A Visit to Vauxhall Gardens by Tony Grant

Canaletto's view of Vauxhall Gardens and the Grand Walk

Vauxhall Gardens opened in 1661. The most famous of London’s diarist’s, Samuel Pepys, recorded in his diary that he visited Vauxhall Gardens no less than twenty four times. The first time he recorded a visit to the gardens was on 29th March 1662, when Vauxhall it really was just a country inn set within a pleasant garden setting with walks and flower beds. It was approached from a path from the Thames and the Vauxhall stairs. Visitors would cross the Thames in a boat from the north bank. They generally would bring their own picnics.

Map of Vauxhall Gardens in 1800. Click on image to enlarge. Image @Ideal Homes: History of South East Suburbs (see link below).

Amateur musicians would perform in the gardens and sometimes the visitors themselves would provide their own entertainment.  This was the first time that ordinary people could enjoy gardens like this, which was a unique social aspect at the time of Pepys. It was a freeing of social codes. Such gardens were usually found in the country estates of the nobility.

A view of the Temple of Comus at Vauxhall Gardens. Image @1st Gallery.com

People from different levels of society could meet freely and strangers could meet within the gardens. In the usual course of their lives there were strong social codes about friendships and who could talk to whom. The gardens were a place to be free of many social constraints, where males and females could meet. It was also an ideal place for the business of prostitutes.

Interior view of the elegant music room at Vauxhall Gardens. Engraving by H. Roberts, 1752. Image @1st Gallery.com

Over the centuries various owners and managers oversaw Vauxhall gardens . The greatest of these was Jonathan Tyers. He came from a family of fellmongers from Bermondsey in the east End. Fellmongers were dealers in leather hides.

Jonathan Tyers and his family by Hayman. Image @Wikimedia Commons

Tyers was a shrewd businessman and understood how to advertise and popularise the gardens. He was also good at reinventing himself as a gentleman, landowner, wit, urbane host, and patron of the arts. He owned the gardens from 1729 to his death in 1767 and saw Vauxhall gardens at the height of its fame and popularity. His most important guest was The Prince of Wales, who had his own booth within the gardens.

Pleasure gardens poster at The Museum of London. Image @Tony Grant

All of society, from the aristocracy, to landowners, to the ordinary working people came to Vauxhall. For special events Tyeres would raise the price to attract only certain people but generally the price was one shilling and this price remained the same for sixty years. He offered season tickets for a guinea.

Vauxhall Garden silver pass, c. 1760

The season ticket comprised a metal tag embossed on one side with a scene of classical mythology and the other side was printed with the ticket holders name. There is quite a selection of these season tickets in various collections.

Water gate entrance to Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens

In 1740 a Vauxhall evening would begin at 7pm.The visitors would get into a boat from Westminster and alight at the Vauxhall Stairs on the south bank, very close to where Lambeth Palace, the home of the Archbishop of Canterbury, was located. Visitors would walk through the main entrance which fronted the River Thames and proceed along The Grove with the supper boxes lining the walkway on either side.

Chinese Pavillions at Vauxhall

In front of the boxes stood the orchestra building.

Statue of Handel by Louis-François Roubiliac, 1738. Image @V&A Museum

A statue of the composer Handel could be seen in front of this. The gardens were famous at this time for giving performances of new pieces composed by Handel or other composers well known at the time, such as Arne and Boyce.

The orchestra at Vauxhall, Canaletto.

Visitors would have the chance to see wealthy people promenading through the gardens wearing the latest expensive fashions.

One of the surviving Vauxhall genre paintings. Image @ V&A

The fifty large supper boxes were able to entertain up to ten people to supper. Each box was decorated with an original painting. Surprisingly fourteen of these paintings still survive.

Vauxhall Gardens, Rowlandson

The Grand Walk led to the golden statue of Aurora or the Rural Downs where there was a life size statue of Milton. This reminds me of the 18th century gardens at Painshill in Surrey which have been restored very much to their former glories. At Painshill there are grand vistas, a Turkish tent, mysterious grottos near the lake, a ruined Abbey, a hermits lodging and a Roman temple as well as many large statues from Greek mythology set within groves.

Tom and Jerry at Vauxhall

The Vauxhall experience therefore is still possible to experience. If Vauxhall was intended, as the gardens at Painshill were, then each setting was meant to create a different mood or spiritual experience. There is no record of Jane Austen visiting Vauxhall but she obviously knew about it. She stayed with her brother Henry at Hans Place which is almost directly across the Thames from Vauxhall.

