Landmark Spring 12

Landmark News

Spring 2012

The latest holiday and building restoration news from the Landmark Trust.

A busy year ahead

Inside this issue

Five newly-saved Landmarks to open in 2012.

T

he first is Bush Cottage near Bridgnorth in south Shropshire (for 2+2 people). It was rescued from dereliction by one of our most loyal supporters, to standards as exacting as our own, and we were delighted to accept it as his gift. Bush Cottage will welcome its first Landmarkers in early June.

Astley Castle (for 8 people) near Nuneaton, Warwickshire, opens next in early July, after almost two decades’ effort. It is a first for Landmark; extreme dereliction pushed us to the imaginative solution of modern accommodation dropped into ancient ruins. See it for yourself at our public Open Days on 15 and 16 July.

The Warren House in Kimbolton, Cambridgeshire, also opens in July, a timber-framed warrener’s cottage embellished in the 18th century

as an eyecatcher for Kimbolton Castle.

For 2 people, this has been a rewarding conservation using the latest green building materials. Public Open Days are on 19 and 20 August.

Finally, The Shore Cottages at Berriedale, Caithness, will open in August. This terrace of four fishermen’s cottages in a tranquil cove provides two Landmarks.

We have kept one cottage to its original footprint (for 2); the other three cottages are combined into a single Landmark for 6 people. There will be a public Open Day on 9 September.

Our thanks to everyone who donated to these buildings. Their rescue would not have been possible without your generous support.

2 Catch the Olympic flame

4 Farewell from Peter Pearce

Bookings for all five Landmarks are now open online or through our Booking Office on 01628 825925.

6 Help save Belmont

7 The Shore Cottages, Caithness, under restoration

The White House dovecote

Landmark Holidays

Catch the Olympic flame Welcome I am pleased to be able to write to you directly in this Newsletter, as we usher in a time of change at Landmark. It is with sadness that we have said farewell to Peter Pearce who, after 16 years as Landmark’s Director, stepped down on 13 March. Peter oversaw many projects and many changes at Landmark, as the organisation evolved and kept pace with both visitor expectations and changing technology. Peter recounts some of his more memorable experiences on pages four to five.

B

ritain’s hosting of the 2012 Olympics is a once in a generation occasion.

Between mid-May and the opening ceremony at the end of July, the Olympic flame will be carried within ten miles of 95% of us all. It will pass close to more than 70 Landmarks, including The Egyptian House (Penzance on 19 May), South Street (Great Torrington on 21 May) and Bromfield

Priory Gatehouse (Ludlow on 24 May).

Staying in a Landmark to watch the flame as it passes nearby would be a particularly memorable way of marking your own involvement with the Games, whether or not you have tickets for the main events.

You can find further inspiration for where to stay during the Olympics at www.landmarktrust.org.uk/ olympics.

Bromfield Priory Gatehouse, Shropshire

Peter’s tenure has combined vision with stability and he leaves Landmark in good heart.

We thank him deeply for his dedication and wish him well in his new role as Chief Executive of The Edward James Foundation (West Dean College). The search for his successor is well underway, and I am confident that Landmark’s next Director will perpetuate and cherish the values, standards and principles that have made it such an enduring and vital organisation.

Meanwhile, it is business as usual for the experienced and dedicated team that steer Landmark and its projects. 2012 will be a fantastic and eventful year, with five new Landmarks, including Astley Castle, one of our biggest and most imaginative projects ever, and a major new appeal for Belmont. I do hope to meet you at some of our events.

Neil MeNdOza CHairMaN

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Five dog-friendly Landmarks

Stogursey Castle Stogursey, near Bridgwater, Somerset For up to 4 people

Goddards Abinger Common, Surrey For up to 12 people

Old Place of Monreith Portwilliam, Dumfries and Galloway For up to 8 people

Call 01628 825925 Visit www.landmarktrust.org.uk Email bookings@landmarktrust.org.uk

Coombe, Cornwall

Escape the Olympics By contrast, dare it be whispered that some may wish to escape the Olympics altogether? If so, retreating to one of the more remote Landmarks could be the ideal solution. The secluded and lovely settings of such Landmarks, and the absence of televisions in our buildings could prompt you to set your own physical challenges as you enjoy the landscapes around them. For example, Landmarks in Rhiwddolion, Coombe and Peppercombe might all provide refuge from the medal tables.

Alternative games Did you know that the modern Olympics are long predated by our predecessors’ own homegrown games? At Dover’s Hill, near Chipping Campden, Robert Dover instigated the Cotswold Olimpicks as early as 1612, with sports like shin East Banqueting House, kicking, sword fighting and wrestling.

Old Campden House, Gloucestershire The Olimpicks still take place each Whitsun weekend (late May/early June), and where better to participate than from Landmark’s two Jacobean banqueting houses at Old Campden House. Alternatively, the Olympian Games at Much Wenlock (The White House) began in 1850 and still take place in July.

