Spring 2015
Landmark News Celebrating 50 years
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An exciting new Landmark opens at the heart of the Battlefield at Waterloo
Hougoumont
LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR Landmark is 50! Our Golden Jubilee feels set to be a year of contemplation and celebration. A chance to marvel at the achievement of half a century, and the rescue of almost 200 buildings, and to cheer on the next wave of challenges. Later in the year we will be publishing a book on Landmark and its buildings, and in researching I have talked to many involved in Landmark from the earliest days. There can be few organisations that have kept their aims and aspirations so steady across 50 years. Look out for Landmark: A History of Britain in 50 Buildings in September. The founding deeds for Landmark were signed in May 1965 and so it is in May 2015 that we will begin popping the corks. The Golden Weekend on 16-17 May should be a really joyful affair, and it would be wonderful if you could come and help us celebrate by visiting one of the 25 Landmarks open for free that weekend. This will also mark the launch of LAND, our exciting project with Antony Gormley, which will be in situ for a year only. As well as completing three building rescue projects over the course of 2015, we are hoping that we might reach our fundraising target for Llwyn Celyn in Monmouthshire, before we chalk up 51. If you can help us with this first major milestone of our next 50 years we would be absolutely thrilled.
Dr Anna Keay, Director 2
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Defence of the Chateau de Hougoumont by Denis Dighton, 1815
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n 18th June 1815, the course of European history was determined in gently rolling fields just south of Brussels near the village of Waterloo.
Napoleon Bonaparte, newly escaped from exile on the isle of Elba, had reassembled his army in a few brief months, and now it was massed at Waterloo. The Allies, the combined forces of Britain, Germany and Holland, were caught unawares and scrambled to gather their own forces, in alliance with Prussia. The Duke of Wellington was appointed supreme commander: these two great generals had never before faced each other in battle. The day would decide the future of Europe, and our new Landmark, at Hougoumont, was the pivotal point of the battle. As battle lines were drawn, Wellington knew that he had no choice but to fight a defensive battle, his hastily assembled army outnumbered and outgunned by the French. The open terrain offered few defensible points: only Chateau Hougoumont with its walled farmyard and another farmstead nearby, La Haye Sainte, could prevent the Allied line being outflanked. If the two farms were held, full frontal assault by the French was impossible without a long and exposed march. Holding these two sites would determine the outcome of the battle, and when asked on the eve for his battle plan in case he fell, Wellington replied simply, ‘Keep Hougoumont.’ Hostilities ebbed and flowed across the rest of the battlefield, but the conflict at Hougoumont was unremitting all day, pounded by French artillery and besieged on three sides by French troops. Around midday, the North Gate was breached and fierce fighting swept
into the chateau court, until the French were repelled and the gates heroically and bodily forced shut again. The British defence was staunch, as wave after wave of Napoleon’s soldiers broke against the gates of the walled chateau and the chateau itself burned down at the heart of the site. Finally, around 6pm, it became clear through the smoke of the battlefield that Napoleon’s last desperate offensive had been defeated. Hougoumont had held and the day was won: as Wellington himself later remarked, ‘The success of the Battle of Waterloo turned on the closing of the gates at Hougoumont.’ 2015 is the 200th anniversary of the battle and hougoumont’s repair and its presentation to visitors formed part of the anniversary plans. The Intercommunale in charge of the battlefield approached Landmark several years ago to explore whether we would be willing to create a Landmark in the first floor rooms over the south gates. We were immediately keen but we could not take on the fundraising given our other commitments.
We were delighted to receive The light and airy apartment for four confirmation before Christmas is a unique place to ponder the famous Battle of Waterloo. that the restoration was fully funded and the works would be completed in time for a Landmark to open in June for the anniversary. The Landmark is a first and second floor apartment for four, well-provided with furniture and books to evoke the Napoleonic period. Hougoumont looks on one side over the farm court, on the other across the farmland from where French troops launched their desperate assaults. Staying here will be an atmospheric and fascinating experience. Open days will be held at Hougoumont on 20-21 June to coincide with the 200th anniversary celebrations, please check our website for details. For further information about the celebrations visit www.waterloo2015.org
You can BOOK online at www.landmarktrust.org.uk, or call us on 01628 825925.