Vauxhall pleasure gardens by Cruikshank, 1813

It is about half a mile from the river bank but the lights, the sounds of the music and fire works exploding would easily have been noticed from miles around. In Mansfield Park the walk in the park at Sotherton owned by Mr Rushworth have echoes of Painshill and Vauxhall.

Night scene in a supper box at Vauxhall

The Vauxhall Supper began about 9pm as dusk fell. It comprised of Vauxhall ham, cold meats, salad, cheeses custards, tarts, cheesecakes and other puddings. As night fell during the supper a whistle was blown. Servants lit thousands of lamps positioned strategically about the gardens and illuminated the scene. The effect was sensational.

The installation at The Museum of London recreated how the costumes in Vauxhall would look at night. Hats in this exhibit by contemporary milliner Philip Treacy.

By the mid 18th century semi circular piazzas had been opened in the north and south ranges of boxes. Behind the north range of boxes Tyeres had the Rotunda built. This was a covered concert room for wet weather.

Costumes of the Vauxhall pleasure gardens, installation at The Museum of London

More costumes from the pleasure garden. This man is obviously a waiter.

Female costume. Note how the yellow light (from oil globes or candles) affected the colors of the costumes. Some colors would not show up well. People kept this effect in mind when choosing evening wear. Image @Tony Grant

Costume of one of the entertainers. Image @Tony Grant

Exotic costume from the exhibit. Image @Tony Grant

Later a Pillared Saloon was added to the eastern side of the Rotunda. Within the Rotunda, Tyers got Francis Hayman to paint four huge canvases showing Britain’s victories in the Seven Years War. Each canvas was 12 feet by 15 feet. Only two oil sketches remain of the originals and an engraving is still in existence. The paintings have disappeared. Jonathan Tyers and Francis Hayman gave British art in the 1760’s its direction.

Vauxhall was also famous for its music. Many famous songs, some still known and sung today, were commissioned for the gardens. The most famous of which is, Lass of Richmond Hill. The singers became the superstars of their day, Thomas Lowe, Cecilia Arne, Joseph Vernon and Charles Dignum.

Miss Leary singing at Vauxhall, 1793-4

In 1758 the orchestra building was replaced by a neo gothic structure. The famous architect, Robert Adam, wrote to his brother:

“ I am now scheming another thing, which is a temple of Venus for Vauxhall which Mr Tyers proposes to lay £5000 upon……”

David Coke, author of a recent book on Vauxhall Gardens, wrote that this building was probably never built. Jonathen Tyers died in1767 and his children took over who themselves were followed by their children until 1822.

Photograph of Vauxhall in 1859. Image @The Guardian

The gardens closed finally closed on 25th July 1859. By this time Vauxhall had become run down and dilapidated. Its popularity had waned. Vauxhall railway station is situated opposite to where the entrance to Vauxhall gardens was. It epitomises the changes that were occurring in the world and society. People were able to travel about the country easily. The ordinary people preferred to go to the seaside and the new entertainments that were provided at these holiday resorts. If you go to Brighton on the south coast in Sussex you can experience the delights of Brighton Pier.

Brighton Pier. Image @Tony Grant

It is a Victorian construction and many of the buildings on it date back to Victorian times. The pier has more than an echo of the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. These Victorian piers built at popular resorts have been described as Vauxhall piers.

Map in Vauxhall Station showing the pleasure gardens. Image @Tony Grant

Recently I was looking at an old map showing the layout and design of Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. I could see Kennington Road marked clearly on the map bordering the southern border of where the pleasure gardens had been. It showed the road curving slightly. It struck me that I know that part of Kennington Road well. Vauxhall is part of the London Borough of Lambeth. My wife Marilyn worked for over ten years in schools in Lambeth and often got off the train at Vauxhall and walked to her inner city school in Walnut Tree Walk next to the Lambeth Walk that is of Charley Chaplin and that song, fame. We decided that we would go for a walk around Vauxhall and see if we could find any signs or remains of the pleasure gardens.

Marilyn and Abi reading the information board in the gardens

Marilyn, myself and Abigail, our youngest daughter, got off the train at Vauxhall and walked across the road to a pub which has its windows blacked out. This pub is now famous for the performance of strippers. This must be reminiscent of the courtesans who sold their bodies in the pleasure gardens of the 18th century perhaps.

