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East Walls Hotel Chichester West Sussex + Civilisation

No Inelegance

A Waitrose opening used to be the sign a place is going places. Now it’s The Ivy. Chains like The Ivy (Grade II Listed Building) are architecturally elevated in Chichester: the building housing Pizza Express has two Palladian windows and four blind parapet windows. Zizzi has three blind windows under a pediment dated 1791. New Look is in old architecture – a neo Grecian temple. The city has plenty of independent restaurants as well. Jorge Kloppenburg recommends fine dining at Purchases on North Street or Piccolino on South Street.

The Barn restaurant on the corner of East Street and Little London has a notice on its flank wall: “All Goodwood produce can be traced every step of the way from field to fork. They are totally committed to the care of their livestock and to the preservation of the countryside. They use no pesticides of fertilisers at Goodwood Home Farm, ensuring that the wildlife, hedgerows and centuries old natural ecosystem is protected. Goodwood Home Farm is four miles from here and therefore as local as you can get. The farm is set at the heart of the 12,000 acres Sussex estate.” You guessed it: Goodwood Farm Shop is its number one supplier. A plaque on the façade of The Barn is dedicated to fabulous clientele including Lawrence Olivier and Elizabeth Taylor. There’s still plenty of fabulosity in Chichester.

Jorge should know about good food: he’s been cooking since age 12. After a successful international sustainable business career, three years ago he bought East Walls Hotel which he runs with his wife Anywhere Thompson. “We don’t call it a hotel it’s a home from home,” Jorge relates. “In Germany I trained in Chinese, Indian and Thai cooking at night classes. We personalise breakfast here. One New Yorker guest likes her scrambled egg made with cheese. After spending 2,000 nights in 30 years staying in hotels across Europe I recognise what I like and dislike.”

He reckons, “A nice bathroom and excellent breakfast are crucial – that’s what you need to start the day.” The bathroom products are Elysl. Bedding of course is also important. All the beds are fitted with Mitre Linen’s Savoy Collection. “Fresh flowers on the dining tables are a must. I would describe our cooking as bespoke international food.” On cue, delicious halibut and salmon (with the subtlest hint of spice) is served alongside fresh greens and Finger Post wine. “Everything is freshly made. You need 35 minutes for potato dauphinoise. Air frying not deep frying is much heathier. Our breakfast homemade bread is 50 percent brown 50 percent white – fluffy, not too heavy.  We buy food at the market two to three times a week.” The tomatoes and herbs were picked two metres away two minutes ago. Forget farm to fork. This is patio to plate.

There are chillis in the garden. “We have a 37 acre chilli farm in Zimbabwe near where I was brought up,” shares Anywhere. “It provides employment for locals and supports 50 children in education. We are in the process of buying another 37 acres. We are both very committed to our philanthropic endeavours. Education is so important whether you end up as a doctor or truck driver. We want to give others a chance in life to do well.”

East Walls Hotel gets its name from the turn of last millennium Roman city walls. Its Grade II Listing dating from 1950 states, “Suffolk House, 3 East Row. 18th century. Three storeys. Four windows wide. Red brick. Eaves bracket cornice. Sash windows in reveals in flat arches; glazing bars intact on ground and first floors; rubbed brick voussoirs. Doorway with Doric columns, pediment and semicircular fanlight. Six panel moulded door with four panels cut away and glazed; door in panelled reveals. Stone coat of arms over the doorway.” A blocked Gothick arch on the first landing and a blind rounded arch on the landing above hint at structural alterations down the centuries.

Anywhere explains, “We can’t keep up with demand! So we’ve bought 1 East Row, the house next door, to expand our guest accommodation.” Its Grade II Listing, also dating from 1950, states, “18th century. Two storeys and attic. Three windows and extension of one window on ground floor. Red brick. Brick stringcourse. Wooden cornice. One dormer. Sash windows in frames, those on ground floor with slightly curved headings; glazing bars intact. Doorway with Doric pilasters, pediment and semicircular fanlight. Six panel moulded door set in panelled reveals.”

There’s no escaping the influence of Goodwood. The hotel was once the townhouse of the country house estate owners the Dukes of Richmond. A chubby Duke’s face cast in plaster protrudes over a French door on the rear elevation. “We always have guests staying for Goodwood Festival of Speed,” says Anywhere. “And businesspeople from Rolls Royce – their plant is only two miles away and employs 1,700 people. Our repeat guests book now for next year.”

A black and white photograph of Goodwood Tourist Trophy 1959 hangs in the bar next to pictures of Aston Martins and prints of Sophia Loren and Elizabeth Taylor. “This is a men’s space,” Jorge suggests. “We’ve 75 whiskeys and 15 gins to choose from.” Burgundy chesterfield armchairs bolster the masculine ambience. The adjoining Art Deco style restaurant is more feminine. “The collection of teapots on display – Twenties, Thirties, Seventies, Nineties and 2000s – shows how time goes on.” This year is the centenary of Art Deco: the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes was held in Paris in 1925.

One of the many cultural highlights of Chichester is Pallant House Gallery, a Grade I Listed early Georgian house famous for its modern art collection. Here’s a random sample of delights. Frank Auerbach’s Reclining Head of Gerda Boehm (1982), a lesson in portraiture. Jean Metzinger’s L’Echaffaudage (1915), a diagonally determined dynamic scaffolding. Tracey Emin’s Roman Standard (1949), her first public art project. Standing tall in the courtyard, this cast iron variation of a Roman standard is topped by a small songbird rather than a triumphant eagle. Lucien Freud’s Portrait of a Girl (1949), a study of skin surface. John Piper’s Redland Park Congregational Church (1940), a rich hued and black lined depiction of the collision of the pastoral past with the brutal bomb wrecked present.

Five minutes away from East Walls Hotel – everything is five minutes away actually – lies Priory Park. This open space is a layering of history from medieval walls on Roman foundations to a Norman mote to the 13th century Guildhall, formerly the Chapel of the Franciscan Friary. The spire of the 11th century Chichester Cathedral can be seen from the second floor bedrooms and garden cottage suite. The cathedral and its precincts are a beautiful pocket of civilisation.

“We really believe in living in the hotel and doing the cooking ourselves,” confirms Anywhere. “That way the quality becomes how it should be.” She has a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Science and a Master’s in Medical Biotechnology both from the University of Portsmouth, now balancing a career as a clinical pathologist with co running a hotel. “All 12 of our rooms are different but they all have antique pieces and beautiful bathrooms. Work hard – it pays off.”

Chichester: England’s finest small city. East Walls Hotel: England’s finest small hotel.

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The Wellesleys + Stratfield Saye House Not Too Near Reading Hampshire

The Continuation of Humble Elegance

Henry James (1910), “You first discovered yourself in England, just as I first did myself.”

In the days before everything was organic, authentic and artisanal; when experience was lived by default; gaslighting involved illumination; ghosting had a supernatural connotation; deep dive involved water; extra referred to additionality; mankind included women; bad actors were thespians who weren’t good at their job; there was Caesar, Greek and Niçoise but no word salad; only trains were cancelled; and catfish was just an animal, hero projects were all about winning battles.

Let the poor eat carrot cake. Such a relief the architect Benjamin Dean Wyatt didn’t get to “out Blenheim Blenheim” with his dream of a palace of ceremonial pomp and circumstance. The 1st Duke of Wellington had a rather better idea after for the estate he bought in 1817, two years after his Battle of Waterloo victory. Keep the old house and add on a couple of bedrooms above the orangery wings. So in the end Benjamin only got to see his design for a porch realised – albeit a rather smart Greek Doric one. Ever inventive, in 1831 the Duke added secondary glazing, central heating and WCs to the existing house (the latter naturally lit by tiny single pane casement windows like the type you get in 20th century Berlin flats). Stratfield Saye House is large by most people’s standards but it’s not ducal in style or scale. Fit for a baron and all the better for it. Tate Britain has Tracey Emin’s installation My Bed. Stratfield Saye has the Great Duke of Wellington’s Campaign Bed.