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Bookings open for Mrs Eleanor Coade’s Regency seaside villa in Lyme Regis
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t the top of the road leading up from the Cobb in Lyme Regis, Belmont has emerged over the winter from its chrysalis of later accretions and scaffolding. Mrs Eleanor Coade’s Regency villa, its façade bejewelled with outstanding examples of her finely sculpted artificial stone wares, is once again standing proud and crisp, its pinkish render bright under the changing seaside weather. Tree works have opened up the views across and from the site, and gentle landscaping has corrected ground levels after the removal of the later extensions from the house. The observatory tower, its render painted a different colour from the house to distinguish the site’s phasing, is almost operational again: local volunteers who styled themselves as the ROBOTs have returned its rotating roof mechanism to working order and we are doing our best to source a telescope to watch the stars through the roof hatch.
Landmark’s in-house team, along with teams of local craftsmen, worked hard all through the winter: the scaffolding came down just before Christmas, and then the ugly twentieth century extension could at last be taken off the west elevation, allowing the large window on the stairs to be returned to its original elegant dimensions. Inside, Mrs Coade’s snug parlour, with its sea views, has been recreated and the eighteenth-century floorplan reinstated. The light and airy first floor sitting room, where author John Fowles once sat and worked, has had its modern lining replaced with traditional lath and plaster. Re-lathing and cleaning the Coade mouldings were laborious but very worthwhile tasks, and we were very grateful to the team of enthusiastic volunteers who undertook them. the room’s iron veranda, accessed Georgian-fashion through a sash window, is now back in place. Regency interiors are a particular area of expertise and passion for our furnishings manager, John Evetts, who has been closely involved with Belmont throughout. His team at Wormington has worked hard to restore a Coade-
embellished fireplace, now reinstated in the Craft Apprentices working on for Belmont with sitting room from downstairs, where we shutters Mark Smitten at Wormington. identified it had been relocated. They have used detail from the house to produce other fire surrounds. The choice of paint has been informed by the paint analysis we did right at the start. We are now working hard to complete all the last details internally. Content is being prepared for the interpretation room to be created in the former stable block, as the furnishing team prepare to move in to work their magic in the house. Crucially too, we are gathering the library of books, more extensive than usual even for a Landmark, to make sure we suitably reflect the legacy of John Fowles’ long residence here.
Carefully returning the restored Coade Stone urns to the roof.
bookings open online 12th july at 2pm Free open days 12-13 September
Photographer John Watts
This Landmark for eight, complete with ground floor accessible bedroom and bathroom, seems set to become an instant favourite. It has been a long haul since John Fowles first expressed his wish to us that the house might somehow be available to other writers, and Belmont’s opening in September will be a highlight for us in our 50th Anniversary year. A huge thank you to all those who generously gave donations to the belmont appeal. Bookings will open online at 2pm on Sunday 12th July, and stays will begin from Monday 14th September.
Volunteer Jo Whetlor revealing the detail on a decorative frieze, hidden behind layers of paint. Belmont’s transformation has been skilfully managed by Carole Paton, Stuart Leavy (pictured above) and their team.
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Call 01628 825925 Visit www.landmarktrust.org.uk Email bookings@landmarktrust.org.uk
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Llwyn Celyn: the story unfolds
Great progress at St Edward’s Presbytery
A Artist’s reconstruction of Llwyn Celyn in the 17th century. Below: We have discovered a finely carved medieval doorhead behind later plaster which is an exceptionally rare survival.
