Kensington Palace - At Home With The King.

Kensington Palace and grounds - in its 18th century heyday.

The surprising thing about Kensington Palace is its sense of intimacy. In last week's post I mentioned the Grand Staircase which is awe-inspiring but because of the cheeky, boldness of the Georgian mural, rather than its scale. At the top of the stairs, you turn right to enter the King's Presence Chamber - similar in size to a modern sitting room - rather than some huge, palatial chamber. However, this is where the comparison ends because the decoration is gorgeous and gaudy, leaving the visitor in no doubt they are in entering into a royal presence.

The gilded chair on which the King sat to recieve courtiers.
This one belonged to George II's son, Frederick.

 But then the palace plays a trick - the deeper in you go the larger and grander the rooms become. In the Georgian court you either had to be a person of great importance, or else afford ever increasing bribes, to progress further.

The room that most took my breath away was the Cupola room. It is overwhelmingly opulent with its fantastically painted ceiling with the Star of the Order of the Garter as the centre piece. The décor was designed by William Kent (see last week's post) and his first commission for George I.

The ceiling in the Cupola Room
(Thank you KP for allowing photos, but alas not flash photography.)

Kent was a controversial choice because his art was different - and in time came to set the tone for the Georgian era. His greatest rival, Sir James Thornhill was most put out that Kent won the job and his friends tried to undermine the young artist by casting aspersions on the quality of his work. They accused Kent of cutting costs by using inferior quality paint, especially when it came to the gilding - modern tests proved their claims to be false.

The Cupola Room - it was here Victoria was baptised.

It was in the Cupola Room that the future Queen Victoria was baptised. Her parents, the Duke and Duchess of Kent, were joined by the Prince Regent (later King George IV). It was George who decided the baby's name: Alexandrina (after the Russian Tsar) Victoria (after her mother).

Statue of Victoria in her coronation robes, in front of Kensington Palace.
Victoria was born at the palace.

As the size of the rooms increases, so they become less personal. Although a grand chamber, the King's Gallery lacks a human feel, although many events of historical importance took place here. Today the gallery is hung with red damask, which in 1725 replaced the original green velvet.

 

The King's Gallery, as it is today.

The first monarch to use the gallery was William III - he received his spies and planned military campaigns here. He even had a wind dial linked to the room so he could see if the winds were set fair for an invasion fleet to cross the English Channel. He held his 50th birthday party here…and it was also said to be the room where he caught the chill that eventually killed him.

The statue of William III outside Kensington Palace.

George I filled the gallery with fabulous paintings, of which the most famous are Tintoretto's "The Muses" and "Ester before Ahasuerus" and Van Dyck's portrait of Charles I. When King George inspected the room shortly after its completion he was said to be 'well pleased.'

 

The fireplace in the King's Gallery.

The future Queen Victoria was born at Kensington Palace and as she grew into a young lady evidently she needed more space. Her mother's solution was to divide the king's gallery into three. The alteration caused consternation but Victoria records her delight in her journal:

"…three lofty, fine cheerful rooms. One...is my sitting room and very prettily furnished indeed."

Later in the 19th century the room was restored to its previous design.

 

Widget says "A palace isn't a home without a cat...or five."

Kensington Palace - Hotbed of Gossip.

The King's Grand Staircase - all images on the walls are paint effects.
Painted by William Kent 1726 and still stunningly modern.

Inspired by Lucy Worsley's book, "Courtiers- the Secret History of the Georgian Court", my appetite was whetted to visit Kensington Palace. In particular, I wanted to see the King's Grand Staircase with its cheeky portraits of Georgian courtiers captured in a strikingly modern poses.

 

Lucy Worsley's captivating book
about the intrigue in the Georgian Court.

The sweeping mural that lines the staircase shows a snapshot of the royal household from Peter the Wild-Boy to the King's mistress, from Mohammed (the King's advisor) to the artist William Kent who painted the scene. To enter the hall and walk up the staircase, is spell-binding and I couldn't help but stop and stare in wonder. A vibrancy and sense of life oozes from the walls such that you can hear the scuttle of silk slippers and gossip whispered behind hands.

A better view of the Grand Staircase (portrait mural to the left
and at the head of the stairs.)

There is a sense of fun, playfulness and intrigue about these portraits that must have caused huge a stir at the time. Added to that, I imagine being an outsider visiting George I, and seeing portraits of plotting courtiers, must have been terribly intimidating.

