Tea at Trianon: Colebrook House

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, October 11, 2021

Colebrook House

From Country Life:

One would never guess from the street that there would be so much to discover in the garden behind Colebrook House, a Grade II- listed, 17th-century Cotswold-stone building. It would be charming, of course (the village of Blockley was the setting for the ‘Father Brown’ series), with a narrow stream, the Cole Brook, running prettily along the leafy front garden before disappearing in a sudden rush into the ground. But no one ever anticipates the size of the garden nor the series of surprises that await behind the high walls.

Gardens are the result of a combination of influences, the most important of which are its location and its owners. In this case, both have united to produce many delightful and entirely unexpected effects, the first being the new Italian-influenced walled garden that slopes away from the terrace outside the kitchen and down towards Blockley Brook, which runs along the bottom of the garden.
Parallel to the street, and fed by the aforementioned Cole Brook, this clear-running trout stream is the reason the village was the centre of the silk industry in the 18th and 19th centuries. It also results in a garden that slopes down from the house to the brook and, via two rustic bridges, continues steeply up the opposite bank to the treeline.

‘We’re very keen on Italy and had spent a wonderful time at a beautiful hotel, l’Andana, in Tuscany, and definitely wanted elements from that in the walled garden,’ says music producer George Apsion. With his wife, Melissa, who has a background in fashion and design, he moved to Gloucestershire from London with their young family three years ago. (Read more.)