Llwyn Celyn continues to intrigue as our understanding of this fascinating late-medieval hall house develops. The work of the Llanthony Valley local history group is providing insights into llwyn celyn’s context, and a series of visits hosted by local owners of other privately owned houses of a similar period have served to confirm the exceptional nature of both the overall valley setting and Llwyn Celyn itself. We now know that one of our outbuildings was a cider house, and we have found the original bressumer, (load bearing beam) embedded behind a 1960s fireplace in the former hall. In support of our Round 2 HLF application, we are delighted to be developing significant partnerships with many local organisations – the Brecon Beacons National Park, the Gwent Wildlife Trust, Arts Alive Wales, the Ty Mawr Lime Centre, to name just a few. Our volunteer involvement programme is also building; In February thirteen volunteers spent a day planting a native species hedge around the site, to provide more containment than the raw post-and-wire fencing currently in place. We have been really heartened by the support for Llwyn Celyn which you have given in response to our public appeal launched in late November. Thank you! Just under £500,000 remains to be found to complete the funding for this project, on top of a potential HLF grant of £2.5million. This is surely a 50th Anniversary year challenge in which we can succeed with your support. If we do, work might begin on Llwyn Celyn as our first restoration project in Landmark’s next half century. 6
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Launch of the Landmark Pioneers The hardest part of rescuing a crumbling or collapsing historic building is often the very beginning. In February, Landmark held a drinks party to launch the Landmark Pioneers – a new fund to support the early, risky stages of our building rescue projects. The initial surveys and analyses to determine if and how a building can be saved can be complex and costly, but are essential long before we can approach grant-giving bodies and the Heritage Lottery Fund for their support. We were incredibly lucky to host this event in the splendid surroundings of 50 Albemarle Street, the almost unaltered Georgian townhouse in Mayfair where the publisher John Murray entertained his authors, among them Lord Byron, Charles Darwin, Jane Austen and Walter Scott. The evening introduced Landmark to many new potential major supporters. Over £60,000 has so far been raised from individual Landmark Pioneers, each giving £5,000 or more towards our future building rescues.
n excellent start has been made on-site at St Edward’s Presbytery in Ramsgate. This pretty, steeply gabled brick and flint house was built by A W n Pugin as part of his overarching conception for this famous Gothic Revival site, where Catholic church, monastery, family home The Grange (since 2006 also a Landmark) and this priest’s dwelling were positioned in careful harmony. The dilapidated Presbytery, part submerged beneath later additions, represents unfinished business for us. Our contractors, Colmans of Canterbury, have now carefully dismantled the later additions by hand, including the hideous 1970s Parish Room, a former classroom that so compromised the setting of both The Grange and St Augustine’s Church, as well as the Presbytery itself. As much material as possible has been salvaged for reuse elsewhere on the project. Helped by building archaeologist Paul Drury, who also worked with us to understand The Grange, we’ve made some interesting discoveries, like a previously unknown window in the south end of the large room Pugin’s son Edward built as his studio. We also discovered that the rafters, slates and even the battens from Pugin’s originally single storey rear range were re-used by another son, Cuthbert, when he added another storey to the range. Cuthbert lived at the Presbytery until his death in 1928: the building is as closely associated with this next generation of the Ramsgate Pugins as The Grange was with A W n Pugin. Our most recent find is a label for a packing case sent to Augustus Pugin which was discovered when we were taking down the ceiling in the Presbytery. The label dated October 1850 had originally been attached to a crate from metal ware and stained glass specialist John Hardman & Co. The back of
We have started work on site, taking down the 1950’s extension by hand, salvaging flint and bricks. A packing label to Augustus Pugin, from 1850 has been discovered on site.
the label specifies a return address for the crate once it had been emptied. However it appears Pugin’s suppliers never got their crate back. Instead, it was broken down and used to hold pugging (sound insulation) in place. The future looks bright at last for every element of the St Augustine’s site – church and monastery too have found new injections of life. We hope to open the Presbytery as a Landmark for up to four people in the autumn, either to be booked in tandem with The Grange or allowing smaller groups to experience this astounding site. Meanwhile, we still have £158,000 to raise to meet the Presbytery project cost.