Looking across where the gardens were situated. Image @Tony Grant

Behind the pub is a small park called Spring Park. This area was covered in Victorian terraced housing up to the second World War and then during the Blitz on London many were destroyed. After the war, to commemorate the old pleasure gardens, Lambeth Council decided to make the area into a park again. This was the site of the original pleasure gardens. We had found it. To one side you can see the green glass and concrete structure that is MI6.The entrance to the park announces that this is Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, although it is officially called Spring Gardens. When I researched the old gardens I discovered that indeed it used to called Vauxhall Spring Gardens when it first began. There is a large sign board as you walk into Spring Gardens which provides a display of old pictures of the gardens and a history of the site.

Tyers Road along the top of the present Spring Gardens

To the north of the park is Tyers Road commemorating Jonathen Tyers. There is a city farm called Vauxhall City farm on the site where the battle of Waterloo was re-enacted. In the far right eastern corner there is situated St Peter’s Church, which is reputedly on the very site of the Neptune Fountain that was placed at the end of The Grand Walk.

St. Peter's Church, Kennington Lane, on the site of the Neptune Fountain at the end of the Grand Walk. Image@Tony Grant

There are no remains of the actual pleasure gardens to be seen in the new park. Because it is an open area with walkways and grassy mounds within the park you can get a sense of the size and feel of the original pleasure gardens.

Vauxhall city farm; the site of the Waterloo grounds

Here are some quotations from people who visited the gardens at different times during its existence.

An article in The Spectator 1712:

We were now arrived at Spring-Garden, which is exquisitely pleasant at this time of the Year. When I considered the Fragrancy of the Walks and Bowers, with the Choirs of Birds that sung upon the Trees, and the loose Tribe of People that walked under their Shades, I could not but look upon the Place as a kind of Mahometan Paradise. Sir Roger told me it put him in mind of a little Coppice by his House in the Country, which his Chaplain used to call an Aviary of Nightingales.

Fireworks Vauxhall Gardens, 1800

A letter to a Lord describing the Spring gardens in 1751:

These Gardens, containing about twenty Acres and a Half, make part of a Mannor, belonging to His Royal Highness the PRINCE OF WALES, as Earl of Kennington; the famous black Prince, son to our immortal Edward III, having anciently had a Palace there. —But leaving Antiquity, I shall proceed to the present State of the Spot, which is the Subject of your Lordship’s obliging Command; after observing, that the Hint of this rational and elegant Entertainment, was given by a Gentleman, whose Paintings exhibit the most useful Lessons of Morality, blended with the happiest Strokes of Humour.
Being advanc’d up the Avenue, by which we enter into the Spring-Gardens; the first Scene that catches the Eye, is a grand Visto or Alley about 900 Feet long, formed by exceedingly lofty Sycamore, Elm, and other Trees. At the Extremity of this Visto, stands a gilded Statue of Aurora, with a Ha ha; over which is a View into the adjacent Meads; where Haycocks, and Haymakers sporting, during the mowing Season, add a Beauty to the Landskip. This Alley (a noble Gravel Walk throughout) is intersected, at right Angles, by two others. One of these Alleys (at the Extremity whereof, to the Left, a [p.3] fine Picture of Ruins is seen) extends about 600 Feet; being the whole Breadth of the Garden, or Spring-Gardens, as they are commonly called, which Terms I shall use indiscriminately.

These are the thoughts of a German Prince in 1827:

Yesterday evening I went for the first time to Vauxhall, a public garden in the style of Tivoli at Paris, but on a far grander and more brilliant scale. The illumination with thousands of lamps of the most dazzling[157] colours is uncommonly splendid. Especially beautiful were large bouquets of flowers hung in the trees, formed of red, blue, yellow, and violet lamps, and the leaves and stalks of green; there were also chandeliers of a gay Turkish sort of pattern of various hues, and a temple for the music, surmounted with the royal arms and crest. Several triumphal arches were not of wood, but of cast-iron, of light transparent patterns, infinitely more elegant, and quite as rich as the former. Beyond this the gardens extended with all their variety and their exhibitions, the most remarkable of which was the battle of Waterloo.

Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens entrance today. Image @Tony Grant

Here is part of a satirical poem written for the PUNCH magazine in 1859 and depicts the decline of the gardens before they were finally closed:

Comrades, you may leave me sitting in the mouldy arbour here,
With the chicken-bones before me and the empty punch-bowl near.
‘Rack’ they called the punch that in it fiercely fumed, and freely flowed:
By the pains that rack my temples, sure the name was well bestowed.
Leave me comrades, to my musings, ‘mid the mildewed timber-damps,
While from sooty branches round me splutter out the stinking lamps.
While through rent and rotten canvas sighs the bone-mill laden breeze;
And the drip-damp statues glimmer through the gaunt and ghastly trees.

