young irish georgians – Lavender's Blue

Charlton House Greenwich London +The Young Irish Georgians

The Wind Returns Again

The Young Irish Georgians’ trip. We’re not that young. We’re off to a Jacobean House. And at least one of us is Dutch. How terribly Irish. Autumn falls. Days shorten. Frieze’s here. Today, a carpet of golden leaves gently billows round Charlton House. The house is in Greenwich but forget the fashionable part. Charlton Village’s charm, to put it politely, is faded, a bit frazzled. A ski-slope roofed pepperpot pavilion heralds the house’s presence at the top of the hilly high street. This Grade I listed lodge, possibly once a summerhouse, is now a public convenience (or inconvenience – it’s shut).

“The lodge is widely attributed to Inigo Jones. Of course it is – he did most of Greenwich! Someone once attributed the lodge to him and it stuck.” Aimee Felton, Associate at Donald Insall Associates should know. She is undertaking a conditions survey as part of a long term masterplan for the house and estate. “A variety of historic fabric is remaining. Some in my opinion was later heavily edited by the various occupants. And heavily rebuilt following bomb damage.” This is most obvious in the north wing where the original imperial red brick and whitish grey stone has been patched up with metric red brick and yellow stone. These mid 20th century repairs included placing the sundial upside down.

“It’s the best Jacobean house in London and is of pivotal importance to its era,” Aimee declares. A southern Temple Newsam. “It displays a full modern appreciation of flow and sequence of rooms. An H plan was so innovative. There are lots of Jacobean houses of E plan and E with a tail, but not H. Charlton is first in its class: to walk in through the front door – and see its garden beyond. The axis through the building is what makes it so special. The kitchen was always on the north side of Jacobean houses to cool dairy produce and meat, with bedrooms above as heat rises. But this house is laid out to take in the views to the north towards the river and to the west to the King in Greenwich. This is a really bold statement and the only Jacobean house facing north.”

The first floor long gallery stretches the full length of the north elevation. Like much of the house, the long gallery is a puzzle. “The floor and ceiling are original,” Aimee highlights, “but the panelling isn’t. Charlton has some of the best fireplaces of the Jacobean era. The long gallery marble and slate one is odd but exquisite.” No architect is recorded. “There is incredibly scarce information both on the Jacobean era and Charlton. You’ll notice I say… attributed to… we suspect that…a lot.” At least there’s a dated keystone of 1607 and the staircase is engraved 1612.

Built by Sir Adam Newton, tutor to James I’s son Prince Henry (teaching must have paid better in those days), Charlton House was last lived in by the Maryon-Wilson family. Sir Spencer Maryon-Wilson sold the house to Greenwich Council and auctioned the contents in 1920. The house has been used ever since by various community bodies. Donald Insall Associates are tasked with applying a holistic approach to its fabric and future use or uses. Furnishing rooms in the original period like a National Trust house is not an option. “There simply isn’t enough Jacobean furniture,” says Aimee. “Even the V+A wouldn’t have enough and any pieces it has are so special they’re kept in glass cases.”

There’s plenty of pictorial evidence of how the rooms were furnished in the latter Maryon-Wilson years. Aimee smiles, “If you can’t find a decent photo of a country house look in Country Life because someone is always bragging about their home!” Charlton House is no exception. Black and white Country Life images of the early 1900s show the interior chockablock with Chippendales and brown furniture and taxidermy and tapestries. This eclecticism is reflected in plasterwork additions. She points out the ceiling in the Henry Room isn’t original. “The cornice is beyond wrong! As offensive as the ceiling is, it’s a nice ceiling, but one that’s just not for this house. Just because it’s not right, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be preserved to show history. Everyone has their oddities and we just move on.” Much more in keeping with the original architecture is the 1877 extension to the south. Unsurprisingly, really, as it was designed by the great Arts and Crafts architect Norman Shaw. “Jacobean with a Shaw twist,” is how Aimee sums it up.

Frieze is the international art show that consumes Regent’s Park every autumn. Jacobean furniture may be in short supply but we discover a source of art from the period: The Weiss Gallery’s ‘A Fashionable Likeness: Court Portraits 1580 to 1625’. There are enough gentlemen and ladies choking on their lacy antimacassars (or at least that’s what their collars look like) to coverthe walls of Charlton House’s long gallery. On the subject of fashion, the blue velvet jacketed chef Giorgio Locatelli is busy setting up tables in his eponymous temporary restaurant. Just like its permanent namesake, lunch at Locanda Locatelli under the canvas of Frieze Masters is the epitome of Milanese cooking:

Syon House London + The Young Irish Georgians

Adam Fortune

Where better to be on a sunny Sunday morning than Syon House in leafy southwest London? Rolling bucolic parkland, pretty birds tweeting in the ancient oaks, wild flowers springing in the meadows, and planes thundering overhead to Heathrow. Aside from the flight path latticing the blue sky with white streaks, all is calm. Dr Adriano Aymonino, former Head of Research at the intriguingly named Commission for Looted Art in Europe, is our leader. Us, being in this case, the Young Irish Georgians. Private apartments are included on the tour.