Mark Girouard comments in Historic Houses of Britain (1984), “One can see why Wellington developed an affection for Stratfield Saye. It is certainly not a stately home but it has a great deal of character and charm. It was originally a long, low, red brick house, built in about 1650 by Sir William Pitt, James I’s comptroller, and decorated with the so called Flemish gables (with curved sides and pedimented tops) which were in fashion at the time. Two matching stable blocks front the house and give it a forecourt and a pleasant air of formality.”

An elephant used to mow the lawn. The stables are now apartments, an archives office and a museum to the 1st Duke. There are a few false windows on the entrance front. The external walls were once painted buff and the window surrounds green. And so they remain. Clocks chime indoors. Apollo magazines sit on chests in the Entrance Hall. That room is the volume of a five bay three storey house. Well stocked drinks trolleys are in the corridors. Country Life magazines sit on chests in the Library. When you’ve finished browsing the back issues there are 3,000 books to read. The silk wallcovering dates from 1953. A jib door in the Study with its Chippendale desk and replica of the chair on which the 1st Duke died in Walmer Castle in Kent leads through to a private suite of a bedroom and spa bathroom.

The centrepiece of the museum is the 1st Duke’s catafalque made of bronze cast from melted down French cannon captured at Waterloo. It was designed and constructed in just 18 days by the wonderfully named Department of Practical Arts. The height of the car was limited to 5.2 metres to pass under Temple Bar on its procession through central London. It was drawn by twelve black dray horses leaving Horse Guards at 9.25am on 18 November 1852 and arriving in the yard of St Paul’s Cathedral at noon.

The Illustrated London News reported at the time, “The eight cavalry bands, too, being in motion along the Mall, contributed their notes of measured grief. The ‘trumpet’s silver sound’ still discoursed Handel’s music, and the ear found a new beauty in every accidental combination by which the breeze or the distance imparted novelty to the effect. The soldiers having filed off, the Kings-at-Arms, in their gorgeous tabards, marshalled the mourning coaches in their due order of precedence.”

The 8th Duke inserted a swimming pool into the Orangery off the Library. Logs are piled up in the chimneypieces of the main rooms: the Wellesley family might call in at any moment. The wine box in the Dining room holds 250 bottles. The 7th Duke designed the Gold Room carpet which was made in 1946. Once the Housekeeper’s Room, the Breakfast Room is filled with 60 place china including arsenic blue Meisen. In Mrs Arbuthnot’s Bedroom upstairs there are two corner cabinets. One is a wardrobe, the other a WC. There’s a freestanding roll top bath in the bedroom. Someone has been using Ren shampoo. And reading Nancy Lancaster: Her Life, Work, Her Art (1996) by Robert Becker. The Print Room was created by the current Duke and Duchess using Boydell prints found in the attics.

John Cornforth writes about the 7th Duke in The Inspiraton of the Past (1985), “Lord Gerald Wellesley, one of the most interesting figures of his generation, who explained in his Collected Works (1970) that he had always wanted to be an architect, but his parents had considered it a hazardous and uncertain career for a younger son who had his own way to make; and it was only after World War I that he was able to fulfil his ambition. By nature a scholar and possessing a finely tuned, fastidious taste, he became involved in many projects relating to the improvement of the arts of design, public taste and later preservation, particularly of country houses, and through his friendships and his houses he had an influence on a considerable number of people. Indeed Mrs Lancaster says that he and Lady Juliet Duff were the people in England who understood the arrangement of furniture and works of art best.”

John continues, “Lord Gerald Wellesley was drawn to the Regency period both for aesthetic reasons and for personal ones too, because it was the period of his ancestor, the Great Duke of Wellington, but as an architect he was concerned with the present and the future, and it is interesting to see in his work and in a great deal of what Christopher Hussey wrote in the late 1920s and early 1930s that they were concerned with the future of classicism.” Gerald designed the tall cupola crowning the roofscape of Stratfield Saye.

The dashing moustachioed brunette Henry Valerian Wellesley wasn’t as fortunate as his famous ancestor, dying in battle aged 31. Born Earl of Mornington in 1912, he was styled Marquess of Douro between 1934 and 1941 before spending the last two years of his short life as the 6th Duke of Wellington. He was killed in action in World War II and is buried in Salerno close to where he died. His uncle Lord Gerald Wellesley would succeed him as the 7th Duke of Wellington.

In early Victorian times Chelsea was transmogrifying from a village into an area of London. St Luke’s Anglican Church celebrated its bicentenary last year. It was the brainchild of the Reverend Gerald Wellesley, the 1st Duke of Wellington’s brother, who held his office from 1805 to 1832. He conducted the marriage of Charles Dickens and Catherine Hogarth in 1836. The 1st Duke married Kitty Pakenham of Tullynally Castle, County Westmeath who attracted good, bad and ugly critique. Kitty’s rooms were in the northeast corner of the first floor of Stratfield Saye; the Duke’s, in the southwest corner of the ground floor.

Playwright Lady Elizabeth Yorke observed, “Her appearance, unfortunately, does not correspond with one’s notion of an ambassadress or the wife of a hero, but she succeeds uncommonly well in her part.” Novelist Maria Edgeworth commented, “After comparison with crowds of other beaux spirits, fine ladies and fashionable scramblers for notoriety, her graceful simplicity rises in our opinion, and we feel it with more conviction of its superiority. Philosopher Germaine de Staël thought Kitty was “adorable”. The Great Duke’s closest female friend Harriet Arbuthnot, who sounds like she had a vested interest, said Kitty was “a fool” and he had “repeatedly tried to live in a friendly manner with her but it was impossible and it drove him to seek that comfort and happiness abroad that was denied him at home”.

Kitty was a prolific letter writer. In a letter to Elizabeth Hume, daughter of the 1st Duke’s doctor, dated 22 August 1824, she mentions various animals including a canary called Crispino and her husband’s famous horse Copenhagen: “It was at Broadstairs that I was first called Viscountess Wellington. It was on a Sunday for the Gazette came out on a Saturday night. I recollect holding the plate at church on that day in my new character, for a charity sermon. I have nothing more to say dearest girl except that little Crispino is quit ewell, so is the emew and as for Copenhagen he trots after me eating bread out of my hand and wagging his tail like a little dog. Are you very good? What are you reading?”

The Heritage of Great Britain and Ireland edited by Melanie Bradley-Shaw and Jacqui Hawthorn (1992) records, “On each side of the house lie the Pleasure Grounds with may rare and interesting trees with a particularly fine group of Wellingtonias, named in honour of the Great Duke in 1853. In the Ice House Paddock lies the grave of Copenhagen, buried with full military honours after living out his days in retirement at Stratfield Saye, frequently ridden by his master and a multitude of children. The spreading Turkey Oak which shelters his grave grew from an acorn planted by Mrs Apostles, the Duke’s housekeeper.”

A 550 metre straight avenue leads from the gatelodges to the forecourt in front of the northwest facing entrance front of the house. The southeast elevation looks across a vast lawn stretching down to the River Loddon which acts as a haha. A rustic wooded Roman Temple built in 1846 to commemorate a visit by Queen Victoria is an eyecatcher in the North Pleasure Gardens. The South Pleasure Gardens stretch out in the direction of St Mary the Virgin Church and The Old Rectory. The Duke and Duchess-in-Waiting’s home, The Old Rectory is a highly attractive pale brick house with a late 18th century core. A lunette window over a Tuscan columned projection looks over formal gardens. The house was later twice extended so appears as three distinct phases of development. The Pheasantry Lodge is a larger than normal mid 19th century Italianate gatelodge marking the entrance to the St Mary’s and The Old Rectory. The Great Duke’s beautifully planted formal gardens are laid out on one side of the north avenue.