And the ode goes on and on. It has become a depressing place.

Vauxhall Park looking towards the Thames. Image @Tony Grant

Written by Tony Grant, London Calling

More on the topic:

• David Coke’s excellent site: Vauxhall Gardens
• Vauxhall Gardens
• Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens
• Friends of Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens
• Pleasure Gardens Part 2
• Vauxhall Gardens 3
• Galleries of Modern London at the Museum of London
• Fireworks and the Very Useful Application of Bishops
• Effra
• History of South East Suburbs
• Discovering the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens
• William Hogarth’s Gold Admission Ticket to Vauxhall Gardens
• Ranelagh and Vauxhall Gardens
• Will They Chop Down the Mulberry Trees?
• English Pleasures of Vauxhall
• Vauxhall Gardens: A History, a Review

Read Full Post »

Blood Letting and Collecting Leeches in the Regency Era

One can imagine that during her final illness, Jane Austen was no stranger to leeches. This method of bloodletting was so common in Great Britain (Wales especially) and France that by the 1830’s Hirudo medicinal leeches (common in Europe) were hard to find and had to be imported or home grown .

Leech finders, 1814. George Havell, Costumes of Yorkshire.

Gathering leeches was a traditional female occupation, although there are always exceptions to the rule. Take this passage about leech-fishers in France from the Gazette des Hopitaux:

Man leech fishing in a marsh in Bretagne. 1857. Image @Shutter Stock

If ever you pass through La Brenne, you will see a man, pale and straight-haired with a woollen cap on his head, and his legs and arms naked; he walks along the borders of a marsh, among the spots left dry by the surrounding waters. This man is a leech- fisher. To see him from a distance,—his wo-begone aspect, his hollow eyes, his livid lips, his singular gestures,—you would take him for a maniac. If you observe him every now and then raising his legs and examining them one after another, you might suppose him a fool ; but he is an intelligent leech-fisher. The leeches attach themselves to his legs and feet as he moves among their haunts; he feels their bite, and gathers them as they cluster about the roots of the bulrushes and aquatic weeds, or beneath the stones covered with a green and slimy moss. He may thus collect, ten or twelve dozen in three or four hours. In summer, when the leeches retire into deep water, the fishers move about upon rafts made of twigs and rushes.”  – Excerpt taken from Curiosities of Medical Experience (1838) by John Gideon Millingen, via The Condenser: Hunting Down Good Bits

Despite the many strides that were made in medicine regarding human anatomy and diseases, the knowledge about treatments lagged behind. Lack of anesthetics made surgery an excruciating experience, and there were no antibiotics. Useful plants, such as digitalis, were discovered more by luck than by science. Bloodletting or ‘breathing a vein’ was one way in which a patient could be treated by a physician who had few options. Applying leeches often resulted  in a severe loss of blood, which was more detrimental to the patient’s condition than not. A human with a poor immune response could suffer from wound infections, diarrhea and septicemia, all influenced by the bacterium, Aeromonas veronii, carried in the leeche’s gut.

19th century leech advertisement

Regardless of adverse consequences, bloodletting has been practiced for at least 2,500 years. The earliest instruments, or lancets, were sharpened pieces of wood or stone, but it is leeches that I want to write about. (I am more repulsed by their sight than a snake’s, and had a hard time searching for an image that did not make me gag.)  The ancient Greeks believed in the humoral theory, which proposed that when the four humors, blood, phlegm, black and yellow bile in the human body were in balance, good health was guaranteed. An unbalance in these four humors led to ill health. Fast forward to the middle ages, when superstition and religion gave weight to the art of bleeding. If you recall, the earliest surgeons were barbers as well. Their leeches cured anything from headaches to gout!

Bloodletting with leeches is an ancient tradition

Leeches are commonly affixed by inverting a wine-glass containing as many as may be required, upon the part affected. The great disadvantage of this practice is, that some of them frequently retire to the upper part of the glass and remain at rest, defying all attempts to dislodge them, without incurring the risk of removing those that may have fastened.” – James Rawlins Johnson, A Treatise on the Medicinal Leech

Francois Broussais proposed in  his Histoire des phlegmasies ou inflammations chroniques (1808) that all disease resulted from excess build up of blood. The alleviation of this condition required heavy leeching and starvation. Leeches subsequently became the most prevalent way of treating a patient, especially in France, where tens of million of leeches were used per year, resulting in a drastic leech shortage. The British were equally enamored with this form of therapy. It is conjectured that Princess Charlotte’s death in childbirth in 1817 was exacerbated by her physician, who prescribed a rigorous course of blood letting and starvation diet during her pregnancy, weakening her before her agonizing 50+ hours of labor. (Read my article on this topic.)

