Tea at Trianon: A 17th-century 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

Saturday, September 13, 2025

A 17th-century Farmhouse

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From House and Garden:

Tim grew up not far from the house, and first found out about it when a great-aunt gave him a collection of family papers stretching back centuries. These aged legal documents, some written on vellum, contained information about the Newbiggin property, and the teenage Tim took it upon himself to cycle over and have a look. The house had passed from his family into the hands of the largest local estate in the 1840s, and through various twists and turns was now owned by the church commission, and lived in by two bachelor brothers who worked the land as tenant farmers. When one of the brothers offered to show him round, Tim saw for the first time its astonishing, practically untouched interiors: the original panelling and staircase, the early lime ash floors, and a carved fitted spice cupboard built upon the house’s completion in 1696.
Other remarkable houses were to occupy the next four decades of his life, as his job took Tim to the National Trust and then to the Spitalfields Historic Buildings Trust, where he was a leading light in the restoration of the beautiful 18th-century weavers’ houses that are now so highly sought after. It was on a May Bank Holiday two years ago, driving around the area with his partner Harvey Cabaniss, that he saw a ‘For Sale’ sign on the Newbiggin house, and serendipitously ended up having tea with the father of the man then selling the house. Although it was already under offer from another prospective buyer, Tim’s powers of persuasion came to the rescue, and the house finally ended up back where it belonged: with the seventh great grandson of its builder. (Read more.)

A 19th century bust of Socrates from Leiden University sits by the window seat in the parlour.