An Anglo Irish atmosphere somehow still permeates Stratfield Saye House – Curraghmore (County Waterford) meets Mount Stewart (County Down). The Wellington connection lives on in Ireland. Annadale Grammar School for boys opened in south Belfast in 1950. It was named after the childhood home of Anne, Countess of Mornington, mother of the Great Duke, which had once stood on the school site. The school adopted the Duke’s motto Virtus Fortunate Comes: Fortune Favours the Brave. The family connection became even more apparent when Annadale amalgamated with Carolan Grammar School for girls in 1990 and Wellington College was formed.

Henry James (1905), “These delicious old houses, in the long August days, in the south of England air, on the soil over which so much has passed and out of which so much has come, rose before me like a series of visions.”

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Kitty Fisher’s Restaurant + Shepherd Market Mayfair London

Generations Come and Generations Go

Last autumn we somehow found ourselves invited to lunches in the private dining rooms of London restaurants on a weekly basis. Nice work, and all that. Six Park Place, Green Park, was all about white truffle and parmesan risotto in an Art Deco setting. Skipping the steak at Smith and Wollensky off The Strand we went for the seared hand dived scallops in the Martin Brudzinski designed basement dining room. Upping the grandeur, we’d gnocchi, ajo blanco, kale, feta crumble and sunflower seeds in the top storey dining room of The Ned under the plasterwork ceiling with its central MB for Midland Bank. The first floor private dining room of 34 was the setting of our The Not The What invitation to enjoy wild mushroom risotto, pecorino and summer truffle surrounded by Tracey Emin paintings. Not a beige buffet in sight.

The What House Awards are the biggest gongs in the housebuilding industry. So far, so mainstream. Much more fun are The Not The What parties contemporaneously thrown across Mayfair. After Champagne fuelled lunches everyone crashes The Red Room bar of The Grosvenor House Hotel. That’s before rounding off the night in Mount Street’s pub The Audley. Mayfair and its environs are not short of high end restaurants: Coya, Hide and Sexy Fish for starters, main course and pudding. In contrast to those three temples to Bacchus, the eateries of Shepherd Market are positively low key – and petite.

Oliver Bradbury records in The Lost Mansions of Mayfair, 2008, “Shepherd Market, named after Edward Shepherd, was laid out on the Curzon family owned waste ground north of Piccadilly and near Hyde Park Corner.” It’s a stretch to call somewhere a few dozen metres away from Green Park off the beaten track but Shepherd Market lends that impression. The short walk down White Horse Street along the side of Cambridge House (shrouded in scaffolding for years – when will the Reuben Brothers’ conversion of the In and Out Club to a hotel be finished?) opens into another world.

Narrow streets radiating off a square are lined with an array of international brasseries. In between are a few high end shops like Simon Carter menswear. Fancy Lebanese? Head to Al Hambra. Channelling Francophilia? There’s L’Artiste Muscle or Ferdi. Le Boudin Blanc closed in 2022. You can enjoy French cheese at Shepherd Market Wine House or pasta at Misto. Go Turkish at Fez Mangal. Iran Restaurant is what it says. Feeling adventurous? Try L’Autre, the capital’s only Polish Mexican. Or Middle Eastern food at our school night regular Sofra.

On the square itself is Kitty Fisher’s offering the best of British fare. Architect Chris Dyson provides some background, “Our practice’s first restaurant project was at 10 Shepherd Market for Penelope and Michael Milburn. The building is located in the northeastern corner of the market square, tucked away between Piccadilly and Curzon Street in Mayfair. In the early part of last century, Shepherd Market was a fashionable address. The writer Michael Arlen rented rooms opposite The Grapes pub, possibly this building, and used Shepherd Market as the setting for his bestselling 1924 novel The Green Hat, later made into a film starring Greta Garbo.”

“The building is essentially 18th century with a rebuilt mid 19th century brick façade.” Chris continues, “The fenestration dates from this partial rebuilding and is surrounded by alternating bands of yellow and red brick. The ground floor shopfront retains two carved stone corbels to either side. There are six floors in total. The basement extends under the pavement with two sizeable brick vaults.”

Typical of Shepherd Market restaurants, the ground floor is narrow fronted and deep in plan creating an intimate atmosphere. Precipitous stairs lead from the restaurant and bar down past the kitchen, fully on display through internal windows, to the rest of the restaurant. Cast iron ovens are retained in the basement thick walls. Cooking these days comes from a wood grill. Kitty Fisher’s was the toast of town when it opened in 2014 – one of its owners is the brother-in-law of then Prime Minister David Cameron who frequented it with his wife Samantha. The Nigella Lawson era of celebs has waned allowing this restaurant to settle into being a thriving slightly in-the-know establishment. On a Friday, especially today, the weekend before Christmas, the 75 covers are turned twice for lunch and twice for dinner. We’re perched on stools at the window in Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks fashion.

This isn’t our first rodeo. Eight years ago, December 2016 to be precise, we dined on the same stools. We were surprised to get dinner without a reservation at the height of Kitty Fisher’s fame. Time to dig into the archives! Viognier Le Paradou 2015 (£30.00), dry with a hint of honeycomb. Whipped cod’s roe, bread and fennel butter (£7.50), Head Chef Tom Parry’s four fingered salute against mediocrity. A textural contrast of creaminess and crustiness. Taleggio, London honey, mustard and black truffle (£9.00), a bittersweet symphony of wood grill smokiness. There’s more. Burrata, beetroot and radicchio (£12.50), a colourful collage of purple and white. Cambridge burnt cream (£7.00) isn’t an undergrad’s baking error but a Cointreau and cinnamon crème brûlée smoothly nestling under a crackly golden lid. These plates are too good for sharing. We observed that currency signs had vanished from fashionable menus as swiftly as pounds disappeared from the wallets of the original Kitty Fisher’s gentlemen callers.

The sharing plates menu has been replaced with a more traditionally laid out version of three courses plus sides. Still currency free. Tom Fairbank is now Head Chef. We stick to Viognier, crisp with floral notes Pays d’Oc Moulin de Gassac 2023 (£34.00). Mountain Bay sardines, Oyster Leaf mayonnaise and pickled green tomatoes (£17), latitudinal extremities. Scottish girolles, lentils and walnut (£30), vegetarian wholesomeness. Chocolate ganache, salted caramel ice cream and honeycomb (£12), sweet and smoky. The boudoir like theme has stayed the same: brown and purple walls, red lampshades, jazz music.

So who was Kitty Fisher? England’s original It Girl, no less. “Without a doubt, Kitty received a good education. She was witty and always known as a good conversationalist,” suggests Joanne Major in Kitty Fisher The First Female Celebrity, 2022. This background – and her natural prettiness – helped her climb up the social ladder with surprising ease. Fame collied with infamy in Kitty’s case due to her high profile affairs and liaisons. “Gossip about her antics reached the drawing rooms, coffeehouses and taverns of every town in the land,” writes Joanne.

In the 18th century painters were the paparazzi. After Sir Joshua Reynolds finished his first likeness, Joanne concludes, “In no time at all, at least four engravers had copied the portrait and Kitty’s likeness was to be had at every print shop in the country.” She lived for a while in Carrington Street to the immediate south of Shepherd Market. Towards the end of her short yet brilliance existence, Kitty found true love and married John Norris MP, Captain of Deal Castle. She died of smallpox aged 26 while visiting Bath. Shepherd Market would continue to have a racy reputation for ladies of the night right up to the mid 20th century.

