Road continues eastwards, becoming The Quays. Mill House is located at the sharp right angle of Shore Road elbowing into the River Leannan. It’s a tall, darkish and handsome 1840s three bay three storey villa faced with random rubblestone and cornered by squared smooth stone quoins. A shallow fanlight stretches over the entrance door and sidelights framed by Tuscan columns and pilasters. A hipped roof resting on eaves is fully exposed: this is a parapet free town. Mill House backs on to some of the restored and converted warehouses.

At the western end of the town, yet more gorgeous buildings are clustered around Bridge End where the River Leannan narrows and is crossed by Ramelton Bridge. The Tannery backs onto the river and was converted to apartments in 2000. Built in the late 19th century, it’s an impressive 13 bay three storey block. Coursed and square rubble limestone walls with flush squared rubblestone quoins produce a grand vernacular.

Set at a right angle to The Tannery is The Green, a country house and estate in miniature. Three bay two bay symmetrical perfection overlooks – as its name suggests – a large green. The house was built circa 1830 for James Watt, the owner of a linen bleach mill, now demolished. An Ionic distyle porch framing the entrance door with its fanlight provides the decorative highlight to the simply elegant smooth rendered with limestone plinth façade. A hipped slate roof completes the simple outline. The main block is three bays deep and is elongated by later return wings.

On the brow of the hill heading out of Ramelton and looking down over The Tannery, Bridge Bar Restaurant is the quintessential Irish pub. A slightly asymmetrical five bay two storey pebbledashed façade is quirkily enlivened by red shutters, red quoins and a red entrance door. it’s colourful and lively, just as a pub should be. This tour is but the icing on the cake that is the architectural treat of Ramelton. There are many rich layers to explore of the heritage of sweet unique town. Ramelton is no longer in perpetual limbo: pastness has a present and a future.

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Architecture Art Country Houses Design Hotels People

The Sweeneys + Castle Grove Letterkenny Donegal

Weathering Well

Tiree, Stornoway, Lerwick, Wick Automatic, Aberdeen, Leuchars, Boulmer, Bridlington, Sandettie Light Vessel Automatic, Greenwich Light Vessel Automatic, St Catherine’s Point Automatic, Jersey, Channel Light Vessel Automatic, Scilly Automatic, Milford Haven, Aberporth, Valley, Liverpool Crosby, Valentia, Ronaldsway, Malin Head, Machrihanish Automatic. For the uninitiated that’s the pure poetry of Radio Four’s shipping forecast, a rhapsodic melodic episodic late night cruise circumnavigating the coastlines of the British Isles.

The penultimate point along the shipping forecast’s journey, Malin Head, is the exposed most northerly tip of Ireland teetering on the tip of the Inishowen Peninsula in view of the Aurora Borealis. The ultimate location in this neck of the island is Castle Grove. Unlike windswept Malin Head, next stop Iceland, this romantic estate lies huddled off the Wild Atlantic Way in the sheltered mid southwest wiggle of Lough Swilly, the waterscape separating the peninsula from the mainland.

A two kilometre long drive sweeps through 100 hectares of bucolic parkland complemented by glimpses of the Lough as composed as a Derek Hill landscape; a wave of anticipation rises, then behold, a house four square, an abiding place of great and unsearchable things. Like two faced Clandeboye in County Down, the principal elevations stand proud at right angles to one another. Face to the avenue, face to the sea. Unlike Bellamont Forest, Edward Lovett Pearce’s poppet of Palladian perfection in County Cavan which is designed to be seen from every angle, Castle Grove is country house front, farmhouse back. A Tuscan porch fills the vacancy of the centre of the south facing four bay façade: charm captured in render and stone.

Subsumed within its solid footprint lies an older house dating back to 1695 and rebuilt in 1730. A radical makeover brought Castle Grove bang up to date for the swinging 1820s. As the Grove family went up in the world, so did the height of their windows and ceilings. The resultant structural idiosyncrasies only add to the house’s character. Four of the façade window openings are higher outside than inside – this comes to light when the shutters are pulled and a gap appears above them. A shuttered cupboard in the Samuel Beckett Room was once a window on the east elevation. Elsewhere, blind windows and angled openings maintain external symmetry. A 19th century conservatory to the side of the façade has come and gone. Heritage architect John O’Connell remarks, “Castle Grove now looks like a beautiful Regency house.”

The Wrays of Donegal by Charlotte Violet Trench, 1945, is a carefully researched genealogy of the family who owned the adjoining estate southwest of Castle Grove. Unusually, the walled gardens of Castle Wray and Castle Grove adjoin each other. Down the centuries, the two families were linked by various marriages. Charlotte records, “I went to Castle Grove, about three or four miles outside the town of Letterkenny on the shore of Lough Swilly. A large demesne, then a lawn with flowerbeds and the house; not the original Castle Shanaghan; but, like most of these places, a house built a couple of 100 years ago and added to at intervals. Mrs Grove was at home and I was led through a square hall to a long shaped drawing room with many windows, where Mrs Grove received me … Mrs Grove told me of the sorry state of ruin into which the house of Castle Wray was now falling, and said her gardeners should take me to see it.”

It’s after spring equinox. Snowdrops have disappeared; daffodils are in late bloom; primroses are on their way. “Castle Grove was a country house closed up when we bought it,” says Raymond Sweeney. “The owners were all dead and the next of kin were living in Northern Ireland. So it was up for sale and we were lucky to get it. We got possession of the house on 23 February 1989. It wasn’t looking as well as it looks today! It took time as well as money to get it going. The house was structurally sound though; the previous owners looked after it well over the years. Do you see that lock on the front door? It came from the women’s prison in Armagh 200 years ago!”

The Sweeneys bought the house and estate from Commander Peter Campbell and his wife Lady Moyra Hamilton, the sister of James Hamilton, 5th Duke of Abercorn. Incidentally, Lady Moyra was one of Queen Elizabeth II’s six Maids of Honour at her coronation. She died in 2020 aged 90 and her husband died four years later aged 97. Lady Moyra was one of three titled ladies known for their charitable works who simultaneously spent their last years in Somme Nursing Home, Belfast. The Commander had inherited Castle Grove on the death of his distant relative Major James Grove but he already lived at Hollybrook House in Randalstown, County Antrim. Mary agrees with her husband Raymond’s comment, “The land steward and housekeeper kept Castle Grove in good shape. For the first year we lived in the house and opened it as a bed and breakfast.”

“We wanted to develop it but not spoil it,” she explains. “The house – it was a real challenge. We wanted to keep the characteristics, the symmetries. We again looked and looked at it. In the end we pushed the entire house back into part of the rear courtyard. The stable wing was already lofted so we retained its front and added a corridor behind linking it to the main house. We didn’t want guests having to go out in the rain. The bedrooms in this wing are just as big as those in the main house. We never demolished a wall in the original house. Instead, we adapted windows as doors or indoor mirrors. I feel a great obligation to maintain Castle Grove.” Heritage. History. Hibernia.

Mary continues, “When we applied for a dining room addition the planning officers wanted it to be a conservatory. But that part of the house faces northeast and rarely gets direct sunlight! It took a year to resolve, to get our sympathetically designed extension approved. We didn’t want the corner sticking out in views from the driveway so it’s chamfered. We turned the sideboard recess in the old dining room into double doors under a fanlight. A local carpenter built the doors to match the 1820s double doors between the two main reception rooms. The fanlight is based on the one between the entrance and staircase halls.”

“The original dining room is now the Red Drawing Room,” she notes, “and next door is the Yellow Drawing Room. The marble fireplace in the current Dining Room is a replica from my old home. I jokingly asked Portadown Fireplaces if they could remake it based on a photo and sure enough they did!” The house is filled with modern Irish art. “Buying paintings from young artists exhibiting their work on the railings of St Stephen’s Green in Dublin in summer stemmed our interest. Artists like Maurice Wilks, Liam Jones, Brendan Timmons. Derek Hill gave us his oil painting Donegal Late Harvest. Derek brought many guests here. Really such a humble man and so friendly.”

The house is filled with antiques. Mary relates, “We have some stories to tell about auctions! Newark Antiques Fair is good. So is the Mill at Ballinderry. The bed in the George Bernard Shaw Room came from Seventh Heaven outside Chester. The beds are unbelievable there! That bed was made for Archduke Ferdinand of Austria. When we bought the fourposter in the Jonathan Swift Room we used saddle soap and toothbrushes to carefully clean it before using French polish. Beds and food – they’re so important!” As for the chandeliers, Sia could swing from them.

It’s time to talk to Mary’s daughter Irene who is managing reception (the former flower room). “The weather is unpredictable in Donegal or perhaps that should be predictable – it rains a fair bit! Donegal may be right off the Atlantic but we’re very inland here. The house has a warm, loving presence. It’s a very welcoming atmosphere. Whether this is us as a family, or the building, I’m not sure. The Groves were extremely good landlords, especially during the Famine when they fed and educated local children in the long barn. Perhaps this generosity and goodwill has over the centuries seeped into the walls. There’s houses before you know the history, they’re chilling …”

Irene explains, “Our main bedrooms are named after Irish writers including Oliver Goldsmith, James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, William Butler Yeats. There are 15 in total; eight in the main house. The exception is the Daniel O’Connell Room. He actually stayed in the house. Daniel wrote to the Groves after his visit, referring to his ‘answer to the Irish problem’. Mr Grove introduced him to the House of Lords. General Montgomery also stayed here. Mrs Grove invited him from Dublin to stay.”

She recommends, “We can accommodate 120 guests for a wedding in our Michelin recommended Restaurant. Or 140 if the adjoining Red Drawing Room is used too. The Bar was once a breakfast room and the TV Room was a library and office. We still use the original Kitchen. We grow organic vegetables, herbs, and fruit – apples, blackberries, blueberries and strawberries – in our four acre Walled Garden.” Other stats include the size of the George Bernard Shaw Room which is 4.3 metres wide by 5.5 metres deep by three metres tall. The George Bernard Shaw Room bed is two metres wide. The wall between the Entrance Hall and the Yellow Drawing Room is 0.8 metres deep. The Yellow Drawing Room mantelpiece projects by 0.3 metres.

Charlotte Violet Trench recalls the Walled Garden as: “A vast place, enclosed by great high stone walls. It seemed very full of fruit trees and vegetables of all sorts, some parts were rather wild; it would have needed a regiment of gardeners to keep it really in order; but the old time herbaceous border was a blaze of colour and rich in beauty. In the old days there was a gate in the wall that divided the two gardens by which the families could pass through to one another’s place.”

Dinner in the Restaurant accords with Irene’s description of very local produce. Walled Garden leek and potato soup. Coffee infused garden beetroot, beetroot remoulade, salted feta cheese, toasted walnuts, garden greens. Garden rhubarb and white chocolate crème brûlée, sweet sable biscuit, cherry gel, mango sorbet. On a Saturday night the Restaurant is filled to its chamfered corner. The atmosphere is chilled on a Sunday morning as oak smoked Killybegs salmon wild salmon and scrambled Glenborin eggs are served. The Irish economy has sailed through some choppy waters this century but at Castle Grove the outlook is bright.

Archivist at Donegal County Council Archives Service, Niamh Brennan, and archivist at the Irish Architectural Archive, Aisling Dunne, have unearthed a Grove family tree and some accompanying photographs and letters as well as several 19th century recipes from the estate [the latter with lots of sic]. William Grove, High Sheriff of Donegal, rebuilt the house in 1730. His son Thomas was also High Sheriff; he died childless. William’s second son James married Rose Brook. William’s sister Dorothy Grove married John Wood of the 9th Light Dragoons in 1802 and they lived at Castle Grove. Their son James Grove Wood was born in 1803. He was a barrister and became High Sheriff.

James married Frances Montgomery of Convoy House, 32 kilometres south of Castle Grove – close neighbours in gentry terms. The 1806 building accounts of Convoy House record tree coverage of 300 Alders, 300 Beech, 300 Larch, 200 Ashes and 200 Scotch Firs. James and Frances’ daughter Dorothea Alice married the Reverend Charles Boyton of Derry City in 1871. Dorothea Alice’s brother John Montgomery Charles Grove was born in 1847 and inherited Castle Grove. He was land agent of Convoy House for three years starting in 1890.

John Montgomery Charles Grove married Lucy Gabbett, daughter of Major General William Gabbett of East India Company’s Artillery. John and Lucy’s children included Lucy Dorothea and her elder brother James Robert Wood Grove. He was born in 1888, joined the Royal Dublin Fusiliers aged 20, and served in World War I. James married Eileen Edmonstone Kirk of the now demolished Thornfield House in Jordanstown, County Antrim. They were the last of the Groves to live at Castle Grove.

“Marrow Bones. If too long to serve undivided saw them in two; cover the open ends with a lump of paste and a cloth floured and tied close. The paste must be removed before being sent to table. Boil one and a half and two hours according to size. Put a ruffle of papar round each and serve in a napkin, with very hot toast. The marrow is spread on very hot toast and seasoned with pepper and salt.”

“Raisins Chutnee. Raisins cleaned and minced two pounds. Sugar three and a half pounds. Salt eight ounces, green ginger eight ounces, red pepper two ounces and garlic half an ounce. These with the exception of raisins sugar to be separately well pounded then mixed. Add to them the raisins and sugar and lastly one bottle of vinegar. This quantity will make nearly four bottles. Fill and leave them in the sun in India but at home cook for about an hour.”

“White Milk Soup. One onion. One carrot. One turnip. Three cloves stuck in the onion. A little stock made of rabbit vial, fowl or button. Put the vegetables in the stock and boil for an hour and a half to two hours. Strain salt through a verry fine hair seive. Then warm one pint of new milk and add all these together. Season with pepper and salt. This soup must be made just before using as it will not keep – the vegetables turn the milk sour.”

“Bed Sore Prevention. 10 grains of the nitrate of silver, to one ounce of water, to be applied by means of a camel hairbrush over every part exhibiting the highest appearance of inflammation, two or three times a day, until the skins has become blackened, afterwards only occassionally.”

“Anglo American Hospital Cairo. 11 May 1915. My Dearest Madam, Just a line to let you know that I am going on all right, and that there is really no more to tell you. The wound on the back of my hand has practically healed by now, but the other one is still pretty unpleasant and is exuding a good deal of matter and stuff. However the doctor seems satisfied about it. It is tied up still of course and has to be dressed pretty frequently. I can’t do very much with the fingers yet but they are better than they were. I can write a little faster with my left hand now though it is still rather a tedious process. The chief difficulty is to keep the letters at the right angle and prevent them falling over backwards. I don’t know yet whether I am likely to be sent home later or not, but very possibly will be. Anyhow I shan’t be able to move from here for the present till the wound has healed a bit.”

“We are very lucky from what I can gather to be in this hospital as everything is very comfortable and they look after us very well. Some of the other hospitals are very different from what I hear as they are badly off for nurses etc and the food is pretty rough and badly served out of tin mugs and tin plates etc. I fancy they weren’t prepared for such a large number of casualties from the Dardanelles. 12 more officers arrived here last night but all very slightly wounded from what I gather. Don’t bother to send anything from home as I can get anything I want here. A suit of my thin khaki might be useful but that is about the only thing. Major Molesworth and Captain Mood are the only ones of the regiment here. The others I think have been sent to Malta. Well, must stop now. I haven’t had any letters since about 23rd, but I hope some will come very soon. Love to you and Monsieur and you needn’t worry about me as I am quite all right. I sit out on the verandah most of the day. Your affectionate son, James Grove.”

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Art Design People

Amazing Grace Viewing Point Buncrana Donegal + John Newton

A Vapour that Appeareth

The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland, Parishes of Donegal I, 1833 to 1835: “Buncrana lies near five miles up shore from Dunree Fort. This shore is altogether exposed and does not afford an eligible site for either pier or quay; but, off the mouth of the Crannagh River or under Buncrana Castle, there is safe anchorage for vessels of any burthen and boats can enter the river with but little floodwater, and here they bring nearly all the fish caught in Lough Swilly for sale.”

Over the centuries several illustrious gentlemen have graced this shore. Prince Philip, the late Duke of Edinburgh, made an unofficial visit to Buncrana while he was commanding HMS Magpie from 1950 to 1952. He was attending a five day training course at the Joint Royal Navy Air Force Anti Submarine Training School in Lough Foyle. The Prince enjoyed a meal with other officers in the Green Bay Restaurant in Buncrana.

Harry Percival Swan reports in Romantic Stories and Legends of Donegal, 1965, “The Duke, who was accompanied by several other naval officers, motored to Buncrana and parked his car along the front. The Duke and his party walked along the shore for some distance and up Castle Avenue and through Main Street. They patronised a number of establishments and visited a restaurant where they had a meal. The proprietor was warmly complimented by the Duke on the excellence of the fare provided. While in the restaurant a great crowd gathered outside and it was found necessary to close the doors of the restaurant where the crowd who wanted to see the Duke had to be regulated by Civic Guards.”

Just over one and a half centuries earlier, a Protestant revolutionary of Irish independence arrived in Buncrana. Harry states, “Admiral Commodore Bompart, of the French Fleet, left Brest on 16 September 1798 with a 74 gun man-of-war, eight frigates and a schooner under his command. He had orders to land the 3,000 troops on board his vessels at Lough Swilly. Wolfe Tone, leader of the United Irishmen, commanded one of the French frigates, the Hoche. Bompart’s fleet was sighted by Sir John Borlase who was commanding a British squadron on 11 October and a fierce battle took place off Tory Island the following day.” Wolfe was forced to surrender and was brought ashore at Buncrana. He died shortly after aged 35 in the Provost Prison of the Royal Barracks Dublin.

But neither gentlemen made as lasting an impression as John Newton.

In the field of tourism branding, hymnal inspiration must rank among the more original, if not the unique. Welcome to Amazing Grace Country. A hymn was certainly a good excuse to transform a concrete viewing platform into an artwork. Local artist Andrew Garvey-Williams designed a mosaic floor which incorporates images of the hymnwriter John Newton’s ship The Greyhound, the words Amazing Grace in his handwriting, and broken chains symbolising the end of the transatlantic slave trade.

Sailing from Africa to England via Newfoundland was a long and dangerous voyage. Exactly half a century before Wolfe Tone was captured, John’s ship was caught for weeks in a violent storm in the Atlantic Ocean. A fellow sailor was instantly swept overboard. In John’s own words, “The sea had torn away the upper timbers … and made the ship a mere wreck in a few minutes. It was astonishing, and almost miraculous, that any of us survived. We expended most of our clothing and bedding to stop the leaks.”

When all hope was lost, “We saw the Island of Tory and the next day anchored in Lough Swilly in Ireland. This was 8 April. When we came into this part, our very last victuals were boiling in the pot and before we had been there two hours, the wind began to blow with great violence. If we had continued at sea that night in our shattered condition, we would have gone to the bottom. About this time I began to know that there is a God that hears and answers prayers.” He had realised God’s grace could save even a “wretch” like him.