Ensure our past has a future Our golden milestone is a time for reflection, as well as celebration. it is an opportunity to consider how much has been achieved and perhaps what we aspire to in the future. Landmark is fortunate to have surrounded itself with so many inspirational individuals, all playing a vital role in its achievements to date.
We acknowledge legacy gifts in the Commemorative Books held at our office in Berkshire and where a legacy is used to help with the acquisition or restoration of a Landmark, acknowledgement is made in the literature associated with the building. Where appropriate, the gift can be reflected within the Landmark itself.
One group that deserve particular recognition for their foresight, and generosity of spirit, are those who have remembered Landmark in their Wills. Every single legacy gift, whether a chest of drawers, some Old Chelsea dinner plates, £100 or £100,000, an apartment, or a country house, ALL make an important contribution.
If or when the time is right please consider remembering the Landmark Trust in your Will. Help us to ensure our past has a future for the next 50 years and beyond. For more information about leaving a gift in your Will please visit our website or call Linda Millard on 01628 512122.
If you can help any of these projects in need, please donate through our website or call 01628 825920. LANDMARK NEWS SPRING 2015
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OUR GOLDEN WEEKEND On 16th and 17th May we will open 25 Landmarks for free across Britain in special celebration of our 50th birthday. Almost everyone will be within 50 miles of a Landmark open day – find the nearest building to you over the page! These open days will be unlike any we have held before. Across Britain, we’ve recruited community groups to join in the celebration of their local Landmark.
Celebrating our Golden Year A GOLDEN moment At 3pm on Saturday 16th May, across all 25 sites, very different musical groups will each perform their unique version of the Anthem for Landmark – at Saddell Bay, Kintyre Schools Pipe Band, Wild Sarachs and Kintyre Choral will all perform on the beach; at West Blockhouse it will be Carmarthen Symphonic Wind Band on the roof terrace; at Cawood Castle early music group Stanton Waits will pipe up in the great hall… And there will be all sorts of other local contributions – WI teas, historians, exhibitions, art and crafts displays, period dancers and much more, as each Landmark site creates its own celebration for Landmarkers and locals alike.
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KERRY ANDREW’S ANTHEM FOR LANDMARK We commissioned award-winning young composer and musician Kerry Andrew to write an Anthem for Landmark. Kerry visited various Landmarks and wrote these lovely words for the chorus at the heart of the Anthem: Pushing the sky upwards. We make our frames. In sun-bright stone. We leave our shadows. Our handprints. Our fossils. On time-worn stone. Our echoes.
Clockwise: Clytha Castle, Woodspring Priory, Lundy Old Light, Warwickshire Youth Waits Band, Cavendish Hall.
A GOLDEN ANTHOLOGY We’d like your help to record our 50th Anniversary year. Please send us your photos, thoughts, drawings and writing about the Golden Weekend, LAND and thoughts and experiences about Landmark at 50 between now and May 2016. We’re also asking our Housekeepers to send in photos of the best Handbook entries. We will gather all the most stunning and thought provoking submissions into a commemorative anthology. Just mark your email or envelope GOLDEN ANTHOLOGY. LANDMARK NEWS SPRING 2015
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Join the celebrations for our 50th Year 25 Landmarks will be open free to all from 10am to 4pm on Saturday 16th May and Sunday 17th May. Please make sure you check the website for local variations (for example where tide affects Golden timings). The website will also keep you updated on the activities planned at each site, and on who is performing where. Getting there Full details of how to get to all 25 Landmarks and information on celebrations and at activities at each building can be found on our website at www.landmarktrust.org.uk/ goldenweekend
Open for Golden Weekend LAND location Other Landmarks
LAND LAND is a collaboration with Landmark by Antony Gormley, one of Britain’s best loved sculptors. Antony has selected five Landmark sites for this exhibition. United by the waters that flow around and through this island, LAND is a thought-provoking installation reflecting upon humanity’s place in time and landscape, echoing and complementing Landmark’s own values. Gormley found each site’s Landmark ‘a point at which to look out at the world at large. This isolation promotes thinking about human history and power relations, and wonder at the very variety of habitats that the human species has created for itself.’