We’re still up for private dining room lunches but, like Paris, we’ll always have Kitty Fisher’s. And we’ll aim to be back before another eight years have gone.

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The Gunton Arms Thorpe Market + West Runton Beach Norfolk

Why Bee Aye Ate Al

It’s so exclusive there’s a two month waiting list for a weekend meal and a six month wait for a bedroom. There’s a no vehicle policy – a green path crosses 400 hectares of rolling parkland to the front porch (the car park is hidden behind a copse). It has one of the finest private collections of contemporary art in Britain. The ground floor rooms are decorated by England’s best known restaurant designer. The owner is married to an American supermodel. Welcome to The Gunton Arms. Cheers!

The story starts in 1982 when property developer Kit Martin, businessman Charles Harbord-Hamond and art dealer Ivor Braka purchased the Gunton Park Estate and restored the buildings and land. The main house, Charles’s family home, was carved into several properties. Kit’s father Sir Leslie Martin ran the Department of Architecture at the University of Cambridge along with Sir Colin St John “Sandy” Wilson in the Modernist mid 20th century.

The Gunton Arms, a long low two storey building faced with grey stone and decorated with fretwork gables, was originally Steward’s Farm, a shooting lodge attached to Gunton Hall. In 2011, Ivor launched The Gunton Arms, a pub with 16 bedrooms, in the Victorian building and the rest is history. Or at least a new chapter of history.

Jonathan Meades writes in The Plagiarist in the Kitchen (2017), “Nothing needs reinterpreting. Nothing needs a ‘twist’. The wheel has already been invented. The best a cook can do is improve on what’s there – that usually means stripping out redundant ingredients. It means going back to the very foundations, of starting from zero in order to reach a point that has been reached many times before.” The menu at this pub takes a leaf out of Jonathan’s book. There may be dishes like Portwood asparagus and feta salad with shallot dressing on the menu but traditional pub grub like cod fishfingers with chips and mushy peas also makes an appearance.

Knightsbridge based Ivor explains, “I’m closely involved but not every day. Luckily I took the advice of Mark Hix, former Head Chef of Le Caprice, J Sheekey and The Ivy among others. Mark effectively gave me his Head Chef Stuart Tattersall and Simone, Stuart’s partner, to take on my first pub. They’d wanted to start their own pub in the country but decided under Mark’s encouragement to join me.” Steaks are cooked on an open fire. St Véran burgundy tops the wine list.

Who better to do an impromptu tour of the pub artwork than the owner himself? His story. “What is common to all of the pieces is that they are made by people who have a passionate commitment to what they create. They are not for decoration only to just be easy on the eye; they are to stimulate, to provoke thought and to evoke emotion.” The list of artists reads like a guide to 20th and 21st century art from figuration to abstraction: Frank Auerbach, David Bailey, Tom of Finland, Lucian Freud, Gilbert and George, Damien Hirst.

But Ivor doesn’t neglect local and historic connections either: “At high level over the wood panelling in the entrance hall there are photographs relating to the history of Gunton, Gunton Hall and especially the Suffield family and its connection with the Royal Family and Lillie Langtry, the actress and mistress of the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII. Langtry was the most celebrated beauty of her day. Whilst the Prince of Wales was staying at Gunton Hall she stayed at the shooting lodge to be close to him.” The current Prince of Wales frequents the pub. History repeating itself. “To one side of the front door is a work by Hans Peter Feldmann, an artist who specialises in adding the unexpected to old paintings he has found in antique shops. Here, he has given a formally posed 19th century lady a black eye, a clear reference to domestic violence. It’s a picture that’s comic but with obvious serious intent.” History, updated.

The Elk Room is the main bar and restaurant. Ivor says, “This room is dominated by the massive fossilised skull of a Giant Irish Elk, the largest deer that ever lived. It was found in a peat bog in Ireland and is over 10,000 years old. I bought it at an auction in Ireland and it was formerly in Adare Manor, a Gothic house designed by Pugin for the Earl of Dunraven.” Like several major Irish country houses, such as Carton in County Kildare, Adare Manor in County Limerick is now a five star hotel resort.

“In the corner of the room are a series of lithographs depicting alcoholic women and their children by Paula Rego. Born in Portugal but working all her life in England, Rego is regarded as one of Britain’s most distinguished artists. Her work has a dark humour and complexity of purpose redolent of the tragicomic vision of Goya or Cervantes. These lithographs are the result of a request from a wine producer to design memorable labels for their product. Rego responded by letting her imagination run riot with this series focusing on lonely women with babies desperately turning to drink.” The company never did use them. Too memorable.

The Elk Room flows into The Emin Room. “Addiction is again a running theme in this interior: the addiction to love and emotional need which comes over strongly in Tracey Emin’s three neon works Trust Me, I Said Don’t Practice On Me, and Everything for Love,” Ivor relates. “All these works directly convey a need for sincerity, for total emotional commitment and a huge fear of the possibility of the lack of it. The neons are executed in the artist’s elegantly distinctive forward sloping handwriting. To me, Tracey Emin, with her total dedication to her work and her directness, is one of the most impressive artists working today.” Martin Brudnizki designed the downstairs rooms; Robert Kime, the upstairs.

Racy humour is all around. Falling Leaves by Jonathan Yeo, famous for his red portrait of Charles III, is actually a collage of cutouts from porn magazines. Ivor jokes it’s “clitorati”. As a male appendage counterpart, a metal doorknob drops the K. There’s a chromatically vivid image by British photographer Miles Aldridge of the Buffalo New York born supermodel Kristen McMenamy. She rose to success in the 1990s with her ethereal alternate beauty. Kristen is a Donatella Versace favourite and friend of Linda Evangelista.

Yet there’s also serious commentary. He finishes, “Kitaj constantly involves his Jewishness in his art and this small portrait derives from a famous photograph of Hitler’s admirer and Nazi sympathiser Unity Mitford. Kitaj is deliberately implicating the English upper classes with antisemitism and an admiration for the German fascist regime.” History must not repeat itself.

“I will defend the fashion world to the end because I know it personally,” opines Kristen, who is Ivor’s wife. “From the outside it might look like a vanity project of marketing and capitalism. But from the inside it’s a lot of great people. I don’t think I was specially phenomenal looking – because I wasn’t. I had to work a little bit harder than the others. You look at some girls and they’re just so incredibly beautiful. But some of those beautiful girls don’t last because they don’t have something, that magic. I would say with the top girls you gotta have something more than just the way you look.”

The following morning, a stroll along the windswept West Runton Beach, which as the crow flies is about as close to Amsterdam as London, waves splashing “barely suggestive of the violence of the deep” (James Baldwin, Another Country, 1963), is like being immersed in an Edward Seago watercolour. Now that’s another artist whose work should be hung at The Gunton Arms. Just saying.

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Hôtel George Washington + Le Petit George Restaurant Paris

French Connections

The Francophile Charles Dickens would still recognise the Golden Triangle of Paris. Dickens on France edited by John Edmondson in 2007, “Dickens first saw Paris in July 1844, when he and his family were travelling through France on their way to Italy. He was instantly enthralled: ‘I cannot tell you what an immense impression Paris made upon me. It is the most extraordinary place in the world. I was not prepare for, and really could not have believed in, its perfectly distinct and separate character.’ This first, fleeting visit marked the beginning of a friendship with the city that would last for the rest of his life.”