John stepped ashore in Buncrana a changed man. The viewing platform marks the spot. His crew received a warm welcome from the locals including carpenters who set about repairing the battered ship. While the ship was being repaired he visited Derry City, attending prayers at St Columb’s Cathedral. On returning to England, John was appointed captain of a slave ship. But as his faith grew he jumped ship to join the Anglican clergy in Liverpool in 1764. It was while he was Curate at Olney Parish Church that he wrote Amazing Grace to illustrate his 1773 New Year’s Day sermon. John was promoted to Rector of St Mary Woolnoth. He led the congregation at this Nicholas Hawksmoor designed Anglican church in the City of London for the last 27 years of his life. During this period, he met the politician William Wilberforce and together their combined efforts batting slavery were successful.

The slave trade was abolished in the spring of 1807. John died the same year, four days before Christmas. He had written almost 300 hymns such as the belter Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken but historically Amazing Grace wasn’t the most popular. It really only gained status during the 19th century Christian revival which swept across both side of the Atlantic. His words were attached to several traditional melodies until 1835 when the composer William Walker married the hymn to the tune New Britain.

The hymn has an enduring quality, an eternal appeal. Amazing Grace has been recorded over 5,000 times including a moving rendition delivered by Aretha Franklin to the Obamas. It has also inspired contemporary songs such as Phil Wickham’s This is Amazing Grace. John Newton’s legacy lives on in lyrics and now in Amazing Grace Country in this far flung part of the universe. Growing at a rate of knots, Buncrana is now County Donegal’s second largest town and the biggest on the peninsula of Inishowen.

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Art Design Luxury Restaurants

Belmond British Pullman + Venice Simplon-Orient Express + The Golden Age of Travel

Saudade“I love the way you captured the light in detail and the heartwarming reportage of your last visit. Rest assured that we will do our best to make your new journey with us a most memorable one,” confirms Florentin Partenie, Belmond Travel Curator. We’re back on the groovy train. No murder cases to solve this time. The only mystery is which station will we stop at for a platform recital.

We’re going nowhere again. The Belmond British Pullman Golden Age of Travel is a sublime day doing a loop of Kent. Departure and arrival: London Victoria. The day trip isn’t cheap but really it works out not much more than a Southeastern commuter ticket by the time you count up the food and drinks bill. And what price a vocal trio of flappers?

The Vault Beverage Menu sums up the experience in card: a geometric cover of an angular cocktail glass with a stepped profile. Art Deco indulgence with more than a hint of naughtiness. The midday rule is most definitely broken as Veuve Cliquot Reims Yellow Label is already flowing upon embarkation. Simpsons Wine Estate Derringstone Pinot Meunie (2022) will grease the wheels, so to speak, over lunch.

“This year, the seventh since the restoration of the legendary Orient Express, we review the programme,” announced the 1988 brochure Venice Simplon-Orient Express with delicious relish. “The now famous English Day Excursions, magnificent sorties by the fabulous Pullman carriages of the English train, also take place in winter as well as summer.” And spring. “Though widely believed to have been one train travelling one route, the Orient Express was in fact scores of interchangeable dining and sleeping carriages, privately owned, variously named and travelling south and east on routes that varied almost seasonally.”

“Originally conceived by two men, Georges Nagelmackers and George Mortimer Pullman, and built to standards of outrageous luxury late last century and early this one, many carriages were lost during the War. The remainder fell into disuse and finally in 1977 the service was discontinued.” American entrepreneur James Sherwood restored the carriages and the Venice Simplon-Orient Express is currently owned by Belmond.

“Today’s passengers’ first sight of the train is of the magnificent Pullman cars waiting at London’s Victoria Station for their prompt departure. Make your way from car to car if you have time (and even from loo to loo, individual masterpieces with the carriage’s name picked out on each mosaic floor) and note the polished wood, the stunning marquetry, the glowing brass. Magic. Luncheon is about to be served. Your lunch, as you diddly-dum through the ever pleasing scenery of Kent … exquisite food flawlessly served in surroundings of laid back opulence.”

Those words written 27 years ago still ring true. Lunch is served. All afternoon. Nobody is in a rush: we’ve nowhere to go. Our chef mixes the main menu and the vegetarian menu then goes off menu with a main course Atlantic trout and spring greens. We’re barely past Clapham Junction before spinach soup and White Lake feta are being served. Cornish hake, Windsor beans, red pepper and warm tartar sauce will follow.

Hours fly by against a blur of marquetry framed Kent countryside. “This is the air conditioning!” says the steward, sliding back the top windows. The flappers appear and serenade an enraptured carriage. Glazed lemon tart with hazelnut praline is served as well as a British cheeseboard with warm fruit bread. Anne’s hand rolled truffles accompany Higgins coffee. And then we stop. A railway platform at Dover is the surprise setting for mid afternoon hijinks. The flappers up the tempo and – keeping it local – Simpsons of Canterbury sparkling wine flows.

“Minerva carriage was a favourite of Sir Winston Churchill,” our steward explains. “This carriage was used by Churchill’s closest family members to travel to his funeral.” Just as a lot of Düsseldorf potatoes have female names, so do Pullman carriages: Cygnus, Ibis, Ione, Perseus and Phoenix (19 seaters); Audrey, Gwen and Vera (20 seaters); Lucille and Zena (23 seaters); and Minerva (25 seater).

A ribboned stepped profile note reads, “Enjoy this farewell gift of the book London in the Wild, 2022. The British Pullman team is delighted to support the incredible work of the London Wildlife Trust and the wider Wildlife Trust’s Network.” The perfect end to a perfect day. It’s like Lou Reed’s hit song without the zoo visit.

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Art Design Luxury People Restaurants

Royal Hospital Chelsea + Treasure House Fair 2025

Collections May Vary

Bugatti Chiron Pur Sport at the ready, it’s the third edition of Treasure House Fair at Royal Hospital Chelsea London. Edmond Joy’s 1709 construction is a surprising component of the Sculpture Walk directed by Harvey Horswell and curated by Dr Melissa Gustin, both from National Museums Liverpool. Brought to the show by Thomas Coulborn and Sons, it is a child’s wardrobe masquerading as a Dutch style doll’s house. It meets the accepted definition of sculpture as a work of art in three dimensions while also being a functional object and one of architectural interest. This magical wardrobe with its bewitching façade deserves to be lionised. Little did Edmond Joy know three centuries ago that he would be creating the ultimate collector’s item with his Kew Palace in miniature.

There are first editions at Shapero Rare Books such as Francis Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night (1934) and Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited (1845). And there are newly signed editions at Potterton Books: Blenheim 300 Years of Life in a Palace (2024). Blenheim Palace is the most visited of all of Britain’s stately homes. Lady Henrietta Spencer-Churchill, renowned interior designer and author is on standby with her Sharpie pen. She grew up at Blenheim: it is now lived in by her brother Charles, 12th Duke of Marlborough. “I was always the one who was interested in art and architecture and the history of buildings,” Henrietta relates. “That, coupled with working with my father on the restoration because of my career in interior design meant I’ve more interest and knowledge of the house than perhaps other members of the family.”

Galerie Marc Maison is a canine art collector’s paradise. Two life size sculpture groups guard the entrance to the room. In 1893 banker Jacques Stern commissioned Auguste-Nicholas Caïn to replicate his hunting dogs in dark green patina bronze for outside his Château de Fitz-James in Oise. The room is dominated by Augustine Ricard’s monumental oil painting Après la Chasse dated 1885. She was one of the few female artists to exhibit her work in the fashionable Parisian salons. A dozen dogs are pictured resting in their kennel. “We are located in Rue des Rosiers, St Ouen sur Seine. Everyone comes to Les Puces in Clignoncourt!” declares Daisy Maison.

“Huon Mallalieu has an incredible depth of knowledge as an art and antiques historian,” is how Country Life Interiors Editor Giles Kime introduces one of the magazine’s long term contributors. Huon begins, “The 50s were rather important because there was a change of American tax law which encouraged people to buy art to hang on their walls during their lifetime but was tax exempt after their death if they donated it to a museum. This meant they were looking for new markets and so were dealers. And that was how the Impressionist market actually began on a major world stage.”

He continues, “I mention that because people are worried markets are collapsing. The art market has a circularity about it. One thinks that in 1962 Lord Leighton’s most famous work Flaming June was sold for £62 and it’s now worth millions. It had been out of fashion for 50 years. This happens regularly and there is no need to panic. One must remember that what was cutting edge for one generation is old hat for the next generation and old master for the one after that. Things go round and round. What people want now is completely different compared to the 70s and 80s. And that’s no bad thing. Markets dry up; contemporary artists become less contemporary. And once they are being resold on the secondary market their original dealers can no longer control them by waiting lists and the like. At that moment prices may well drop and if you want to that’s the moment to start buying them.”

Huon recalls the brown furniture market in the 80s, “It was focused on the Fulham Road and Kings Road but also Bond Street in a very big way. Again, it was partly driven by American fashion of the 20s which had been all for the grandest of 18th century furniture and that continued. There were big collectors in Britain as well and when their collections came through in the 80s and 90s that was the peak – and the end of it too. After that people thought brown furniture was far too grand. They wanted simple mid 20th century stuff – the generational shift occurred.”

Writer and Executive Director of the Design Leadership Network Michael Diaz-Griffith comments, “I think if we look at the market for high style traditional English material, the US was offset just a bit from the UK. If you think of some of the great sales of the 70s like the Mentmore sale, the great houses were being decanted of this wonderful material and it was often Americans who were scooping it up and taking it back to Fifth Avenue. So there remained a great deal of excitement about that high style really through the 80s and into the 90s. The baby boomers of the early 2000s became very excited about contemporary art and in the US at least that was the driver of collecting and tastemaking really until the millennials – the generation that I am trying to be a cheerleader for – began to come of age and exhibit a different type of taste.” Exhibitor Philip Mould’s room features both old masters and modern British artworks.

“The pendulum swings back and forth always,” New Yorker Michael believes. “The pendulum is swinging back in the direction of antiques, of historic decorative arts, and that is a very good thing indeed. You are searching for your own taste, what is comfortable, enjoying history and what it has to offer but also being at home in the world as it is today.” Fresh from Marrakesh, interior decorator Henrietta von Stockhausen reckons, “Christopher Gibbs and Robert Kime started this type of decorating. They managed to go much deeper into that story of a home and the most important thing is comfort. They were very bravely mixing styles and the stuff owners had collected.”

Henrietta recollects, “Christopher mixed some incredibly important things with some really not important things but everything was beautiful and told a story. I think that juxtaposition created great energy and developed a much less precious way of decorating which is really very much where we are now I believe. My clients now are much braver at telling their story, much braver at choosing things that they want. It’s not about show anymore – it’s about actually enjoying your pieces and looking at them. Sometimes you have this beautiful antique piece which along with another 100 beautiful pieces feels like you’re in a museum. But if you place it opposite some incredible contemporary piece it really begins to sing and creates this energy and this is what is required these days.

Firmdale Hotels have a collection of top spots in London and New York. What better way is there to celebrate their 40th anniversary than launching this year’s Brasserie at Treasure House? It’s also the 25th anniversary of their Charlotte Street Hotel in Fitzrovia. Smart menu main course choices include asparagus and artichoke salad with toasted almonds and pan seared seabass with lobster bisque. Puddings vary from baked chocolate cake to strawberries and rhubarb with shortbread and ice cream. Next door, Ostra Regal Gold Oysters in the Oyster Bar are fresh from Clew Bay in County Mayo and full of joyful surprise.

Treasure House Fair 2025 has plenty of heroic moments, some of epic grandeur, and an immaculateness of purpose.

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Architects Architecture Art Design Developers Fashion Hotels Luxury People Restaurants

St Pancras Renaissance Hotel + Victor Garvey at The Midland Grand Dining Room St Pancras London

No Rotten Tomatoes

So long ago. Back in 2011, we interviewed Harry Handelsman, the visionary replacing ossification with revivification at the majestic St Pancras Renaissance Hotel. Rewinding 14 years: a Polly Morgan taxidermy of a fox snuggled in a glass dome in the reception is a sign this is no ordinary office block. The Edison Building on Old Marylebone Road is named after the world’s most prolific inventor Thomas Edison. Its 1930s Art Deco exterior has been reinvented by architect David Adjaye who’s cloaked it in his trademark charcoal grey rendering. The client was Harry Handelsman of Manhattan Loft Corporation, the property developer who brought loft living to London before reinventing the Capital’s best Victorian railway hotel.

“This could have been a cool apartment building but I wanted to do something more exciting,” starts Harry. He’s clad in a charcoal grey suit, no tie, sitting in his charcoal grey top floor corner office. So far, so suave. Sliding doors open onto a huge decked terrace. “I called on my friend David. He designed an amazing transformation.” Adjaye Associates now occupy the ground floor of the Edison Building which has filled up with design companies. Munich born Harry worked as a financier in New York before arriving in London in 1984. He soon realised the potential for American style loft living in Britain. “Lofts are the concept behind giving buildings a new lease of life – they’re exciting and wonderful places,” Harry enthuses. He set up Manhattan Loft Corporation in 1992. To date around 1,000 apartments have been completed in the UK and Germany.

“We’ve no concerns about building something new though,” he adds. “Even our first scheme in London – Bankside Lofts next to what is now Tate Modern – was part newbuild. So much other new development seems too simplistic. It needs to be more energetic, more dramatic. We want to give our developments a bit of punch!” There’s nothing unenergetic or undramatic about St Pancras Renaissance Hotel. And it literally has punch – as we will discover later.

Two decades after he brought loft living to London, he’s also the best man to know what’s next in the residential development world of 2011. “High rise apartments. That’s the way things are going,” states Harry. “London is the most exciting city in the world. Development can make such a positive contribution. It’s not all about commerce. Each of our projects is different. An exciting thing is that we can make a positive difference to the cityscape. We are incredibly privileged. My team is second to none, combining creativity and commitment. I wish the planning regime would be simplified but any issues aren’t insurmountable. There’s enough appreciation of design quality. If it was all smooth sailing I wouldn’t have any grey hairs!”

Also in 2011, a busy year, we reviewed the hotel opening for Luxury Travel Magazine. Paris in two hours. Amsterdam in four hours. Lobby in 2.4 minutes. Those are the travel times from the First Class platform of the Eurostar train in London to St Pancras Renaissance Hotel … and so we continued, the excitement lifting off the screen. The motif of the hotel is the peacock which represents rejuvenation – and not just vanity (although with such architectural beauty that would be justifiable). When a peacock loses a feather it grows back perfectly. St Pancras is more like plume replacement. In 1865 Sir George Gilbert Scott won a competition held by Midland Railway to design a hotel for St Pancras Station. The client’s vision was for an understated building. The architect had other ideas.

A Gothic Revival extravaganza, his gargantuan fairytale confection of towers, turrets and terracotta tiles overwhelmed visitors when it opened in 1873, did once again in 2011, and still does in 2025. The verticality of a 72 metre high clocktower is balanced by the horizontality of a sweep of 150 metre wide frontage and the third of a kilometre depth including engineer William Barlow’s railway terminus behind the hotel. If the hotel is all about design and detailing, the terminus with its 800 cast iron columns and 2,000 wrought iron girders is a pure expression of structure and function – the sort of thundering modernity captured on canvas down the line in Joseph Turner’s 1844 Rain, Steam, and Speed: The Great Western Railway.

Sir George’s design incorporated all the latest fittings too: the first lift in a British hotel; the first revolving door in Britain; 40 centimetre thick fireproof walls. The latter was to contribute to its downfall. Time stands still for no architect or builder or hotelier. Not long after it opened, en suite bathrooms became all the rage for grand hotels. Thick internal walls did not adapt well to the insertion of bathrooms. The hotel eventually closed after just 62 years of operation and was downgraded to British Rail offices. It was even threatened with demolition in the 1960s before Poet Laureate Sir John Betjeman successfully campaigned for its retention.

This Grade I Listed Building was finally saved by Harry Handelsman. A labour of love, albeit an expensive affair. His company Manhattan Loft Corporation spent £100 million converting the three upper floors to 67 apartments and a further £150 million rejuvenating the remainder of the building back to a hotel. It’s a physical embodiment of joie de vivre. The peacock’s feathers have truly regrown. Such rare and colourful plumage! The original entrance hall is now a bar with a polychromatic corniced ceiling, encaustic filed floors and walls dripping in gold leaf. Upstairs, the Renaissance inspired ceiling of the Ladies’ Smoking Room cost nearly £1 million to restore. It was the first place in Europe where females could acceptably smoke in public. This room now aptly leads onto a smoking terrace (or at least did until the boring ban was introduced).

The St Pancras Railway Terminus designed by engineer William Henry Barlow was – wait for it, another record breaker – the single largest railway structure of its time. The former taxi rank between the railway shed and original hotel (originally the pedestrian entrance to the railway platforms) has been converted into a cavernous glass roofed lobby lounge. The adjacent Booking Office is now a brasserie and bar serving traditional English delights such as quail’s eggs with anchovies. Victorian drinks like Garrick Club Punch and Moonlight White Tea are served on neverending bar. The grand staircase is the interior pièce de resistance. It’s a cathedral of colour with hand painted fleur de lys walls framed by Midland Stone arches and vaults. Exposed structural ironwork under the flights of stair fuses romance and technology. Harry’s workforce even aged the carpet on the dizzying array of fanciful flights of stairs. In 2011, we observed that the limestone pillared Gilbert Scott Restaurant looked positively restrained in comparison. Celebrity Chef Marcus Wareing’s team offered its own take on nostalgic classics such as Queen Anne’s Artichoke Tart and Mrs Beeton’s Snow Egg. The Gilbert Scott Restaurant was the setting of our first lunch with Dame Rosalind Savill, then Director of The Wallace Collection, London’s best museum.

Harry carved 38 bedrooms out of the old building and inserted 207 into a new sympathetically designed extension. Once more, the hotel caters for the demands of five star guests. A subterranean spa occupies the former steam kitchen. Our Luxury Travel Magazine 2011 article ended with Stairway to Seven (Facts). A double storey apartment is housed in the clocktower. English Heritage only allowed a 20 colour palette which includes Barlow Blue and Midland Red. The latter hue has a tomato tinge to it, an augury of our 2025 dinner. On Thursday nights in 2011, DJ Eloise rocked the Booking Office and on Friday nights it was the turn of DJ Zulu. The diamond shape is another motif of the hotel and 725 can be found in the Booking Office.

