Tea at Trianon: A Perfect English Country House in the West Country

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, May 16, 2022

A Perfect English Country House in the West Country

From House and Garden:

What Willie Gething doesn't know about country houses is probably not worth knowing. As the founder of Property Vision, the first of a now familiar breed of upmarket property search companies, he has viewed and evaluated some of Britain's most desirable homes. He sold the company six years ago and now runs a fund, developing properties in London. 'I spend most of my time on a building site,' he says, so there is not much he doesn't know about construction either. Nickie, who worked as a producer for an American news channel before settling here, works with him and shares his discerning eye and passion for domestic architecture. Building a house from scratch was a long-term dream for them both, and when eventually they found the ideal site, they enlisted an array of professionals to help them. And instead of spoiling the broth, teamwork triumphed.

The land they bought was a farm, complete with a sizeable acreage, a modest farmhouse and a separate farmyard. Nickie's 'before' photographs show a typical agricultural mishmash of cowsheds, a piggery, a dilapidated Dutch barn, discarded machinery, old tractors and concrete.

'We loved the land so much, we bought a yurt so that we could stay here before we started building,' says Nickie. 'We weren't sure how we wanted to use the site, so we chose five architects whose work we admired and asked them all to come up with schemes.' The results of their deliberations can now be compared by visiting the downstairs cloakroom of the finished house, the walls of which are papered with architects' drawings. 'We ended up using three different architects,' says Nickie. 'Nicky Johnston really listened and understood how we live as a family, and how we may want to live in 10 years' time. But he was on the point of retirement, so Jonathan Ross of Relph Ross Partnership translated his ideas into working plans. And Tim Reeve of TFH Reeve, who previously worked on the restoration of Uppark, came up with some of the more whimsical details, for instance the dovecote and the porches, as well as chimneypieces and the staircase.' (Read more.)