In 1833, bloodletting became so popular in Europe, that the commercial trade in leeches became a major industry. France, suffering a deficiency, had to import 41.5 million leeches. The medicinal leech almost became extinct in Europe due to the extremely high demand for them. Leeches were collected in a particularly creepy way. Leech collectors would wade in leech infested waters allowing the leeches to attach themselves to the collector’s legs. In this way as many as 2,500 leeches could be gathered per day. When the numbers became insufficient, the French and Germans started the practice of leech farming. Elderly horses were used as leech feed where they would be sent into the water and would later die of blood loss. – Maggots and Leeches Make a Comeback

Oh, how I pity those elderly horses!

 

Large leech collector jar.

Intestinal tract of the hirudo leech

Leeches are quite extraordinary in that they have 31 brains and can gorge themselves up to five times their body weight before falling off their host. Afterward they require no feeding for another 6 months. There are over 650 known species of leeches, not all of which are bloodsuckers (some eat earthworms, for example). Placing leeches onto a patient (making sure the frontal sucker with teeth was directed to the skin) is relatively pain free, for their bite releases an anaesthetic. During feeding they secrete compounds, such as a vasodilator that dilates blood vessels and anticoagulant that prevents the blood from clotting. The worms are hermaphrodites, functioning as both the male and female sex. Even after being frozen, leeches can be coaxed back to life!  Needless to say, these creatures must provide an endless source of interest to scientists.

Early 19th century rare cobalt blue transportable leech jar. These were mostly made of clear glass. Cloth covered the everted lip to prevent escapees.

People (meaning mostly women) stood in fresh water marshes, lakes, pools, and the edges of river banks, and allowed the leeches to attach to their legs. (I shudder as I type this.) Once the leeches were gathered, they were placed in a basket, ceramic pot with breathing holes, or a reservoir.

One of these traders was known to collect, with the aid of his children, seventeen thousand five hundred leeches in the course of a few months; these he had deposited in a reservoir, where, in one night, they were all frozen en masse.” But congelation does not kill them, and they can easily be thawed into life, by melting the ice that surrounds them. Leeches, it appears, can bear much rougher usage than one might imagine: they are packed up closely in wet bags, carried on pack-saddles, and it is well known that they will attach themselves with more avidity when rubbed in a dry napkin previous to their application. Leech-gatherers are in general short-lived, and become early victims to agues, and other diseases brought on by the damp and noxious air that constantly surrounds them ; the effects of which they seek to counteract by the use of strong liquors.”  Excerpt taken from Curiosities of Medical Experience (1838) by John Gideon Millingen, via The Condenser: Hunting Down Good Bits

Pewter box for transporting leeches. Image @Science Museum of london

Leeches were carried in a variety of containers made of glass, silver, or pewter. Small bowls were portable, and the larger ones were probably kept in an apothecary’s shop or pharmacy. The everted lips were used to attach a cloth, which prevented the hapless creatures from escaping.

Portable leech carriers made of glass, silver and pewter. Small leech tubes directed the worm to difficult to reach places in the mouth, larynx, ear, conjunctiva, rectum and vagina, begging this question: How did one retrieve the engorged leech?

After the 1830s, the practice of leeching began to decline as medical diagnostic skills improved. Physicians realized that patients who were leeched did not often recover more fully than those who were not, and other, more beneficial treatments,  including pharmaceutical and homeopathic remedies, began to replace leeching

Red and cream Staffordshire leech jar

More on the Topic

• Leeches Used in Bloodletting
• Medicinal Use of Medicinal Leeches
• Biopharm’s Leech Facts
• Collect Medical Antiques

Leech bowl

Read Full Post »

Downton Abbey Season 2: Teagowns and relaxation

My regular Jane Austen readers have been patient as I succumbed to Downton Abbey fever and began to cover events 100 years after Jane Austen’s death. Customs changed during that intervening century. Take the matter of dress. While proper Regency ladies changed their outfits from morning gowns to walking gowns when they went out, and changed into dinner dress when dining, by Victorian and Edwardian times the custom of a lady changing her clothes throughout the day had turned into a fine art.  One could get by with no less than 4-5 changes per day. A woman who packed to visit a country estate was sure not to be seen in the same outfit twice. This meant that for a 4-day visit she would need at the very minimum to have her maid pack 16 changes of outfits. One can only imagine the work of a lady’s maid to keep all the clothes and unmentionables in perfect (and clean) condition. Such attention to detail required quite a bit of organization.

