Tricky heritage

Off to Chiswick House earlier in the week, starting off well with in-window entertainment in the train. That is to say the double glazed unit was leaking and had accumulated a fair amount of water, water which was flowing back and forth with the movement of the train, rather like the molten-coloured-wax-in-lighted-fish-tanks which were once popular and which are still to be bought from subcontinental bazaars in Kingston. We left it with some fascinated children, out for an excusion in the school holidays. Just the thing to brush up their fluid dynamics.

Alighted at Chiswick Station which seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, that is to say a substantial suburban road lined with substantial suburban houses, rather larger and more expensive than those here in Epsom. Expensive despite the procession of aeroplanes overhead, every 2 minutes 15 seconds accoring to the interval that I timed on the platform indicator clock. But not very good for aeroplane spotting as they were more or less directly overhead and low. One could only see one at a time. But I was struck by some big four engine jets, possibly Airbus 340's. Also some big two engine jets, possibly Dreamliners. All very impressive if it were not for all the greenhouse gases they are blowing into the sky.

And so to Chiswick Park, much restored from the doldrums following the second world war, all of which nicely illustrated the various pitfalls of heritage work.

So once upon a time there was a substantial Jacobean mansion owned by a very rich man. He came back from his grand tour and built a pleasure villa next to it in the style of Palladio. Some time later, one of his heirs knocked down the mansion and added two wings to the villa to make it into a proper house, fit for lords and ladies to live in. The lords and ladies eventually died out or moved away and the house was let, latterly as a private mental hospital. By then more or less derelict, it fell into the hands of English Heritage (then the men from the Ministry (of Works)) after the second world war. They took said tricky decision, demolished the two wings, themselves quite heritagefull, and restored the central villa. And over time they restored the fancy gardens.

The house, was indeed handsome from the outside. Inside, each of the two floors, the first floor being the grand floor, consisted mainly of one big room, called a theatre, with sundry small rooms arranged around it. The upstairs theatre had a dome, decorated with cunning plaster work, plaster work which reminded us of that at both Houghton Hall and the late lamented Clandon House. All three, exhibiting, or at least having exhibited, interesting solutions to the problem in geometry of getting an essentially rectilinear pattern to fit inside a hemisphere. Lots of interesting, if rather heavy looking, interior detailing. A handsome circular beer cellar in the basement. Lots of mainly indifferent paintings. Sadly, the interior as a whole had a slightly shabby feel, despite all the careful restoration work.

Along the way there was a Corinthian capital rescued from some phase or other of the building work, made out of a fake stone popular in the nineteenth century called Coade stone, a lot of which was worked up in Vauxhall. I got the impression that this particular capital had been made out of lots of small pieces arranged around a central cylindrical core - which seemed structurally sound and a lot easier than making the thing out of a single piece of stone. Investigation needed - but not at reference 1, not much help despite the name.

The house would not have been any use as a home but would have been a splendid place to give parties, which presumably is what it was used for. Not clear what it could be used for now, with weddings being done in a proper marquée erected outside, a marquée which looked as if it would be up for most of the year.

The facilities were completed by a handsome new café, clad in what I think is called travertine. A rather porous looking off-white stone with lots of fissures, which one might have thought would be prone to frost damage, but looking well at the moment. I think there is a handsome Moore sculpture made of the stuff in Hyde Park, a sculpture which soaked up a lot of restoration money a few years back.

We had run out of puff when it came to the gardens, but they looked interesting. Plenty of handsome large trees, particularly pines and cedars. Plenty of expensive looking dogs - much more expensive looking than the average pooch on Epsom Common. And it also looked if they were dealing with the old trees sympathetically.

We did find time to take a look at the large camelia house, a little past its best for this year. Must make an effort to get there a bit earlier next year.

PS: a few days later, I happened to read about the restoration work on the original Joan Hickson Miss. Marple tapes, work which was prompted by the BBC wanting nice new DVDs to sell and which involved going right back to basics with something called A/B negatives - which I now know all about. It seems that television people can get just as precious about restoration as built heritage people. And they do have a serious real issue in common: what exactly is it that you are restoring back to - and why? With, in the case of Marple, the objective seeming to be to do even better than the original. To produce the DVDs that the original producers would have liked to have produced if only they had had the necessary technology.

Reference 1: http://www.corinthiancap.com/.

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