One of the many things I love about living in Oxford is that there are so many beautiful places to visit within an hour away by car. Compton Verney is just such a place. It's a lovely great manor house turned into an art gallery with a Capability Brown designed parkland. In all ways, it is a feast for the eyes.
There has been a home on this sight for over a thousand years and it is referenced in the Domesday Book of 1086 (a survey and census carried out for the Norman king, William the Conqueror, to record land ownership and values).
As with most grand houses like this, it buildings have evolved over the centuries. The first surviving inventory of the house, which dates from the middle of the Civil War in 1642, describes a "house of thirty rooms including a hall, two parlours, seventeen bedrooms, an armoury and study as well as servants’ quarters and outbuildings".
The house and landscape that is there today was shaped most notably by John Peyto-Verney who, around 1760, decided to remodel his mansion and garden. He hired Lancelot "Capability" Brown, England's most influential landscape architect to redesign the parkland.
In 1993 it was bought in a run-down state by the Peter Moores Foundation, a charity supporting music and the visual arts established by former Littllwoods chairman Sir Peter Moores. It was his vision to restore the property into a gallery capable of hosting international art exhibitions. Compton Verney Art Gallery is now run by Compton Verney House Trust.
The Park at Compton Verney that you see today is the result of an 11-year restoration project that is still ongoing to restore the landscape to the one that Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown designed in 1768.
Compton Verney has the largest collection of British folk art in the UK.
The British Portrait collection features portraits of royal and noble sitters from the first great era of British painting: the Tudor period (1485-1603) including Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and Edward VI.
It is estimated that Capability Brown was responsible for over 170 gardens surrounding the finest country houses and estates in Britain, all designed and developed in the mid to late 1700's. Click here for a map of the sites where Capability Brown is known or thought to have worked across the UK.
Happy 301st Birthday today (30 August), Sir Lancelot "Capability" Brown!
I love this willow walk!
I also love this restored Icehouse which dates to around 1771. Ice houses were the forerunners to the refrigerator. They provided temperature regulated spaces, chilled down through the use of ice ‘cropped’ during the winter months. Clean ice would have been collected throughout the winter, and compacted into the insulating brick lined pit.
Across the lake from the house there is a geodesic dome called "The Clearing", a collaborative artwork by Alex Hartley and Tom James. Here visitors can take workshops on how to live in the world affected by the social and climate change that’s coming our way.
Thank you to our dear friend, Kath and Ian, for introducing us to Compton Verney. All in all, it's a delightful place to visit. Whether you like art, beautiful old manor house, sweeping English landscapes, lunch or tea from locally grown farms, or as in my case, all of the above, there is something here for everyone.
I spent a day last week exploring a part of London I didn't know very well -- the docklands, the river area around east and south east London. The docks were formerly part of the Port of London, at one time the world's largest port. There is so much history here from pre-Roman times to the present. It's an exciting part of London that is being redeveloped and it is well worth a visit.
I started out across the London City Airport, located on Gallions Point Marina near the Royal Docks in the London Borough of Newham. Boats, planes, trucks, trains -- there is a lot going on here.
As I walked along the water front, I saw stunning new developments as well as empty and abandoned warehouses and factories like these one. I wonder what will be here in a few year's time? There is a lot of potential in this part of London.
One of the newer developments on the docklands is Emirate Airline's cable-car which crosses the River Thames in East London, between The Royal Docks near Canning Town and the Greenwich Peninsula. It is sponsored by Emirates Airline, hence its title. The Royal Docks Terminal, on the north side, is close to the Excel Centre (a huge convention center). The Greenwich Peninsula Terminal, on the south side, is close to the O2 Arena.
The cable-car ride takes 5 minutes to go from one side to the other and the views of London and the docks below are truly spectacular.
I didn't expect to find an open water swimming club next to the docks. I also was surprised to find an urban man-made beach with lovely, soft sand and plenty of kids happily playing.
The round domed building with the yellow cranes on top is the O2 Arena, a state-of-the-art arena that includes a bowling alley, clubs, cinema, exhibition spaces, restaurants and shopping. The only event I've attended at the O2 was a para-Olympic women's basket ball event. I'd love to see a concert there sometime.
I continued to walk along the water front to Canary Wharf and discovered the Museum of the London Docklands. It's a wonderful museum that covers the history of the river Thames and the docks and port of London through the centuries. I could have spent the rest of the afternoon there since there is so much history here -- from Roman times, through the centuries, the World Wars, and the centuries of the slave trade. If you feel like you've been to all the museums London has to offer, this is one that shouldn't be missed, especially if you love history.
Canary Wharf sits in the middle of the Isle of Dogs, called that because Henry the 8th kept his hunting dogs here for his deer park at Greenwich. Since the 1980, it has been redeveloped on top of the old East End docklands. If you pay attention, the evidence of trade and shipbuilding is still here. Some of old dock areas have been preserved, some with the original cranes, some with sailing and water sports and a few with old barges and sailing ships. New parks have sprung up around the water front with cafes, restaurants and cycle paths and walkways.