In 2018, Harry reminisced, “I always knew that St Pancras would be a challenge. The complexity of the structure and the Grade I Listing by English Heritage allowing only minimum intervention in the creation of a 21st century hotel was always going to be difficult. Many of my business compatriots thought that I was mad for undertaking such an ambitious project. At times I thought they were right. It was the sheer excitement and privilege of being given the opportunity and responsibility for this most fascinating building that kept me from desperation.”

That was then and this is now: 2025 to be precise. We’re staying in a modern bedroom of St Pancras Renaissance Hotel, dining in the restaurant and late night drinking in the hotel opposite. Bedroom furniture was graduated by wood when our hotel first opened. The best rooms on the first floor contained pieces made of oak or walnut. Second floor rooms had oak or teak furniture; third floor, mahogany; poor old fourth floor, ash. Decoration is more democratic this time round. Our fourth floor room is elegant simplicity: pattern free, clutter free, bad artwork free. The view is of the British Library, another vast red brick building (designed by Colin St John Wilson in the 1990s) although not quite so beloved as its neighbour. Our two paned rectangular window is set in a Gothic arch on the exterior: contemporary inside, traditional outside. Richard Griffiths’ architecture hits all the right notes. RHWL was the overseeing design practice of the development. Encaustic tiles on the floors of the long bedroom corridors draws the original hotel into the extension which fits neatly between the rear of the hotel and the side of the station.

The Gilbert Scott Restaurant closed in 2021. Two years later, The Midland Grand Dining Room by Patrick Powell (an Irish chef) opened before closing last year. And that brings us to The Midland Grand Dining Room by Victor Garvey (a mostly American chef). His CV includes working at two of the world’s most famous restaurants: El Bulli in Barcelona and Noma Copenhagen. Victor’s maternal grandmother was a personal chef for Charles de Gaulle so it makes sense the rebooted restaurant offers French haute cuisine even before you hop across the Channel on the Eurostar.

“There are only a few times in a chef’s life when they get handed a dining room,” says Victor, “and I’m extremely honoured and privileged and excited to be able to embark on this journey in something like this. The idea behind the menu here stems from respecting tradition but innovating and making it lighter and making it more streamlined and making it more concise and finding a way to tell the story of that incredibly deep French culinary heritage and respecting it but updating it. Old world, new ideas.” The sausage shaped Dining Room has a robust neoclassicism of the mid Victorian muscularity ilk befitting its original use as the Smoking Room. The Midland Grand isn’t the only French newcomer in town: a week later we will venture to the wildly popular Joséphine Bouchon in Fulham for cabillaud au beurre blanc à l’é chalote. Chef Claud Bossi of Bibendum South Kensington fame is once again putting the Lyon into lyonnaise in the English Capital.

Tick tock. It’s Pimm’s O’Clock on the Champagne Terrace (we’ve worked up a thirst strolling through the wetland habitat of Camley Street Park). One of London’s hidden gems, the Champagne Terrace is perched below the back of the hotel entrance tower and looked down on from the modern bedroom wing. Oysters are only to be consumed in months with an R and Pimm’s are only to be downed in months without an R. James Pimm’s recipe of liqueurs and herbs remains a warm weather winner 185 years after it was trademarked. In The Official Sloane Ranger Handbook (1982), Peter York and Ann Barr order, “May: at the first sign of summer, Pimm’s.” But no accompanying oysters.

We’re all on for tenuously excused partying and it doesn’t come much better than the 5.05pm Punch Ritual in the Booking Office for guests to celebrate the 152nd anniversary of the original hotel opening. It’s a few days off the actual date (5 May) but we don’t fuss about detail. Historic fountain penned letters from the hotel’s archives are shared while the sommelier stirs his cauldron of elixir. We’ve barely ordered more drinks in the main hotel bar when we’re ushered to our window table in The Midland Grand Dining Room. Oh the anticipation! The à la carte caters for the carnivorous so our waitress suggests vegetarian alternatives. In between pretty amuse bouches and freshly baked bread we’re served a sliced tomato starter and a diced tomato main. We’re all on for retaining our Parisian waistlines. Minimalist plates in maximalist architecture. Pudding is l’Opéra which turns out to be a delightfully deconstructed coffee cake.

A quick dash across the road and we’re soon zooming up 11 storeys in the external lift of The Standard Hotel to Sweeties bar for Power Play cocktails (Belvedere Vodka, Dry Vermouth, Sweeties Savoury Brine). We skip the Bloody Marys: enough tomato for one day. Sure enough, against a darkening pink sky, St Pancras Renaissance Hotel looms in all its pinnacled silhouetted glory. But it’s not over till the fat lady sings or the slim girl walks: before stepping onto the First Class Eurostar to post paschal pastures anew in Paris we’re off to Lightroom (a Louboutin’s throw from the hotel and Central St Martin’s Art College) for a Vogue installation. A tomato red Mercedes roars up and the fashion artist Dame Mary Martin emerges to join us – from the hemline to the frontline of fashion. So now.

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Architects Architecture Art Country Houses Design Developers People Town Houses

Sir John Soane’s Museum Holborn London + Richard Rogers

Architectural Communication

The extraordinary townhouse that is Sir John Soane’s Museum has played host to many exciting exhibitions drawing synergy from the riveting interiors. Highlights of the last nine years include shows featuring Alcantara (microfibre fabric) and Space Popular (multidisciplinary design practice); Emily Allchurch (artist); William Shakespeare (a certain playwright); and Sarah Lucas (artist). The latest is the first UK retrospective since his demise of the work of Richard Rogers, leading exponent of High Tech architecture. And so, at 13 Lincoln’s Inns Fields two architects who had a passion for materials, light and life meet posthumously.

Will Gompertz, Director of Sir John Soane’s Museum, opens the exhibition: “Rogers Pink completely fits with the vibe of the good weather and also aesthetically fits with the vibe of Soane as next door in the South Drawing Room there is this extraordinary colour field of yellow which is called Turner Yellow – not Turner the painter but Turner the designer – which he very specifically chose and then you’ve got the Rogers Pink in this exhibition. I think Soane would approve of this enormously and also he would have loved Richard as a man. They would have had so much in common.”

“The exhibition started three weeks after I began as Director here and Richard’s son Ab got on the phone and said, ‘Can I come round with an idea?’ He came round and five minutes later we had a show! Ab’s idea was for the Soane to show the first retrospective of Richard Rogers in this country since he sadly passed. And the answer was emphatically yes.”

Ab provides a tour of the exhibition Talking Buildings: “It’s a simple show based on eight pivotal projects across his career. It’s really about this escalating idea how the buildings talk to each other. I think Richard really wanted his architecture to talk to the people, to improve the quality of the citizens’ lives, to celebrate the streets, to get people to look up at the sky, to enjoy the public space and to really look at the responsibility of the building to respond to its uses.”

“This ongoing conversation started with the Zip Up House which is a solution to social housing. It is an object made out of prefabricated units, incredibly well insulated, that can continuously grow and expand. He was looking at sustainable issues before there was awareness of them in 1969. The house he designed for his mother and father also in 1969 creates this very open space where there’s no specific programme and you’re free to play with it as you will. You can roll out of the building and into the grass – it’s very free, almost boundaryless.”

“And that plays into the Pompidou Centre in Paris where 50 percent of the site is given to the public; you see all the services taken from the inside to the outside to free up the programme of the interior. And you can argue that this free programme that exists inside the Pompidou also exists inside the Zip Up House. This escalation goes on and then he creates Lloyds Building – this shining armour sitting in the historical setting of the City of London. They’re both very brave and radical buildings. Lloyds was the youngest building to be Listed in the UK.”

“We go on to the Millennium Dome, a building which was quite controversial at its time although it came in on budget and on time. This huge roof held a world beneath it. The Dome was meant to be up for one year but instead 25 years later like the Eiffel Tower it becomes this icon of the capital. And from there we go back to social housing looking at The Treehouse which is a collection of ‘shoeboxes’ fabricated from cross laminated timber, rapidly assembled as a tower and very low cost. The roof of one becomes the garden of the next creating these ‘shoeboxes’ with free programmes.”

“We see this conversation and idea continue when we finally end up in the drawing gallery which takes us back to the Zip Up House’s very muscular cantilevered box. It is designed like a telescope with a straight line of viewing out to the landscape. Talking Buildings is a quick journey really trying to work around this conversation and Richard’s passion for creating civic architecture which is generous to the citizens and generous to the streets, while trying to provoke the role of the developer and the council to be bigger and more integrated.” This show adds yet another layer of brilliance to the immersive multimedia experience that is Sir John Soane’s Museum.

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Architects Architecture Art Country Houses Design Luxury People

WOW!house 2025 + Design Centre Chelsea Harbour London

Always

It’s the perfect single storey neoclassical villa. And there’s just one month to experience it. “The façade draws on early Georgian architecture amplified in a Chelsea London context,” explains Darren Price, a Design Director at Adam Architecture. “Its refinement embraces contemporary minimalism and reinterprets the language of classicism in a way that feels both timeless and relevant to modern sensibilities. The neoclassical design relies on lines and arches rather than columns and pilasters.”

WOW!house is back in the Design Centre Chelsea Harbour for another year to inspire, educate and thrill. One of several new elements is a Town Garden designed by Alexander Hoyle and delivered by Artorius Faber. Stone materially links Adam Architecture’s façade and the garden: a Portland limestone plinth; reclaimed sandstone cobbles and walling; and reclaimed flagstones for the portico and arcades flooring. Walking through Darren’s portico, under the oculus in the Soaneian pendentive dome, over the corresponding tiled circle, leads into a procession of eight rooms, a Courtyard, 10 further rooms and onwards and outwards to a Grand Terrace. It’s like wandering through a stationary Venice Simplon-Orient Express with side carriages. International collaborations of interior designers, architects, design brands and suppliers stimulate the senses. Even smell: each room has its own dedicated Jo Malone London fragrance from Pomegranate Noir to Red Roses.

Victoria Davar of Maison Artefact perfectly captures a sense of arrival in the Entrance Hall sponsored by Cox London. A five metre ceiling height adds an extravagance of volume allowing for a floating staircase to spiral up towards an imaginary upper room. Victoria reckons, “We have designed a modern day cabinet of curiosities including a cast bronze and iron chandelier from Cox London.” A Robert Adam plaster frieze from Stevensons of Norwich draws on the neoclassicism of the façade. In contrast, Chad Dorsey’s members’ clubby Drawing Room, sponsored by Fromental, is Arts and Crafts. Fromental’s Kiku wallcovering wraps the room (and ceiling) in panels of stylised chrysanthemums and sunflowers. Chad continues the nature theme with Kyle Bunting’s chequerboard leather rug featuring birch and wheat emblems.

“The Phillip Jeffries Study is designed to be visually compelling but also should enhance the way someone lives and interacts with their environment,” suggests Staffan Tollgård. The Creative Director of Tollgård selected a striking abstract artwork formed of slices of oak and paulownia wood as a wallcovering by Phillip Jeffries. Another cosy space is the Nucleus Media Room designed by Alex Dauley. This Myrrh and Spice Jo Malone London aroma filled cocoon is swathed in Zinc Textile’s suede wallcovering and incorporates Nucleus’ seamless home automation.

“A space to intrigue, inspire and spark conversation,” is how Spinocchia Freund describes The Curator’s Room. The designer has a commitment to working exclusively with women. She collaborated with Ashley Stark, Creative Director of the room’s sponsor Stark, on a bespoke rug. Spinocchia explains, “This rug is a celebration of 87 powerful creative women such as Élisabeth Garouste, Zaha Hadid, Charlotte Perriand, Faye Toogood and Vanessa Raw. Their names are woven into it. My biggest issue was deciding who to include as there were so many suitable names!”

Tommaso Franchi of Tomèf Design collaborated with three of Italy’s leading heritage brands for the Primary Bedroom. Fabric house Fortuny, rattan furniture company Bonacina, and Venetian glass masters Barovier and Toso have all contributed pieces to a room embracing Italian craft. A Primary Bedroom that could be in Venice or Verona is not complete without some Murano: a Tomèf designed coffee table contains a collection of objets d’art made from offcuts of Barovier and Toso’s Murano glassware. Alisa Connery of 1508 London based the House of Rohle Primary Bathroom on reflection, ritual and reverie. The fluid shape of the freestanding bath and standalone shower by the room’s sponsor embodies the energy and movement of water.

Hurrah, Treasure House Fair has come early this year! Or at a least a foretaste has popped up. The Season fixture is Daniel Slowik’s Morning Room sponsor. The interior designer and antique dealer sourced furniture, paintings and objets d’art from contributors to the Treasure House Fair. Daniel’s imaginary client Richard Wallace. The 19th century art collector’s London home, Hertford House in Marylebone, is now The Wallace Collection. This museum and art gallery was reinvented by the brilliant symbiotic force of the late Director Dame Rosalind Savill and the neoclassical architect John O’Connell. A Bardiglio marble chimneypiece by Jamb provides a focal point for the Treasure House Morning Room. Set pieces include a George III pedimented bookcase from Ronald Philipps and a portrait by the 18th century artist Maria Verelst from Philip Mould.

The second of three (or is it four?) open spaces at WOW!house, the Perennials and Sutherland Courtyard designed by Goddard Littlefair combines the best of Andalusian gardens and Moorish architecture. Jo Littlefair compliments Perennials and Sutherland’s technological advancement, “Their outdoor Crescent furniture uses powder coated aluminium as a finish. It’s perfect in hotter climates because the coating has good thermal stability.” The Sims Hilditch Courtyard Room is firmly back on British soil. Country house specialist Emma Sims Hilditch has created a very smart behind the green baize door space. A coffered ceiling and antique furniture elevate this space from back of house to front of courtyard. A dog room and a boot room are set behind glazed internal partition walls in two corners of the Courtyard Room.

The perfect neoclassical villa must contain at least one fourposter bed and American Alessandra Branca comes up trumps with the Casa Branca Bedroom. Drawing on eclectic sources from David Hicks to Lee Radziwill, the sponsor and designer’s own brand of textiles, wallpapers and furniture fill the room. A border stripe framing curly motifs wallpaper is echoed in the striped bed curtains. Murano vases provide hints of Alessandra’s Italian heritage.

“It all began with a pair of taps,” reveals Samuel Heath, the exclusive bathware designer and manufacturer sponsoring the Bathroom by Laura Hammett. The stepped profile, chamfered corners and bronze finish of the new taps could belong to only one style of full bathroom design: Art Deco. “This year is the centenary of l’Exposition des Arts Décoratifs à Paris which launched Art Deco,” Laura relates. “We are really reimagining the 1920s style with gusto and have included a San Marino marble rolltop bath and matching double vanity unit.”

No world class display of interiors is complete without the Pre Raphaelite tour de force that is Kelly Hoppen CBE. Her moody Living Room, sponsored by Visual Comfort and Company, is all that is to be expected from the design powerhouse. She confirms, “Visual Comfort’s collection gave us the freedom to create atmosphere and rhythm through lighting.” Kelly has selected an earthy palette of rich brown, terracotta and muted neutrals. Vintage furniture sits cheek by jowl with bespoke pieces. She notes, “The Living Room blends asymmetry, history and personal storytelling.”

Curvature is a theme of the interiors and reaches a geometric climax in the Dedar Library by Pirajean Lees which is encircled by bookcases. Designers Clémence Pirajean and James Michael Lees discovered something they have in common with the cutting edge (no pun) fabric house of Dedar: a love of music. A440 Hz, the tuning standard of musical instruments before a concert, provides an unlikely source of inspiration for patterns in the painted dome ceiling and the rug made by Jennifer Manners. A pitch perfect room. The Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges imagined Paris as a library. And as the American journalist Maureen Callaghan warns, “If you ever go back with someone after a night out and they’ve no books in their home, run! Run!”

Drummonds backed Nicola Harding’s jewel box inspired Powder Room. The Art Deco style collection includes a marble top vanity and storage units reflected in antiqued mirrors in a glazed ceramic tiled setting. “For the Powder Room you have to be more dramatic,” Nicola opines. “It’s a space where you’re likely to be alone so it can be an escape. We wanted to create an intoxicating atmosphere rich with colour and texture.” The colourway includes ruby, turquoise and jade. In contrast, Toni Black of Blacksheep uses a palette of soft blush, terracotta and taupe for her Home Bar. The scheme is centred on Shepel’s handmade joinery and furniture. A curvaceous bar follows the rounded rectangle room shape.

“The application and finish of the paint is paramount to the finished look and feel of any room, so we’re thrilled to work with Benjamin Moore, the best paint brand out there,” exclaims Peter Mikic, the designer of the Dining Room. A vast abstract artwork by Billy Metcalfe and trompe l’oeil panels by Ian Harper – using Benjamin Moore paint of course – provide sweeps of colour across the walls. Vintage Lucite leopard skin fabric metal framed dining chairs contrast with a circular dining table bejewelled with semi precious stones made by Kaizen.

Atmospheric lighting is another theme of this villa so who better than Hector Finch to sponsor the Thurstan Snug? “We were inspired by Hector’s enthusiasm for designing and crafting his lighting,” says the room’s designer James Thurston Waterworth, Founder of interiors practice Thurstan. “So we imagined a practical creative space where he could draft sketches, test samples and immerse himself in books.” Blue lime plaster walls painted with marble dust bound by varnish and a d’Ardeche parquet floor bring rich patinas to the Snug.

Ben Pentreath Studio is one of King Charles’ favourite architectural design companies. The Studio’s Rupert Cunningham, Leo Kary and Alice Montgomery have come up with the Kitchen built by Lopen Joinery which would definitely persuade Queen Camilla to don her cooking apron. Grecogothik is a novel portmanteau the team jokingly use to describe the genre of this unfitted room. Octagonal shaped cabinet legs reflect the shape of the octagonal rooflight. Art should be in every room in the house and paintings in the Kitchen include Tallisker Isle of Sky bye by John Nash (Paul Nash’s younger brother, not the architect).

His Majesty would certainly enjoy the Garden Terrace designed by Randle Siddeley which leads off the Kitchen. This exotic garden under the glass sky of the Design Centre Chelsea Harbour is filled with lush planting and framed by formal trellis in the style of an orangery. Randle believes, “The Garden Terrace is an immersive escape where one can pause, entertain and connect with nature.” Bespoke aluminium outdoor furniture by the space sponsor McKinnon and Harris includes scalloped dining chairs and an Italianate table. Mental note: every space deserves a crystal chandelier. Things get really wild … in the same collaborators’ Secret Garden filled with Oxenwood outdoor furniture.

This year, WOW!House truly is La Nouvelle Exposition des Arts Décoratifs de Londres. WOW!House 2025 deserves its own chapter in the sequel to Peter Thornton’s 1984 authoritative tome Authentic Décor The Domestic Interior 1620 to 1920.