To quote Joseph Roth in The White Cities: Reports from France 1925 to 1939, “Over the rooftops of Paris there is a smiling baby colossus of rude health.” A baguette’s throw from Champs-Élysées and a croissant’s toss from l’Arc de Triomphe lies Hôtel George Washington, one of two independent boutique Parisian hotels (the other is Hôtel Chateaubriand) owned by second generation hoteliers and siblings Romain Rio and Méryll Collette. Assistant General Manager, Camay Tan, explains, “The Rio family are personally involved in both the decoration and day to day operations. It’s a unique ‘guest home’. All 20 guest rooms are individually decorated: every single detail was created and specially made. Hôtel George Washington is both classical French and contemporary.”

A love of interior design is clear from the custard colour and navy trimmed reception hall to the 27 meter high seascape mural painted on gold leaf seen from the elevator behind a glass panel to the Marmara marbled bathroom filled with The Ritual of Ayurveda products. “There’s a focus on really good materials,” says Camay. There’s also a focus on individuality: domed objets d’art; Grecian urns; sculpted shirt collars; Indian feathers. In the duck egg blue reception rear reception area opening onto an intimate courtyard are bookshelves with hours of distraction. Titles include ‘American Fashion’, ‘La Lumière de Londres, ‘Putman Style’, ‘Le Style Hitchcock’. Joseph Roth springs to mind again: “… it’s so well appointed that it almost corresponds to my notion of a seventh heaven.”

In Francis Scott Fitzgerald’s short story The Camel’s Back character Perry exclaims, “Take me upstairs. If that cork sees my heart it’ll fall out from pure mortification.” Channelling your inner Perry, close your eyes and dream of the ideal Parisian hotel bedroom. And open your eyes in the fourth floor bedroom of Hôtel George Washington. As you gaze through the pair of French doors clasping Juliet balconies and a trombonist serenades you from the street below (no, not artistic licence, this is Paris), it’s clear some dreams come true. There’s an elephant in the room. Or at least one over the bed. And a herd in the Ralph Lauren wallpaper. “It’s so unique, that’s one of my favourite bedrooms,” Camay confides. “Our bedrooms are very large for Paris. They all have double beds with a bath and rain shower in the en suite bathrooms.”

“We are in the business area of the Golden Triangle of Paris,” she confirms, that iconic 8th Arrondisement. “Do you know how the Arrondisements are numbered? They are ordered like an escargot, the numbers swirling around in decreasing concentric circles. We kept the façade of Hôtel George Washington and refurbished everything else behind. At Hôtel Chateaubriand we were able to keep the original form inside. Hôtel George Washington is a Haussmann townhouse with a ‘noble’ second floor which has a balcony. Our service is very personal – our team have been with us a long time. Our clients are a very good mix of leisure and business travellers.”

The Rios also own Le Petit George a few doors up on Rue Washington. Quirky neon lettering on the awning reads “Sincère et Malicieux”. Has Tracey Emin been en ville? We have an aperitif: “Champagne is an integral part of French culture!” Camay relates, “Monsieur Rio’s inspiration for this restaurant was the same expression of luxury as the hotels, from opulent linen tablecloths to silver cutlery, bringing back attention to detail. We wanted to change part of French dining culture and bridge the gap between bistro and gastronomy: ‘bistronomy’. It’s a unique dining experience.” The all-female run establishment is a hit with lawyers and bankers midweek and well informed travellers at the weekend. “We attract a really good lunch crowd and are busy Monday to Friday. Lisa l’des Forges is Chef and Melisande Malle is Sommelier and Manager.

The décor is an essay in understated elegance in a language only the French can compose. A marble and brass bar stretches along one party wall and the kitchen to the rear is only visible through a small serving hatch. There are no pictures on the walls: we are the living art in this space. “There’s a Chef’s Table in the basement for 10 people,” leads Camay. Joseph Roth once more, “Paradise is downstairs, in a basement. But it’s so well appointed that it almost corresponds to my notion of a seventh heaven.”

There’s plenty for seafood lovers on this evening’s menu. Anchovies for hors d’oeuvre (Anchois de Cantabria); caviar for entrée (St Jacques de Bretagne à cru, purée de choux fleurs, caviar de hareng fumé); and octopus for plat (Poulpe grille, joue de porcelet, haricots); accompanied by an aromatic Domaine de l’Enclos 2018 Chablis by Romain et Damien Bouchard. “We have a passion for natural wine produced without sulphite,” Melisande shares. “We’ve all the classics and also like to educate with new wines. It’s a very elaborate wine list!” No food fatigue here: “Lisa changes the menu three times a week,” confirms Camay. “They are dancing in the streets of Paris,” reported Joseph Roth. That’ll be us; we’re in rude health.

Charles Dickens witnessed at first hand the dramatic transformation of Paris. Dickens on France edited by John Edmondson 2007, “It was transformed, under the aegis of Napoléon III, by Georges Haussmann, Préfet de la Seine from 1853 to 1870. Haussmann had many of the old streets in central Paris demolished to make way for a system of long elegant boulevards that brought structural unity to the city… Dickens witnessed the progress of this Haussmannisation at first hand. He told W H Wills in a letter of October 1862 that a group of theatres on the Boulevard du Temple ‘that used to be so characteristic’ had been demolished ‘and preparations for some amazing new streets are in rapid progress.’”

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Architecture People Restaurants Town Houses

Deal Town Kent + Lady Dalziel Douglas

The Importance of Being

Deal Town Kent Beach © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

It’s not every coastal town that has a restaurant run by a descendent of the lover of the greatest wit of the 19th century. But Deal in Kent isn’t just another coastal town. It’s chockablock with listed buildings without being chocolate box boring. The upwardly mobile relaunch of The Rose (firmly prefixing gastro to pub) complete with Tracey Emin prints hanging on the walls is simply the latest proof in the pudding (St Émilion chocolate torte tonight) of Deal’s rising status as Battersea-on-Sea. Roast Jerusalem artichokes with shallots and hazelnut dressing provide more memorable menu moments.

Deal Coastline Kent © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Deal Town Kent Boats © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Deal Town Kent Sunrise © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Deal Town Kent Pier © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Deal Castle Kent © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Deal Town Kent Esplanade © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Deal Town Kent House © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Deal Town Kent Houses © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Deal Town Kent Townhouse © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

The Rose Pub Interior Deal Town Kent © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

The Black Douglas Deal Town Kent © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

The Black Douglas Deal Town Kent Family Portraits © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

The Black Douglas Deal Town Kent Family Photo © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

On a rainswept late Friday evening, The Black Douglas along Deal’s esplanade is an atmospheric hive of joyful activity. “My name’s pronounced ‘DL’,” says owner Lady Dalziel Douglas. There are a few visual giveaways. One is the sepia soaked photographs of distinguished aristos in court dress – lots of ermine on display. Another couple of clues are Dalziel’s cheekbones to slice Manchego with and her piercing blue eyes. She is of course the great great niece of Lord Alfred Douglas, the dashing poet better known as ‘Bosie’, Oscar Wilde’s amour. “My great great great uncle, the 9th Marquess of Queensberry, invented the Queensberry Rules of Boxing!” smiles Dalziel, pointing to one of the photographs. The Douglas clan motto is Jamais Arrière which means ‘Never Behind’. True to form, Dalziel confirms, “We were one of the first places to open in Deal of this nature. We’ve been here for 14 years and it’s given other people confidence to open up similar businesses.”