The Grand Staircase photographed around 1870, during Victoria's reign.
Victoria was born at Kensington palace and it was here that she
learnt of her acsession to the throne.
 

Kensington Palace has undergone several reincarnations. In the 1600's it started out as a modest mansion, Nottingham House, in what was a rural landscape near London. When William III wanted a country retreat from the pressures of Whitehall, he found this the ideal solution, bought the property for 20,000 pounds and employed Christopher Wren to redesign it.

Queen Victoria in her coronation robes - set in front of Kensington Palace.
The princess was living here when she learnt of her ascession to the throne.

Decades came and went and William's Kensington Palace fell into disuse until George I arrived from Germany. Even though the building was by now neglected in poor repair, the new king declared "I like it very much" and set about a raft of renovation and remodelling. The most stunning of these innovations was employing the controversial, up-and-coming artist, William Kent.

One of the trompe l'oiel paint effects on the staircase.
Apologies for the under exposure.

 My reaction on seeing Kent's staircase mural was bewilderment. I was confused. The fresco style and trompe l'eoil effects so fresh and flirtatious that I thought I'd wandered into a modern interpretation of Kent's work. But no, these playful visual effects are the real thing! [Sadly, I have found no copyright free images to show you. All power to Kensington Palace for allowing photography, albeit without flash, so please excuse the underexposed photos from my pocket camera - but I wanted to give you a flavour of what I saw.]

A pitiful photograph (by me!) of a wonderful paint effect - and this
isnt even the main event (which are the courtiers - sadly too dark to photograph)

If ever you have the opportunity to visit Kensington Palace, I can highly recommend it - worthwhile for the staircase alone! Kensington Palace has so many extraordinary stories of royalty and intrigue to tell - more of this in future posts when some of the gossip and scandal is revealed!

William III, Kensington Palace.

Like Father, Like Son? - Zoophagy #2



Photo courtesy of CatPictures.net

Last week's post looked at the great British eccentric, Jack Buckland, on his mission to eat exotic animals - but what is perhaps not surprising is that his father was pretty weird too! The Very Rev. Dc. William Buckland (1784 - 1856) was a theologian, geologist and zoologist. Perhaps it's some measure of their family life, that it was William who introduced is son to the idea of zoophagy (see last week's post).
In his early life, to prove his theory that bird droppings made excellent fertilizer, William used droppings to write the word "guano" over the lawn of his Oxford college. In due course when summer came, the letters were plain to read from a first floor window.

 

The Very Rev. Dc. William Buckland.

Another indication of eccentricity was that one night Dc. Buckland was journeying to London when he got lost. His solution was to dismount from his horse, and trusting his extraordinary sense of taste, licked a handful of soil and proclaimed, "Uxbridge!" and then went on his way.

A man of many talents, as well as being a theologian, Dc. Buckland was a palaeontologist and zoologist. Strange as it seems these disciplines are not unrelated because he studied fossil records and from that evidence proposed a 'gap theory' of creation.

This theory tried to reconcile the geological evidence that the earth was very old, with the genesis account of creation. Buckland proposed there had been two distinct periods of creation, separated by an unimaginable period of time. Indeed, in his early career he thought he'd found geological evidence of the biblical flood, work later built on by Louis Agassiz who suggested there'd been an ice age.

 

A contemporary cartoon of Dc.Buckland investigating a site of scientific interest.

For Buckland's work with the fossil record he was made a member of the Royal Society but this eccentric's talents seem to know no end as he also became president of the Geological Society. He analysed fossilised bones to describe a creature he named "Megalosaurus", which later became recognised as the first scientifically catalogued dinosaur. As a measure of his eccentricity, Buckland preferred to do his excavations and digging wearing full academic dress!

 

A model Megalosaurus - photo courtesy of Mike Pennington.

Buckland married another fossil enthusiast, Mary. One story goes that she helped him decipher fossil footprints found in a lump of sandstone, by spreading flour over the kitchen table. She then let their pet tortoise walk across the table top and then Buckland was able to recognise the similarity of the footprint.

It is perhaps a fitting end, that when William Buckland died, when the gravedigger started turning over the plot a layer of Jurassic limestone was discovered, which had to be cleared with explosives.

            Another eminent geologist penned the following poem in tribute:

Where shall we our great Professor inter

That in peace may rest his bones?

