The Road Goes Ever On

Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Waddesdon House: Interior

Some interior shots of the house...

Note chandelier, too

Interesting seating arrangement for piano

Typical furniture

Moody Judy, by Sir Josh; the Baron was a
widower and had the place decorated in dozens
of portraits of young women, mostly Reynolds

High point of the tour, for me...a real Watteau!

In addition to chandeliers, portraits of beautiful
women, porcelain, etc., the Baron also collected
clocks; time is money, I guess...

A real Teniers...

Ferdie

The rug from Napoleon's chapel

"Best always, Alex"

Guest room

Belonged to Marie Antoinette or some other French ex-royalty

Note chandelier

Just a bit of the knife and gun club

Olympic-sized billiards (note spectator seating on left)

Here's the story: in the 1870s, rich guy builds fancy faux French chateau as weekend party-house for London friends and business associates and accessorizes it with the usual priceless treasures, art, furniture, whatever; also a nice cellar, since relatives are in the wine business; landscapes it nicely to match the rest. The rich guy is Baron Ferdinand Rothschild. We had to see it since, hey, it's French, and Ascott, the other Rothschild house here in Rothschildshire, was a bit frustrating, allowing no interior fotos. I made up for this at Waddesdon (pronounced "Wad's done"), alas, and going through the couple hundred photos of a place I really didn't like all that much has been a chore. Unwilling to give any more thought to photo selection, I am just going to do Waddesdon in several posts and be done with it. Enjoy!

Partial frontal view (the large service building is off the the left)

Stables, now housing shoppes (Waddesdon has almost as many
shoppes as Vatican City) and a gallery

Walking around toward the back

Back side

Partial dorsal view

Tres French, oui? Oh la la...

Tuesday, August 9, 2016

Ascott

In Victorian times the Rothschild family owned so many great houses and so many scores of thousands of acres in Buckinghamshire that it was referred to as "Rothschildshire." (The patriarch Rothschild had five sons, each of whom was as skilled in money-making as his father, and they dispersed to the major capitals of Europe, including London, to make even more money). Two of the houses, Ascott, and Waddesdon, have come to the National Trust, and both warrant a visit. Ascott was a "hunting lodge," still very much in the family--no fotos inside the house--but the gardens were most impressive...19th-20th century gardens, all about landscape, but all about plants too. We were impressed, and I'll just post the pix without much comment.

The "Hunting Lodge"

Stowe Gardens: Don't Sweat The Plants

In the decline of the estate, Stowe's magnificent landscape park fared no better than the house. (The gardens are now in the best of hands, however, with the National Trust.) I doubt anyone would characterize Stowe as among Britain's greatest gardens. But Stowe, IMHO, is certainly Britain's most historic garden. This is where it began: the English landscape garden, the first garden to warrant a guidebook, the first garden so extravagantly celebrated in poetry and prose, a garden that was as much about politics and philosophy as about plants, the place where Culpability Brown served first as journeyman and then as master gardener before heading on to scores of gigs as one of history's most celebrated consultants. If you're interested in the history of landscaping and gardens, British history, the history of this most garden-oriented of peoples, don't miss Stowe. The good news is that you don't have to know anything at all about plants. We spent several hours walking in the gardens. The pix below are the merest sampling of the scores of follies, temples, monuments, water features, lanes, etc.