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Art Design Luxury People Restaurants

Yugo Restaurant Belfast + Graffiti

A Sandbar Near a River Mouth

In the 1980s the choice was Speranza or Capers? Italian or Italianate? Those were the two stalwarts of the Belfast restaurant scene. More of a still than a scene. It would have been hard to imagine back then that the city would become a gourmet destination. Belfast eventually found its forte. Graffiti art replaces sectarian slogans in the city centre. Klaus Rosskothen who runs Pretty Portal in Düsseldorf, one of Europe’s leading urban art galleries, argues, “Graffiti art is a sign of vitality and life in a city.” Actually there’s a café on Ormeau Road called Graffitti [sic] which is famous for its tzatziki.

There certainly was no Michelin commended restaurant, let alone an Asian one, 45 years ago. “Behind an unassuming façade is this buzzy industrial restaurant,” records the Inspector, “where powerful music plays and a super friendly team bring the dishes as and when they’re ready.” That unassuming façade is on the grandly named Wellington Street which is actually a short laneway to one side of the City Hall.

Lunch in Yugo is fusion at its best: Buzen meets Baishan meets Belfast. Panko prawn, gochujang (£8.00). Tempura spinach maki (£11.00). Aubergine, hot honey, chilli, yoghurt, pomegranate, mint (£10.00). Dulce de leche ice cream, brownie crumble (£3.50). The aromatic crispness of Domaine de Menard Cuvee Marine Sauvignon 2023 (£30.00) with notes of tropical fruit is the perfect accompaniment to the flavour and texture of the savoury and sweet dishes.

Seasoned restaurateurs Gerard McFarlane and Kyle Stewart opened in Yugo in 2019 and it has proved to be popular ever since. The restaurant was, “Born out of an idea with Far Eastern roots and a modern aesthetic. At Yugo we bring you a selection of modern creative and traditional Asian styles of cooking with a Belfast Bushidō attitude.” There’s a lot to unpack in the Japanese term Bushidō. It’s a Samurai moral code that embraces virtues including benevolence, courage, honour, justice, loyalty and politeness.

The restaurant is laid out in two areas flanking an entrance lobby: the main dining room (with a kitchen to the rear) and a smaller dining room and bar. A dark moody atmosphere is heightened by lots of black surfaces – especially atmospheric on a rainy Saturday lunchtime. Vintage slides of the Far East are projected onto one of the internal walls. Yugo has a great vibe and when it comes to top notch nosh of the Asian persuasion there’s no beating round the Bushidō.

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Architects Architecture Art Design Developers People

Fleet Street Quarter + Lady Lucy French OBE + Oskar Zięta + Whispers

Wielka Sztuka

“Good morning. Dzień dobry. Deputy Ambassador, honoured guests, ladies and gentlemen,” welcomes Lady Lucy French OBE, looking very on brand in a salmon pink and blush orange outfit in New Ludgate. She is CEO of the Fleet Street Quarter. “It is really fantastic to see so many people here in the Fleet Street Quarter for a very special moment: the unveiling of Whispers which is a collaboration to mark the UK Polish Season and to launch the London Festival of Architecture. This project has been a real coalition of the willing, of people coming together.” The Polish Cultural Institute sits right at the heart of the Fleet Street Quarter on Bouverie Street.

Lady Lucy continues, “This has been such a privilege to get to know you all! The UK Polish Season is very much a celebration of our two countries’ enduring collaboration highlighting cultural dialogue and opportunity. And the art of the possible! The Festival theme of Voices and Polish artist Oskar Zięta’s Whispers echo the ethos of this season: cultural dialogue, discussion, debate. As Dr Johnson, our esteemed former resident and father of the UK dictionary once said, ‘You raise your voice when you should reinforce your argument.’ I would suggest that perhaps we need more whispers around the world right now. So it is a wonderful thing to have Whispers in this part of London!”

Fleet Street Quarter is a Business Improvement District that represents the voice of business across 43 hectares of the western side of the City of London. Established three years ago, it has four strategic aims: putting Fleet Street Quarter firmly on the map; being clean and green; promoting safety and security; and creating connected communities. Lady Lucy relates that when she visited Oskar and his wife Agata Świderska-Zięta in Wroclaw: “I was just blown away by the extraordinary magic they create in their studio! It’s a compound of science, technology and art.”

She concludes, “This technology will change and is changing the world. And you are shortly going to witness a little bit of modern alchemy. I cannot think of a more fitting location for this installation. We are in the shadow of the great St Paul’s Cathedral, a wonderful monument by Sir Christopher Wren. And indeed like Sir Christopher Wren, Oskar is very much an expert in science and engineering and art. So Oskar you have a lot in common with Sir Christopher Wren and it’s such a pleasure to have you here today.”

But first there’s breakfast in New Ludgate, a reinvented urban block designed by Fletcher Priest and Sauerbruch Hutton formed of two office buildings separated by a passageway named Belle Sauvage after a 15th century coaching inn that once operated nearby. A tradition of six centuries of good hospitality continues with Purpose Catering’s buffet. Scottish smoked salmon blinis; Provençale cake with mozzarella, sundried tomato and basil; and orange and olive oil cake all maintain the brand colourway of salmon pink and blush orange.

Oskar ushers everyone outside New Ludgate for the street performance to begin. Dignitaries from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the Republic of Poland join Lady Lucy and Oskar on the pavement to pump up a piece of flat steel using Zięta Studio’s pioneering FiDU metal inflation technology. Minutes later – and much to the fascination of passing commuters – a two metre long boxy steel sculpture is added to the two cylindrical forms already erected on the pavement. The quiet collection is complete.

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Architects Architecture Art Design Developers People Town Houses

Micky Damm + Studio Baukunst Düsseldorf

Rethinking Urban Space Through Architecture and Art: Innovation, Preservation and Sustainability in Modern Design

“Coming from the Art Academy we want to have a little bit of art always incorporated into every project. It’s always different: it can be something typical like art integrated into the building or meanwhile uses such as exhibitions before we start to build,” says Micky Damm who founded the architectural practice Studio Baukunst with fellow alumnus Philipp Bilke and their former professor, Karl-Heinz Petzinka. They now have 15 employees. “I studied architecture and fine art – sculpture at Kunstakademie.”

Their studio on Oberbilker Allee in Düsseldorf is a case in point. The bronze wheat sheaf entrance door handle sculpted by Joscha Bender provides a clue to the site’s origins and the practice’s ethos. “This used to be a farm a few hundred years ago called Leeschenhof. ‘Doff’ is village and ‘hof’ is farm.” He jests, “That’s all the German you need!” The two storey 1950s villa was refaced in natural stone. An attached single storey bow cornered building was formerly a DIY store.

Micky explains, “I started out as a graffiti artist in my teens. It was a good connection looking with my eyes on the city for spots to spray. I am still reading the city but instead of providing text somewhere I now build houses. Since we launched Studio Baukunst in 2018 it is about building a big dream. The funny thing is there are parts of north Düsseldorf where there is no graffiti at all. Outsiders would come in and go oh this is a good area. But it’s a boring area! No one has been there. So you often have graffiti as an indicator that something is going on. There is graffiti in Bilk, this area where our studio is located.” Graffiti was written on the fascia of the DIY store when it closed down. It translates as, “We don’t want to have gentrification here.” Studio Baukunst kept the graffiti. The parking bays to the rear are going to be removed and replaced with a pocket park. Striking green tiles are currently being wrapped round the ground floor exterior of the apartment building completing this urban block.

It’s hard not to talk about Bauhaus in a German architecture studio. Micky argues, “Bauhaus is influential in terms of straight and clear architecture and having big ideas in small spaces. So it’s all about the greatness of architecture – the decisions you have over everything. You always have to keep in mind what you are working on and not lose your way. The built Bauhaus projects are so great in all sorts of different dimensions: footprint, floorplans, materials. Everything follows one idea and this has been a huge influence on our way of thinking.”

But he thinks there’s a downside: “Right now I have problems with Bauhaus today because too many people use it as an excuse to build boring things. Money is no excuse. That was the nice thing about Bauhaus: you have great architecture in economic spaces. Today when people have the excuse we need more money to make something better I am like no! Lack of money is not a reason to build something that is not good. it just sets the parameters you are working with.”

Take his latest office scheme in the city: “When we design workspace we want to make it more interesting to attract the young people back into the office. So we create spaces that are so unusual that you would never have them at home in your apartment. We want it to be a benefit for employees to be in these special spaces. We have placed a tower of balconies linked by gangways to the front of an existing 1950s building. Every 500 square metres of internal office space has a 50 square metres balcony. We want to have office space outside too. So it is like you can talk on the open deck of your boat! We want to get away from the same boring spaces.”

This innovative approach flows from outside spaces through external walls to internal spaces. Micky says, “So for example here inside our studio we had the problem that there wasn’t enough concrete over the steel. We didn’t have the required 90 minute fire protection so we had to spray three centimetres of concrete onto everything. But instead of hiding the sprayed concrete we’re keeping it exposed. Ordinarily everything is completely different and we leave it that way. The rough textures of the walls contrast with the shiny floor. It’s good to get this together. In our projects every colour is usually the result of the material. Although there is a typical industrial green and a fire protection red so we make an exception and don’t count them as colours!”

Sustainability is such an overused word but like everything, Micky has his own original take on it. “What do we have to do so that things last very long? When we talk about sustainability it’s not really about how much insulation we put into the walls. It’s about how we develop the architecture as a whole so that it remains for a very long time because it has good spaces. We’re not so much about developing new forms. There are other practices doing that. We’re about cutting things out and making new collages together. Just as a DJ starts cutting out music and arranging new songs by putting them together that’s how we think about architecture.”

Are there any modern practices he admires? “Lederer Ragnarsdóttir Oei known as LRO in Stuttgart. What I like about them is that they have different projects of different sizes and they have different answers to the site specific questions. But you can always see their handwriting on everything. So they are following a bigger idea of architecture. Then there are other big architects you can go to and ask for a Bauhaus house, a classical house, any style of house. If you do everything what is your own idea of architecture? So I do like the architects that have their own idea of practice and are not just doing development for others.”

Micky’s tour of his studio ends on a high in the new glasshouse on top of the villa building. “There are so many lines that are happening. The staircase or ‘water tower’ with the round form doesn’t care about all the structure lines of the house. It’s just here. Every rectangle aligns in this glasshouse but the round water tower is just there. You walk up the stairs through the dark then you open the door and you have the light of the glasshouse. And that’s the idea of architecture, experiencing how spaces can change. It’s about the space beyond the floorplan too.”

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Art Design Fashion Luxury People

Hiroyuki Murase + Suzusan

Looks At Us Now

We’re on an exploratory journey led by top German journalist, stylist and trendsetter Ilona Marx. The city is our oyster on a spring Saturday. In an early 20th century former bakery in Ronsdorfer Strasse amidst music recording studios is the most discreet atelier imaginable. Low key, high fashion. We’re here to meet Hiroyuki Murase, the inspiring CEO and Creative Director of Suzusan. His fashion and interior pieces are for sale in 125 stockists worldwide from Ireland to Israel and Lithuania to Lebanon. He is bringing a new elegance to storied lineage.

“I found this building space five years ago,” Hiroyuki begins. “My office and workshop are here too. I studied fine art when I was 20 at the University for the Creative Arts in Farnham Surrey actually! Tuition fees are so high in the UK a friend of mine in Germany told me that studying here is for free. So I researched the art scene in Germany and came to Düsseldorf’s well known Kunstakademie. I didn’t study fashion or textiles: I still studied fine art.”

We’re intrigued how his business came about. “Well, my family has been doing this dyeing technique for 100 years in Japan. It’s a very traditional handicraft called Shibori and where I am from – a village called Arimatsu between Tokyo and Kyoto – is well known for this. The Shibori technique is over 400 years old and was used mainly for making kimonos. Every family in our village was once involved in this industry. I am the fifth generation now practising Shibori. Initially, I didn’t want to do what my family does so I escaped. After spending some years in Europe, I recognised actually this is beautiful.”

Hiroyuki continues his story, “Dyeing was dying! There were no young generations making it. There once were more than 10,000 Japanese artisans but when I was studying my father was one of the youngest and he was over 60. In Japan when you talk about Shibori people think of their grandmother’s kimono. It’s like talking about the past or old things. But a show in Europe was a turning point for me. My father came to the UK and showed his textiles at a fair he was invited to. He couldn’t speak any English so he called me to support him to I went to the UK.”

Hiroyuki’s female pet tortoise Ken ambles past us across the tiled floor. “People saw these fabrics from my home village and how beautiful they are – I also saw how people reacted to the Shibori. It was all new to them. Then I met Victoria Miro at her huge art gallery near Old Street in London. I met her by chance and showed these textiles to her. And she said well they’re beautiful and she wanted them immediately. Victoria Miro is like the godmother of contemporary art and I studied contemporary art! Eastern handicraft is right now.”

He started his own brand in a student flat in Düsseldorf in 2008. And the rest is history. And the present. And the future. Young people are now working for Suzusan in the artisanal studios of Arimatsu, making exclusive much sought after clothing with individual contemporary designs. It takes three to four days to make one garment and one to two months to make a kimono. Silk and cotton are traditional Shibori materials but Hiroyuki also uses luxury materials like cashmere. He sits down on the floor next to Ken and gives us a demonstration of the tying and sewing methods which are the initial stages of the process before dyeing takes place. Outside, the rose clad terrace is gaining colour to the day.

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Architecture Art Design People

Klaus Rosskothen + Pretty Portal Gallery Düsseldorf

See How They Do It

“Pretty Portal is celebrating its 18th birthday!” greets Klaus Rosskothen. His gallery in Düsseldorf specialising in urban contemporary art has a Europewide following. “I represent about 10 core artists. I like experimental artists such as Alexis ‘Bust’ Stephens who comes from the banlieues of Paris. He combines dancing and painting in his artistic style. Bust started his artistic journey in urban culture in Parisian street art and the graffiti scene.” This artist’s brush strokes vividly express movement and rhythm through the medium of paint.

“My father took me to about 10 museum shows a year,” Klaus recalls. “I was a graffiti writer and artist in the 80s. I then took an apprenticeship as a photographer and worked in 3D animation. I later worked in marketing but I was always very much into art. I started collecting and buying art in 2000 and opened an early online shop. I then opened Pretty Portal on Brunnenstrasse in Bilk which is an area with nice independent shops and cafés.”

He shares, “The underpass concept at the northern end of Brunnenstrasse running under the S Bahn railway line is of an open air public museum. It was five years in the making from concept to railway company negotiations to planning to funding.” Paintings, drawings and mixed media installations by 10 artists transform this most urban of spaces. ARDIF, Demon, Roman Klonek, LET (Les Enfants Terribles), Theo Lopez, Top Notch, Oliver ‘Magic’ Raeke, SKIO, Alexis ‘Bust’ Stephens and Marc Woehr created art from abstract to figurative.

LET’s artwork on the corner of this outdoor gallery, spells out: “This is your life. Do what you love and do it often. If you don’t like something change it. If you don’t like your job, quit. If you don’t have enough time stop watching TV. If you lookin’ for the love of your life, stop. They will be waiting for you when you start doing things you love. Stop over analysing. All emotions are beautiful. When you appreciate life is simple, open your mind, arms and heart to new things and people. We are united in our differences. Travel often, getting lost will help you find yourself. Life is about the people you meet and the things you create with them. So go out and start creating live your dream and passion. Life is short.”

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Architects Architecture Art Design Developers Fashion Hotels Luxury People Restaurants Town Houses

Düsseldorf +

Completing the Circle

“He made a circle out of a lake; he formed two rivers from the circle; he flooded and destroyed an island, creating a sea,” writes Gore Vidal in The City and the Pillar (1949). “Dorf means ‘village’ and Düssel is a tributary flowing into the Rhine,” announces the well informed tour guide Katja Stuben. The origins of the city may lie in 7th century farming and fishing settlements where the minor River Düssel flows into the major River Rhine. In 1288 the ruling Count Adolf V of Berg granted a town charter to Düsseldorf. “Today there are around 700,000 people living in Düsseldorf but it still resembles a village. It is a friendly local community with all the benefits of a city.”

“Düsseldorf mainly developed on the east side of the Rhine,” Katja explains. “Only about 10 percent of it is on the west side in Oberkassel, Niederkassel, Lörick and Heerdt. During World War II much of the city was damaged or destroyed but the Art Deco residential buildings in Oberkassel were relatively unscathed. These are now some of the best properties in the city overlooking the riverside Rheinwiesen Meadows.” There is a surprisingly large restored and rebuilt Old Town known as Altstadt. “The cobblestoned square of Burgplatz connects the banks of the Rhine to Altstadt. In the middle of Burgplatz is Schlossturm, the remaining medieval tower of the ducal palace.”

Two of the oldest and grandest buildings in Altstadt are the Catholic Churches of St Lambertus and St Andreas. Founded in 1288, St Lambertus overlooks a courtyard behind Burgplatz. Its wonky spire, one of the many idiosyncratic glories of the city’s exhilarating skyline, is the result of an 1815 reconstruction which was too heavy making the roof tiles gradually twist. In contrast to the red brick walls of St Lambertus, the exterior of St Andreas is painted lemon yellow and pepper grey. This Baroque ecclesiastical edifice founded in 1622 stands further to the east of Burgplatz. HeimWerk is the best brasserie in Altstadt to sample schnitzel. The vegetarian option is vegetable and potato rösti in a marinade of horseradish and mustard topped by carrot flakes.

“Japanese people settled in Düsseldorf in the middle of the 20th century,” records Katja. “They came to establish businesses in the steel industry. The population of this city is now around one percent Japanese. Little Tokyo is the Japanese business district. The Michelin starred Nagaya is one of the best Japanese restaurants in Europe. There are still traditional Eastern travel agents in Little Tokyo.” Heading westwards geographically and culturally, Königsallee is devoted to luxury fashion houses and hotels. The glitzy five star Steigenberger Park Hotel overlooks this verdant boulevard. Its retail concessions include Dolce Gabbana, Givenchy, Stefano Ricci, Catherine Sauvage and Wellendorff. Everyone and everything in this postcode is preened to perfection, even the posing pondside ducks.

“Let’s go up the 240 metre high Rheinturm – the Rhine Tower!” suggests Katja heading back to the river. “The penultimate floor viewing gallery of the tower rotates a full circle once an hour like it’s on rollerblades.” Slanting windows frame an eagle eye’s view of the Landtag North Rhine-Westphalia Parliament building completed in 1988 to the design of Eller Maier Walter. Its floorplate of overlapping and concentric circles draws on an aspiration for openness and transparency in politics. A decade younger is Frank Gehry’s RheinHafen Arts and Media Centre on Am HandelsHafen in his “where’s my T square gone” trademark idiom. Each of the three curvilinear concrete volumes is individually finished. The northernmost block is white painted render. The southernmost, red brick. The middle block is coated in stainless steel. Using identical rectangular windows set in deep surrounds (except for the ground floor windows which are similar but taller) demonstrates the architect’s functionality of fenestration amidst whimsy of form. Later, the moon will rest on this tricoloured trio.

