Of the two main beaches in Sligo, Rosses Point is the closest to where I live. It is referenced in W.B. Yeats poem The Stolen Child, and one stanza in particular comes to mind whenever I go for a walk here:
(Click images to enlarge)
Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim gray sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand
In the summer when the sun does make an appearance, Rosses Point was my preferred beach for sun lounging. The sea here is much calmer, and if you walk to the end you can see Lissadell House across the bay. I remember when I was working at the Leonard Cohen concert in 2010, in the evening just looking across the water to see Rosses Point glowing in the moonlight, with Cohen's husky voice providing the backdrop to a memorable midsummer's evening.
Less bustling than Strandhill, it is more popular with dog walkers than surfers. The romantic in me endears me to Rosses Point, and I find it very restful sitting on a bench among the sand dunes when I feel like having some headspace. Maybe Yeats did the same. The artistic and mystic poet George 'Æ' Russell said to have witnessed mystical visions here on one of his summer visits with Willy Yeats. I'm not so sure about that, but Sligo can be magic, if you allow it to be.
Despite being in London for only a few days, I'm a country girl and it was a relief to get out of the city for an afternoon. Having studied the arts and crafts movement, and with an interest in historic interiors I decided to catch the train out to Bexleyheath to visit William Morris' Red House.
After about 45 minutes on the train from Victoria I arrived at my destination. I was a bit worried that it would be out of the way, hidden in a housing estate, but my google map wasn't necessary in the end as the directions were very well sign posted (its the National Trust we're dealing with here!) once you walk out of the station.
The house is owned by the National Trust, and is in a constant state of conservation. While I was there, they were still working on unearthing original wallpaper and murals.
Philip Webb water glasses, designed for use at Red House. A recent acquisition, these were found by an eagle eyed individual on eBay!
Panel by Edward Burne-Jones, originally placed in the front door of Red House, the painted glass surrounding it is by William Morris.
One of my favourite features of the house was in the garden hallway, the owner of the house in the 1890s had used the glass panels of the door as a visitors book, for guests to etch their name into the glass. The names of Arthur Lasenby Liberty, May Morris and Georgiana Burne-Jones can be made out (only May's is visible on this panel on the bottom, it was too dark and my pictures didn't turn out well)! There's something about a persons handwriting that makes a figure from history seem more authentic somehow.
Morris fancied himself the Medieval Lord of his Manor. He would have a large oak table erected in the hall here, when he had guests to dinner. This (unfinished) settle in the hallway was painted by Morris and the Burne-Jones. The left hand panel is painted rather amateurishly by Morris, focusing mostly on decoration and embelishment, the panel to the right was painted by the Burne-Joneses. A quirky detail is of the woman on the far left of the left hand panel, it is a depiction of the Morris family's housekeeper, at Red Lion square!
This is one of 7 surviving embroideries from a scheme of 12 envisioned for the dining room at Red House. This panel depicts Aphrodite, and turned up in an auction in Edinburgh in 2007. Out of the remaining six, 3 can be found at Kelmscott Manor, and 3 at Castle Howard (the only ones with embroidered backgrounds). I had the privlege of seeing the Castle Howard ones on my visit there in early 2011, and they are currently on display as part of the Tate's Pre-Raphaelite exhibition.
The drawing room, with settle designed by Morris. This room had an elaborate decorative scheme with the wall painted in murals by Jane and William Morris. This, and the settle was painted over with white emulsion paint in the 1950s and is slowly being uncovered by conservators.
This 'Minstrels Gallery' was added by Webb in 1859 and probably made for a romantic nook for visiting guests!
The walls on either side of the settle are painted by Edward and Georgina Burne-Jones as their wedding present to the Morris couple. They depict The Wedding Tale of Sir Degrevant.
(Photo source)
Recently, a mural believed to be painted by Elizabeth Siddal as she recuperated at the house shortly before her death, was uncovered hidden behind a wardrobe. This is a fragment of the mural scheme, it is currently being restored, as you can see its in quite a bad state of deterioration. This was painted in William and Jane's bedroom, where a sunflower scheme is being uncovered on the ceiling and walls.
