Month: July 2025

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Art Design Hotels Luxury People

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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Design Luxury People Restaurants Town Houses

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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People Restaurants

Café Le Brébant Paris + Pacha

At Midday Venus Passes

“Earlier that morning Zoé had made the apartment over to a caterer from Brébant’s and his staff of helpers and waiters. Brébant’s would provide the food, the crockery, the glasses, the tablecloth and napkins, the flowers, and everything down to the chairs and footstools.” In between preparing her mistress Nana’s toilette, Zoé knew where to go to get set up for a party. Nana is Émile Zola’s ninth novel in his journalistic 20 volume Les Rougon-Macquart series. It captures the loucheness of society during the reign of Napoléon III. Café Le Brébant had been open 15 years when Nana was published in 1880. The Second French Empire has never truly ended on Boulevard Poissonnière. This is still Paris, the Paris of letters, of pleasure, of romance. Wicker and tassled lightshades hanging midair sway in the gentle summer breeze cooling the terrace of Café Le Brébant. Pacha the resident Maine Coon cat plays and poses and preens herself, blissfully unaware of her role in the street theatre of life. Très Grand Guignol. 

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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.”

Categories
Architects Architecture Art Country Houses Luxury People

Dunmore House + Gardens Carrigans Donegal

Northern Dancer

Wiling away endless days during the sunniest Irish spring while County Donegal opens up as a new front of the western riviera. Gnomons cast their shadows across plates of 1930s stone sundials. A drawing room lit by tall windows on two sides. The French door ajar to country air. Alexander Moore’s mother in Jennifer Johnston’s 1974 novel How Many Miles to Babylon? lyricises, “The evenings are so beautiful. Ireland should be renamed, I always think, the Island of Evenings. Don’t you agree?” Lounging in the wing of a country house. How many kilometres to Derry?

“When I arrived in Ireland I couldn’t read or write English,” says Amelia McFarland, châtelaine of Dunmore House. “I was brought up in Moscow until I was 10. I learnt to ride with the Russian Cavalry stallions at the age of seven.” Both sets of grandparents lived in Ireland so her parents returned and eventually took over Dunmore House. Her grandfather, Sir John Talbot McFarland, 3rd Baronet of Aberfoyle, died in 2020. He’s buried in St Fiach’s Church of Ireland Church in the village at the end of the avenue, Carrigans.

After living abroad, the 35 year old has returned to open her family’s ancestral pile as a setting for weddings and corporate events. She admits, “I love travelling and I love Dunmore. It was always well known for its hilarious parties and welcoming atmosphere and I wanted to bring all of that back again. I wanted to share this beautiful house and its gardens with everyone. So I came home to Donegal for a whole new adventure.” A converted barn is perfect for nuptials and there is overnight accommodation in the east wing and log cabins in the grounds.

As for wedding photographic opportunities, where to start? The conscious coupling of the seven bay house and 1.3 hectare walled garden is a match made in heaven encircled by woodland. Architecture, texture, horticulture, culture. “We try to be sustainable,” explains Amelia, “and encourage wildlife like bats and hedgehogs. As well as providing a wedding and events venue with accommodation we have a 100 acre farm and estate.”

“There are actually no records of Michael Priestley’s involvement with the house,” she confirms. “A large servants’ wing at the back of the house was knocked down some time in the 20th century. When the porch was added the area in front of the house was filled in. That created tunnels going nowhere under the house. You can see the top of two basement windows that were blocked up. The house is actually quite compact and not that hard to heat.” In between hosting, Amelia farms, rides and plays rugby for the City of Derry.

Wedged between Derek Hill by Bruce Arnold (2010) and Derry and Londonderry History and Society by William Nolan and Gerard O’Brien (1999) on a Georgian bookcase in the drawing room of the wing is Agatha Christie’s The Complete Short Stories (2008). The crime novelist was related by marriage to the McClintocks who formerly owned Dunmore House. A bedroom over the drawing room is also lit by windows on two sides. “This wing was added by the owner in the 19th century for his own use,” Amelia explains. “We let it out as one self contained space with its own door off the terrace.”

Identifying Michael Priestley as the architect of the main block is on stylistic grounds. The giant Palladian window was his trademark. His certified work of Lifford Courthouse, County Donegal, has a particularly fine example on its riverside elevation. St John’s Church of Ireland Church in Ballymore Lower, County Donegal, is attributed to Michael and has a vast Palladian window on its east front and a smaller version on its west front. The first floor central Palladian window of Dunmore House over the entrance hall – all 42 panes of it – lights the landing of the staircase hall. Confident handling of architectural components is another subtler clue to design ownership.

The entrance elevation of the 1742 block is five bays wide by two storeys over (hidden) basement and (hidden save for gable windows) attic with a high pitched slate roof. It’s a rebuilding of a 17th century house. Walls are roughcast rendered with ashlar sandstone quoins. A 19th century smooth rendered porch is painted dark yellow: Doric pilasters support an entablature with triglyphs to the frieze and mutules to the cornice. The Doric order frieze and cornice are repeated in the drawing room of the 19th century wing. This south front, elevated on a rise, can just about be glimpsed from the road between mature trees. The informal north elevation with various projections backs on to a courtyard surrounded by outbuildings.

A book of newspaper cuttings in the drawing room includes this intriguing undated unattributed piece, “Missing deb says: I want to marry. Reported missing earlier in the week from her home at Blessington, County Wicklow, Eire. 19 year old [sic?] debutante Miss Ann Daly turned up in London, yesterday, with Mr Robert Knowles of Sneem, County Kerry, Eire, 25 year old son of Lady Farquhar of Blandford, Dorset, and said: ‘We want to get married.’ They had been staying at the home of Lady Farquhar and her husband Lieutenant Colonel Sir Peter Farquhar at Turnworth, Blandford. The Farquhars are a well known hunting family.”