Fort Clonque, Alderney is open to the public for the first time.
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Opening formally in time for our Golden Weekend, LAND will be in place for a full year at Saddell Bay, Martello Tower, Clavell Tower, Lundy and Lengthsman’s Cottage, and is free for all to visit until May 2016. land is supported by White Cube, the Canal & River Trust, and three generous private donors.
Studio view, courtesy of Antony Gormley. Photograph by Stephen White, London.
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50th Anniversary mug Remembering Clayre and Sonia Two great and long lives have come to an end since our last newsletter. Sonia Rolt passed away in October 2014 and Clayre Percy passed away in January 2015. They were close friends of Sir John and Christian Smith, and were true friends to Landmark. Sonia was Landmark’s first furnishing manager and a fierce campaigner for canals and historic conservation. Sonia played a major part in nurturing people’s appreciation of our buildings and their surroundings. The books at Lengthsman’s Cottage and in many other Landmarks in Wales and the West Midlands were all chosen by Sonia. Clayre, Lady Percy, set up our libraries and wrote many of our Scottish history albums. Clayre leaves a lasting legacy through her thoughtful and meticulous librarianship. Both will be remembered with affection by all at Landmark.
We are proud to launch a 50th Anniversary mug with Emma Bridgewater. Emma and her husband Matthew Rice, who hand-drew the design, are Landmark Patrons and said: “From the dolce vita glamour of Villa Saraceno to the lock keeper’s cottage squeezed between canal and motorway, we have shivered by the icy plunge pool at the Bath House, eaten on the roof of Tixhall Gatehouse, woken to the dawn in the Old Light on Lundy, drunk prosecco as the sun goes down at Sant’ Antonio at Tivoli and lived through a deep grey week of dam-building at Monreith. What could be more fun than to design a golden jubilee mug? The only challenge is which properties to choose ...” East Banqueting House, Beamsley Hospital and Wolverton Gatehouse are a handful of the Landmarks on a limited batch of mugs being made in Emma Bridgewater’s Stoke-onTrent factory.
Mugs cost £19.95 +p&p and are available to order from our website in early May. Each mug sold will generate £10 toward rescuing historic buildings.
Landmark Ambassadors We have recruited three high profile ambassadors to support our activities. Together they bring a blend of skills and contacts that help us to raise awareness of the work we do: from encouraging more people to stay in our Landmarks to supporting our fundraising appeals: Nicholas Coleridge CBE is President of Condé Nast International, and Managing Director of Condé Nast Britain. Griff Rhys Jones is a presenter, writer and broadcaster and President of Civic Voice. George Clarke is an architect, writer, lecturer and TV presenter. Nicholas, Griff and George each share our passion for saving important buildings at risk of being lost forever.
50 for Free update “It really was a fantastic trip, for some of the young carers it was the longest car journey, and the first time they had visited Ramsgate. They did love the house, and we played hide and seek for hours as there were so many places to hide. The house did have an amazing effect on their imaginations- the stories and plays they enjoyed performing for us were magical. An enormous THANK YOU from us at Young Carers Together, it was our first residential trip we were able to offer, and it was very successful. it was such a treat for the young carers, they will have gained lifetime memories.” Young Carers Together stayed at The Grange, Ramsgate. They were one of 50 charitable groups to enjoy a free Landmark break in our 50 for Free scheme this March, all thanks to generosity of a private donor who funded the scheme’s second year.
