Strangely strange and oddly elsewhere
Jun. 15th, 2007 09:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustThe next day - Saturday - we got it right; or the National Trust did. We were staying with the Bears, and I'd picked up a leaflet for Fenton House, which sounded good: not too far away, not to big, garden, collection of musical instruments...
Better still, Neil pointed out that we could actually walk there, over the Heath. So we did. A really hot summer's day, and an uphill walk, but much of it shaded by trees, and a moment of pure pleasure when we came out by the pool in the Vale of Health. Another when we found an agreeable pub (the Old White Bear, which I take as a good omen) for lunch.
Fenton House itself is charming: big, but not huge - the Trust describes it as "handsome", rather than grand, which is about right. It's an agreeable building to be in, and it houses a number of collections, not all of which originally belonged to the house. It wasn't exactly like visiting a museum, with objects neatly classified in their cases, but it wasn't exactly like visiting someone's home, either: we darted from one thing to another, telling each other to come and look at this - no, you come and look at this: a painting here, a collection of Staffordshire sheep there. Some highlights:
We couldn't top that. So we strolled around the garden until the heat became too much for us, and then walked down the hill into Hampstead in search of coffee, a little something, and the tube home.
Tomorrow![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
durham_rambler and I are off to Lindisfarne for a few days: there could be more NT properties - well, the castle will be there, and visible and wonderful. But if the rain continues, we will stay indoors and read. And visit Barter Books on the way home - I wonder if they know about Odd and Elsewhere?
Better still, Neil pointed out that we could actually walk there, over the Heath. So we did. A really hot summer's day, and an uphill walk, but much of it shaded by trees, and a moment of pure pleasure when we came out by the pool in the Vale of Health. Another when we found an agreeable pub (the Old White Bear, which I take as a good omen) for lunch.
Fenton House itself is charming: big, but not huge - the Trust describes it as "handsome", rather than grand, which is about right. It's an agreeable building to be in, and it houses a number of collections, not all of which originally belonged to the house. It wasn't exactly like visiting a museum, with objects neatly classified in their cases, but it wasn't exactly like visiting someone's home, either: we darted from one thing to another, telling each other to come and look at this - no, you come and look at this: a painting here, a collection of Staffordshire sheep there. Some highlights:
- Paintings left to Fenton House by Peter Barkworth (an actor of that particular degree of fame that his name immediately conjured up for me his face, but not any particular rôle he had played). I liked a painting by Charles Ginner (of whom I had never heard) of Flask Walk at night. (The Tate has a fine collection of his work, including a View from a Hamstead Window, and the the romantically titled
Emergency Water Storage Tank. Also a Spencer Gore painting of a ballet at the Alhambra (not this one, another one). - The Benton Fletcher collection of early keyboard instruments was left to the Trust on condition that the instruments be played. They hold concerts at the house, and on the afternoon we were there, the house was filled with music descending from the attic: we stepped into a room in which a young woman sat at the harpsichord, her back to the window, while her friend sat nearby on an upright chair, stitching a peach satin corset, like a Vermeer come to life.
- The theorboed lute was good, too.
- There was some wonderful china, especially the blue and white
- And just when we thought we knew what to expect (more ceramics, more paintings, more keyboards), we entered a small room, where a glass cabinet displayed a teddy bear and a rag-doll clown, sitting in a companionable embrace. These, said the accompanying information, were the original Odd and Elsewhere, from the books by James Roose-Evans, who lived, as readers of the books would know, in Fenton House. And here, also behind glass, were copies of some of the story books in which they appeared, including Odd & the Great Bear (it was a good day for bears...)
We couldn't top that. So we strolled around the garden until the heat became too much for us, and then walked down the hill into Hampstead in search of coffee, a little something, and the tube home.
Tomorrow
durham_rambler and I are off to Lindisfarne for a few days: there could be more NT properties - well, the castle will be there, and visible and wonderful. But if the rain continues, we will stay indoors and read. And visit Barter Books on the way home - I wonder if they know about Odd and Elsewhere?
