Tea at Trianon: Six British Houses

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

Tuesday, October 18, 2022

Six British Houses

From Architectural Digest:

In order to secure this gargantuan project, designer Emma Sims Hilditch presented a thoughtful proposal, keeping the spirit of the Georgian-style home with modern embellishments to gracefully provide a more contemporary edge. “In the end, I think [the client] chose us because of the [small] size of our practice,” Sims Hilditch, whose eponymous firm has offices in London and Gloucestershire, shares. “He knew we needed the breadth” of a commission like this, adds the designer, who launched her namesake firm in 2009. Well, if there is one thing a 14,000-square-foot project can provide, it is indeed breadth.
The sprawling Northern England estate has been in the same family for more than 500 years. The current owner—Sims Hilditch’s client—inherited it from a distant cousin. In order to make the necessary repairs and updates, some of the property’s land was sold off in order to fund an extensive renovation.
The early stages of the project were its most exciting. “We uncovered so many parts of the house,” Sims Hilditch recalls with a residual giddiness. Old stone walls were stripped back from false fireplaces; carpets were removed to reveal forgotten tiling.
Other aspects of discovery posed challenges: The center of the house, for one, was a rabbit warren of Victorian-era domestic spaces, meant mainly to serve the dozens of staff who would’ve been operating the house. A historical marvel, yes, but not exactly functional for a present day single-family home. (Read more.)