50th Anniversary edition Lundy stamps The Landmark Trust
50th Anniversary Raffle Enter for your chance to win £5,000 of holidays Purchase your tickets at www.landmarktrust.co.uk/raffle by 25th May 2015 12 LANDMARK NEWS SPRING 2015
We have a new Lundy stamp issue to celebrate 50 years of the Landmark Trust. The official issue date will be on 16th May during our Golden weekend celebrations. The denominations of the new stamps are 49 and 62 puffin. First day covers and presentation packs are available for £5.40 plus postage from the Lundy Postal Service on 01237 431831 or lundypostalservice@lundyisland.co.uk.
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2015 DIARY Golden Weekend Open Days
Saturday 16 & Sunday 17 May, see page 11
Heritage Open Day weekend
Saturday 12 & Sunday 13 September, some for longer:
• Astley Castle, Warwickshire • belmont, dorset • Freston Tower, Suffolk • The Grange, Kent • Queen Anne’s Summerhouse, Shuttleworth, Bedfordshire • Clavell Tower, Dorset • The Ruin, North Yorkshire • The White House, Shropshire • Peake’s House, Essex • Gothic Temple, Buckinghamshire More open days at other times:
• Astley Castle, Warwickshire, Saturday 6 to Sunday 7 June • Hougoumont, Waterloo, Saturday 20 to 21 June • Auchinleck House, Ayrshire, Sunday 6 September • Dolbelydr, Denbighshire, Friday 18 to Tuesday 22 September • Wilmington Priory, East Sussex, Friday 20 to Tuesday 24 November
Champagne flutes and cakes The next time you stay in a Landmark you will notice a few subtle improvements when you explore the kitchen cupboards. In our anniversary year we are adding champagne flutes, cake tins, cooks measures and non-stick frying pans, so don’t forget to pack the bubbly.
Please always check our website for precise opening times.
Spring has sprung on Lundy: with skylarks singing, flowers in bloom, seabirds returning and the arrival of newborn Lundy lambs. M.S. Oldenburg has taken to sea once again, bringing day trippers and staying visitors keen to explore the tranquillity of our remote island. But Lundy hasn’t been in complete hibernation over the winter. Staff and contractors have been busy with conservation work and essential maintenance. Amongst many winter projects, the Island team have been tackling the restoration of the lower Lantern Room of the Old Light. Built in 1819 and consisting of lanterns at both the top and mid way up the tower, the Old Light was found to be ineffective in low cloud and fog, and so the lower light was moved to ground level to improve effectiveness. However, the move didn’t improve things and it was eventually taken out of use in 1842 and fell into disrepair. The Old Light was eventually replaced by new more modern lighthouses at the north and south ends of the Island in 1898. The ornate Georgian curved window, from the lower lantern room, was refurbished over the winter. Derek and his team are seen here refitting the window. They are hoping to reconstruct and fit a new copper roof in the summer. 14 LANDMARK NEWS SPRING 2015
Thanks to an initial grant of £74,900 from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), development work has begun on the Grade II-listed St Helen’s Church, on Lundy. The grant has been awarded to the St Helen’s Centre Steering Group to help progress plans and to apply for a full grant in the autumn. The group’s restoration plans are to repair the roof, repoint the walls and relay the floors. The funding will also create a new centre with educational facilities for schools and other visitors to learn more about the island’s history and nationally-important wildlife. £400,000 still needs to be raised to unlock a further £857,000 of HLF funds. Please visit www.lundychurch.org.uk for further details and to support the appeal.
Here are five staircases within Landmarks opening for free during the Golden Weekend, can you guess which Landmarks they are in?
Answers (clockwise): The Grange, Clytha Castle, Astley Castle, Auchinleck House, Princelet Street.
Island Beacon Restored
lundy Church Appeal
Which staircase will you be climbing on the Golden Weekend?
Call 01628 825925 Visit www.landmarktrust.org.uk Email bookings@landmarktrust.org.uk
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Which Landmark will you escape to this year?
Shottesbrooke Maidenhead Berkshire SL6 3SW www.landmarktrust.org.uk Charity registered in England & Wales 243312 and Scotland SC039205
Tangy Mill, Kintyre, Scotland 16 LANDMARK NEWS SPRING 2015