Tea at Trianon: A Welsh Farmhouse

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

Sunday, May 5, 2024

A Welsh Farmhouse

I could happily live there. From House and Garden:

Nestled deep in the hills of rural Carmarthenshire, under skies unsullied by light pollution and buffered from the ingress of global news in its WIFI-free location, this diminutive Welsh cottage is an atmospheric example of the homesteads hand-built by rural farm workers in the 18^th century. Created from hand-hewn branches and scavenged coarse rubble, few properties exist in such an authentic form and those that remain are mostly in terminal decay. A family home until 1965 when it was abandoned, along with most of its original furnishings, the dwelling stood unoccupied and therefore preserved from unsympathetic restoration for almost 40 years until current owner Dorian Bowen discovered it and sensitively brought it back to life. The former chartered surveyor was looking to move from London back to the locality of his birth, seeking reconnection and a slower pace of life. In many ways the cottage's remote location, rudimentary structure and lack of modern essentials, including electricity and plumbing, were its saving grace.
‘I grew up on a farm in the area and every time I came back to visit family over the course of my 20-year-career in London I would see that a few more bolt holes from my childhood had vanished. I was aware of a rapid decline in vernacular architecture as original farmstead cottages across Wales disappeared,’ Dorian explains. ‘This property was almost derelict when I acquired it in 2004 but strangely that was what made it a bit of gem. In this very rural community, properties were often retained by the owners well into their 80s and 90s. When they passed away and the houses went onto the market, original interiors were commonly ripped out because many new owners felt that a parlour and other such features of the original layout didn’t lend themselves easily to modern life.’ (Read more.)