Morning dress, 1815. Ackermann plate. While she looked proper in her at home attire, this morning dress looks stodgy compared to the Edwardian teagown.

Corsets were worn all through the 19th century and into the early part of the 20th century. Women were constricted into these garments for most of their waking day, but there were times when they were free from these tight-laced garments.  During the early 19th century, upper class women at home would wear comfortable (but beautiful) morning gowns. Dressing gowns were also worn. Such gowns were meant to be seen by the family and close relatives only. The moment a woman expected to be seen, she would change into more proper dress.

Cora, the Countess of Grantham, lived during a time when teagowns were all the rage. These beautiful ornate gowns had the advantage of being simply cut and worn without a corset. It was possible that for just a few hours she could relax comfortably before dinner.

They were generally loose-fitting and elaborately trimmed, and gave full vent to the dressmaker’s or couturier’s skill and taste for theatricality. Tea-gowns were influenced by historical styles from eighteenth century Watteau-pleats, to renaissance hanging sleeves and empire waistlines and quite often, all of them at the same time. Never has so much love and art been invested in such an arguably unnecessary garment. All kinds of informal garments including tea jackets, peignoirs, dressing gowns, combing sacques, morning robes and dressing jackets also had their place in the leisured Edwardian lady’s wardrobe, all of them beautifully decorated and almost all of them now obsolete. 1900-1919: The Last Age of Elegance 

American dancer and actress Irene Castle wearing a teagown, 1913

It had long been the custom for a lady to entertain both male and female visitors in her boudoir. (Read my article on this topic.) During the Regency era, dressing gowns were quite plain and simple compared to teagowns.

1810-23 dresssing gown. Image @Met Museum

At times the teagown gave rise to temptation, for a woman could entertain in private and not need the services of her maid:

Worn between five and seven oclock,  gave rise to the French phrase ‘cinq à sept‘. This referred to the hours when lovers were received, the only time of day when a maid wouldn’t need to be there to help you undress and therefore discover your secret. – “Style”, The World of Downton Abbey, Jessica Fellowes

Early 19th century dressing gown. Image @Met Museum

Attired in her tea-gown, a soft flowing robe of filmy chiffon or fine silk, trimmed with an abundance of lace and often free of corsetry, the hostess must have been a tempting prospect for many men. Such loose gowns afforded women great comfort, ease of access and a tremendous sense of femininity. Little wonder then that whilst hemlines rose and fell the tea-gown, which had appeared in England as early as 1875 lingered on until the 1920s. – Edwardian tea gowns, fashion era

This Lingerie-style dress embellished with Irish crochet, c.1905 (below) can be seen in more detail on Vintage Texiles. Made of sheer cotton decorated with lace and ruffles, this sheer dress required a slip.

Edwardian teagown, 1905. Image @Vintage Textile

More on the topic:

Read more on the topic: Tea Gowns, Edwardian Promenade

Image of an early 19th century dressing gown at the Met Museum

Read Full Post »

Highclere Castle Floor Plan: The Real Downton Abbey

(Hint: for quicker download, click on title of this article.) As viewers of Downton Abbey, we think we have gotten to know Highclere Castle and its setting well.  Sir Barry remodelled Highclere Castle for the third earl of Carnarvon from 1839 to 1842. The architect had just finished building the Houses of Parliament. The house once looked quite different and was Georgian in feature, as this image shows.

Extensive renovations were made during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. In the mid-19th century, Henry, the 3rd earl of Carnarvon, transformed the house into a grand mansion with 60- 80 bedrooms (the sum varies according to the source) and over 120,000 square feet. The staircase, also designed by Thomas Allom, sits in the tower designed by Charles Barry.

Highclere Castle after renovation. Sir Charles Barry’s renovation was in the “High Elizabethan” style. The building was faced in Bath stone.

The Architectural Design

Architectural design for the tower of Downton Abbey by Sir Charles Barry, 1842. Image@Christie’s

The BBC said about Barry’s Houses of Parliament:

A good example of the period’s confused love affair with the past, it was summed up earlier this century as classic in inspiration, Gothic in detailing, and carried out with scrupulous adherence to the architectural detail of the Tudor period. – BBC, A British History of Architecture

This description can easily be applied to Highclere Castle with its whimsical look back to Tudor times.