She points out, “Look down again and beyond RheinHafen is MedienHafen, the Media Harbour which was the old riverside industrial area. It mostly accommodates media, communications, IT and fashion companies now. Many of the big international architects have designed buildings there: Will Alsop, David Chipperfield, Steven Holl, Helmut Jahn,  Renzo Piano. Ok, let’s go shopping now. Schadow Arkaden on Schadowstrasse is one of the large shopping centres in Düsseldorf.” The nearest subway station is a work of art. A screen over the line records anonymised images of passengers entering the building with a few minutes delay, deriving geometries – many circular – from their movements. Called Turnstile, this installation was designed by local artist Ursula Damm.

Borrowing the words of Gore Vidal “On the warmest and greenest afternoon of the spring” Carlsplatz is where everyone aesthetically pleasing is hanging out for food and wine. It’s a downtown upmarket market. “Three guys – Philipp Kutsch, Björn Schwethelm and Nico von der Ohe – started Concept Riesling in Carlsplatz in 2017. They source from young to vintage wineries. There are 1,500 bottles to choose from priced right up to €7,000,” Katja confirms. Prost! Sláinte! Cartwheeling is the urban sport of Düsseldorf. Happiness is the city’s default disposition. Next to Concept Reisling is a potato stall; many varieties have girls’ names. Adretta, Gunda, Laura, Marabel, Rose, Theresa and Violet all vie for attention.

“Twilight and the day ended,” prompts Gore Vidal. There’s so much promise and pleasure in the air. Destination: The Paradise Now on Hammerstrasse. Co owner Garciano Manzambi shares, “I wanted to bring the holiday vibe of Mykonos to my hometown. We can accommodate 800 people who come early and stay late. Come with me and check out the nightclub.” But first there is caramel and truffle pasta to enjoy on the vast terrace. And bread. “This butter is heated and whipped to give the taste of nut and truffle,” explains the friendly waitress. Everyone is friendly in Düsseldorf. “Your wine is from the Pfalz, one of the famous regions of German vineyard production.” Sorbet is Stilllebenmalerei. The Paradise Now is open till 3am on weekends. The hot DJ is already mixing cool tunes. Everyone here is genetically blessed and materially privileged. Dining, drinking and dancing in the same venue till dawn or at least the wee small hours will unfold as a theme of this city. Fast forward 24 hours and cruising up the Rhine on the KD (Köln-Düsseldorfer) is what it’s all about. Good food, good company, good music and thank goodness two discos to shape those midnight grooves.

On another day, leading journalist and trend consultant Ilona Marx cuts a dash as she shares her creative passions under the constant blue velvet sky which is crisscrossed by white streaks, a reminder that the airport lies in the city itself. Five years ago, goldsmith and jewellery designer Lisa Scherebnenko took over as Director of Orfèvre. The gallery and workshop is on the prestigious Bastionstrasse. She relates, “I use classy materials for jewellery: silver, gold, platinum but also tantalum which is a very special one. Do you know about it? Tantalum is a super nice material and not a lot of jewellers use it because it’s very hard to work with. But it’s very beautiful and really lovely on every skin.” Very fine jewellery has been made in Orfèvre since it opened in 1969. Her Rope Collection uses intertwined circular forms. Further down Bastionstrasse is Constanze Muhle’s eponymous atelier. “This is a hidden gem with collections from the likes of Nasco, Neni and Bruno Marnetti inside,” Ilona observes. “Constanze is incredibly well informed.”

Ilona states, “Ruby Luna is one of our trendiest hotels. The name comes from the popularity of the moon landing in the mid 20th century. This building started life as a Commerzbank drive through in the 1960s. It was designed by architect Paul Schneider-Esleben. You can still see the control panel of the bank which is now the breakfast bar of the hotel! Come on up to the rooftop terrace for a view of the city and the Rhine.” Upstream is Kunstpalast which celebrates art history. Mid 20th century Arno Breker figurative sculptures line the lawn. Midtown is K20, another museum, known for its modernist art such as Andy Warhol’s 1962 silkscreen ink and pencil on linen A Woman’s Suicide.

Lunch of porcini mushroom ravioli is on the stylish terrace of Schillings overlooking Hofgarten. This restaurant is on the ground floor of Schauspielhaus. The theatre with its white ribbed concrete exterior forms an enigmatic volume resting on pilotis (The City and the Pillars pluralised into physicality?) in front of the partly glazed ground floor. It was built to the design of local architect Bernhard Pfau in 1970 and has an enigmatically timeless quality. The dining room is as monochromatic as the exterior. Previously, Katya had discussed some local cuisine. “Himmel und Erde is a traditional brewery dish. It is mashed apple and potato. The name means literally ‘sky and ground’! Then there is Sauerbraten which is made of hot brown raisin. Adam Bertram Bergrath mustard or ‘ABB’ dates back to 1726. It comes in a refillable ceramic pot. Van Gogh included a pot in one of his paintings.” A circularity of existence.

Cultural hours with creative Düsseldorfers don’t come any better than learning about art and fashion and life with Hiroyuki Murase, Kaoli Mashio and Klaus Rosskothen. CEO and Creative Director of the internationally successful fashion and interiors label Suzusan, Hiroyuki has a studio in a historic former bakery building in Ronsdorferstrasse. He relates, “My family have been doing the dyeing technique called Shibori for 100 years. This traditional craft is usually for making kimonos but I use it in a contemporary way for a range of clothes as well as cushions and other items for the home.” Hiroyuki’s wife Kaoli’s studio is hidden at the end of a wisteria clad mews in the Grafenberger Wald area. Her critically acclaimed paintings and mixed media art are borne of an intense study of simplicity, nonduality and infinity. Across the city, former graffiti artist Klaus established Pretty Portal on Brunnenstrasse in 2007. His influential gallery represents emerging and established urban artists across Europe.

Later, architect Micky Damm of Studio Baukunst in the Bilk quarter will complete the circle. “We always try to develop circles. We want a client to have a bigger benefit than he would usually expect. And at the end of every project we want everyone to look with their eyes and say we would like to do another project. So that’s it. Those are the terms of the circle. We are developing properties for clients but we also support the subculture of artists and musicians. So you need the creatives and clubs to have this special space. And the other ones who pay full rent. This keeps a space alive. If you make these circles work then everyone is happy.” Everyone is happy. This is Düsseldorf turning full circle.

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Architects Architecture Design Developers Town Houses

Montparnasse Tower Paris +

Positive Capability

Dawn in winter 2019. Noon in spring 2025. Oh how the years go by. A century ago, Montparnasse hosted the vanguard of avant garde Paris. Writer Gertrude Stein’s partner Alice Toklas once called it “the city of boulevard bars and Baudeloire”. Poet Guillaume Apollinaire went further referring to it as “a quarter of crazies”. It was home for Marianne Faithfull from riding in a sportscar to missing the moon. Behind Georges-Eugène Haussmann’s homogeneity and square cut gentility lies the mysterious courtyard life of Paris played out in the penumbra of Montparnasse Tower. It’s a 32 second lift ride to the 59th floor of the tower to view the sacred horizontality and profane verticality.

The skyscraper in all its splendid isolation was completed in 1973 to the design of Eugène Beaudouin, Urbain Cassan, Louis de Hoÿm de Marien and Jean Saubot. The Tower’s height, all 210 metres, was not universally welcomed. It didn’t quite accord with Baron Haussmann’s rule that no building should be taller than the width of the boulevard on which it stood. Two years after Montparnasse Tower’s completion, President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing banned buildings over 32 metres in central Paris. In recent times, the limit has been relaxed to 50 metres but only on a case by case basis. Wallpaper* City Guide, 2022, provides a contemporary reassessment, admiring the Tower’s “wonderfully gridded curtain wall” before adding, “The redevelopment of the down-at-heel area around Gare Montparnasse in the early 1960s was, by and large, a piece of inspired city planning.”

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Architects Architecture Art Design Hotels Luxury Restaurants Town Houses

Le Littré Hotel + Left Bank Paris

Rêve Parisien

Nos jours. The late great chanteuse Marianne Faithfull latterly lived in a lateral apartment on Boulevard du Montparnasse. She once shared, “I have some lovely paintings and photographs and furniture. All things that have been passed down by my family. But actual decorations are absurd!” Hôtel Le Littré is on a quiet side street off the southern end of Boulevard du Montparnasse, under the shadow of the famous Montparnasse Tower.

Rue Littré fortunately isn’t named after rubbish but rather the multihyphenate Émile Littré. This politician, philosopher and linguist Left Banker fulfilled his aptronym by writing an etymological dictionary, published in 1841. A few copies of the Littré Dictionary are in the Winter Garden of the hotel which opens onto that most Parisian of spaces – the courtyard. There has been a hotel behind the Haussmann façade of 9 Rue Littré since 1967. Full French breakfast is served in the lower level dining room.

Keeping to the literary theme, the hotel stocks Le Littré News (April 2025 edition) and La Gazette de Littré (timeless edition). One of the recommendations in Le Littré News is for a restaurant across the road from the hotel called Le Petit Littré. Jean-Baptiste Bellecourt opened the restaurant in 2012. On a rainy Saturday evening, it’s at full capacity. The convivial owner explains that the waiter cut his hand earlier and had to go home. So Jean-Baptiste is acting as receptionist, maître d’, waiter, sommelier … a one man machine (presumably there’s a chef hidden away somewhere). Dinner of risotto and Tarte Tatin is an essay on perfect French cuisine.

“Madame de Pompadour ate four meals a day: breakfast, dinner, a late afternoon snack (goûter) and supper,” the much missed Dame Rosalind Savill records in her 2022 double volume literary masterpiece Everyday Rococo: Madame De Pompadour and Sèvres Porcelain. Madame de Pompadour would have adored the French fries and shrimp parcels lunch in a casual café on Boulevard du Montparnasse.

A short stroll past the glasshouses of Jardin Botanique de l’Universitie Cité leads to Jardin du Luxembourg. The world and its beautiful partner are playing boules, sunbathing, promenading. All 25 hectares are brimming with life. The ghost of Louis XIII’s mother, the Regent Marie de’ Medici, must be looking down in wonder at the bourgeois from her top floor bedroom in the 17th century Palais du Luxembourg. The balustrades and pedestals and statues and urns are all still very recognisable from John Singer Sargent’s 1879 painting In the Luxembourg Garden.

Getting ever closer to the River Seine, past the scent of Goutal perfumery (a modern day maker of myrrh), is the city’s third largest church: St Sulpice. Construction of Daniel Gittard’s neoclassical design began in 1646 and its 21 chapels were decorated over the following decades as the architecture evolved. Most splendid of all is the Virgin Chapel started by Giovanni Nicoli Servandoni in 1777 and completed 48 years later by Charles de Wally. “She was perfectly in tune with the rococo period in which she lived, and enabled it to evolve and flourish,” Ros comments. Madame de Pompadour would feel very at peace under the rococo golden dome of the Virgin Chapel.

A visit to San Francisco Books literally continues the literary theme.

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Architecture Art Country Houses Design Developers Fashion Hotels Luxury People Restaurants Town Houses

Lavender’s Blue + 1,000 Articles

Upward We Fly

The Tuamgraney born London based novelist Edna O’Brien once remarked, “There’s a very interesting thing about memory and exile. It is only when you leave someone or something that the full power if you like, the performance of it is in you, it’s inside you. So separation brings the emotions and ultimately a book. I think a book is the accumulation of emotions written in a particular, hopefully musical, way. It’s a beautiful feeling actually; it’s like the whole influx of something that is stronger than memory. Of course, it’s memory but you’re back in it, not writing it secondhand. Again, that counts for a certain derangement.”

It all started with Cliveden. In September 2012, we received an invitation to stay in the Berkshire hotel but as hard copy publications back then were disappearing faster than Veuve Cliquot at one of our soirées, we came up with the idea of publishing an article online. And so Lavender’s Blue was born. The name has triple derivation after our home (“Your house is so cinematic!” declares film director Stephan Pierre Mitchell), our location and the song by Marillion. Before long, every PR in London and further afield learned we always turn up, give good party, and even better copy. Although five parties in one day starting with an 11am Champagne reception for New York thinker John Mack in the Rosewood Hotel was pushing it even by our standards. Actually, it all really began in April 1995 with a column House of the Month in Ulster Architect magazine, edited and published by the bold and brave and brilliant Anne Davey Orr. But that’s a whole other story.

While most events are one-offs, from a vanishing crystal coach at Ascot to a vanishing guest on the Orient Express, others would become annual events. If the preview of Masterpiece (in Royal Hospital Chelsea grounds) was an early summer hit each year, the Boutique Hotel Awards (in Merchant Taylor’s Hall) would quickly become a midwinter highlight. Fortunately Masterpiece has been replaced by The Treasure House Fair and WOW!house and we’ve landed ourselves on their preview lists. We’re also proving a hit at the annual International Media Marketplace.

Behind the curtain. That’s our forte. And we don’t just mean peeping round the iron variety (think Gdańsk). We’re not only through the gates: we’re over the threshold. We gain access where others dare not tread. If it’s an Irish country house, we’ll stay with the owners and explore the cellars and attics – preferably when they’re tucked up in their fourposter (Temple House). We’ll pop into the kitchen to see what’s really going on whether in Le Bristol or Comme Chez Soi. We’ll talk to the lady of the manor and a millworker (Sion Mills). Sometimes it takes a village to raise an article: in Castletownshend the fun began over breakfast at The Castle continuing through public houses and private houses up Main Street before ending back in The Castle by dawn.

If “design” is the mauve thread that sews Lavender’s Blue together, “celebration of life” is our way of banishing anything mentally blue. Illuminated by art and architecture, fashion and the Divine, we’re mad for life, channelling that literary derangement. But if it ain’t good, it don’t appear. Simple. At the opposite end of the spectrum, some events are far too private to be published such as an impresario salon recital in one of London’s grandest houses surrounded by more Zoffanys than The National Gallery owns while sampling the owners’ South African wine cellar. Or a party in Corke Lodge, County Wicklow, with more diplomats per square metre than Kensington Palace Gardens being serenaded by the Whiffenpoofs on the folly gladed lawn.

Lavender’s Blue is all about places and people so we rarely do personal. You won’t read how we were catastrophically frogmarched out of The Lanesborough (too much catwalking) or categorically told to pipe down in Launceston Place (too much caterwauling). Or the full story of hijinks with the model Parees which one friend described as sounding like an escapade from an Armistead Maupin short story. Original writing and original photography – and occasionally original drawing (from a two minute sketch of Mountainstown House to a 10 hour floor plan of Derrymore House) – are our creative cornerstones. We never plagiarise except from ourselves: to quote from one of our most read articles, Beaulieu House, “Lavender’s Blue is the brilliant coated edition of universal facts, riveting mankind, bringing nice and pretty events.” We’ll coin the odd phrase too from “Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder” to “You can’t be this fabulous and not make a few enemies!”

What’s our literary style? Well we’re not paid up members of Plain English for starters. Lord Wolfe would blanche at such opening gambits as, “There’s nothing standard in The Standard” or “Mary Martin London fashion is more than an antinomic macédoine: it is a semiotic embrace of science and conviction made manifest in materiality, tactility and sartorial disruption”. There are a quarter of a million English words to choose from (compared to a mere 100,000 in French and a meagre 85,000 in Chinese) so why reach for simplicity when you can stretch the lexicon? We don’t like to namedrop but as Daphne Guinness shared with us about her lyrics at a party in Notting Hill, “There are some words I just really like the sound of!” A picture tells 1,000 words and sometimes we’ll deliver 1,000 words and 1,000 pictures. But how can you keep the shutter open when you’re cherishing Chatsworth or roaming round Rochester? We’re not just about obvious glitz and glamour. So we frequent Hôtel Meurice in Paris and Hôtel Meurice in Calais. We’ve explored Georgian Bath and Georgian Dover. Doubling down on clichés is avoided except in derision while downing Chapel Down south of the Kent Downs.

How long does an article take to prepare? Some flow with automatic writing on a commute or in bed or in the bath in almost unconscious reverie. Others take decades. Mourne Park House started with a memorable visit in 1992 (the boathouse collapsed and gracefully slid into the lake mid morning coffee) and continued with return visits up to 2021 (by then the house was badly burnt). Crevenagh House was photographed over two decades in every season from heavy snow to scorching sunshine. We visited Gunnersbury Park four times over a London heatwave to capture it morning, noon, evening, and after supper. We also vacationed at Murlough four times, Irish Sea hopping in search of elusive sunlight. Montevetro and Marlfield both first appeared in Ulster Architect before being resurrected on Lavender’s Blue. Marlfield is the work of genius architect Alfred Cochrane with later lodges by the talented Albert Noonan. And on that note, John O’Connell’s work (Montalto) and tours (Ranger’s House) have added an abundance of sparkle to Lavender’s Blue.

We’re always up for top drawer collaborations: polo in Buenos Aires; the Government in Montenegro; Audi in Istanbul; Boutique Hotels Club in Bruges; Guggenheim in Bilbao; Rare Champagne in Paris. Did we mention Paris? The friendliest city in the world! As long as you’re in the right set, of course. We know our French, spring, red and rings. Oh, and we’re easily dragooned to fashion shows stretching the bailiwick especially when it comes to fashion artist Mary Martin London. Vintage models (Goodwood, Carmen dell’Orefice and Pattie Boyd), modern models (Esther Blakley, Janice Blakley and Katie Ice – all beautiful, all gazelles), royalty (Queen Ronke and Catherine Princess of Wales) and pop star royalty (Heather Small) have all enjoyed Lavender’s Blue exposure. There are even occasional segues into filming (Newzroom Afrika and English Heritage) and the dreaded bashing of ivories (Rabbit).

The current culmination of Lavender’s Blue is an exquisitely printed hardback coffee table book of substance on the Holy Land. The first edition of SABBATH PLUS ONE was an instant sellout at Daunt Books Marylebone. It’s now on the coffee tables of all the best homes – including a certain Clarence House. Oh yes, King Charles III is really enjoying his copy. “Your most thoughtful gesture is greatly appreciated …” So it’s time for the second edition. Same high quality print with a reddish burgundy rather than navy blue hard back hand stitched fabric cover. We’re still gonna vaunt about Daunt. Only the finest. In all the best libraries now, not least earning its stripes at Abbey Leix House and Pitchford Hall. And lobbies: The American Colony Hotel and The Jaffa.