This pattern "Kelmscott Tree" found on the Morris Bed at Kelmscott Manor, currently at the Tate Britain Pre-Raphaelite exhibition. The bed pelmet, in this pattern, was designed by May Morris, and embroidered by Lily Yeats and Ellen Wright (1891-3).
These blocks would have been used by Morris & Co. to screenprint their patterns onto paper, some of the more intricate patterns would have required many of these, resulting in a more costly design.
While in Red House, Morris designed his first three patterns for Morris & Co.; Trellis, Daisy and Fruit (Pomegranate). These were inspired by the flora and fauna surrounding Red House.
These famous round windows feature in the upstairs hallway. The glass is handpainted by Morris in a medieval pattern featuring his motto Si Je Puis ("If I Can").
The view of the back of the house.
In 1865, due to financial and work commitments, Morris had to sacrifice his house of dreams.
May Morris would only have been a child when they left in 1865, this photograph may well have been taken in the interior of Red House.
These photos, were taken in 1865, the year the Morris family moved out of Red House. Taken by Robert Parsons and styled by Rossetti (they were taken in his garden) they were to inspire the Pre-Raphaelite inclination in art as well as photography.
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It seems hard to imagine now, that this once was positively rural, and now its just another suburb of London. All these estates have popped up around Red House, which still has the luxury of its garden. The houses all vary in age and style. I noticed that some of the earliest houses dated from 1876, when Morris' house was completed in 1860, 16 years before these houses were erected. Possibly the closest houses at the time?
As always you can click on the photos to enlarge them.
**Also this is a great video, featuring reknowned Pre-Raphaelite academic Jan Marsh, talking about Red House.
You can get the train from Charing Cross or Victoria station to Bexleyheath. Admission is £8 for adults, there is no student rate. The house is decorated for the Christmas!
Having blogged about Eve Arnold's images of Ireland before, a few months ago I came across these wonderfully poignant images of John and Angelica Huston, taken in the Huston's Galway home, St. Clarens, in 1968.
Loneliness is not necessarily considered a bad thing in Ireland. Every story, every song is nostalgic, even the place itself is soft and wet ... There are signs of the past everywhere, they are part of everyday life.
Without my Irish childhood I would not know the names of the plants and flowers in my mother’s garden, would not know how to ride a horse, walk in the rain, sing plaintive songs about the country I miss and love the most. I would not understand the vagaries and the delights of nature, the clouds racing overhead, the smell of turf and sheep’s wool, the cold, the black bogs, growing up with dogs, The Sisters Of Mercy, fairies, and the best Christmases in the world. The West of Ireland! The Big House, as we called it, was at one end of a fork in the avenue, across a waterfall, surrounded by meadows and a ha-ha, a sort of hidden ditch, which allowed an uncluttered view of grazing horses. It was Georgian, built of limestone, it was a good size, three storied, not huge. - Anjelica speaking of her Irish childhood.
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These images are copyrighted to Eve Arnold's estate/Magnum photos, and be found here.
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Cinema North West’s Adaptation Film Festival takes place on the 19th - 21st October in Dromahair, Co Leitrim. This year's retrospective focuses on John Huston.
From May 17th - 20th, a handful of classmates and myself visited York.
On Tuesday we had a guided tour of Fairfax House, Castlegate. Fairfax House is a Georgian town house displaying one of the finest collections of English eighteenth-century furniture to be found anywhere. Fairfax House was built in 1762 to provide a residence for the Fairfax family during York's winter social season of events, balls and assemblies. It was St. George's Cinema and Dancehall in 1919, and was used until the late 70s, whereupon it soon fell into disrepair. In 1982 the York Civic Trust stepped in to save this important building and mount a major restoration project. It was opened to the public in 1984.