The term “Jacobethan” refers to the Victorian revival of English architecture of the late 16th century and early 17th century, when Tudor architecture was being challenged by newly arrived Renaissance influences. During the 19th century there was a huge Renaissance revival movement, of which Sir Charles Barry was a great exponent – Barry described the style of Highclere as “Anglo-Italian”.^{[3] – Wikipedia}

The Facade and Front Door

The front door

Many visitors come to this blog looking for a floor plan of Highclere Castle. This one depicted below sits on the Highclere Castle website and is a bit hard to read. Not all the rooms are currently in use, and a number, such as the music room, are available to be rented as conference rooms.

The House Plan

In the television series, the servant quarters and kitchens were not filmed at the Castle, but were constructed at Ealing studios in West London.

From The Victorian Country House by Mark Girouard.

Entrance Hall and Saloon

Stairs and hall

Red stairs birds eye view

Pillars

Passage above saloon leading to the bedrooms

Saloon from gallery above. The room was designed by Thomas Allom and completed in the 1860s.

Saloon seating space Picture by Paul Hilton ©

Saloon

Detail of saloon ceiling

The Music Room

Music room

Music room

These days the music room is available as a conference room.*

The Library

Double library with coffered celings holds over 5,000 books.

Comfortable seating within the library

The library is unusual in that it consists of a two part room. The opening between the two areas is featured by columns. This room is also available to rent as a conference room.*

The Drawing Room

The drawing room image @Boston Globe. The drawing room was designed by Almina, the 5th Countess of Carnarvon, in the “rococo revival” style .

The Dining Room

Much drama is centered in the dining room. The actors often took days to film a scene, and it was quite a feat to keep the food looking fresh and to maintain continuity in both the drinking glasses and on the plates. Read Downton Abbey: Dining in Splendor for more information.

The dining room

Image @Conferences UK

Bedrooms

Renovated bedroom

One of the bedrooms in need of renovation. Image @Daily Mail

This image on Huffington Post shows more details about Downton Abbey/Highclere Castle and values the mansion:

More on the topic:

• The Jane Austen Connection to Downton Abbey and Egypt
• Highclere Castle History
• Floor Plan, Highclere Castle
• The State Rooms of Highclere Castle
• Ordnance Survey: Highclere Castle
• Can Highclere Castle be Saved? 
• *Conference room plans for Highclere Castle
• Downton Abbey’s Stunning Film Locations
• The Real Downton Abbey
• Perspective of a garden by Sir Charles Barry
• Highclere Castle: The Making of Downton Abbey
• Meet the Architect Sir Charles Barry
• British listed buildings: Highclere Castle, includes detailed description of the exterior of the house
• Kingham Farm, East Woodhay, Historical Ownership, Highclere Estate, p. 90
• What it’s like to live at the Real Downton Abbey
• Behind the Scenes at Downton Abbey
• Downton Abbey: 10 Facts about the show’s real castle

Read Full Post »

Death Comes to Pemberley and Other Matters Pertaining to Jane Austen Sequels

It’s rare that I purchase a Jane Austen sequel. Generally, publishers will send books for review or I’ll pick up a copy at the library. When Death Comes to Pemberley was announced I did not hesitate to purchase a copy for my Kindle. P.D. James, the book’s author, is a highly regarded mystery writer with a solid record for selling mystery books to discerning mystery fans. (The book placed third on the NY Times best seller list this weekend.)

A good friend of mine, whose judgment I value, owns every single P.D. James novel and was overall satisfied with this novel. I had never read a P.D. James novel before, and she was curious to know what I thought of this book. Another Janeite friend had read it and remarked that it was very well done and followed the forensic detective work of its time. They waited to discuss the book with me until after I had finished reading it and could give my opinion. Last weekend the three of us came to the same conclusion, which was that the mystery was weak and a bit lame, and that the actual murderer was so preposterous as to be unbelievable. My question to them was: “Why would a famous author like P.D. James waste her time writing a Jane Austen sequel, especially if the mystery was less than sterling?” Both defended her decision to write this book, while I was not particularly swayed. Both were ecstatic that she had written one more book, for they fear that their author, being 90+ years old, might not have too many novels left to write. To that I said she shouldn’t have bothered.