We do love our triple Michelin starred places (L’Ambroisie, Lasarte, Core). Champagne! Foam! Truffle! While most of the restaurants we have visited are still thriving, unknowingly at the time, Lavender’s Blue would become an archive for quite a few. Aquavit, Bank Westminster and Zander Bar, Duddell’s, Farmacy, Galvin at Windows in The Hilton Park Lane, The Gas Station (one of our regular rendezvous with fellow gourmand Becks), Hello Darling, Marcus Wareing’s Tredwell’s, 8 Mount Street, Nuala, Plateau, Rex Whistler at Tate Britain, San Lorenzo, Senkai, Tom Kemble at Bonham’s, and Typing Room all in London have disappeared. So have Scheltema in Brussels, Le Détroit in Calais, The Black Douglas in Deal, The Table in Broadstairs, l’Écrivain in Dublin, Cristal Room Baccarat in Paris, and Forage and Folk in Omagh.

Still, nothing tastes as good as skinny fries. It’s survival of the fattest! Impressive as it was, Embassy Gardens Marketing Suite was never built to last. Erarta Art Gallery, Fu Manchu nightclub (the real Annabel’s!) and The Green and Found gift shop are lost in the mists of time. We’d barely photographed Quinlan Terry’s 35 year old junior common room bungalow at Downing College before the wrecker’s ball entered the site. We’re already missing our perfumer neighbour Sniff.

Even sadder, we have become the repository for final curtain interviews. Min Hogg, Founding Editor of The World of Interiors magazine and Anna Wintour’s first boss, the 9th Marquess of Waterford and the musician Diana Rogers entertained us – and hopefully you – with their end of life witticisms. David George, a reader of our Diana in Savannah article wrote, “I was married to her for 10 years and we were together for more than two decades. When you look in the sky she is the brightest star that you will ever see! I love you sweet middle class princess! Rest in peace, all my love, David.” We featured artist Trevor Newton’s final solo show and fashion designer Thierry Mugler taking his au revoir bow at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs Paris. Now historic photographs of model Misty Bailey appeared on Lavender’s Blue. Lindy Guinness, the last Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava, shared thoughts at one of her last townhouse parties full of people one should know like the international tastemaker Charles Plante. Beresford Neill reminisced on early 20th century Tyrella. And of course, two memorial pieces to the much missed Dorinda, Lady Dunleath. The last book launch of Dame Rosalind Savill, the inspirational scholar of European decorative arts and visionary museum director of the Wallace Collection, is another moving memory now frozen in time.

Readers’ comments are always of interest. Standout messages include a painting request to Ballyfin; advice on the best photographic viewing point at Dungiven Castle; revealing a shared love of Mary Delany or the Mitfords; a discussion of the meaning of Rue Monsieur; Samarès Manor relatives trying to contact each other during a Jersey storm; and an unreported baby drowning in a mansion swimming pool in Sandwich Bay. Mount Congreve attracted interesting comments including from James Sweeney who wrote, “I worked in Mount Congreve Estate for many years as a Private Chef to the Congreves. It was a joy and a pleasure and has given me cherished memories. Mr Congreve was an amazing man and I owe him a great deal for his wisdom that he kindly let me benefit from.”

Ewelina from Beauty on the Cliff poetically scribed, “Waterford is my home since 17 years and Mount Congreve was always my soft point. The moment when you enter the place is simply magical. I’ve been inside the house recently, just before yesterday. I was inside of the Blue Wedgwood Room … well … only the pale blue walls and the beautiful but sadly empty china cabinets reminded me about past grandeur of this place. It’s really really heartbreaking to see the empty rooms, stripped from everything … even the curtains … the books all over the floor in the library … totally without the respect for Mr Congreve. I hope that Waterford City Council didn’t forget that was someone else’s home. As Mr Yeats said, ‘Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.’ Thank you so much for your review. Kindest regards from Waterford.” Sara Stainsby messaged, “Really interesting essay on Stapleford Park. My great grandparents worked there, my grandmother was born there and was married in the church. In the 70s I visited my great grandparents when they lived in a flat above the stables …” Birthday wishes (Portrait) and restoration concerns (Barden Towers) are always welcome. Even more welcome was a Champers accompanied poem hand delivered to the state dining room (Hartwell House).

There are direct messages too: “I came across your Lavender’s Blue series starting from Auchinleck then Crevenagh House and Tullan Strand. I can see from your McClelland connection that you have an interest in Northern Ireland including Donegal … I found that your articles on architecture address the most erudite, meticulous and expansive aspects of the subject so perhaps the work of James Taylor in late Georgian times will fall beneath the range of your interest in the style and proportions of symmetrical Palladian buildings.” We jumped straight in a car to Islington. Likewise when tipped off about Stockwell Park. A reader enjoyed our “wonderful commentary on various aspects of Ballyshannon … tis wonderful to share your thoughts about my hometown”. We’ll accept high praise from Ireland’s greatest host: “I just love your articles striking notes of deepest erudizione to soprano and coloratura gossip! I’m so glad you were the catalyst to my party and I can’t believe it went so well.”

Amazing Grace Point inspired a declaration of faith: “Lough Swilly and Fort Dunree is one of the most wonderful places in Ireland to visit, and especially to look out across the waters where so many great ships have sailed. But most of all – to ponder the words of Amazing Grace written there by John Newton. His miraculous conversion credited to his mother’s prayers. She never gave up, like my mother, who never gave up but prayed me into the Kingdom.” Messages come from above and down under: “I hope you don’t mind me emailing you but I happened to walk into a beautiful graveyard today in Picton, Australia, and happened to come across this one particular headstone. I was instantly intrigued as my grandparents were from Donegal in Ireland and I wanted to see if this was close? Anyway I just read about Mountjoy Square and when the area become established. I’m not sure but working out the dates I think this couple might have been some of the original inhabitants? I saw an article that you wrote and just wanted to share this with you – you may or may not appreciate it but I wanted to bring this couple home!” They’ve come home.

Artist and art restorer Denise Cook crosses the rare divide from comment provider to content provider sharing her expanse of knowledge from Pink Magnolias to the Rector of Stiffkey. So does Dr Roderick O’Donnell, world authority on all matters Pugin. Another reader turned writer, the ever erudite historian and patron of the arts Nicholas Sheaff, brought Gosford Castle completely (back) to life. “There is really too much to say,” to parrot Henry James in The Portrait of a Lady, 1881. Haud muto factum.

As Reverend Prebendary Andy Rider once quipped, “You do get around.” Amsterdam to Zürich, Brussels to Verona, Channel Island hopping, nowhere is safe from the Lavender’s Blue sagacity filled patrician treatment. As for our favourite place, that’s simple: Bunbeg Beach, especially at 10.30pm on a sun drenched midsummer night. Chronicling our times, we produce the material – and sometimes we are the material. But only when shot by the likes of top cinematographer Mina Hanbury-Tennyson-Choi and shoot the shoot supremo Simon Dutson. Striking a striking pose. Fading grandeur (the interior not the model).

“The whole earth is filled with awe at Your wonders; where morning dawns, where evening fades, You call forth songs of joy,” Psalm 65. Lavender’s Blue is between the bookends of everything that was and is to come. It’s about dealing with things as they are, not as they should be. We’re all about orchestrating a fresh approach, synthesising Baroque stridency with Palladian refinement. Our oeuvre is a sumptuous sequence of artistic compositions. On the frontline, turning to face the light. Mary Oliver always gets it right: Instructions for Living a Life, 2010, “Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” Thank you to all our readers. Thank you Council Bluffs. In the short now, to pluralise the words of the French Resistance fighter Simone Segouin, “We’d do it all again.”

Categories
Design

Youghal Cork +

Pacata Hibernia

Y’all, armed with a Country Life article by Christopher Beharrell titled A Microcosm of Munster, published on 14 July 1977, this tour of the intriguing County Cork town of Youghal takes a route roughly south to north, following the western coast of the vast Blackwater Harbour and ending by crossing the bridge over Blackwater River into neighbouring County Waterford. First impressions of Youghal are good: Lighthouse Road wends its way along the picturesque water’s edge. Pairs of large Victorian villas high up on on the inland side of the road, some castellated, overlook Youghal Lighthouse. Completed in 1852 to the design of engineer George Halpin, the lighthouse marked Youghal’s growing importance as a port. The opening of the Cork and Youghal Railway eight years later allowed the town to develop in tandem as a resort.

In Christopher’s words: “The Blackwater, rivalling the Shannon among the great rivers of southern Ireland, flows out into a wide estuary between the Counties of Cork and Waterford. At its conclusion, on the western shore, lies the town of Youghal, some 30 miles east of Cork and 48 miles southwest of Waterford. Youghal itself rose to prominence from the 12th century as an Anglo Norman port, although the Danes, realising its advantages as a seaside raiding base and outport for the rich monastic settlements of the Blackwater valley, had occupied the site probably from the mid 9th century.”

Blackwater River swells into a massive basin before narrowing into Youghal Harbour. The shoreline opposite Youghal Lighthouse is dotted with grand detached houses surrounded by fields. One three bay two storey rendered house is mysteriously flanked by larger scale single storey single bay exposed stone ruinous wings. Keeping west coast of the harbour, Dublin scale late Georgian townhouses form the next concentric ring heading towards the medieval heart of the town.

One of the most prominent buildings on the main road running through Youghal is South Abbey National School. Built in 1817 as a Church of Ireland chapel of ease, this Tudoresque rendered building has a street facing crenellated gable over a pointed arched window with limestone transoms and tracery. Slim octagonal towers rise are attached to the corners of this elevation. A crenellated boxy porch topped by corner obelisks projects from the street front. At the opposite end of the building an entrance tower with a crenellated parapet rises above the pitched roof of the nave. The nave elevation has four similar pointed arched windows. A floor was later inserted when the building was used as a parish hall creating two layers of internal space each measuring 185 square metres.

A sign hanging in a vacant shop window on South Main Street tells, “The remarkable story of Jack Foley”. He was born in Youghal in 1865 and appears on the 1891 Census as an able seaman working aboard the Octacillius, then docked at Swansea. Jack signed on to the Titanic in Southampton where he was then living as a storekeeper. As the ship was sinking in 1912, Jack along with two other crewmen took charge of Lifeboat Four, guiding dozens of women and children to safety as they awaited rescue from the Carpathia. He continued working at sea, later serving on the Majestic, before his death 22 years later. A few shop windows away, a cat sleeps curled in the morning sun, nonchalantly unaware of  its nautical antique backdrop.

There’s no ambiguity to when the historic centre begins: half a kilometre north of South Abbey National School a six storey building (four floors over a double height arch spanning North Main Street) marks the spot. Designed and built by local developer William Meade, Clock Gate Tower replaced an earlier structure which was one of four gatehouses forming part of the town’s original fortifications. It was previously used as a prison. Clock Gate Tower is well restored although the floorspace doesn’t appear to be occupied. Perfect as an Irish Landmark Trust property!

One of the town’s most extraordinary survivals is also one of its most understated. A stone doorway surround with spandrils, first floor slit window and lintel floating over a 20th century window on an otherwise unadorned gabled façade are the only external clues of past ecceslesisatical glories. Over to Christopher: “On the other side of Main Street and further south, there is an interesting survival of a street facing gable from the conventual buildings of a Benedictine priory founded around 1350 as a dependency to the wealthy priory of St John at Waterford. The south wall remains, built into a passage inside the electrical shop, and in it are set an original piscina and aumbry.”

“We are a food and design led company in that we like healthy, tasty and well presented food as well as practical and sustainable design,” explains Carol Murphy, Head of Marketing for Priory Coffee Company. “We were brave enough to open in Youghal in July 2017 when many people were saying they weren’t sure about the location. Youghal and its people have been super to us. We believe in sensitively repurposing old buildings and working with other local businesses and suppliers. Our building in Youghal is dated from 1350 and is called The Priory hence the name of our company. We worked closely with planners and conservation officers who have been very supportive.” It has since expanded to outlets in Fermoy, Mallow, Riverstick and two in Cork City.

A blackboard hanging on the long wall of the upper floor café contains nuggets of history and health: “Youghal folklore says that the first potatoes in Ireland were brought into the town from Virginia by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1585. Potatoes are naturally fat free and low in salt. They contain more vitamin C than an orange. The Irish potato market is valued at €195 million to the Irish economy. The average annual Irish consumption of potatoes is 85 kilograms per person compared to 35 kilograms globally.” Sir Walter Raleigh, who had been granted land around Youghal in the Plantation of Munster, was Mayor 1558 to 1589.

The blackboard also contains details of suppliers to Priory Coffee Company: “Le Caveau are specialty wine merchants. Set up in 1999 in Kilkenny, they specialise in importing artisanal wines sourced directly from small family operated vineyards from around the world. The wines truly reflect their region of origin and they deliver the right balance of purity, natural freshness and drinkability.” And, “Kush Shellfish is a family run Irish Seafood business based in Kenmare. Their organic rope mussels are grown in Class A water in a special area of conservation in the deep clear Atlantic waters of Kenmare Bay.”

If the Priory could easily be overlooked, Red House a few doors down is an eyecatching piece of exuberant architecture even though it’s set back a full neighbouring building’s depth from the pavement behind cast iron railings. The two storey plus attic façade is built of Dutch orange brick painted a pinkish hue which contrasts with whitish limestone dressings of quoins, dentilled cornicing and a string course to form a highly distinctive geometric composition. A hooded doorcase’s arched outline is matched by a semicircular pedimented dormer on either side of the tall pediment lit by an oculus over the three bay breakfront. This grand seven bay wide building was most likely designed by the Dutch architect Claud Leuventhen for the landed Uniacke family who also lived at Mount Uniacke, a country estate 12 kilometres inland to the west of Youghal. Period features fill the 633 square metres of accommodation over three principal floors.

“Main Street offers the only extant examples of the type of medieval domestic building indicated on the 16th century Pacata Hibernia Map,” explains Christopher. “Of the several castles built in the town, the 15th century Tynte’s Castle remains. It is a strong square tower with embrasured walls, rather featureless, and now in poor condition.” Tynte’s Castle stands diagonally opposite Red House. Like Clock Gate Tower, this three storey building doesn’t appear to be in active use but is in good condition. The Victorian tripartite windows on the first and second floors along with the wide timber doorcase have been restored. Again, perfect as an Irish Landmark Trust property! Overall, Youghal is in a better state than its description almost half a century ago in Country Life.

The next turning on the left along North Main Street leads to the town’s two most renowned buildings. Church Street rises up a hill lined with three storey Georgian houses and a two storey building bearing the alarming plaque “Protestant Asylum” to open into one of Ireland’s great townscapes: St Mary’s Church and Myrtle Grove. Back to Christopher, “St Mary’s became a collegiate church in 1464, when the 8th Earl of Desmond placed it in the care of the Fellows of the College of St Mary, which he had built beside it. This College, although not strictly a university, was perhaps the first non monastic teaching establishment in Ireland, and the building, even when it ceased to function as a college, played an interesting part in their town’s later history. The warden lived in a house on the other side of the church, now known as Myrtle Grove, which despite its Elizabethan features and later associations with Sir Walter Raleigh appears from a deed dated 1461 to have been built about the same time as the College.”

This Anglican and Episcopalian church is filled to its antique scissors truss rafters with effigies, not least the flamboyant tomb of Sir Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork, richest Irishman of his day. Pure 17th century bling! Below the Chancel East Window outside, the gravestone of English journalist Claud Cockburn (1904 to 1982) and his second wife, an Anglo Irish artist Patricia Cockburn née Arbuthnot (1914 to 1989), is close to the entrance gates. In 2024, his son Patrick Cockburn published a biography Claud Cockburn and the Invention of Guerilla Journalism. He records Claud being educated at Oxford alongside his cousin Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene. After a career in sharp edged political journalism – he once described Lady Nancy Astor MP as “a vigorous if not very profound personality” – Claud settled in Ireland with Patricia.

Patrick recalls, “When it came to food and drink and general comfort, we lived well in Ireland, though our day to day way of life was closer to the first half of the 19th century than the second half of the 20th. Claud and Patricia had moved into our beautiful but dilapidated Georgian country house, called Brook Lodge, when they arrived from England in 1947 … the ancient town of Youghal was a mile away on the estuary of the Blackwater River on the coast of East Cork.”

Howley Hayes Cooney Architecture’s 2024 Conservation Report states, “Myrtle Grove is one of the oldest examples of an unfortified residence in the country, and is both a Recorded Monument and a Protected Structure. A similar house appears on one of the earliest surviving maps of Youghal, known as Pacata Hibernia, which is thought to represent the town around 1585 during the time of the Desmond Rebellions. Architectural merit lies in the pleasing Elizabethan style and aesthetic, and the interiors of the house are also relatively intact, with 16th century oak panelling and carved Elizabethan fireplaces throughout the first floor.”  There are 226 Protected Structures in the town.

It also states, “The history is equally rich, with possible ties to the neighbouring Church of St Mary and the former College, and previous residents such as Sir Walter Raleigh. Since it was constructed, the house has served continuously as a home to many generations. The combination of these various layers of significance, the great age and the rare Elizabethan interiors, probably make Myrtle Grove the most important middle sized house in Ireland, and arguably a place of international cultural significance.” Like Red House, it’s got wonderfully tall chimneys. In recent years, the Irish Georgian Society has contributed towards restoration of its historic windows.

The two storey plus attic Myrtle Grove and its two storey gatehouse can be glimpsed over the stone boundary walls of St Mary’s. Christopher describes what lies beyond and above the hillside graveyard, “The extent and shape of the enclosing walls is not traceable in the town today, but the sizeable stretch which remains at the back on the west side is worth a visit because there are not many Irish towns which still preserve a stretch of medieval walling, and because this reach includes one of the 13 defensive towers.”

Lasting impressions of Youghal are good: not least Mistletoe Castle. This romantically named extraordinary sight lies 1.2 kilometres south of the border of Counties Cork and Waterford and is the most northerly building within the town boundary. If the symmetry of Red House and the tower that is Tynte’s Castle and the crenellations of South Abbey National School and the pointed arched windows of St Mary’s Church were thrown into an architectural blender, Mistletoe Castle may well appear. It’s a skinny rich seven bay country house dating from the 1770s which was given its dramatic Dracula meets Rapunzel meets cardboard cutout Gothic Revival makeover six decades later. The road facing front jumps between two, three and five storeys to deliver a gigantic crenellated crenellation roofline.

Sam Maderson of Keystone Masonry based in Tallow, County Waterford, completed a four year apprenticeship at Weymouth School of Stonemasonry, now located in Poundbury, Dorset. He then won a year long scholarship with The Prince’s Foundation to study the restoration and conservation of historical buildings. His career working in stone began two decades ago restoring his family home, a historic coach house in Cappoquin, County Waterford. Sam and his team of masons worked on the recent restoration of the limestone and rendered Mistletoe Castle. Built as the summer residence of the Villiers-Stuarts of Dromana House in Cappoquin, County Waterford, it gleams even under a rain cloud which suddenly appears upon departure from Youghal.