If we hew him a rocky sepulchre

He’ll rise and break the stones

And examine each stratum that lies around

For he’s quite in his element underground

 

Fossil fish - photo courtesy of FairlyBuoyant.

All of this leaves me wondering how much upbringing influences children? Do you think Jack would have been less interested in eating giraffes, if his father William had been more 'normal'? And what is 'normal' anyway?
Do leave a comment!

Zoophagy - Victorians and Exotic Meat!

 

Red Squirrel.
Photo courtesy of British Wildlife Centre

Whilst on holiday on the Isle of Wight, I was lucky enough to see not one, but two, red squirrels. Granted, they aren't the brightest creatures on the planet (the first one ran alongside the car trying to outpace it, rather than escape up a tree!) but they win hands down in the cute stakes.

Sadly, red squirrels are becoming a rare sight in the UK, pushed out by the hardier and more aggressive grey squirrel. The later are a non-native species to Britain and were introduced in Victorian times by a naturalist, Frank Buckland - and this is where the zoophagy comes in - he imported grey squirrels to eat!

Zoophagy is the pursuit of eating animal flesh - and the more unusual the better.

 

Doctor Frank Buckland.

Born in 1826, Frank Buckland trained as a doctor, although his first interest was always natural history. To give him his due, he paid some attention to the medical profession because he noticed most nurses couldn’t read! He tested nurses with a medicine label.

 What the label actually said was:

'This lotion to be applied externally only.'

However the nurses' reply was:

Two spoonfuls to be taken four times a day.'

Buckland eventually gave up his medical career to pursue his love of natural history, and became an expert in fish production. However, he took it as his personal mission to broaden the traditional 'roast beef' diet of the British and was a pioneer of zoophagy. Buckland regularly dined on delicacies such as mice in batter, horse tongue, squirrel pie and stewed mole (the latter reportedly tasted like "poo".)  Indeed, Buckland had friends at the Royal Zoological Gardens (now London Zoo) who contacted him when an animal died, in case he wanted to eat it!

Non-native grey squirrel. Photo courtesy of Brian Marshall. 

In a quest to be even more adventurous, in 1859 he founded the Acclimatization Society. Their aim was to search for new and more exotic meats to eat, and at the society's inaugural dinner in 1862 the menu included roast kangaroo, boiled sea slug and grilled parrot. Such was his renown that it was said when he walked past:

"Elderly maidens called their cats indoors."

It was to broaden his dining options that Buckland came to import the grey squirrel form North America, with the subsequent disastrous decimation of our native red squirrels.



Distribution of red vs grey squirrels in the past 70 years.
Courtesy of British Red Squirrel Society.

As an aside, if you are tempted to think grey squirrels are 'cute' - it is an offense punishable by 2 years in prison, to nurse and re-release an injured grey into the wild in the UK. If you find a grey squirrel in distress, then by law you are required to take it to a veterinarian for humane destruction. This may seem harsh, but in 2001 the grey population was estimated at 2.5 million and the red squirrel is only hanging on in certain protected areas, including the Lake District and the Isle of Wight.

As a vegetarian myself, researching this post set me thinking about what makes some meats acceptable to eat, and others repulsive. What is your opinion? Why should it be OK to eat lamb or chicken, but we squirm at the idea of mole or parrot?

Photo courtesy of British Wildlife Centre

Unnatural Deaths

The main entrance - Appuldurcombe House - sadly behind the facade is a ruin,
the building destroyed by a World War II bomb.

Q. What do a priest, John Smith and an heir to Appuldurcombe House have in common?

A.  They all died unnatural deaths on the Isle of Wight.

This week I'm on holiday and my blog post was inspired by a recent ghost walk around Appuldurcombe House, near Wroxall. A monk (!) conducted the tour through the ruins and recounted some of the gory tales of unnatural death pertaining to the house in its heyday when it was the most important estate on the IOW (Isle of Wight).

Sadly, the house is largely now ruins - destroyed by a WWII bomb.

Appuldurcombe's history starts in the 16th century with a page to King Henry VII, called James Worsley, whose family originated in Lancashire. The boy Worsley was educated along side the future King Henry VIII. The tale goes that no person was allowed to harm an heir to the throne, so when the young Henry misbehaved, his tutors whipped his friends to make the prince feel guilty- it is from this practice that the expression 'whipping boy' originates.