“‘I met tall dark Miss Daly with Mr Knowles as they arrived together at Waterloo Station, London, late yesterday on the train from Blandford. ‘I can’t understand all this mystery and fuss,’ Miss Daly told me. ‘We have come up to London to try and persuade mother to let us get married. There is no real mystery about me leaving home, and I am sure my mother and father must both have guessed where I was. Robert and I met nearly three years ago. We have been racing, hunting and point-to-point riding together many times since then.’”

“‘We want to get married but I am still a minor and my parents have objected. But I feel sure that if mother gives her consent now father will agree readily.’ Robert Knowles said, ‘There has been no objection from my family, and we should both be happy if it were possible for us to be married soon.’ Mr Knowles and Miss Daly went off to meet Miss Daly’s mother, who has been staying at a West End hotel. Miss Ann Daly is regarded as the most beautiful girl in Irish society. Although only 18 years of age she is such a good horsewoman that she rides at many point-to-point meetings in Ireland, and competed in such events during the past season. She is a member of the fashionable Kildare Hunt and has ridden to other packs in Ireland. She is tall, dark and athletic and is expected to be one of this year’s most popular debutantes.” Go Ann!

Categories
Architecture Art Country Houses Town Houses

St Fiach’s Church of Ireland Church + Carrigans Donegal

Developing An Overarching Grammar Based on Idealised Irish Country Life

The Laggan lies between the River Foyle and Lough Swilly: a lowland rich in agriculture, rich in architecture, rich. It was once dominated by flax growing and salmon fishing. In between country house estates lies Carrigans, one of the prettiest villages in Ireland. Population in 1841: precisely 235. Population today: about 350. In between single and double storey houses, Main Street has a Garda Station, Carrig Inn, Post Office and Village Shop, Village Chippy, and AMC Hair and Beauty. This 215 metre stretch of road is bookended by a a painted boat in a sloping field to the west and a derelict cottage with windows and a door painted on its facade to the east. A car port provides a roof for a Christmas sleigh. Next door and set back from Main Street is St Fiach’s Church of Ireland church which is the Parish Church of Killea in the Diocese of Derry and Raphoe.

This is Plantation of Ulster country. After confiscation by the British Crown in 1607, County Donegal was carved up into parcels of 400 hectares, each distributed to mainly Scottish families. Scottish sounding surnames can still be found in the area: Buchanan, Galbraith, Hamilton, McClintock and Stewart. Other nearby Plantation settlements include Castlefin, Convoy, Killygordon and Stranorlar.Reverend George Hill writes in An Historical Account of the Plantation in Ulster at the Commencement of the 17th Century 1608 to 1620 (1877), “From occasional glimpses at the general condition of Ulster in the 17th century, as given in these Plantation records, the reader will probably infer that our northern province must have had certain rare attractions for British settlers. Among the descendants of the latter, however, it has been a cherished faith that our worthy ancestors came here to find homes only in a howling wilderness, or rather, perhaps, in a dreary and terrible region of muirland and morass. We very generally overlook the fact, that the shrewd and needy people whom we call our forefathers, and who dwelt north and south of the Tweed, would have had neither time nor inclination to look towards the shores of Ulster at all, had there been no objects sufficiently attractive, such as green fields, rich straths, beauteous valleys, and herds of Irish cattle adorning the hillsides. But such was, indeed, the simple truth.” The Laggan is still filled with that greenness, richness and beauty.

Many of the buildings of Carrigans are gaily coloured. Whoever decided to paint the rendered St Fiach’s Church was clearly a blue sky thinker. Literally. Most Irish churches are grey. This one is blue. Beyond the Pale blue. Erected in 1763, St Fiach’s was altered over the next two centuries while still retaining exquisite allure. It’s a simple three bay nave barn church. Roundheaded windows have extremely fine cast iron quarry glazing with timber Y tracery. The chancel, vestry and porch were added in 1856 to the design of Armagh architect Alexander Hardy. Their grey rubblestone contrasts with the blue render of the main church building. Reverend William Law was the first incumbent. The current rector is Reverend Canon John Merrick; his predecessor Reverend David Crooks retired in 2024 after 47 years service.

Categories
Architecture

Malin + Malin Head Donegal

Presence of Mind

“On one hand we have the most ancient and universal theological intuition, that the order we see exists by divine fiat, that the heavens proclaim the glory of God,” Marilynne Robinson, Absence of Mind, 2010

Extremes of geography and climate: Ireland’s most northerly point is also its sunniest and windiest. Atlantic waves crash and splash against 250 metre high cliffs. An appreciation of the vastness of creation is inevitable at Malin Head. The 15 kilometre road from the village of Malin northwards to the Head meanders through a sort of beautiful nowhereville, a great emptiness splayed in all directions, reaching out to infinity and the Divine. On the western coast of this peninsula is Five Fingers Beach with some of the largest sand dunes in Europe. At high tide the strand disappears. Below the spiralling road leading up to the viewing point of Malin Head, a long low cottage beckons before the better land. County Donegal is beautiful, especially so in the perfected world of a Saturday morning.

“Each of us lives intensely within herself or himself, continuously assimilating past and present experience to a narrative and vision that are unique in every case yet profoundly communicable, whence the arts.” Marilynne Robinson, Absence of Mind, 2010

Categories
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.

Categories
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.

Categories
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.