Tea at Trianon: The Cloth Hall of Smarden

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, April 18, 2023

The Cloth Hall of Smarden

From Country Living:

In the 14th century and during the reign of Edward III, the ports of Rye and Faversham became hubs of great wealth due to the blossoming wool and cloth trade with Europe. Nearby towns, such as Smarden, also benefited from this new trade frontier, producing homes of great beauty, such as The Cloth Hall, built in the early 15th century and then remodelled by a wealthy cloth merchant called Thomas Yates. The home’s pedigree doesn’t end there, as another previous owner, the famed Everest Expedition photographer John Noel purchased the property in 1920. A great friend of Nathanial Lloyd of Great Dixter in East Sussex, Noel used his connections to remodel the building in the styles of Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll. (Read more.)