We will discover that so much about the interior decoration is lost on the casual 21st century visitor. The nuances, the symbolism, the references that would have been read by Georgian guests. It’s like reading Shakespeare – Adriano is no mere guide. He’s our translator, helping us decipher the intricate language of 18th century design. It helps that his doctorate was on the 1st Duke of Northumberland who transformed Syon House in the 1760s. Adriano’s book is due out soon. “My heart lies at Syon,” he confesses.

“The 1st Duke was the greatest patron of the 18th century when you add all his houses together. Syon House is the most famous neoclassical house in the world,” argues Adriano, “and the Long Gallery is easily Robert Adam’s most spectacular interior. It is the most complex Georgian room in England.” Standing outside, the house is remarkably simple, stark almost, save for the toy battlements. All that will change when the front doors are flung open and Adam’s circuit of staterooms is revealed.

“Adam was a very clever businessman. He wanted to conquer the mid 18th century British market, dispelling the old Palladian architects by selling a new language. Adam claimed to be faithful to classical antiquity. That was not quite true as his could style could be eclectic but that’s how he marketed it. His language works, though, from St Petersburg to the USA. It’s a quotation architecture of ornament, statues, relief and sarcophagi.” Adriano identifies two layers of quotation: the Roman originals from the Grand Tour and later published engravings. “A paper architecture!”

The plasterwork frieze in the Piranesiesque Great Hall incorporates a vase, the symbol of friendship and welcome. It’s part of the language of iconographical consistency, we learn. Together with the layering of quotation, Adam creates a jigsaw puzzle of classical references rid of Renaissance influences. It’s a game of recognition, providing meaning to the more sophisticated guest. A triumphal procession has begun. The Great Hall is the introduction to the public circuit. A ‘Roman villa’ built round a courtyard.

The paintings at Syon House aren’t part of Adam’s concept. They come from the family’s central London townhouse of Northumberland House. It was demolished towards the end of the 19th century.

“Each room is intended to be a single hall, the opposite of Palladianism and its consistency of rooms such as at Chiswick House or Holkham Hall,” expounds Dr Aymonino. “Rather than a simple whole, each unit is different from the other. There is no better example in Britain of this than the transition from the Great Hall to the Ante Room next door. This is the Adam principle of contrast, movement, variety in a house. So you have this kind of wow effect! The sequence of classical orders is the only unifier, the element which gives logic to the circuit.” The Young Irish Georgians are primed to spot Doric in the Great Hall | Ionic in the Ante Room | Corinthian in the Dining Room | Composite in the Red Drawing Room and so on and so forth.

Poor old Sir William Chambers. His Palladianism soon became as passé as postmodernism is today, bless. We are ushered into the Ante Room. “It’s very exuberant, the Versace of Syon!” Absolutely. “Adam is a great genius decorator. Syon’s architecture is a collection of Roman typologies. The Dining Room is based on a basilica. But the Drawing Room is the least classical. With its red brocade silk walls there is not much space for quotations. Just the coffered ceiling.” Comfort over style. Sir William Chambers criticised the roundels in the ceiling for looking like floating dinner plates. Architects bitching? Shock, horror! The forerunner to 21st century Design Review Panels.

“Syon is the result of the Grand Tour industry. The statues would have been as recognisable as Warhol is today,” Adriano continues unabated. “He was first and foremost a decorator concerned with ideal beauty, harmony, proportion and decorum. I will never be tired of explaining the importance of printed sources. Far from Rome? Just open a book of prints!” With bated breath we enter the Long Gallery, the most important room in the house in our leader’s opinion.

The 1st Duke commissioned Adam to revamp this Jacobean long gallery. “Anyone else would have physically divided up the space. It is very difficult to master. There is the risk the eye gets bored of repetition.” Instead, Adam treats it as a columbarium with niches and massive piers providing rhythm. A visual trick on the ceiling is that the pattern of circles set in octagons continues incomplete to either side. “This counteracts the narrow width and low ambient. It’s like a carpet on the ceiling!” Once again, there are plenty of 18th century publications on Roman columbaria. Painted roundels over the bookcases show the ancestral glories of the family from Charles the Great to the 1st Duke and Duchess – who else? It was carried on in the 19th century by future family members. “This is a different layer of complexity,” observes Adriano. “It’s a very clever use of English family history with references to Roman antiquity.”

Late afternoon, after lunch, we will wander through the private apartments, unaccompanied, unroped, unAdamed but – oops! – not unalarmed.

Over scampi and chips in The London Apprentice pub – appropriately rebuilt in the 18th century, while admiring the view across the Thames towards Kew, Adriano relates he’s half Roman, half Venetian. “Venice has become such a difficult place to visit. So crowded. It’s not a real city anymore – ordinary shops now just sell masques to tourists. February is the best time to go, even if it is foggy then.” Goodness. Ever been chased by a cloaked red dwarf? “No, but you could still fall in the canal.”

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