The Black Douglas Deal Town Kent Family Portrait @ Lavender's Blue

Just as The Rose and The Black Douglas have weekend dinners down to a tea tee, Deal Pier Kitchen upholds the great British breakfast tradition with a twist or rather lots of vegan twists. Eating the first meal of Saturday to the rhythm and splash of lapping waves is a must. Suspended over the sea at the end of a 1950s concrete pier, the café is in a timber and glass pavilion designed by Níall McLaughlin in 2008. The architect has continued Deal’s centuries old dedication to romantic maritime architecture.

Dalziel Douglas The Black Douglas Deal Town Kent © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

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Architecture Art Hotels Luxury

Hotel nhow Berlin + David Bowie  

Right Here Right nhow | Take Two

Hotel nhow Berlin © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Hard edged dockside architecture meets playful futuristic design. Nowhere is the status of a city and its wellbeing better reflected in its music than Berlin. The two are intertwined. Think the Weimar Republic and its jazz cafés. Of course the legend of a libertarian culture destroyed by fascism was propagated by the film Cabaret. Fast forward a century and post war Berlin’s inherent appeal was again its openness. It was an anomaly, an oasis of extremity created by the Cold War. Here, anything could happen.

David Bowie arrived in Berlin towards the end of the 70s. He became immersed in the German music of the period. It was saturated in absence, loss and distance. Bands such as Kraftwerk influenced his craft, his work. Bowie’s piece V 2 Schneider reverberates to the rhythm of an S Bahn train. He recorded two thirds of his Berlin Trilogy – Low and Heroes but not Lodger – at the city’s legendary Hansa Studios. As the curtain fell on communism and the 20th century, techno music would emerge, climaxing with the euphoric blaze that was Love Parade.

Which brings us to right here right now. nhow Berlin is iridescently present, a tangible addition to the waterscape, a representation of contemporary immediacy. Its roots materialise from the city’s relationship with music – more anon. With the hotel’s opening, a new layer of meaning is added to the decadence and disharmony of the not so distant past.

Positioned along the River Spree, the old line between the East and West, nhow Berlin is a fusion of Sergei Tchoban’s architecture and Karim Rashid’s design. Russian born Sergei’s creation is a cubist arrangement of boxes piled high, the top one perilously cantilevering over the others by a gravity defying 10 metres. The underside is clad in reflective steel. Sergei says he is seeking to “convey the image of a ‘crane house’”. Other planes are covered by an aluminium or brick skin punctured by square windows. It’s all about clean lines, perpendicular angles and understated colourways. Enter the tinted glass doors – white outside; pink inside – and a whole new world unfolds.

New Yorker Karim’s interiors celebrate the German capital’s zeitgeist. He employs a progressive language to describe his oeuvre. The terms ‘infostethic’, ‘blobject’ and ‘technorganic’ are given three dimensional form. Karim says, “My vision engages technology, visuals, textures, colours, as well as all the needs that are intrinsic to living in a simpler less cluttered but more sensual environment.” Strata of irregular lines, asymmetric shapes and psychedelic patterns constantly redefine the hotel experience. Here, anything can happen.

Take the reception desk. It’s a pink amorphous sculpture with inset lighting. Beyond lies an expanse of white space stretching to a glazed wall overlooking the river. A giant continuous profile of Mussolini made of gold lacquered fibreglass hovers over the bar. Piped music radiates across the ground floor by day; live gigs rock it by night. Art or seating? The luminous voluptuous organic and ergonomic sofas are both. The restaurant is segregated from the bar by sheer curtains lined with a radio wave digipop pattern.

The hot pink rooms of the East Tower take their cue from sunrise. Sky blue dominates the rooms of the West Tower. The rooms of the 10 storey Upper Tower are calming grey to counteract the vertigo inducing views. Televisions double as radio wave shaped mirrors. Floors are acoustic friendly laminate painted with the digipop pattern. Guests can rent a keyboard or guitar in their room.

Two recording studios on the eighth floor of the Upper Tower are run by the co directors of the Hansa Studios. An adjacent music lounge is equipped with the latest multimedia technology – and a pink jukebox. The lounge, conference rooms and even the roof terrace are all directly wired to the studios. This allows for impromptu recordings.

nhow Hotel is in Osthafen, a destination of the new Berlin. It’s between the offices of MTV and Universal Music. Yet history is on its doorstep. Fragments of the Berlin Wall are a stone’s throw away. David Bowie could easily have been gazing out over the dizzying panorama from the music lounge when he penned Thru These Architect’s Eyes, “All majesty of a city landscape | All the soaring days in our lives”. Back in London, a few years ago David Bowie called in with Tracey Emin to Christ Church Spitalfields. He was there to see the Richard Bridge Organ, once played by Handel. Bowie voiced the desire to play the organ once it had been restored. The Richard Bridge Organ was restored in 2015. David Bowie died in 2016. Here, anything may happen.

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Architects Architecture Art Design People Restaurants

Reverend Andy Rider + Christ Church Spitalfields Crypt London

Cool Lud | Kingdom Come

Christ Church Spitalfields Spire © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

“And your Church in the Spittle-Fields, is it near complete?” Hawksmoor by Peter Ackroyd. “Carl Lentz of Hillsong in New York City, Phil Williams of East London’s Christ Church Spitalfields, Reverend Sally Hitchiner, Senior Chaplain at Brunel University… a raft of hip young Christians is credited with breathing new life into the church,” read Vogue as edited by Kate Moss. The model had been to Christ Church Spitalfields – not for a service but for an Alexander McQueen fashion event (the church building must earn its earthly keep to serve its heavenly purpose).

Christ Church Spitalfields Serlian Window © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Turns out Kate was particularly interested in the historical plaques of this 18th century marvel. Church really shouldn’t be about people watching but at candlelit Christmas Eve Midnight Mass there’s a good chance you may be singing carols next to Vivienne Westwood or Bianca Jagger. Or one or two of the newsworthy neighbours on Fournier Street be it Tracey Emin, Jeanette Winterston or Gilbert + George. An Evening Standard spread of Phil Williams and his fellow Anglican Pastor Darren Wolf as bearded and tattooed Christian poster boys of our time has only widened Christ Church’s appeal.

Christ Church Spitalfields Finial © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

It’s hard to believe that not much more than a decade ago Christ Church lay derelict, the congregation meeting round the corner in Hanbury Hall (where Charles Dickens once performed readings). The timely arrival of Reverend Andy Rider in autumn 2003 more or less coincided with the restoration of the church. At least from ground upwards. Christ Church the building was reborn. Then came the congregations. Plural. Now there’s an 8.30am Book of Common Prayer service for early risers (everyone heads to Spitalfields Market for breakfast afterwards), two hours later a family service, a Bengali service at 4pm and The Five for late risers. “It’s used a bit like a cathedral,” Andy observes.

Rector of Christ Church Spitalfields Reverend Andy Rider © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

The services become livelier, younger and better attended as Sunday progresses, culminating in a congregation of several hundred mainly 20 to 30 somethings by the evening. A lunchtime service for city workers is held every Tuesday. Diverse in worship and worshippers yes, but there’s a common thread: theologically sound, intelligent, life changing sermons. One service it might be Andy on “A Joyride through Philippians”. The next, Darren on “The Holy Spirit of Promise” (Ephesians) or Antje a German born lay preacher on “Sent to Make the Deaf Here” (Mark) or Pieter-bas a Dutch born lay preacher on “Sent to Change Hearts” (more Mark). In between Sunday afternoon services, the nave is open to the public. Described in the Evening Standard as “the best building in London”; breathlessly praised by historian Harry Goodhart-Rendel “it remains doubtful whether of its date and kind there is any finer church in Europe”; and haled by all as Hawksmoor’s masterpiece, it’s unsurprising this horizon piercing Grade I landmark is an international visitor attraction.