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Blackpool Pleasure Beach + Boulevard Hotel Blackpool Lancashire

From Swerve of Bay to Bend of Shore

CEO of Boulevard Hotel, Amanda Thompson OBE, states, “Blackpool may not be the first place that springs to mind for the luxury traveller and that’s a perception we feel strongly about challenging. We believe Boulevard has addressed a gap in the market to attract luxury and business travellers to the Fylde Coast area where there is a plethora of things to do and see.”

This holiday resort in the northwest of England dates back to the 18th century when visitors started coming to bathe in the sea for medicinal purposes. Its boomtime really began in the Victorian era with the arrival of the railway – there are three stations in the town – and the opening of the Pleasure Beach in 1896 (with its Witching Waves and River Caves). Blackpool continues to evolve and Boulevard Hotel now brings elevated hospitality to the promenade.

The hotel is Amanda’s brainchild. She is also CEO of the adjacent Pleasure Beach which was founded by William Bean, her great grandfather. Allison Pike Architects designed the multi gabled five and two storey building which faces the shoreline to the west and the Pleasure Beach to the east. Use of natural stone on the exterior reflects the built heritage of the historic town. Blackpool is not short of adventurous skylines: further north is the 158 metre high Blackpool Tower (designed by Lancashire architects James Maxwell and Charles Tuke) which opened two years before the Pleasure Beach. Its first guidebook was naturally effusive: “The successful erection of the tower is in itself one of the greatest engineering feats of modern times.”

An 1897 guidebook Blackpool: The Unrivalled Seaside Resort for Health and Leisure claimed the town had 10,000 rooms when the static population was 43,000. The guidebook classified accommodation into three categories. “Hotels, hydros and boarding houses” offering inclusive rates for a room and meals. “Private apartments” for a room with meals cooked by a landlord or landlady using ingredients provided by the guests. “Company houses” for a room or bed in a room with the option to dine in at extra cost or out.

Two of Blackpool’s finest stone buildings are Sacred Heart Catholic Church near North Pier and Holy Trinity Anglican Church next to South Pier. Sacred Heart was built of dark stone in 1854 to the distinguished Decorated Gothic design of Edward Welby Pugin. Just 46 years later a large octagonal lantern with a pyramidal roof over the nave as well as a sanctuary (top lit by a pitched roof of stained glass) were added by architect Peter Paul Pugin, younger brother of Edward. Holy Trinity was built in the last quarter of the 19th century to the design of Richard Knill Freeman. It is constructed of yellow stone with red stone dressings. The church is an accomplished example of the Free Style of Decorated Gothic with a square tower forming a South Shore wayfinder. Both churches still have active congregations.

The names of bed and breakfasts lining the promenade between North and South Piers are a nostalgic throwback to British summers, conjuring up images of ice cream and sandcastles: Blue Waves; The Chimes on the Sea; Crystals on the Prom; Craig-y-Don; The Golden Cheval; Oakwell; On the Beach; 359 Roomz; Royal Ocean; Royal Windsor; Sea Princess; Skye Oceans; St Albans; Sunny Days; and Talk of the Coast.

Amanda’s vision for the interior of Boulevard Hotel is a contemporary take on Art Deco inspired by the 1930s architecture of Blackpool. There are 120 bedrooms including 18 suites. Mid 20th century art by Tom Purvis originally created for the Pleasure Beach is displayed throughout the hotel. Fabrics by Designers Guild, wallcoverings by Andrew Martin and lamps by Chelsom deliver quintessential Britishness. Details are carefully considered: the wavy hotel logo appears everywhere from waiting staff’s ties to tins of mints and stationery. It is the only hotel in the UK to have bath products by Balmain.

“We are the best hotel in the region,” confirms General Manager Klaus Spiekermann. He has worked in high end hotels all his career and recently won Best General Manager at the Luxury Hotel Awards. “Our function suite can accommodate a 240 person gala dinner. There are also three syndicate rooms. We cater for board meetings, conferences and weddings. Ballroom dancing competitions attract visitors from many countries including the US and China.”

Klaus continues, “The first and second floors have family accommodation including some rooms with bunkbeds. The third and fourth floors are adults only. Breakfast for the top storey suites guests is served in the first floor Ocean Club to give that exclusive vibe. Our Head Chef Andrew Derbyshire uses the highest quality produce such as Lanigan’s Seafood and Lancashire Cheese. There’s a 24 hour studio gym and guests have a VIP entrance to the Pleasure Beach. We are a one stop shop for the luxury lifestyle!”

The ground floor Beachside Restaurant lives up to its name with views over the Irish Sea – perfect for watching the candyfloss pink and honeycomb yellow sunsets. A square pillared covered entrance – the traditional porte cochère reinvented – overlooks the Pleasure Beach, revelling in the symbiosis of luxury and amusement. It’s not every top hotel has a rollercoaster roaring past its roofline.

Blackpool Pleasure Beach, just like its host town, is ever growing. A £8.72 million Gyro Swing will be the next addition, opening in 2026. This ride is a giant spinning pendulum swinging 120 degrees and reaching up to 42 metres in the sky. Amanda declares, “We’re thrilled to confirm the addition of the Gyro with work already underway. We’re known for doing things on a large scale so becoming home to the biggest of this type of ride in the UK makes complete sense. It’s dynamic, fast and incredibly high! We’re very excited for the future at Pleasure Beach Resort.”

In the meantime there are plenty of thrills. The Pleasure Beach has 13 shops (buy gifts or confectionary), 26 food and drink outlets (eat burgers and drink Champagne), 27 family rides (jump on a ghost train or enter a mechanical steeple chase), eight attractions (experience over 18s pure fear in Pasaje del Terror) and 11 thrill rides (buckle up for The Big One in all its 1.6 kilometre long 72 metre high 119 kilometres per hour rollercoasting glory). Designed by Ron Toomer of Arrow Dynamics, The Big One was the tallest rollercoaster in the world when it opened in 1994. The 96 year old Sir Hiram Maxim Captive Flying Machine is still the oldest continuous working amusement park ride in Europe. There’s even a Noah’s Ark dating back to the 1930s.

And thrilling architecture. “The Casino, finished in 1939, is the purest example in Blackpool of International Style Modernism,” Allan Brodie and Matthew Whitfield record in Blackpool’s Seaside Heritage (2014). “No corner of the park was untouched as Leonard Thompson gave Joseph Emberton total control of the redesign of the park with new buildings and rides constructed and older features remodelled.”

Joseph Emberton was the only British architect to have a building included in Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson’s groundbreaking 1932 New York exhibition The International Style. Opening one year before the exhibition, his Royal Corinthian Yacht Club in Burnham-on-Crouch, Essex, made the cut. Joseph’s Casino at the Pleasure Beach is a gigantic three storey white painted concrete drum with a 28 metre high external spiral staircase. This £300,000 building incorporated company offices and a penthouse for the Thompson family. The Casino is coastal Art Deco architecture at its finest. Move over Miami.

“Four generations of the Thompson family,” writes Vanessa Toulmin in Blackpool Pleasure Beach: More Than Just an Amusement Park (2011), “have willingly shared their ideas and experiences with other park owners, including Walt Disney in the 1950s, and have reaped the rewards by this being reciprocated. The Pleasure Beach has always strived to offer its visitors the biggest, the best, the scariest and the most innovative attractions and has brought pleasure to millions.” Early inspiration for the Pleasure Beach came from the 1887 Earls Court London Anglo American Exhibition and the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.

Amanda Thompson OBE concludes, “We opened Boulevard Hotel with the hope of introducing something rather unique to Blackpool: a truly luxurious hotel. Since then, we’ve won numerous awards including being named the current Best Luxury Hotel in Northern Europe for two years running. At Boulevard, luxury is defined by exceptional service and attention to detail. We pride ourselves on meticulously curating our guest experience which is complemented by exquisite accommodation, unexpectedly beautiful coastal vistas and delicious locally sourced gourmet cuisine.”

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Townhouse on the Green Hotel Dublin + Albert Noonan

Bird on the Wire

A note from the Front Office Team is in our nursery floor bedroom, “We would like to welcome you into our humble residence situated in the centre of Dublin. We hope you are going to enjoy your stay with us!” We quibble with the first sentence: it isn’t that humble. We comply with the second sentence: enjoying our stay to the max. Everybody knows St Stephen’s Green is Dublin’s joint best address (sharing that honour with Merrion Square). The south facing side is home to the prestigious Shelbourne Hotel, Kildare Street Club and Stephen’s Green Club. And now Townhouse on the Green, an intimate nine bedroom hotel with two restaurants. It’s an offshoot of The Fitzwilliam Hotel on the east facing side of St Stephen’s Green. There’s also The Fitzwilliam Hotel in Belfast next to the Grand Opera House. That’s not the only northern connection.

Number 22 St Stephen’s Green was built in 1790 by the son of a farmer from Strabane, County Tyrone. Thomas Lighton made his fortune in the East India Company and invested it in (garnet red) bricks and (moonstone grey) granite. He was High Sheriff of County Dublin in 1790 and for the following seven years sat in the Irish House of Commons as MP for Tuam. Thomas represented Carlingford in the Commons from 1798 to 1800. The three bay four storey over basement under attic home he built reflects his wealth and status. It is one of a pair likely designed by the architect David Weir. In 1885, a first floor trellis ironwork balcony was added to the design of McCurdy Mitchell. Rationalised windowpanes with external blind boxes are other rare survivals from this period. The postcard worthy doorcase is full bloom Georgian Dublin: an umbrella spoked fanlight radiates over a crinoline-wide door flanked by leaded margin lights. Number 23, now offices, fully retains its 18th century fenestration.

Elizabeth Bowen wrote the ultimate hotel guide, The Shelbourne, in 1951: “Gulls, in from the river, drift and plane on the air.” They still do in this coastal capital. “Given that Number 22 was constructed as the home for the very wealthy Thomas Lighton, it incorporates many decorative features including an ornately decorated barrel vaulted ceiling over a Portland stone cantilevered staircase,” highlights Albert Noonan, Partner at NoMo Architecture. This prestigious Baggot Street based practice was responsible for the interiors of the upper floors. “Many of the rooms have upscale elegant proportions with high ceilings and neoclassical plasterwork. Luckily a lot of these features have survived.”

He explains, “Quiet luxury is how we describe our approach. We’ve used the best of materials and fabrics layered in subtle tones to create rooms that are havens of tranquillity. Nothing in any bedroom shouts at you craving its 15 seconds of Instagram fame. These rooms are easy on the eye. They are serene and calm: transitional modern furniture seamlessly harmonises with the period building interiors. Each room has a deep pile green wool carpet, oyster coloured linen textured wallpaper and long curtains with golden ochre lining and moss coloured trimmings. The Monarch Chartreuse linen mix curtain fabric with its embroidered bees and butterflies draws inspiration from St Stephen’s Green and adds a touch of femininity to the building.” O’Gorman Joinery made bespoke dark stained bedheads with green granite bedside tabletops.

Each of the nine bedrooms has an ensuite bathroom wrapped in Calcutta Miele marble. A two man shower has curved corners decorated with emerald and bronze glass Sicis mosaics. A large classic white ceramic basin stands on nickel legs. “Given the building’s origins as a residence,” relates Albert, “we wanted to provide a distinctive homely feel of a well off friend’s house rather than a corporate hotel. To reinforce this impression, paintings, prints and objets d’art are curated for every room.” Bedside books on Morocco as well as Ireland in our bedroom are a reminder that no country is just an island.

Thursday night dinner is served in Floritz, the restaurant on the piano nobile. An Asian fusion menu takes its inspiration from Thomas Lighton’s adventures in India and the Far East. Suffolk based architecture and design practice Project Orange came up with the flamboyant interior. “I am going to make a Great Golden Grog for each of you,” announces our sommelier. “It is the most complicated cocktail in Dublin! Add full bodied daiquiri to carrot infused Bacardi, fresh lime juice, cardamom and pimento muscovado syrup, and then some magic!” No cars are required after dinner: Cellar 22 is below Floritz. This cosy wine and food bar was also designed by Project Orange and uses lots of natural earthy materials to reflect its original use as a kitchen. Tonight will be fine.

“Gay days at once ephemeral and immortal. They have a pulse of their own, and a golden mist round them which it is hard to capture in cold words – they should be lived, not written about,” scribes Elizabeth. Her words resonate so strongly with us on this sun saturated Friday after Sexagesima Sunday. We asked for signs, the signs were sent. A robin and her companions follow us on our morning walk passing through Merrion Square. Bird singing at the break of day. Hallelujah. A thousand kisses deep.

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Radio Bar + ME Hotel Aldwych London

Norman Architecture

Chilli squid tempura, king prawn tempura and white miso pavlova on the sun kissed roof terrace are the only way to mark the 12th anniversary of Radio Bar. It’s the last Monday before Passiontide but the working week has to start somewhere. In reverse Philip Larkin, the roof terrace is shaped to the comfort of the first to arrive. A joyous shot at how things really are, wide fallen long. At the eastern end of the terrace, the ornate gable of neighbouring Marconi House rises like a curling swirling treble clef carved of stone. Norman Shaw at his most expressive. The western end reaches a crescendo with Suite ME, a legibly lined bass clef in glass. ME Hotel is an architectural duet of contextuality and originality. Giving the musical metaphors a rest, it’s over to Norman Foster to discuss his composition:

“The triangular site of ME Hotel was once the home of the Gaiety Theatre which was damaged in World War II and then demolished to make way for a 1950s office development. Our scheme completes the grand sweep of early 20th century buildings, repairing the urban grain of this crescent. Everything from the shell of the building to bathroom fittings was designed by Foster and Partners. The restoration of Marconi House to accommodate 87 apartments seamlessly integrates with the construction of this 157 bedroom hotel. The hotel building corresponds in height, scale and material to its neighbour. Triangular oriel windows projecting from a Portland stone exterior capture a vista of The Strand while maintaining similar proportions to Marconi House’s fenestration. An elliptical corner tower defines the end point of Aldwych.”

Outdoors and indoors, everything is as monochromatic as a keyboard. The triangle is a complex instrument in the hands of Foster and Partners. Lesser talent would find a wedge shaped plan restrictive. Instead, one of London’s most exhilarating angular interiors forms the heart of the hotel. A tetrahedron ascends in ever decreasing triangles soaring 30 metres from the first floor reception lobby to a glazed apex. Architecture as captured light is taken to a new level. White marble lines the inside of the pyramid; corridors lean against the black marbled outer skin.

The glazed apex pops up as a petite pyramid in the middle of Radio Bar: a transparent splayed metronome. Distant views are of trophy towers, all with sobriquets in honour of their outlines, reaching for the sky in contrapuntal consonance. The Gherkin, Cheesegrater, Shard, Walkie Talkie … A joyous shot at how things really are, wide fallen high. Intermediate views are of the quad of Somerset House. Close views are of the glasshouses and skylights and chimneypots in the valleys between double pitched roofs, hidden from street level by parapets. There’s nothing new under the sun, but there’s plenty to wax lyrical about Radio Bar.

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Belvedere Restaurant + Holland House Holland Park London

Sequentia

It’s where Lord Byron lusted after Lady Caroline Lamb, Richard Sheridan wined, Charles Dickens dined, Noël Coward danced, Rosalind Cubitt (Queen Camilla’s mother) came out … before being blown to bits in the Blitz (the place not the people). Holland House and Park really are together an extraordinary survival of the fragments of a country house and estate in London. The remaining three storey wing of the house is now a youth hostel for debs on their uppers and beaus with backpacks. Various public uses fill remnants of the estate buildings. Holland Park Café is perfect for an alfresco breakfast in unseasonal sunshine of egg avocado roll then red velvet lamington.

The centuries old tradition of wining and dining continues at Belvedere. A restaurant since the 1950s, George Bukhov-Weinstein and Ilya Demichev (who own Wild Tavern in Chelsea) have relaunched it with great aplomb. Archer Humphryes’ design concept for the 2020s restoration and rejuvenation of Belvedere was inspired by an unearthed Inigo Jones sketch of the loggia. Architect David Archer explains, “The design creates an authentic interior which celebrates the original brickwork and elegant proportions of the arched arcade while creating atmospheric settings for diners. Fireplaces have been introduced on both levels and there is a two sided bar that wraps around the building’s colonnade. The restaurant becomes a summerhouse from spring onwards while in the winter months it is cosy and romantic.” The architects are no strangers to high end restaurant design. They drew up the dark and mysterious interior of Hakkasan, our favourite Chinese in London.

Tapestries have replaced the Damien Hirst and Andy Warhol artwork previously hung in the interior. Terracotta coloured walls complement the exposed brick while architectural details – especially those arches – are picked out in cream. Later accretions have been removed to let the bare bones of the building shine. Jigsaw windowpanes of intersecting hexagons and rectangles echo the timber herringbone speak. On the ground floor 60 covers are placed around an open kitchen. Upstairs is a private dining room of 20 covers. It’s always been a destination establishment, but under the new ownership, the restaurant is fresher and – to use the architects’ term – more romantic. Belvedere is perfect for a wintry indoors lunch of Apulian burrata, charcoal sweet pepper and Sicilian anchovy; vegan red lentil and coconut gnocchi; and tiramisu coated with hazelnut nibs.

It all began with the well endowed Sir Henry Rich who lived up to his name. Later known as the 1st Earl of Holland, he inherited 200 hectares from his father-in-law and decided to erect stables befitting his status and estate. The existing mansion, named Cope’s Castle after its builder Sir Walter Cope, had been started in 1605 and by 1614 had wings added by architect John Thorpe. Its strong Jacobean presence – bay windows, balustrades, Dutch gables, loggias and towers in red brick and white stone – remained intact (including being Italianised by the 4th Baron Holland) until World War II. The architecture was a stylistic forerunner, albeit a more refined version, of the Norfolk Royal residence of Sandringham House. Sir Henry splashed out £4,000 on new stables which would become a ballroom with a viewing gallery (then eventually Belvedere) and orangery in the Victorian era, joined to the house by a covered walkway. The surviving pieces of built form stretching 180 metres from Belvedere to the youth hostel resemble a stage set, an appropriate backdrop to Opera Holland Park held every summer.

The last private owners of the house and estate, the Ilchester family, sold up to London County Council in 1952. Their name lives on in Ilchester Place, London’s finest neo Georgian address where everyone lives up to Inigo Jones. This part of the estate was developed in 1928 for two and three storey townhouses and villas. An entry level house will set you back £20 million. Such is the price of possession and early enjoyment. Sir Henry Rich would approve. He would also be impressed by our lunch expenditure. Belvedere doesn’t do cheap: the rich eat cake and the not so rich drink the cheapest bottle of white (2022 Sensale Grillo from Sicily: £52). Alas Sir Henry didn’t get a happy ending – as a Royalist he lost his head in 1649.