Afterward we made a sojourn to the York Assembly Rooms, stopping on the way for some alcoholic refreshment in a pub, where most of the clientele were under the influence, at 5pm! Guess we must have wandered off the tourist trail!
The Assembly Rooms are in wonderfully preserved condition (restored in 1952), now serving as a home to an Italian chain of restaurants. As you've seen in many an Austen adaption, assembly rooms were where the whose who of the town gathered during the social season. In the eighteenth-century, dances and card playing were held here, the ideal place to hob knob. Which is exactly what we did. I had a delish dish of butternut squash and mascarpone ravioli whilst we admired the columns and chandeliers over glasses of vino.
Wednesday came and there was our day trip to Castle Howard. I've never met anybody so helpful as people from Yorkshire, if it wasn't for a Marks & Spencer security guard we would have missed our bus to Castle Howard.
That night we crowded into one of our massive hotel rooms and watched The Apprentice, resting up for the long day ahead.
Thursday was the busiest day, we crowded so much in. First stop in the morning was York Minster cathedral. One of the largest Gothic cathedrals in Northern Europe, there has been a church on its present site from the seventh century onward. It was a Catholic cathedral until the Reformation of the fifteenth-century. A gloriously imposing building, it really is the jewel in York's crown. Seeing buildings like this fills me with awe, that once we were a people who built massive structures like this to reach toward heaven and our idea of God.
West window. Some of the stained glass windows (not this window) contain glass that dates from the medieval period and each window is on a cleaning rotation of 80 years, where the window is taken apart and cleaned.
Part of the choir screen.
I always find it difficult taking pictures within large churches and monumental buildings because you are taking a small fragment of the whole, and its more about the unifying experience of each element that makes up the wonder, rather than singular aesthetic elements.
Second visit of the day was to the Treasurer's House.
The purpose of visiting this house was to think about collections and collectors. Now owned by the National Trust, this historic house served as the home of treasurers of York Minster in the sixteenth-century. A wealthy York industrialist, Philip Green restored the house from 1897-1930. He redesigned each room in the style of a certain period. The picture above is the Medieval Great Hall. Of course, interior decoration of the nineteenth-century was preoccupied with revivalism of all sorts, the medieval and Gothic styles being the most favoured.
This was probably my least favourite of the attractions we visited while in York. Some of the restored furnishings and particular the wallpaper seemed a bit sloppily done. I really didn't get a feel for why Frank Green decorated a room in a certain way, theres also an apparently haunted cellar, that we were too rushed to visit, I wonder how this fitted into the scope of the house. There was an invigilator in each room and I couldn't help but feel they must be bored to tears. There was nothing stimulating about this visit, to me. The view of York Minster from the lovely sunken garden was the only redeeming factor for me. Location, location, location.
Its nigh on a month since I last updated. What with exams, trips, et cetera I haven't found the time or energy to post.
A couple of weeks ago, I went with a few classmates to York, a beautiful Georgian town in Yorkshire. We visited Fairfax House, Castle Howard, the Leeds Art Gallery, York Castle Museum (that pioneered reproduction historical streets within a museum context) and the York Art Gallery.
I gave a presentation on Castle Howard in my undergraduate degree and my familiarity with Brideshead Revisited means that Castle Howard holds a special interest for me.
Castle Howard was designed by the playwright turned architect John Vanburgh (who famously also designed Blenheim Palace) and is remarkable for its central dome that adds majesty and theatrically to what would be otherwise a symmetrical house. Construction began on the house c. 1700, Vanburgh was commissioned to design the house by the 3rd Earl of Carlisle, Charles Howard (1669 - 1738). The House is still occupied Simon Howard who lives there with his wife and two young children. It is also a private enterprise, with garden produce sold and utilizing the house and gardens as a visitor attraction and venue for weddings. Many privately owned country houses operate on the same system, having to make money to keep the estate running in the twenty-first century.