Architects Alun Jones + Biba Dow © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Christ Church has only taken three centuries to complete (usual build period of a contemporary London development rarely tops 24 months). Wren’s student Hawksmoor laid the cornerstone in 1714 but the builders focused on completing the above ground work. Below, throughout the passage of time the crypt remained a sculpted unfinished shell, a ribbed skeleton in need of fleshing out and dressing up. The guardianship of Reverend Rider and his accompanying holystic vision changed all that. Meanwhile, above the crypt, Europe’s finest baroque organ (once played by Handel) recently thundered one fine Sunday morning, notes marching ‘cross the aisle, filling the nave, floating up through the clerestory, ending four decades of silence after a multimillion pound restoration by the Friends of Christ Church Spitalfields.

Christ Church Spitalfields Crypt Plaques © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

“The biggest challenge of the crypt project was having no obvious financial provision during the first seven years of my ministry here,” says Andy. Over £3 million was needed. “We still appointed architects and moved the concept towards design. It was when the finance became available through the generosity of The Monument Trust that our biggest challenge was overcome.” Nothing is incidental or accidental; minutiae were agonised over by Andy and the property team. Midnight oil burned in the Fournier Street Rectory while taps were chosen, lights selected and rugs argued over. “Above all,” he states, “I am proud of the church family members who gave themselves to the property team who I believe God deliberately brought to Christ Church for this chapter of its history.”

Christ Church Spitalfields Vault © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Christ Church Spitalfields Crypt Doors © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Christ Church Spitalfields Crypt Chapel © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Christ Church Spitalfields Crypt Bar © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Dow Jones Architects were tasked with lending the labyrinth meaning, cracking the carapace, unleashing the dust of myriad wooden voices, listening to Andy and the property team. Wearing her erudition ever lightly, Biba Dow expounds on the challenge: “We began by stripping out all the partitions so that we were left with just Hawksmoor’s structure. We revealed the stone piers and beams. The brickwork vaults were limewashed to dematerialise the existing structure into light while retaining the form and texture of the material. Then we inserted a series of oak rooms into Hawksmoor’s space. We wanted to maintain a sense of the scale of the crypt. This is apparent when you walk down the ramp into the crypt and see along its length and then arrive in the café and see its width. We also wanted the windows to light the public spaces and connect them to the city outside. The oak rooms have an outer set of glazed doors and an inner side of oak doors. This allows them to be used in different ways… The oak walls to the main spaces have staggered boards – a contemporary version of plank and muntin panelling. The back of house spaces have narrower tongue and grooved oak walls.”

Christ Church Spitalfields Crypt Materials © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Another paragraph worthy quote from Biba, “Our concept came from the position of Spitalfields within the mythos of London. It’s a transitional zone, culturally and physically, beyond the city walls. Hawksmoor stacked two triumphal arches on top of each other to form the church’s west front. The city gate is an architectural type that reconciles the centre with the edge. Hawksmoor’s façade explicitly expresses this marginal condition. It’s a juxtaposition which has brought and continues to bring an extraordinary cultural dynamic to the neighbourhood. We wanted the crypt to be part of Spitalfields. The wide ramp entrance brings the York stone pavement down into the space to make a public place. Our idea for the oak panelling was to make something which defines the place in between the edge and centre. The oak sits within the structure of the church building, making a place of habitation. We wanted the new fabric to be clearly contemporary and reversible so that you understand the primacy of Hawksmoor’s space.” Metalwork is bronze. Fabric is from Bute.

Christ Church Spitalfields Crypt Ramp © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Criss crossed cryptic Christian chrysalis. A northern light, a southern kirk, an eastern revivification, a western Gesamtkunstwerk. Take the chapel door. Leading glass artist Nikki Cass was commissioned to create an artwork of fired coloured collaged glass to be inserted into the door of this thin place. “Your grace abounds in deepest waters,” goes the Hillsong hit Oceans. Biblical verses delivered divine inspiration as blues and greens and reds and yellows flowed. “The river of the water of life as crystal flowing from the throne of God” (Revelations). “Whosoever believes in the stream of living water will flow from within him” (John). “No one can enter the Kingdom of God unless he is born of water and spirit” (John again). Nikki’s artwork has even spawned an accompanying book. Then there’s the kitchen – a stainless steel work of art worthy of a double Michelin starred restaurant (Comme Chez Soi, anyone?).

Christ Church Spitalfields Crypt Window © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Rest unassured, life as an urban Anglican rector isn’t quite all afternoon tea in the garden (although Christ Church Rectory does boast a walled oasis of tranquillity the envy of the neighbourhood). Count preacher, teacher, theologian, author, property developer, landlord, host and agony uncle among Andy’s demanding roles. He’s also Area Dean of Tower Hamlets and Honorary Chaplain to Langley House Trust. No room for boredom then which is as well as the Anglican retirement age is pushing three score and 10. As guardian of a portfolio of properties, mostly listed, inevitably Andy has faced both triumphs and travails. A long drawn out and unnecessary legal action by misguided individuals against the new school and community building adjoining the church garden was definitely one of his less rosy moments. Right now, he’s on a hallelujah high with the rebirth of the crypt.

Christ Church Spitalfields Crypt Landing © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

“We cannot leave Christ Church without mentioning the curious detail of the windows (which is echoed in the street-facing wall of Truman’s Brewery, Brick Lane) – the pull that is set up by the sequence of small circular portholes above tall narrow lower windows. This is the symbol at the heart of Munch’s iconography – and relates to a whole chain of meanings and resonances – the grail-cup above the lance – the cauldron and the sword – female and male – the setting sun and the molten light over the waters – the pill about to be dropped into the test-tube – stylisation of the phallus and generative spurt – volatile/active – demanding the leap of energies – repeated symbols of the unconsummated – invitation.” Lud Heat by Iain Sinclair.

Christ Church Spitalfields Crypt Nikki Cass Art © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

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Art Country Houses People

Elizabeth Cope + Shankill Castle Paulstown Kilkenny

Period Drama

Shankill Castle Entrance Front © lvbmag.com Stuart Blakley

There are whistlestop tours and there’s a 30 minute stopover till the Gatwick flight from Terminal 2 Dublin Airport departs to check out a centuries old castle complete with famous gates, a gatelodge, even more famous stables, cottages, a walled garden, an orchard, a ruinous church and graveyard. Oh, and did we mention squeeze in a coffee in the kitchen with the owners, an artist and historian, their film director son and dogs? Welcome to Shankill Castle, 45 minutes from the airport. If the heel is very firmly to the steel up the M9, that is.

Shankill Castle Garden Front © lvbmag.com Stuart Blakley

The house is full of surprises. A playful Gothic exterior gives way to a wintry panelled entrance hall. “The 17th century chimneypiece without a mantelpiece is of an unusual design,” says Elizabeth Cope, the bold and brilliant artist in permanent residence. “There’s a similar chimneypiece in the National Trust house Dyrham Park just outside Bristol. This one’s made of Kilkenny marble. Did you know Kilkenny marble is actually polished limestone? Look at how tall and slim the Queen Anne doorcases are. They’re so elegant.” The hall, like all the rooms, is a wonderfully eclectic mix of period details, antiques and of course Elizabeth’s vivid paintings, bursting with life – and in some cases death. In the middle of the hall is a drum rent table with several dummy drawers for security and symmetry.