Gargunnock House, Central Scotland

A diamond year

The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in June will be an event that all will remember and that our children will talk of in decades to come.

Tuesday 5 June has been designated an extra, celebratory Bank Holiday and we have created a special five night break in all Landmarks, starting on Friday 1 June. Our buildings with a royal connection will already be familiar to many of you – Appleton Water Tower on the Sandringham Estate, Collegehill House in Roslin, Fish Court and The Georgian House at Hampton Court Palace – there are others too.

Perhaps you will plan your own pageant with family or friends in one of our castles like Clytha, Saddell or Kingswear, or possibly an elegantly-themed country house weekend at Cavendish Hall, Gargunnock House or Auchinleck House.

Stogursey Castle, Somerset

Pond Cottage, Endsleigh Near Tavistock, Devon For up to 5 people

Cawood Castle Cawood, near Selby, North Yorkshire For up to 2+2 people

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Reflections on Landmark Peter Pearce, Landmark’s former Director, reflects on an eventful 16 years at the Landmark Trust as he moves on to become Chief Executive of The Edward James Foundation (West Dean College) in Sussex.

M

y career at Landmark arose from a fire. After six years directing the multi-million pound restoration of the National Trust’s Uppark, following a spectacular fire, I found myself in 1995 needing something else to do. When I was asked to step in temporarily as Director at Landmark and then, a few months later, to stay on, there was no hesitation; the decision made itself.

When I first arrived, Landmark’s founder, Sir John Smith, was still very much in evidence even though he had stepped down as Chairman. Landmark’s office was at the bottom of his garden and I became used to his tall, slightly stooping figure walking across the lawn to our back door and a, ‘My dear, I mustn’t bore you but…’ followed by some fascinating anecdote or occasionally a steely look if I had done something of which he disapproved.

Then as now, Landmark had the qualities imbued in it by its founder; individual, thoughtful, adventurous, energetic, contrarian, pioneering and inventive.

I hope we have succeeded in keeping those qualities as Landmark has grown.

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There was no fundraising in 1995 and addressing that was my first job. In those youthful days of the Heritage Lottery Fund, one completed a ‘Simple Application Form’, with space for 30 words to describe your project and a box marked ‘cost’. I filled in several in my first week and sent them off. To my surprise and delight all were accepted and thus began our long and fruitful partnership with the HLF, which serendipitously began just when Sir John Smith’s Manifold Trust was leaving off as Landmark’s major funder.

An early application to the HLF was for the first ever proper jetty on Lundy.

We threw ourselves into this daunting project, adding the upgrading of the Oldenburg, renewal of Lundy’s dilapidated infrastructure and much else besides. In consequence, Lundy no longer causes the financial palpitations for Landmark that it used to, and has become a model of sustainability.

I have had the privilege to be involved in over 40 of Landmark’s projects. Each has lasted many years and brought a tale of its own and a store of memories. They include

Auchinleck House, The Grange, The Ruin, Dolbelydr, Clavell Tower, Cowside and Astley Castle to name but a few.

In 1995, showers were only found in Landmarks where there was no room for a bath and many bathrooms were reminiscent of a certain type of public school. Dishwashers were unknown and heating systems were often complemented by extra jerseys and hot water bottles.

Over the past decade and a half, almost all Landmarks have now been transformed and (a particular aspiration of mine) an increasing number are heated by environmentally friendly technology.

Landmark has taken me off in some quite unexpected directions. I have found myself arguing in Italian public meetings against a damaging motorway proposal affecting Villa Saraceno, and launching Landmark into France tested my schoolboy French to the utmost. From Orkney to Land’s End, the variety has been immense; definitely not for someone seeking an office job or a quiet life, but endlessly fascinating and fulfilling, like Landmarks themselves.

What of the future? Landmarks are in ever better shape and the programme to improve and modernise them will continue. Five new ones open this year, thanks to the loyalty of Landmark’s supporters. There are more exciting future prospects on the horizon, including some of the most intractable and desperate historic buildings, which need a saviour, such as Llwyn Celyn in Monmouthshire.

If I have achieved anything in my 16 years at Landmark, I hope that longer-standing Landmarkers will still recognise in the Landmark Trust of today the creation of its founder. It is unique and precious, and my successor must be the custodian of those qualities just as much as of its wonderful buildings. Landmark’s people make it what it is, and while it is a wrench to be moving on, I leave Landmark in the best of hands.

Sir John Smith once wrote, ‘… if we can just nudge the cannonball of progress in its flight, then we shall be content.’ I am quite sure Landmark will go on nudging that cannonball.

Background: Clavell Tower, Dorset. Images clockwise from top left: Peter Pearce, left, with Reg Lo-Vel at Silverton Park Stables; Cowside, North Yorkshire; Peter Pearce, right, with Derek Green on Lundy.

