Uppark

After Petworth we drove on to Uppark, a 17th century house in West Sussex, now another National Trust property. Uppark is perhaps best known these days for having been gutted by a fire in 1989, then rebuilt, a process in which many lost crafts were re-learned. Most of the contents of the house were saved from the fire, as members of the family, the National Trust, and volunteers, carried them outside while the fires burned from the roof down. It is an exciting story of rescue and rebuilding. Alas, "no fotos!" prevails here, inside, unlike most of the properties we have so far visited. But I did grab just a few.

Entrance to main building; there are stables, dairy, kitchens,
etc., in separate buildings, connected by tunnels

A model of the house

A lady's dollhouse (not for kids); of course, it is a great house;
perhaps the largest we have seen yet

"You rang, sir?" 

Laundry

Game larder

View across the downs (or possibly the ups), including the
colorful field of rapeseed in the distance; rather less of this
in England than in France

Petworth Paintings

There were scores (hundreds?) to choose from, some not very easily photographed...here's a not quite random sample...

Nice Gainsborough landscape

Turner's Hulks in the Tamar

Turner's Cockermouth Castle

His Starkey House and Lake Cheshire

Vicki and I have looked at many Turners and
have always thought that, great as he was in
so many respects, he just couldn't do a
portrait that was not hysterically laughable--
even the tiniest dot of a face; this is his
Jessica, The Merchant of Venice, Act II,
Scene V, done in 1830; one newspaper said
"it looks like a lady getting out of a large
mustard pot," and Turner's earliest biographer
wrote "none but a great man dare have
painted anything so bad"; yes, but we do
all know what Turner Yellow is

William Blake's Last Judgment

Jan Matsys

Titian

Bosch's Wise Men's Offerings

Rogier van der Weyden

Teniers' The Gallery of Archduke Leopold

There may be a couple score of van Dykes at Petworth,
mostly portraits of family members and friends, and
ancestors; this is the one I liked best, his Henry Percy,
9th Earl of  Northumberland; aka "the Wizard Earl'; he
had an MA from Oxford, dabbled in alchemy; also did time
in the Tower; not a characteristic van Dyke, but still the
work of a great master

Turner lived at Petworth for two years, a guest of the Family,
and did many paintings of the estate; among these are a
number of water colors of the interior, such as the above
item, which served to guide the restoration of the galleries to
their later 18th-early 19th century form

Claude Gellee, aka Claude Lorrain, Landscape with Jacob
and Laban; Lorrain was one of Turner's idols; a parody of
this painting in 1814 cost Turner relations with his patron
at Petworth for some 13 years; alas, Turner was sort of like
that...

Petworth 2013

We visited Petworth in 2009, and were completely blown away. That night, I somehow managed to delete my photos before saving, much less posting, them. And no photos were permitted inside the house. What's inside the house, of course, is one of the world's great residential art collections--all owned and managed by the Tate now, with the National Trust--dozens of Turners and Van Dycks, all manner of Gainsboroughs and Reynolds and such, and even a few Bosch, Massys, Teniers, and such to please us, plus an added sprinkling of Lorrain, Titian, et al. And some William Blake. That's just the paintings. The sculpture, about which we know far less, reputedly is equally impressive and important. Then there are the furnishings, the Carved Room, the historic possessions, etc. The Pleasure Grounds, i.e., the Park, is one of Capability Brown's best known achievements and remains much as Turner painted it nearly two centuries ago.

Much to our surprise and pleasure, the "no fotos!" policy of yore has been eliminated. I was thrilled. Alas, lighting in great houses is not always optimal for viewing and photography, and at Petworth the paintings are displayed pretty much in the manner they were found, that is, old-style, stacked one atop another up and down the walls and halls with little regard for author, period, style, nationality, theme, etc. It's not a museum, but then there are few museums that wouldn't sell their souls for what's at Petworth.

Entrance; the family, who have rights in perpetuity, live in
the far third of the great building

Frontal view, from the grounds

A bit of the grounds, including a bit of Brown's serpentine
lake

Some of the older and more exotic furnishings

In some of the private quarters, opened just now and then

In the Carved Room, reputedly Britain's finest...four Turner
landscapes were painted and placed just so dinner guests
facing away from the grounds would have something nice
to look at; note Big Guy over fireplace...flanked by a variety
of Van Dycks

The Molyneux Globe, earliest known English globe; Molyneux
accompanied Drake on the latter's circumnavigation; the Globe
was a gift from Sir Walter Raleigh...Raleigh and the Earl of
Northumberland were cell-mates at the Tower for a time...

Page from a signed first edition of The
Canterbury Tales (nyuk); actually
just a very old incunible, illuminated, acquired
by the 2nd Earl of Northumberland, whose
wife was Chaucer's grand-niece, 1420s or so

Now in a hall of the kitchens/servants building, decorated
with dozens of old fire-backs

At another house, we were told that servants at Petworth
were expected to turn and face the wall when Members of
the Family entered the room...we'll be going to Downtown
Arby's later in the summer and will get to see how things
really were

No wonder there were so many fires...

Main kitchen

Rotisserie

Cookware

All inscribed to avoid confusion with other families'
cookware...

Nymans

From Wakehurst we drove on to Nymans, another home and garden in West Sussex. Nymans is a sad story, a 20th century family that had cultivated the gardens and built a Tudor-style mansion of some size. In 1947, alas, much of the structure--including the great hall--burned. It is a ruin, although, as a folly, it is quite impressive, if a bit close to the present house. A number of rooms are open, and the gardens are still impressive.

Nearly every National Trust site has a garden store--as well
as a regular shoppe, a cafe, a visitor center, maybe even a
restaurant--here in the garden store at Nymans I found my
first black pansies of the season; not to buy, just to look at;
Vicki has forbidden plants in the camper; initially she forbade
all but what I could grow from seed; then, when I acquired
some calamandon seeds in Spain, she reneged; she is right;
the few plants I have had in the camper have been a mess...
before dying or being given away; so I remain content to
look at other peoples' plants; fortunatey, we are in England,
and the whole place is a garden...

Approaching Nymans

The ruined great hall

Family album, including some royal relations

Book room

Perhaps Nymans' most memorable feature: a
1953 television: the lady despised its white
console, we were told, and so a proscenium
and curtains were built to house the set...
just in time for the coronation (one hopes)

More comfort

Outside, a rose climbs a burnt-out wall

The intended folly

A huge wisteria arbor

Looking back to the house

And now in the "wild" garden, across a rhododendron-
lined road

A rhodo-forest

Thus