Shankill Castle Wing © lvbmag.com Stuart Blakley.JPG

Beyond the entrance hall lies the dining room with a great boxy bay window overlooking the geometrically shaped lake at the back of the house. Dozens of wine glasses are laid out on the dining table. “It’s my son Reuben’s 30th birthday on Friday. The theme is The Great Gatsby. You must come! I love throwing parties. I always think no one will come and then at the last minute everyone turns up. This house is made for parties. There’ll be dancing through the night.” The drawing room is a gloriously summery space with wide windows opening onto the driveway and side garden reflected in 16 foot tall mirrors. Faded Edwardian wallpaper is the perfect backdrop to several of Elizabeth’s life size nudes. They’re as colourful and vivacious as the artist herself.

Shankill Castle Church © lvbmag.com Stuart Blakley

Through the former billiard room and ante room, now an interconnecting study cum office cum art store, to the bow ended staircase hall. “Look at the walls,” points Elizabeth. “They were lined with Sienna marble in 1894.” We’re heading towards the back of house now, literally and metaphorically. “Keep to the left!” We descend the precariously angled stairs to the basement. Along a veritable rabbit warren of domestic quarters: boot room, lamp room, gun room, scullery, wine cellar with no wine – “We’ve drunk all the wine!” – past a row of numbered servants’ bells we finally arrive at the kitchen, once the servants’ hall. “Different rooms have been used as a kitchen down the years,” explains Elizabeth. “Owners tended to move the kitchen in tandem with whatever room they used as a dining room.” Flagstone floors are gently worn by the passage of time.

Shankill Castle Lake © lvbmag.com Stuart Blakley

The tour continues outside. “The nine sided sundial next to the lake is 36 minutes behind London time. Geoffrey my husband says more like 36 years behind London.” Elizabeth sighs wistfully. “London is the only place. We’ve sold our house in Kennington but I still exhibit in London. I recently had a show at Chris Dyson’s gallery in Spitalfields. Tracey Emin came. She wanted to buy the sofa in the gallery. I should’ve partied more in London when I was younger. What a waste!” she laughs. The Copes bought Shankill Castle in 1991. “It was as if the house was destined to be our home. We know the previous owners, the Toler-Aylwards. In fact they’re my daughter Phoebe’s godparents. Phoebe lives in Scotland – she’s an artist too.”

Shankill Castle Orchard © lvbmag.com Stuart Blakley

Time is pressing; we’ve broken into a run. Elizabeth cuts quite a dash. “Come quick and see the stables. They’re by Daniel Robertson.” She strikes a pose. Even though Elizabeth has a studio in a stone outbuilding which would be the envy of any artist, she exclaims, “I paint everywhere, in the garden, on the bus, you name it! I paint through the chaos of everyday life. If I was to wait for a quiet moment I’d never paint. I believe painting should be like dancing. The real ‘work of art’ is not so much the canvas when the paint is dry. Rather it’s the physical rhythm of the process of painting it.”

Shankill Castle Staircase Hall © lvbmag.com Stuart Blakley

Beautifully restored estate cottages and the east wing of the castle are available to let. “The things you do to keep a place like this going,” says Elizabeth as we leap through the ruins of the church to the side of the front lawn. ‘Shan-kill’ is derived from the Irish for old church. “We throw a ScareFest every Halloween where I dress up and lie in a coffin to spook visitors. What people don’t know is it’s my real coffin. I was ill a couple of years ago so I thought I better get fitted out for one, just in case.” A full calendar at the castle includes the Midsummer Fair, Murder Mystery, Drawing Marathon, Wand and Quill Making Workshop, artist residencies and a new music festival Light Colour Sound.

Shankill Castle Drawing Room © lvbmag.com Stuart Blakley

It’s time to go, to drive by the haha and the trees planted in the 1820s to frame the view of Blackrock Mountain, leaving behind Shankill Castle, a world of its own.

Artist Elizabeth Cope @ Shankill Castle © lvbmag.com Stuart Blakley

Categories
Art Design Luxury

Masterpiece London Preview 2013 + Royal Hospital Chelsea London

Art Attack

Donald Judd. Art for architecture’s sake. A private view at the chic David Zwirner Gallery in Mayfair. Three floors of white galleries behind a cream façade. Cool as. Next the RCA end of year show at the Dyson Building in Battersea. The gallery with a shop in residence. Unresolved duality. Is it just us or does art exist in a vacuum these days? Charles Saatchi put in an appearance, no doubt hunting for the next Damien or Tracey. Back over Battersea Bridge, a wedding cake cast in iron, walk down Cheyne and check into hospital. Royal Hospital Chelsea. We’ve saved the best till last. It’s Masterpiece, the highest end arts and antiques fair in London reserved for the nought-point-one-per-centers. Boutique Maastricht.

A red carpet over green grass leads to a white pop up portico framing the entrance to a vast marquee, a primitive structure lifted to the sublime by a printed cloak resembling the hospital building: Henry James’ “principle of indefinite horizontal extensions” in canvas. Masterpiece attracts the famous and infamous. Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice walk on by. Anna Wintour’s sharp bob and Zandra Rhodes’ fuschia bob make them both recognisable from behind, surely the key definition of fame. We are joined by leading architect and avatar of heritage today John O’Connell, first director of the Irish Architectural Archive Nick Sheaff, and reductivist artist Suresh Dutt. What’s the collective noun for design luminaries? Coterie?

Now in its fourth year, Masterpiece is a variegated container of uses, architecture, history and technologies, challenging our thinking on design, strategies and the relevance of art – and on the urban importance of aesthetics. It questions artistic predilections and speculates on ideas of time and context. A temporary setting for the permanently magical. First pitstop the Ruinart stand, the oldest Champagne house, purveyor to the likes of Browns Hotel. Next stop, The Mount Street Deli for beetroot and avocado salad.

The new Maserati Quattroporte on display provides a beautiful distraction. “The design of the Quattroporte is inspired by Maserati’s core stylistic principles: harmony of proportions, dynamic lines and Italian elegance,” explains Marco Tencone, head of the Maserati Design Centre. “It’s been kept simple and clear with a character line flowing alongthe side to define the strong volume of the rear wing, creating a very muscular look. The cabin is sleek with a three window treatment and frameless doors.” Even the engine is a work of art. Next, we call in on Philip Mould who has just sold The Cholmendeley Hilliard miniature, a rare portrait of an unknown lady of the Tudor court, for a not-so-miniature £200,000.

A pair of George III marquetry semi elliptical commodes with Irish provenance is the star attraction at Mallett, that stalwart of Dover Street antiques hub. “All this is very emphatic,” notes John, pointing to the lashings of evidently bespoke detail. Mallett attributes the commodes to the London cabinetmakers Ince & Mayhew. They were supplied to Robert and Catherine Birch in the 1770s for their home near Dublin, Turvey House. Duality resolved. John reminisces, “I picked up fragments of historic wallpaper from the derelict Turvey House, just before it was demolished in 1987.”

Onwards to the Milanese gallery Carlo Orsi which is celebrating winning object of the year, a 1920s bronze cast by Adolfus Wildt. But we are there to see Interior of Palazzo Lucchesi Palli di Campofranco in Palermo, an exquisite oil on canvas. Elegant Roman gallerist Alessandra di Castro remarks, “Oil is much more sought after than watercolour. This important aristocratic residence was the townhouse of the Duchess of Berry.” She understands the painting to be by the early 19th century Neapolitan artist Vincenzo Abbati. “It’s a wow picture!”

“The layered curtains filter the light through the open windows, imparting a soft indirect radiance to the room,” observes John. “The red banquette type seating, white chimney board and green painted frieze combine to form a most stylish Sicilian neoclassical interior. It forms the setting for a beautifully hung significant collection of paintings.” Guercino, Stomer, Titan: all the greats are represented. “My life is crowded with incident. I’m off to a bidet party in Dresden.” In between, he’s restoring Marino Casino, Ireland’s finest neoclassical building.