Ickworth II

   Ickworth is now in the hands of the National Trust, the old family wing a hotel.  The incomplete western wing, very sensibly, is now the reception and café.  The entrance lobby is spoilt by painted quotes, in the way that the National Trust seems to be fond of today.  Alas.  However the long thin orangery is just right.  The Lloyd Loom furniture hits just the right note of timelessness.  Perfect.  It could have be the Edwardian age or the 1920s, but I liked to think it was the early Seventies and that any moment Celia Birtwell and David Hockney were going to step in from the garden.  A few floor standing uplighters between the windows would add a little more glamour, but anything else would spoil it.
   To the south of the house there is a Victorian Italianate garden bounded with a great bastion of a wall complete with gravel walk.  It effectively separates the house from the landscape park beyond - which is the work of Capability Brown and one of his duller numbers.  Down in the valley is a lake and between it and the house is the old village church and a large walled garden which is in a sorry state at the moment but there are signs of restoration.  The summer house is a delight.  The church is small and neat.  The tower, I think, is late 18th/early 19th century, stuccoed, and the rest of the church looks entirely Victorian, but is I think, almost a replica of what was there before - note the squint into the chancel.  It is the traditional resting place of the Herveys, but, alas, on our visit the church was locked.

Back in Birmingham II

   Domesticity dominated the second half of our day in Birmingham.
   Just down the road from the Barber is Winterbourne House, also owned by the University.  This as an Arts and Crafts House dating from 1903 built by the local architect Joseph Lancaster Ball (1852-1929) for the Nettlefold family - Birmingham manufacturers and Unitarians. It too is very good.  Bequeathed to the University in 1944 the garden which is vast, with formal and informal sections, subsequently became the University Botanic Garden, and the house a museum and conference venue. In the outbuildings are a gallery, second hand bookshop and press.  The garden shelter looks as though it was influenced by the Elizabethan bell cage at East Bergholt. A gate in the garden fence lead to a most miraculous place: a great lake with views across to Edgbaston Golf Club. Lucky golfers. Hard to image we were in the midst of the vast West Midlands conurbation.

   Mid afternoon and we were on Hurst St heading for the Gay Village when we suddenly came across a group of Georgian Houses, their good proportions deeply striking in what is, it has to be said, a street of very vulgar buildings.  It took us a few seconds to work out that this was the 'Back-to-Backs' owned by the National Trust.  Back-to-Back housing was a feature of working class housing in the great cities of Industrial Revolution England.  Most now have been replaced.  While in cities such as Leeds they formed uniform terraces, in Birmingham they formed courts, with the houses divided along their spine walls to form two dwellings only one room deep looking out either inwards on to the court or outwards on to the street but sharing common sanitary provision in the court.  As now conserved the 'exterior' houses have been turned into holiday lets, while the 'interior' ones have been furnished as they would at various stages of their occupation, based on information gleaned from contemporary sources such as the Census.  Fascinating they are too.  Squalid they are not, for, though cramped and unsanitary, they were occupied by skilled artisans.  The kitchen/parlours actually had a lot of charm, far removed from the rather self-conscious life at Winterbourne.  The bedrooms at the top of the each house were, however, not places to linger.  Over time many of the houses ceased to be residential and industrial/artisanal use took over. One house is presented in this way; a tailor's shop that continued in use, I think, until the 1980s.  The owner had come from the West Indies in the 1950s/1960s and had established a successful business by a lot of hard and work and shear will power.  In all it was quite touching.  Guided tours only.
   The evening was spent in the Jewellry Quarter; pre-dinner drinks at the quirky 'Ana Rocha Bar and Restaurant' on Frederick St., and dinner itself at 'The Viceroy', a rather stylish Indian restaurant on Iknield St. The Murogh Chicken Livers were fabulous!

Wicken Fen

   I hate to go back yet again to the time the bf and I spent together in November, but on the final day we went to Wicken Fen (National Trust), and I wanted to share with you some of the photos I took.  I'm particularly pleased with the woodpecker.

This cottage, which I think is also owned by the National Trust caught my eye.  It has this accidental picturesque look which I love and that would, I think, be very hard to design in - at least in a manner that looked natural.

On the opposite side of the lane were a couple of Victorian cottages.  This one is a National Trust holiday let by the look of it, either way I love the paintwork and the window design.

Wednesday II - Anglesey Abbey

   We finally arrived at our destination.  Anglesey Abbey is a property under the care of National Trust.  The house is an amalgam of the medieval with the late Elizabethan, with 19th and 20th century alterations and additions producing a 'rambling' plan and a picturesque exterior.  It is surrounded by a large mainly 20th century garden and park.

   This is the view from the drive on the approach to the house.  Typically picturesque.  Looking back the park seems to contain nearly all English park/garden traditions.

   The entrance formed in the angle between the Tudor wing (left) and the medieval remains of the priory (right) thought to be the Priors Hall.  The two wings were once separate.

   This is the Tudor wing of the house.  The walls are a mixture of Carrstone, clunch and limestone. The right hand side conceals an earlier structure.  I am not sure whether the wing to the left is 19th or 20th century, either way, inside is an immense Neo-Georgian library.  More of that later. 

   Another view of the exterior of the library.

   Finally at the rear of the house, added to the end wall of the medieval wing is this, designed by Sir Albert Richardson.  Note the polite way in which it continues the scale and design of the first floor windows (extreme right of shot).  It is however particularly austere, both inside and out, with some of that froideur that you get in twentieth century architecture such as in the work of Giles Gilbert Scott.  And just as in the work of Scott immense care has been taken with the masonry -  snecked and each block semi-boasted.  The other façade to this is one immense blank wall. Very 20th century. There is definitely a nod in the direction Richard Norman Shaw. It has a sort of Northern quality to it reminding me of that squared look that one associates with certain Elizabethan architecture, eg Garthorpe Hall.  The projecting bay contains, surprisingly, a great stone staircase to what I think is the music room.  Oddly it is the only access to that room.  I cannot help also seeing a Hollywood set in there too, a feeling I also got walking around the rest of the house.  Editing this, I realised that the house is a rather isolated - perhaps cocooned - place.  A world entire unto itself.