Grand Staircase and China Landing, constructed in the 1870s. This is where (paying) visitors enter the house, this part of the house dates from the nineteenth century, this wing was added as had been intended in Vanburgh's plans. Contains portraits of family members.
The China cabinet houses over 300 pieces of china, mostly Meissen, Sévre and Chelsea.
Lady Georgiana's bedroom. Georgiana was the sixth Countess of Carlisle, born Cavidenish, the 1801 marriage between her and George Howard, the 6th Earl, formed a connection between Castle Howard and Chatsworth House that lasted throughout the nineteenth century.
Furniture and decorative schemes from the dressing room adjacent to Georgiana's bedroom.
Bedroom containing the oldest piece of furniture in the house, a fifteenth century English made cabinet. Is this the bedroom that Laurence Olivier performed the death scene of Lord Flyte? I think the bedroom was called Victoria's Bedroom/The Queen's bedroom but it is not named as such in the guidebook so I'm not sure. Quite exciting to think that Olivier lay in that bed though.
The Antique passage did not assume its original form until the West Wing was built and finally decorated at the beginning of the 19th century. The majority of the busts in this gallery are antique, collected by the 4th Earl during his trips to Italy in 1738-9. It is a marvelous gallery to walk down, preparing you for the drama of the Great Hall and Vanburgh's dome.
The interior of the dome (which rises 70 feet above the house and lends Castle Howard its unique silhouette). Original decoration by Antonio Pellegrini, executed between 1709 and 1712, depicting the four elements and the tale of Phaeton falling from his father's chariot. Sadly destroyed by fire in November 1940. Repainted in 1962, my friends and I were on the shelf about the repainting, sorry that you can't see it very well here.
Casualties of the 1940 fire still remain.
The turquoise drawing room, contains paintings by Gainsborough and Reynolds. Gainsborough's portrait of Isabella Byron (great aunt to the poet) is just cut off at the top of my photo. At the beginning of the nineteenth century this room contained Old Masters paintings and contemporary artwork. John Jackson's 'Lady Mary Howard' (1828) can be seen in the centre.
The Long Gallery is 160 feet in length, it contains a wonderful Rubens painting of Salomé with the head of St. John the Baptist which my camera proved useless to capture.
Morris & Co. screen, in the chapel. 'The Legend of Good Women', derived from Chaucer's poem. Worked by Jane Morris and her sister Bessie Burden. An interesting article here on the commission.
Me sitting at the iconic Atlas fountain, sadly not running at the moment due to plumbing damage caused by three hard, cold winters.
Temple of the Four Winds, a folly in the grounds of Castle Howard.
Unfortunately I didn't get to the Mausoleum, you have to book ahead to get a private tour. It is interesting as its interior is an imitation of the Parthenon ceiling. Designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor, begun in 1731. Generations of the Howard family have been buried in the crypt beneath.
The exhibition taking place when I was visiting is of the paintings and sketchbooks of George Howard, 9th Earl of Carlisle (1843-1911). I thought it was a nice addition to the house overall. I loved how the sketchbooks were displayed in an unordered haphazard fashion within the cases, no elaborate explanation needed.
This was incredible, George Howard elaborately decorated the envelopes of letters he sent to friends. Imagine this dropping through your letter box! For a stationary fiend like myself I really loved this little exhibit. It added a tangible personal element to the house, reminding you that it was foremost a family home, inhabited by generations of Howards with varying interests.
To conclude then, it was a thrill to finally see the house. The only gripe I have with the experience is that there is too much focus on Brideshead Revisited and Castle Howard's setting in the tv series and (terrible) movie. I understand that some of the rooms damaged in the 1940 fire still have not been restored yet I feel they could be put to better use rather than three rooms dedicated to Brideshead Revisited, especially the one that just details what the story is about. They have one room that was used as a set for the film, Lord Flyte's death scene, still preserved. I thought that was totally irrelevant, surely the tv series if anything is more iconic than the film. I also wish that there had been the option of a house tour by a guide, because I would really loved to have known about the interiors and furnishings.