The future Henry VIII must have had quite a guilty conscience because when he became king he appointed James Worsley as Keeper of the Wardrobe, knighted him and gifted him a monastery that stood on the site of the current Appuldurcombe House. (On James' death he bequeathed his best gold chain to Henry VIII and his largest standing cup to Thomas Cromwell.)

A marble floor under which 4 Worsley children are buried.
Not the love hearts at the corner of the design : 2 blue and 2 pink, denoting 2 boys and 2 girls.

But what of unnatural deaths?
Well, James Worsley had a son, Richard. Under King Henry VIII, one of the Worsley's responsibilities was to protect the IOW from French invasion. Indeed the King is said to have visited to inspect the state of local defences, and gifted his host a fine Holbein portrait of himself.

Richard organised regular military manoeuvres which included the use of live firearms. However one day it was raining and the gunpowder got wet. Richard's two sons took the damp powder to a gatehouse to let it dry out, unfortunately the barrel got too close to the fire and the whole lot exploded -demolished the gatehouse and killed 6 people including both of Richard's sons and heirs.

Part of the cellar network beneath Appuldurcombe House.

Moving forward in time to the mid 1600's, we find the Worsley's were secret catholics at a time of persecution. The punishment for harbouring catholic priests was severe - a red hot poker up the derriere and so people went to great lengths to hide visiting cleris and those wishing to conduct mass had a number of secret hiding places or 'priest holes.' Appuldurcombe was no different and had a tunnel leading from the cellar to woodland 500 feet away. Unfortunately, the excavation of the tunnel followed a natural geological fault that dipped at one point and was prone to collecting water. This meant the escapee had to hold his breath, crawl underwater a few seconds before emerging on the other side.

The entrance to the 'priest tunnel' within the cellars.

One Father Ewan was not so lucky. He used the tunnel and was never seen again. It was assumed he'd got safely away into the woods and no one worried, until a while later a dreadful smell filled the cellars. It seems he drowned in the natural dip and it wasn’t until heavy rain and decaying body parts washed down the tunnel that anyone was any the wiser.

The ornamental pond into which John Smith was thrown and left to his fate.

Our third unnatural death is that of a school boy, John Smith. By Victorian times the house had passed out of the Worsley's hands and for a short time became a hotel, and then a school. The Rev. Pound established "a college for young gentlemen." However, it seems his school was not a happy place and bullying was rife. One boy, John Smith, was mercilessly picked on because he was short. One freezing November night John's dormitory mates plotted to throw him in the large ornamental pond outside the main entrance. They had to break the ice to get him in, and worse still, he was unable to get out unaided. The pond is 8 ft deep at the centre and 5 ft deep at the edges, with a vertical lip that meant unless you were tall it was impossible to grasp the ledge to pull yourself out.

The room (now ruined) where John Smith hung himself.

Poor John Smith was left in the freezing water and was only rescued when a master happened past. Despite this the bullying continued and a short while later, sadly John took his own life and hung himself.

A hint of the splendour that once existed.

And finally, much of the information for this post was obtained from a pamphlet printed by the Department of the Environment, Ancient Monuments and Historic Buildings Department, published in 1967. I found the leaflet in a tea-shop near Freshwater, selling second hand books. The cover price was 35p, but the tea-shop resold it for 3 GBP - strikes me that this is quite a good mark up. Anyone any idea what 35p from the 1960's is worth in today's money?

Widget- ghost or cat?

My Guilty Secret - London Trivia #4

Photo courtesy of Cheezburger.com

I have a guilty secret - I quite like watching 'Bargain Hunt' - (for my US friends, this is a daytime TV show where generally clueless couples buy trash from antique fairs with the aim of selling it at auction for profit. The couple that makes the most profit, or smallest loss, wins!) Hosted by the epitome of an English gentleman, Tim Wannocott, halfway through the show Tim visits a place of historical interest and on the occasion that inspired this post, he visited the Sir John Soanes museum London.

Tim Wonnacott - photo courtesy of the BBC.

Sir John Soanes was the Georgian architect who designed the Bank of England, amongst other notable buildings. But what sparked my interest during Tim's segment, was the sheer eccentricity of Soanes home - which also doubled as a museum in his lifetime. Soanes was a collector of architectural artefacts and filled his house with antique marble fragments of statues and friezes, mainly from ancient Rome. From the glimpse I got on the TV it looked too interesting to miss and living close to London I went to visit.