Maison de Maître, Brittany, France

Work in France gathers pace Our work in France, in partnership with national coastal conservancy agency, the Conservatoire du littoral, is gathering momentum. In November, we helped appoint a local architect to devise a scheme for Maison de Maître, an elegant 19th-century house on Ile Tristan in Douarnenez, Brittany. Once he reports back, we will be ready to start fundraising in France (there can be no diversion of funds from our UK buildings). We are being similarly consulted on the project to restore the huge Fort de l’ile Madame in the mouth of the Charente estuary near La Rochelle, which will house two Landmarks.

Meanwhile, our first three French Landmarks at Le Moulin de la Tuilerie at Gif-sur-Yvette, accessible by train from London, continue to prove very popular, their income funding our other French activities.

Discover Lundy Lundy is a place like no other, a little offshore realm all of its own, and our 23 buildings ensure that there is something for everyone. Millcombe House (for 12) has all the elegance to be expected from the former home of the Heaven family, who owned Lundy from 1836 to 1917, whereas the friendly dormitory facilities at The Barn accommodate up to 14 people more informally. If you relish real solitude, Tibbetts is gaslit and nearly two miles from the village, where The Marisco Tavern, the shop and other Landmarks can be found. There are even two Landmarks that sleep one, The Radio Room and Old Light Cottage, each of which can be treated as a retreat or as a base from which to join in the island spirit.

Top: Tibbetts, Lundy Bottom: Millcombe House, Lundy

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Projects & Restoration Project: Belmo nt Appeal target: £2.1 million

Architect’s impr

ession, rear ele

vation

Belmont, Dorset

Appeal launched to rescue Belmont We have launched a £2.1 million appeal for the restoration of Belmont, a handsome 18th-century seaside villa in Lyme Regis.

F

rom 1784 until her death in 1821, Belmont belonged to Mrs Eleanor Coade, a remarkable entrepreneur who ran an artificial stone factory in Lambeth and who had family links in Lyme Regis. Mrs Coade’s formula and her skilful kiln managers produced decorations and statuary of greater accuracy and durability than ever before, mistaken by many for natural stone. Some of the best sculptors of the day produced her models, and her stone was adopted enthusiastically by all the great architects of the day. Belmont itself is lavishly decorated with Mrs Coade’s wares.

In 1968, Belmont became the home of renowned author, John Fowles. He drew much of the inspiration for his work from Lyme Regis, a town he loved dearly.

Landmark’s involvement came about in order to fulfil John Fowles’s wishes that the house should be available to inspire writers and others as it had him, and for it to be protected from inappropriate commercial development. Exceptionally, Landmark was able to buy the house in 2007 through a timely and most welcome legacy from the late Mrs Joyce

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Hanson (a Dorset resident).

Please help us make it live again.

We have spent the past four years in exhaustive building analysis and documentary research. Our scheme, to create a Landmark for 8 people and return the house to its Regency form, grew out of that research. All the necessary planning and listed building consents are in place, but we need to start work urgently to prevent decay worsening – and here we need your help. Every donation, of any size, counts and will help us attract match funding from other sources.

Mrs Coade and John Fowles each achieved greatness in their field. Belmont was dear to them both. Please help us make it live again.

You can find out more about Belmont in a narrated slideshow on our website at www.landmarktrust.org.uk/belmont.

Please donate today Top: This Coade stone sea creature is unique to Belmont. Middle: Author John Fowles lived at Belmont from 1968 to 2005. Bottom: Belmont overlooks the Cobb, an iconic setting in Fowles’s novel, The French Lieutenant’s Woman.

Online www.landmarktrust.org.uk/ belmont By phone 01628 825920

To donate call 01628 825920 or make a donation online at www.landmarktrust.org.uk

Discoveries at the dovecote

We are delighted by the generous support received to date for The Landmark Fund, a new initiative begun last year to raise funds for much needed, often unexpected, conservation work to existing Landmarks.

One project to benefit from the fund, in addition to a grant from English Heritage, was the dovecote in the grounds of The White House.

The dovecote partially collapsed many years ago, before it came into Landmark’s care, and our long-term aim was to repair and consolidate the historic fabric of this rare example of a medieval, stone-built dovecote.

One of the rewarding elements of our work is that we often make unexpected discoveries whilst work is underway, and the dovecote was no exception. The original floor and, more interestingly, steps down into the dovecote were discovered.

Archaeological excavation of the soil covering the steps was carried out before they were exposed and repointed. The floor was then covered with a membrane and gravel now protects it. Another exciting find came whilst the debris was being excavated from the floor, where we found the bearing for the potence, a revolving ladder for accessing the nest boxes.

The dovecote at The White House, before (above) and after (below).

