Tea at Trianon: Inside Radbourne Hall

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, June 17, 2024

Inside Radbourne Hall

From House and Garden:

Lady Chichester has fond memories of sitting on John Fowler’s knee as a child. This is perhaps a rather different sort of memory to those who worked for or along-side this extraordinarily talented and influential, yet notoriously irascible and demanding decorator. In 1957, her parents, Major and Mrs John Chandos-Pole, commissioned Fowler to work on the interiors at 18th-century Radbourne Hall, her family house in Derbyshire, and today they are a rare surviving example of an almost complete John Fowler scheme. Annie’s mother Jill lived in the house until she died, aged 102, going to great lengths to preserve Fowler’s interiors. Shutters were kept closed and plastic covers made for upholstery and curtains.
Although Annie admits she found her mother’s fastidiousness very boring to live with as a child, she is now the grateful beneficiary of an extraordinary legacy. When she and her husband, Sir James Chichester, took over the house in 2014, the ceiling of the central hall was sagging alarmingly and the roof required attention, as did the plumbing and wiring. The house also needed to be updated in order to work better for 21st-century living with the addition of a family kitchen and more bathrooms. Despite this, Annie was absolutely committed to restoring Fowler’s work. (Read more.)