Canary Wharf is also one of London's two main financial centers. As you walk around you'll see every bank imaginable as well as trendy shops, a shopping mall, and loads of restaurants and street food stalls. There is still so much to explore of the docklands, I can hardly wait to return.
'When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life, for there is in London all that life can afford.'
I finally had the chance to tour the the lovely Stonor House, a grand home that has been in the Stonor family since 1150. It is set in a lovely valley in the Chiltern Hills, not far from Henley-on-Thames and Nettlebed. The grounds have a large deer park with mature beech trees, woodlands, spectacular gardens, and fabulous walking trails. My photos don't do justice to the beauty of this place - in part because it was raining the whole time, and in part because my camera broke so I had to use my iPhone.
Stonor House is unusual for a Oxfordshire manor home in that it's uniform facade of is of Tudor brick rather than the usual golden stone of most grand homes. But, like all houses that are nearly 900 year old, it is a hodgepodge of various styles from the 12th to the 18th centuries, including an early 19th century library, 18th century gothic revival hall, as well as the remains of the 13th century aisled hall.
Since the home is still the residence of the current Stonor family, I think the 6th Baron and Baroness Camoys, only part of the house is open to the public, and no photography is allowed inside the house. You can see some of rooms that are open to the public if you click here.
The gardens behind the house are beautiful and so well maintained. They were first laid out in 1480. They evolved into a 18th century pleasure garden built into the hill. You can walk through one of the gates into an arboretum that is filled with stunning beech trees that must be at least 500 years old.
Interspersed throughout the formal garden are lovely old fruit trees just laden with fruit. I'd love to come back in a month and help with the harvest.
From the Stonor House website: "The fortunes of the house and chapel are strongly tied to the travails of the Catholics in Britain. When Henry VIII formed the Church of England in the 1530s Catholics, including the Stonor family were forced to take a much reduced part in public life. Crippling fines were levied and many were persecuted and forced to go into hiding. At Stonor there is a poignant reminder of these times in the roof space and priest hole where Sir Edmund Campion hid whilst printing the famous Ten Reasons’ pamphlet in the 1580s."
A bird's nest mixed in with the water lilies
The house chapel was built in the late 13th century next to a neolithic stone circle. Thankfully, instead of tearing down the circle, they built around the henge even incorporating one of the stones as a corner stone for the 14th century catholic chapel. I did learn, though, that many of the stones have been toppled over the centuries and that the circle has been reconstructed.
Without a telephoto lens, I couldn't capture a good picture of the rather large heard of Fallow Deer on the top of this hill. The deer seem quite tame and are very much a part of the grounds.
The late 13th century Catholic chapel is made of flint stone, as are a number of the walls that surround the gardens. I love this unique combination of brick and flint.
Also on the grounds is a wonderfully designed play area for kids of all ages, called Wonder Woods.
One of the most surprising things I discovered inside Stonor home was a hallway with the walls covered with paintings, prints and maps of Newport, Rhode Island. It turns out that Nadine Pepys was the daughter of of the 5th Baron and Baroness Camoys and was born at Stonor House. She was one of the founders of Operation Clapboard, a Newport-based organization that saved nearly 40 historic buildings and raised awareness of the historical and cultural value of the homes of Newport, RI. Below is Nadine's obituary.
The Hon. Nadine Pepys, formerly of Newport, Rhode Island and Brightling, Sussex, died 26 January, 2005, after a short illness. She was born in 1917 as the Hon. Pamela Sophia Nadine Stonor, daughter of the 5th Baron Camoys (1884-1968), of Stonor Park, Oxfordshire, by his wife Mildred (d. 1961), daughter of William Watts Sherman, of New York. She married in 1941, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Donald Leslie (Tom) Pepys b. 1909, King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, deceased, a great-grandson of the 1st Earl of Cottenham. No children of the marriage.
The other surprise was seeing a "Slipper Bath". I had read descriptions of these types of bathtubs but had never seen one, at least not like this one. A slipper bath is an iconic style of bathtub that originated in the Victorian era, when bathing and cleanliness were acknowledged as easy ways to improve health and reduce disease.
The slipper baths were initially found in washhouses and bathhouses, where the working classes could finally bathe alone with either hot or cold water. Traditionally, the bath has one end deeper than the other, with the taps located at the shallower end to give the bather space to relax at the other. This also affords them a certain amount of privacy, which was very useful when they were found in public washhouses, and kept the water warmer for longer.
Like all the other grand houses that I have visited, Stonor House and Park are well worth a visit. The garden, park, and home are stunning - even in the rain. And the history of the place and the people who have lived in this home over the past 800 years is fascinating.