Donate to The Landmark Fund

Online www.landmarktrust.org.uk/ landmarkfund By phone 01628 825920

Without your help, and grant support, this dovecote would have remained in a sad condition and on the English Heritage At Risk Register for much longer. Thank you.

You can view the dovecote for yourself on Open Days at The White House.

Roses around the door: a new Landmark Bush Cottage has sprung fully formed into our collection, and this may be the first time many of you have heard of it.

In 1999, this quintessentially English cottage was painstakingly restored by one of our longest standing and most generous supporters. He carried out his repairs with a deliberate eye to Landmark standards and style. Last November, he offered it to us as a gift. The cottage is so good that we had no hesitation accepting.

You could win

£5,000

of Landmark holidays by playing our Spring Raffle.

Visit our website for full details and to play online.

Enter our photography competition to capture Landmark’s unique spirit.

Visit our website for full details.

Bush Cottage, Shropshire

Bush Cottage dates from before 1660. Timber-framed with brick infill, it has an honest, self-respecting feel, squarely set in lovely south Shropshire countryside.

Its kitchen was extended in the 19th century, when a bread oven was also added. The surrounding landscape’s history has been moulded by its geology, from Early Iron Age hill forts to Abraham Derby’s ironsmelting breakthrough in 1709. Bush Cottage is a gem, that we know you will enjoy.

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2012 DIARY

Meet Len Hardy

Legacy Seminars Princelet Street, London Thursday 28 June, 2pm to 4pm Woodsford Castle, Dorset Thursday 13 September, 2pm to 4pm For more information about our Legacy Seminars, please contact Linda Millard on lmillard@landmarktrust.org.uk or 01628 825920.

Woodsford Castle, Dorset

Open Days Astley Castle, Warwickshire Sunday 15 and Monday 16 July Auchinleck House, Ayrshire Sunday 2 September The Banqueting House, near Newcastle Upon Tyne Saturday 8 and Sunday 9 September Clavell Tower, Dorset Saturday 8 and Sunday 9 September

North Street, Derbyshire Saturday 3 and Sunday 4 November Peake’s House, Essex Saturday 8 and Sunday 9 September

Dolbelydr, Denbighshire Friday 14 to Monday 17 September Fox Hall, West Sussex Saturday 16 and Sunday 17 June

The Ruin, North Yorkshire Saturday 8 to Sunday 9 September*

Freston Tower, Suffolk Friday 7 to Tuesday 11 September*

The Shore Cottages, Caithness Sunday 9 September

The Grange, Kent Friday 7 to Tuesday 11 September*

Quiz 1

“It’s a good feeling to see the finished job”

The photographs below were each taken at a different Landmark. Can you guess where?

Answers are at the bottom of the page.

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Princelet Street, London E1 Saturday 15 and Sunday 16 September Queen Anne’s Summerhouse, Bedfordshire Saturday 23 to Monday 25 June* Friday 7 to Monday 10 September*

The Gothic Temple, Buckinghamshire Sunday 10 June Saturday 8 September

Len Hardy is a member of Landmark’s small direct labour team, and skilled in stone repair, limework and carpentry. Len has worked on some of our best loved buildings, often virtually single handed. We owe Woodsford Castle largely to his patient skill: he describes rebuilding the ceiling of the King’s Room, with its massive oak beams, as ‘like building a full scale ship in a bottle, but the best job I have ever had.’ Len is now helping to rebuild Astley Castle and its Gothick coach house. ‘It’s a good feeling to see the finished job’, he says, ‘and to know that some of my work will survive after me.’

The Warren House, Cambridgeshire Sunday 19 and Monday 20 August The White House, Shropshire Saturday 8 and Sunday 9 September

Keeper’s Cottage, Bedfordshire Friday 7 to Monday 10 September*

Wilmington Priory, East Sussex Friday 11 to Monday 14 May* Friday 7 to Tuesday 11 September*

Morpeth Castle, Northumberland Sunday 9 September

Full details of all our Open Days, including opening hours, can be found on our website.

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Ivy china urgently required at Pond Cottage All who have stayed at Pond Cottage, Endsleigh, will remember with affection the Wedgwood Ivy Queen’s Ware china there, which reproduces the pattern on the tiles in The Dairy, but is no longer made. Our stock levels are now critically low and replenishing through specialist outlets is extremely expensive.

If you have a set or any pieces of Ivy china, would you consider donating them to us, so the link with Wyatville’s Dairy can be maintained?

Pond Cottage, Endsleigh, Devon

*On the final Open Day the Landmark will only be open in the morning, from 10am to 1pm.

Answers to quiz: 1. The House of Correction 2. The Grange 3. Goddards 4. The Music Room

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Shottesbrooke Maidenhead Berkshire SL6 3SW Charity registered in England & Wales 243312 and Scotland SC039205