Soanes Museum - the cream coloured building to the left of the picture.

Soanes Museum is at 12 - 14 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London and entry is free!
Greek and Roman marbles line the stairwells, a full sized Egyptian sarcophagus in the basement, a room of Hogarth's mounted on hinged walls. In the basement, Soanes created an atmosphere reminiscent of catacombs or Roman burial chamber, of which the centre piece was the magnificent Egyptian sarcophagus of King Seti I; bought by Soanes when the British Museum refused to pay 2,000 pounds for it. With hieroglyphics as yet deciphered in his time, and a very important antiquity, Soanes celebrated the arrival of his new piece with three evening parties, illuminated by three hundred oil lamps and attended by nearly a thousand people.



The Bank of England - designed by Sir John Soanes.

Mrs Soanes must have had the patience of a saint to put up with the stamp of her husband's overwhelming personality, but by all accounts they were a happy couple. A mark of Soanes' eccentricity was his 'Monk's Parlour.' This was a downstairs room designed in a gothic fashion, with dark sombre colours and heavy furniture to illustrate the importance of light (or lack of it) in creating atmosphere. What is even more delightful is that when Soanes wanted to be alone he would claim:
"Padre Giovanni has come to visit," and disappear into the Monk's Parlour to take tea. However since Padre Giovanni was fictitious, actually a play on Soanes' own name 'John' - his visits were an excuse to enjoy solitude.

The sarcophogus in Soanes house - and yes it is as mad as this!

 I've gone a long way round the houses to say I'm proud that my 'guilty secret' inspired a visit to a place I hadn’t heard of before- and I feel less guilty as a result!

Have you ever visited somewhere you saw on TV and were blown away by the experience?

Do leave a comment and join the conversation!

Portraits of Sir John Soanes by Sir Frances Chantry.

Dead Cats and Commercialism - London Trivia #3

Today's tale of London trivia tells how the exclusive shopping venue, the Burlington Arcade, Piccadilly came into being.

The original triple arch entrance to the Burlington Arcade.

For those unfamiliar with London, the Burlington Arcade is a parade of high-end shops housed in Georgian splendour, beside the current home of the Royal Academy, Burlington House. However, did you know that in 1819 these Georgian shops came into existence to stop dead cats falling on Lord Cavendish when he sat in his garden?

Interior of the Burlington Arcade today.

 In the early 19th century Lord George Cavendish was the owner of Burlington House. But no matter how splendid his residence, Lord Cavendish derived little pleasure from sitting outside because of a constant rain of oyster shells, apple cores, bottles and even the odd dead animal. This was because an alleyway ran alongside his property and the passers-by liked to lob their rubbish over his garden wall.

The Burlington Arcade - interior.

Cavendish's solution was to commission Samuel Ware to design a arcade of small shops in the alleyway, and do away with the nuisance of the uncouth public dumping their rubbish over his wall. The result was the Burlington Arcade, which still exists as a retail mall to this day. Opened on 20th March, 1819, the mall reputedly cost 49,000 pounds to build, rent for a single unit was a little over 12 pounds a year. One of the first lease holders was patronised by the Prince Regent to supply gold lace for his uniforms.



The Burlington Arcade to the left and the edge of the Royal Academy to the right.

Originally a single storey building, an upper level was added in 1906 with apartments to let (as one wit put it, "To a better sort of courtesan".) The original triple arch entrance was removed in 1931 and a new design added, which was much disliked at the time. The shops are small but famous for selling expensive, luxury goods - hence quality over quantity.

Lord George Augustus Cavendish.

 A beadle (the Georgian equivalent of a security man) patrolled the mall in order to stop the 'wrong sort' entering. The first beadles were recruited from the Cavendish family regiment of the 10th Hussars to enforce a strict code of conduct within the arcade which included: no running, whistling or playing musical instruments, no carrying large parcels and no babies' prams. In the 19th century the beadle had a leather armchair at the entrance on which to sit whilst keeping an eye on visitors. It was also the beadle's job to ring a hand-bell to tell the shops to close. To this day there is still a team of four beadles(but no chair) and they have the authority to eject you from the arcade if behaving inappropriately.

Widget- because she's cute...and I wouldnt want her falling on my head!

So finally, if you visit the longest covered street in Britain, spare a thought for the Burlington Arcade's original reason for being - to stop dead cats falling on Lord Cavendish's head!