V Short update, but I'm too excited not to post...
http://www.artfist.org/2012/02/if-you-go-to-down-to-woods-today.html
My little story! On a real website! And they said they liked it!
Sunday 26 February 2012
Tuesday 21 February 2012
The Manor Reborn
Having watched the BBC’s ‘Manor Reborn’ with great interest (and a lot of talking to the telly and saying ‘oooh, I wouldn’t do it like that!’) I was dead excited to actually visit Avebury Manor during half term. Avebury’s a funny place, there seems to be nothing there except about 6 houses, a pub, a church, and an awful lot of National Trust property. There’s all the land with the standing stones – pretty amazing and well worth a visit in themselves – a museum in a barn and a smaller museum in a stable, the manor itself, and of course a cafe and a shop. We got our tickets, and then loitered in the shop until it was time to go in. They were running a system of timed entry, to prevent congestion within the manor!
A friendly volunteer gave us a little talk at the gates, basically outlining the premise of the BBC project and explaining that rather than using original, old furnishings the house has been filled with copied (or faked?) furniture based on the styles of the period. He told us to sit on the chairs and lie on the beds, but to treat the house as though it belonged to a dear friend, which was a nice sentiment. And appropriate, too, because for many the National Trust does feel like a trusted friend, maybe a little predictable but always there. This property, though, aimed to shed that traditional image of ‘don’t touch’ signs and cream teas.
It worked. My Nan said she’d never been in a museum where people laughed so much, and talked to not only their companions but other visitors and the Trust volunteers. We pretended to drink from pewter goblets in the Tudor hall, ground coffee in the kitchen and joked about who should do the huge pile of washing up that was stacked on the worktops, flicked through The Times and watched a young volunteer and an elderly visitor play billiards in the Edwardian Billiard Room. Me and Mum took off our boots and lay down on the four poster bed, drew the curtains and imagined sleeping there. It was a bit lumpy, but cosy with the curtains drawn and the mattress smelt pleasantly of straw. Nana laughed at us, but we started a trend and the next visitors to the room followed suit as grandma got onto the four poster and her little grandson made himself comfy on the servant’s truckle bed.
The kitchen sideboard, full of authentic looking clutter!
Reed matting in the Tudor hall, made last summer using centuries old methods.
Having a little sit down in front of the hand painted Chinese wallpaper, imagining myself as an eighteenth century lady of taste!
The Tudor bed, a bit rumpled after me and mum had tested to see how comfy it was!
It was great fun, and the workmanship that had gone into the objects was much admired – particularly the painted Chinese wallpaper, and the rush matting in the Tudor room. But although the downstairs rooms felt real and lived in – or at least like a well-furnished film set – upstairs was less impressive. There was little furniture apart from the beds, and the rooms were hardly dressed with props and historical clutter at all. There was a feeling that at some point time or money (or both) had run out, and these rooms upstairs had suffered. It was also difficult – and would I imagine be even harder for a foreign visitor, a child, or even just someone without a pretty good knowledge of British history – to understand the era of each room, and why those times had been chosen. There was no interpretation except some laminated sheets, which were very informative and useful – Nana said they had just the right amount of information, and pictures which showed you what it was talking about – but looked a bit cheap and were easily ignored or just not even noticed at all. For the Manor to really work, I think they need a high quality interpretation panel in each room describing the people that would have lived in it, and the period in which it was set. And to either light the fires or turn the heating up – it was a cold day and was not much warmer inside.
Taking a break 1930s style, moments before the outbreak of World War Two.
Despite it’s flaws, Avebury Manor was a fun morning out, and more importantly it was different to the usual National Trust experience. I don’t know how much ‘history’ we learned, but the smelling the straw in the four poster bed was something you couldn’t get in books, or read on a wall panel. The most memorable and emotional moment was at the end of our visit when, as we were having a sit down in the 1930s living room, the wireless which had been innocuously playing in the corner went quiet, and then suddenly, deadly serious. Me, my mother and my grandmother sat in silence as we listened to Neville Chamberlain announce that Britain was at war with Germany, and a shiver went down my spine. For me and Mum, it was amazing and horrifying to feel a tiny fraction of how it must have felt on that day in 1939, to try and place ourselves in history and imagine how it would have been. For Nana, she was hearing again what she actually heard on the radio as a young girl, reliving the day when so much changed.
The BBC's wesbsite for The Manor Reborn televison programmes:
The National Trust web page for Avebury:
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