My suspicion is that had P.D. James been an unknown author peddling her manuscript for the first time to publishers and agents, Death Comes to Pemberley would have been tossed on the slush pile and she would have received a slew of the rejection letters,  one of which might have looked like this:

Dear Ms. P.D. James,

Thank you for your submission of Death Comes to Pemberley, which we read with interest, for your writing style is quite extraordinary. I’m sorry to say that  our interest in your manuscript was killed by its long talky scenes and sparseness of  mystery plot. I don’t need to hear about the crime from potential witnesses, then learn the same information during the inquiry and then again during the trial.

You will need to solve a major  problem with the plot by writing the denouement towards the end of the story, rather than 2/3 of the way through.  After I discovered who the murderer was, I frankly did not care to sift through another five chapters so that you could tie up loose plot threads. Let me make a few suggestions for improvement before you send the manuscript on to others:

1. Check your facts. In the first chapter on the first page you referred to Mr. Collins as Mr. Bennet’s nephew. He is Mr. Bennet’s cousin.  I almost stopped reading the book right then, for the mistake and others made me wary of the quality of your research or understanding of Pride and Prejudice and its characters.

2. Show don’t tell. Yes, I understand that this is a Jane Austen sequel and that you are working with familiar characters, but you slowed your plot to a crawl with your reams of exposition at the start of the novel and, strangely, at the end. Also, your men were too talky. While I appreciate the fact that they might have spoken more formally two hundred years ago, men don’t as a general rule talk in long unbroken sentences, especially to each other.

3. Write an original novel with your own characters. Whenever you deviated from Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth and other Pride and Prejudice characters, your novel jumped to life.

Sincerely, Vic @Jane Austen’s World

Death Comes to Pemberley is yet another instance of a famous author joining the Jane Austen bandwagon. Some of you might remember Colleen McCullough jumping into the fray with her detestable The Independence of Mary Bennet, which must have garnered riches for the publisher before readers caught on. (Read my review here.) These two best-selling authors, while they rightly have earned their literary reputations, fell down in my opinion when they so cynically wrote novels that, to put it kindly, barely scraped bottom when compared to Jane Austen’s own brilliant work. Besides, what business had they to write a Jane Austen sequel? Do they really think it is all that easy?

The career of a Jane Austen sequel writer is not an easy one. Most write their books out of love for Jane Austen and her characters. Those that I have come to know through correspondence are earnest about their desire to continue Jane’s stories. They work hard for very little recompense. Unless a publisher anticipates a blockbuster novel (such as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a concept novel if ever there was one), most provide book advances that barely cover the cost for postage or time spent researching a topic. Once upon a time book publishers, editors, and agents invested in long-term relationships with new authors, building their reputations up slowly and giving them time to develop their talents.

Image @New Yorker

This is no longer the case. A writer has only two or three years to make money back for the publisher.*(See Laurel Ann’s comments below.)  That is a lot of pressure, considering that royalties on the published price of trade books ranging from 10%-12.5% and on paperbacks from 7.5% to 10%. Many first time authors fail to realize any profit on their books. The average first novel sells around 2,000 – 4,000 books, but the break even for publishers is around 5,000 books. Four out of five first novels fail to make money for the publisher. Authors might only earn the total amount of their advance, minus the cost of extra copies of books they have purchased for giveaways and bookmarks, and the loss of spare time as they visit book stores, libraries, reading clubs, and groups and attend conferences all over creation in order to publicize their books will never be made up. These days authors are expected to oversee their own blog, and a Facebook and twitter account as well. Many spend hours writing down answers to interview questions or being interviewed online.

As readers you will notice a big push for books several times a year, when many new titles are competing with each other. Before the holiday season this year, P.D. James received an automatic “in” from most of the major book critics; she received extremely kind reviews in my estimation. It’s almost as if even the most discerning critics didn’t bother to read her entire book. The ordinary sequel writer gets no such first-class treatment. Their eyes are glued on Amazon’s rankings, hoping they will break free from the midlist and sell enough volumes to give them a second contract for another book.

One author I talked to said she made almost no income from writing; another said she was unlikely to collect royalties this year. Another author, who lives in my city, was dropped by her publisher despite glowing reviews, only to be picked up by another publisher. For these authors, their writing careers must seem like an unpredictable roller coaster ride.

While I am not a great fan of Jane Austen sequels and prequels, I do salute these writers, who follow their passion. Many have written a truly enjoyable story that I can wholeheartedly promote. I can’t exactly say the same of Death Comes to Pemberley. Sorry Ms. James, but I give this book only 2 out of 5 regency tea cups.

For more information about the life of a writer, read The New Literary Lottery. This NY Magazine article by Alex Williams is a bit dated, but fascinating.

Read Full Post »