In 1986, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea took over the remaining undeveloped 22.5 hectares of Holland Park, maintaining and enhancing the culture and horticulture. We enjoy preprandial and postprandial tours through its varied gardens. The remains of the 17th century Wilderness. The Pleasure Grounds designed by William Kent 100 years later. Green Walk planted by designer Charles Hamilton, also 18th century. Lady Holland’s 1805 Dahlia Garden. The 1876 Lime Walk replanted after the Great Storm of 1987. A 20th century arboretum. But it’s the latest addition which blows us away. The Kyoto Garden was a gift from Japan in 1991 to honour the friendship between Japan and Great Britain. In 2012, it was extended by the Fukushima Garden. Strutting among the stone lanterns, peacocks admire their reflection in the water feature. The richness of nature.

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Preston Manor + Preston Park Brighton East Sussex

Brighton Rocks

It’s East Sussex’s most haunted house! Absolutely riddled! Pure fear lurks within those walls! Preston Manor has reopened to visitors in 2025 after half a decade of closure when only the dead were present in the stately rooms. Hedley Swain, the CEO of Brighton and Hove Museums, confides, “The house is steeped in ghostly mystery with spinechilling hauntings and tales of eerie sightings and unexplained incidents.” There are now guided tours of the house and garden, taking in history and ghosts. A medieval nun named Sister Agnes, the White Lady and the Lady in Grey are just some of the departed who have returned. Hedley adds, “Preston Manor provides a unique opportunity to journey back in time to the grandeur of early 20th century aristocratic life, exploring the upstairs downstairs lives of the eminent Thomas-Stanford family.” The reopened house now has a tearoom serving traditional Edwardian cream tea.

The seaside city of Brighton is undeniably raucous but a mere five minute car drive inland takes one from the crazy coastline to the peaceful Preston Manor where all is leafily quiet: serenity prevails, tranquillity reigns, calmness rules, otherworldliness lingers. The house exudes more than a whiff of American Colonial architecture thanks to a generous splattering of green shutters and a liberal smattering of white verandahs. Mount Vernon-on-Sea. The area of Preston is now suburban Brighton’s answer to Belfast’s Malone, Bristol’s Clifton, Munich’s Schwabing.

Country Life covered the house in the 6 July 1935 edition just after it opened as a museum. The article rambles: “Preston Manor is the youngest in date and the most domestic of public museums. By the wish of the donors, the late Sir Charles Thomas-Stanford and his wife, their house at Brighton, with its fortuitous accumulation of household furniture and ornaments, is preserved very much as they left it, and at its opening in 1933 nothing was in the house except their possessions. It looks still a house that is lived in; most of the furniture is still in the same rooms as in the donors’ day, and even their little personal possessions, boxes and ornaments are either in their original places or preserved in cases in the actual rooms in which they were on view.”

The article includes 18 images of the gardens, the architecture and the interior. A further 15 were left unpublished: mainly photographs of individual items of furniture as well as a few alternative exterior views. The magazine goes into detail about the owners down through the centuries. “In 1925, Sir Charles Thomas-Stanford made provision that (subject to the respective life interests of himself and his wife) Preston Manor and four acres of the adjoining land should vest in the Corporation of Brighton in perpetuity, to be used for the purposes of a public museum and public park, the ‘house to be preserved as a building of historic interest to the public, and to be used exclusively as a museum … and as a reference library containing works relating to such subjects’.” Sir Charles and his wife died eight months apart in 1932.

The rendered exterior provides a visual coherence to a house that has organically grown. An 1818 sketch shows the five bay two storey over high basement entrance front with slightly lower flanking single bay wings, each with its separate hipped roof. Thomas Weston was the architect for the 1783 rebuilding of a 17th century house. About 1867 a porch faced with knapped flints in a distinctive geological nod to this East Sussex location was added to the south facing garden front. In 1905 Charles Stanley Peach (an architect better known for designing electricity generating stations) designed a two storey extension to the west end of the house (with the present dining room on its ground floor) and glazed verandahs in front of the wings on the north front. The verandahs have awning style copper roofs, a nod to Regency Brighton.

The drawing room is the grandest internal space with its coved ceiling and stucco ornament dating from the mid Georgian period. It has a later 18th century marble chimneypiece and timber pedimented door surrounds of 1923. Country Life records, “Little is known of the origin of the furniture in the house.” Masterpieces and bric-a-brac maketh the mansion. “In the entrance hall is collected walnut furniture, a bureau and cabinet veneered with oyster pieces and inlaid with circles. The fine early Georgian bookcase in the dining room holds a large collection of Dogs of Fo in Fukien ware, collected by Lady Thomas-Stanford.”

Little has changed of Preston Manor in the 90 years since it opened to the public. The ivy has gone and the entrance front render painted white. The two glazed panels in the entrance doors are now solid. That’s about it outside. Moving indoors: more Edwardian, less Georgian. More cluttered, less staged. Otherwise, it’s just a game of spot the difference. The interior is atmospherically charged: creaking sloping floorboards weighed down by history. Servants bells’ lining a basement corridor are labelled: Front Door; Front Door Steps; Back Door; Hall Right; Bedroom Number 5; Library; Dining Room; Stanford Sitting Room; Hall Left; Cleves Room; Bedroom Number 2; Bedroom Number 1; Bedroom Number 4; Drawing Room; Nurse’s Room. Ring-a-ling, ring-a-ling. Late at night, invisible hands pull the bells to beckon long deceased servants.

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Art Design People

Preston Rock Garden Brighton East Sussex +

Take Two

On either side of the busy Preston Road which connects the Victorian suburb to the Regency city are tranquil horticultural delights: Preston Manor Walled Garden and Preston Rock Garden, both now Council owned. The latter is much more recent. It was built in 1935 by Captain Bertie Hubbard MacLaren, Superintendent of Parks, on a one hectare wooded railway bank. The Captain was a landscape architect whose post World War I era efforts have established a lasting heritage for Brighton. He recognised the benefits to the populace of public parks and playgrounds. Suburban legend has it that the layout of Preston Rock Garden is based on the blue and white Willow China pattern. There’s certainly a chinoiserie look to the waterfall splashing over a rockery into a pool dotted with stepping stones set below a cottage orné.

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Art Design People

Design Museum London + Bethan Laura Wood

In Colour

It’s the inaugural show in a new and important annual display at the Design Museum called Platform. In another first, it’s British designer and artist Bethan Laura Wood’s debut solo presentation in a UK museum. After graduating from the Royal College of Art with an MA in Design Products and setting up her eponymous studio, Bethan qucikly gained a cult following and global reputation.

The exhibition is split into three sections: Desire, Adornment and Hyperreality. Desire focuses on Bethan’s fascination with how we connect with everyday objects, fusing collectability with usefulness. Adornment explores her use of ornamentation and pattern. Hyperreality is about natural versus humanmade: a Kaleidosopeorama carpet incorporates a graining appearance, a decorative technique used in the Regency era to imitate expensive hardwoods. The interior minimalism of the former Commonwealth Institute has never looked so colourful.

“I am really excited to be able to show in this beautiful space and to be able to give it a taster of the different kind of ways in which I interact with design in my practice. You’ll see in this show industrial works where we have things like the Rosenthal pieces I have done to one-off sculptural works. It’s a real honour to be able to show what I love to do and be able to share the nuance of some of the things that don’t always get seen when you are showing final pieces.” So says Bethan. A chair design for French company Tolix follows the shape of Elizabeth I’s bodice. There are even the design concept drawings for her collaboration with Perrier-Jouët at Masterpiece London Art Fair 2019.

Bethan reclines amidst one of her pieces, Terrazzo Quarry – a sort of psychedelic Giant’s Causeway. “I designed these soft interactive sculptures specially for this display,” she relates. “The three giant rock shapes with ‘super fake’ precious stones showcase the terrazzo pattern I created for the design company Poltronova. I love objects that tell a story, especially ones that connect very much to their time and place.” Immersed in her sculpture and wearing her own fashion design, Bethan is a living artwork.

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Maison François Restaurant St James’s London +

Baby Eats Shellfish

It’s a Saturday between Saturdays, the ordinary time of late winter, the hinge between the great Christian festivals of Christmas and Easter. Duke Street off Piccadilly is best known for aristocratic period art galleries like Moretti but more recent arrivals – if not quite breaking the mould – are stirring the mix. White Cube, a contemporary art gallery, suitably white and appropriately cuboid, opened in 2006 in Mason’s Yard which is tucked behind Duke Street.

Virginia Overton’s new body of work called Paintings is the current exhibition. It’s an exploration of the relationship between architecture, sculpture and painting. A series of low relief wall compositions is assembled from salvaged industrial materials gathered by the artist. Virginia’s reconstructions reflect both artistic legacy and functionalist origin in the space and shape of canvases. She employs line, form and colour to reinterpret Modernist sculptural traditions through the idea of painting. Plenty of food for thought then and then the thought of food. Across the street.

The Honourable François O’Neill was brought up on the 400 hectare country estate of Cleggan Lodge near Broughshane in County Antrim. The house was built as a shooting lodge for nearby Shane’s Castle, the seat of his grandfather’s cousin Raymond Lord O’Neill. On 8 October 1960 Woman’s Mirror ran a feature on the owner of Shane’s Castle. “Raymond Arthur Clanaboy O’Neill, for years one of Britain’s most eligible bachelors, has just about everything a girl could wish for. He is 4th Baron O’Neill, descendant of the Kings of Ireland. He loves parties, jazz and vintage cars, and likes his friends to call him Ray. He owns estates in Ireland and Leicestershire, and runs a garage in Belfast. How he has avoided the clutches of Mayfair’s husband hunting debs and their mothers is a mystery – and an achievement.” Three years later, Raymond would marry Georgina Scott, eldest daughter of Lord George Scott who in turn was the youngest son of John 7th Duke of Buccleuch.

Back to the younger O’Neill. François spent childhood summers with his mother Sylvie’s family on the Côte Sauvage. His father Hugh, 3rd Baron Rathcavan, ran Brasserie St Quentin in South Kensington for decades and when it closed in 2008, François opened Brompton Bar and Grill on the same site and kept that going for six years. New decade, new era, new location, new brasserie. Maison François on Duke Street is now celebrating its fifth birthday.

The host building is another one of the more recent insertions stitched into the historic urban fabric of St James’s. Upper floor reticence contrasts with lively street presence of planting, seating and awnings in front of picture windows. The double height interior is eclectically finished, from a Brutalist cement ceiling to latticed walnut screens inspired by the pews in Gottfried Böhm’s St Mariä Heimsuchung’s 1960s Modernist church in Impekoven. Designer John Whelan suggests, “The client wanted to reference traditional European brasseries but create a contemporary version.” Things are even more industrial chic down under: Frank’s, a basement wine bar, has white painted brick walls and a polished concrete floor. Catchpole and Rye bathrooms are a subtle Irish link.

Head Chef Matt Ryle’s comprehensive menu reflects its all day offering. Le Pain: five choices (with caviar and truffle supplements). Hors d’Oeuvres et Charcuterie: 10. Les Salades et Les Légumes: nine. Les Pâtes: three. Les Poissons et Les Viandes: eight. Fruits de Mer: six. Les desserts: 13. Les glaces: three. Les sorbets: three. La fromage: two. Lunch begins with life enhancing melted cheese canapés that look like tiny County Antrim haystacks. Anchovies, burrata, chilli, pain grillé à l’ail en Français is wonderfully crisp and garlicky. Cornichons are served as a side for everyone’s hors d’oeuvre. Matt was the first Head Chef at Isabel in Mayfair, an outpost of the boujee Buenos Aires restaurant which François helped launch, but Maison François provided the opportunity to make the menu truly his own.

After Philipponnat Champagne, it’s a swap of regions, heading northeast to Alsace for Domaine Heywang Riwerle 2023. Pumpkin, champagnes sauvages, truffe is a deconstruction of the fruit using line, form and colour to reinterpret Modernist sculptural traditions through the idea of dining. Next: the pudding trolley! A double drawered chariot of sweetness! A Wardian case on wheels! Lunch ends with an éclair menthe posing as the maquette of a snow topped Slemish Mountain. François takes the by now well tested template of the London brasserie – think Chris Corbin, Jeremy King, Richard Caring – and infuses it with Franco Northern Irish vivacity and verve.

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Clarance Hôtel Lille + Aurélie Vermesse

Fire in the Sunshine

It’s been a while since our last visit to France’s fourth largest city – Paris is ever so distracting – so we’ve dusted down our previous article and spruced it up. Of course we’re back to Aurélie Vermesse’s urban oasis and a return visit to Méert Chocolaterie. Nothing tastes as good as skinny truffles. We’re pleased to see Lille is still a little frayed round the edges. A touch crumbly. Shabby chic. What’s not to love again?

Sitting on the Nominations Committee of the 2018 World Boutique Hotel Awards was our excuse to stay in five star intimate luxury in Lille first time round. No excuse needed this time. Three blind arches on either side of a gated pedimented Corinthian pilastered archway line the pavement of Rue de la Barre in Quartier du Vieux. Beyond this most enigmatic of screen walls is a courtyard aproning the façade of a gorgeous nine bay three storey stuccoed mansion. It’s Relais and Châteaux; it’s really a château.

Clarance Hôtel started life in 1736 as the home of the Count and Countess of Hespel. Hotelier Aurélie relates, “It took me more than two years to set up La Clarance as a hotel, opening in April 2015. Today, I have 30 employees, a Michelin starred restaurant and a thriving bar! The Clarance is the result of a dream that was born during a weekend at Domaine Les Crayères in Reims, a Relais and Châteaux hotel. I quit my job to go back to school and then create the Clarance from scratch!”

Beauty and simplicity form the cornerstones of her hospitality. “Baudelaire’s poetry is at the heart of our contemporary artwork and room decoration,” Aurélie explains. “Art, gastronomy and kindness are essential to my life and, I hope, to yours too. I want to share the warmth and diversity of our cuisine and the products of our region. And the light of the north that bathes our house.”

Our coterie in this corner of the ancient capital of Flanders, we’re an outré beau monde, is at home among the soignée haute monde, overlapping social carousels in slow motion, floating through the airily graceful reception rooms. A row of French windows lighting the rear enfilade opens onto a gloriously private walled garden with the tower of St Catherine’s Church as a backdrop. Fruit trees and beehives surround a waterlilies pond that would give Claude Monet a run for his money. Clarance Hôtel is so chic.

By nightfall, turndown of our light and spacious bedroom includes a handwritten card: “There, all is order and beauty, luxury, peace and pleasure. I wish you a pleasant stay at Clarance. Aurélie.” And the all important skinny chocolate truffles on our pillow. Our room is called Le Voyage, complete with map of the world headboard. It’s one of just nine top floor rooms. The other second floor rooms are Allegorié; L’Albatros, Crépuscule du Soir, Hymne, Le Flacon, Le Jeu, La Musique and Clarance. They’re all numbered. What should be room 13 is luckily unnumbered: it’s the broom cupboard. First floor rooms include Le Cygne, La Géante, L’Horloge, L’Idéal and Le Rebelle. But no À Celle Qui Est Trop Gaie or Les Métamorphoses du Vampire. There are 27 guest bedrooms in total. An illustrated book of Charles Baudelaire’s poems placed in all the rooms is a clue to their nomenclature.

A segmental arched window set in the wide dormer of Le Voyage looks over the courtyard to a pleasing jumble of rooftops and chimneys. Directly below are seats perfect for enjoying a nightcap of Muscadet Côtes de Grandlieu 2015 from Loire Valley under the moon rapt in idle reverie. Seven years will dissolve into the thin evening air before we get to repeat the experience once again.

There were a lucky 13 categories in the 2018 World Boutique Hotel Awards: Beach or Coastal; City Explorer; Classic Elegance; Culinary Excellence; Family; Honeymoon Hideaway; Inspired Design; Newcomer; Relaxation Retreat; Romantic Retreat; Wellness Spa; Sustainability; Stunning Views. We considered nominating Clarance Hôtel for all of them. Ok, Beach or Coastal was pushing it. The pride of Lille deserves its own category: Unique Boutique.

Lille in those days was for us still a city of newness, a fount of unexpected treasures. But it’s alright to renew an acquaintance, to once more exhale the soft air of youth. We now know that Lille stands for all the things that are important in life – love, beauty, food and shopping. We have not come to tan or trade. Living is our art form. We’re captivated by it all. Encore une fois.

We’re back under the eaves and this time sleeping in Le Flacon. A similar window to Le Voyage frames a view of St Catherine’s Church. Intoxicating memories in kisses of fine linen await. But first there are visits to Méert and its neighbours Comtesse du Barry (for essential terrines) and El Market (for concept clothing). That’s shopping sorted. Love and beauty are all around and will increase in abundance as the day fades. Just food to go then.

“Fast or slow service?” asks our waitress. We’re lunching in the boiserie bedecked Michelin starred dining room. “Fast!” The Countess Hospice Museum is still to be done. There are three midday menus – L’Horloge, L’Idéal and L’Invitation au Voyage – each with varying numbers of course. L’Idéal lives up to its name. Canapés are followed by a foamy pumpkin amuse bouche. The starter is three fat and juicy St Jacques of Boulogne-sur-Mer pan fried scallops. Roasted small boat sole main course precedes steamed orange and saffron pudding. No French lunch is complete without petit fours. Isabel Ferrando’s Stella Ducit 2023 delivers a floral nose of acacia, a hearty citrus palate and a pleasant fennel finish. As our sommelier confirms. La vin des avants.

Aurélie has penned uplifting messages on the back of the menu: “Préserver les cuisines du monde”; “Partager la passion du beau et du bon”; and “Être acteurs d’un monde plus human”. This is final level food. Plus haut n’existe pas. Breakfast will be an ecstacy of eggs to see. Oeufs à la coque, au plat, brouillés, omelette nature or omelette garnie. We head back to nature. Toujours la haute monde. Polo necked fellow guests look so sophisticated. Le paradis, c’est les autres.

The Countess Hospice Museum was built as a hospital founded in 1237 in the grounds of Countess Jeanne de Flandre’s palace. Galleries and the chapel encircle a cobbled courtyard. It’s all rather wonderful. Hits of its hallowed halls include a tiled image of a man in need of a chamber pot as well as Old Master paintings of butch nuns, dying gentlemen, raucous markets and flying balloons by the likes of François Watteau and Wallerant Vaillant. It’s the chauffeur’s night off but that doesn’t matter. La Barre is Hôtel Clarance’s new bar on Rue de la Barre and is Lille’s coolest nightspot bar none. La fin de la journée.