Tudor House

In their defence, at least the people described in my previous entry here did not do THIS which has lately come to my attention: Cruel desecration of a fine Tudor manor house.

Here is the worst misplacement of a wood burning stove yet seen. This sort of barbarity is reason enough for all wood burning stoves to be banned utterly and is exactly what I have long feared would begin to happen. How right I was, as usual. Expect the worst and you are generally vindicated soon enough. Oh woe. The spindly-legged table and the armchairs also distress me. 

What has been done to the rest of this house is equally shameful as I shall explain.

Now you would think that given this house as a starting point -

it would be hard to go wrong and make it beastly; but someone's managed it.

Behold, 2 views of the Library. 

Libraries are lovely places and one has to work really quite diligently to make a library in a Tudor house into an uncongenial space. The current owners have done it splendidly. They have installed another inappropriate wood burning stove, the oppressive wallpaper is unsuited to the room, the shelves are cheap and of unsympathetic pale wood and so are the unnecessary 'library steps' (how short are the users of this library?). The shelves obscure part of the window which is most unsatisfactory and I would have had the carpenter take them back out and then leave with a flea in his ear. One likes to be able to glance up from one's book and out of the window across the grounds and to the haha. I don't much like their painting over the wood burning stove and the horse's head on the top shelf with a silly hat on, makes me want to punch someone on the nose. For putting the horse's head on the shelf, and for owning a hat like that in the first place. The sofa should be covered in leather not that silly patchwork. So should the books be bound in leather preferably but you can see that this is the sort of room whose owners have got a lot of Jeffrey Archer books and Joan Collins etc. The ensemble is finished off with an unacceptable chandelier thing. The whole combines to make a thoroughly objectionable room which will do nothing to encourage any children resident to develop a love of reading. You might as well be in a Railway Waiting Room. zero/10.

Next, the kitchen. First of all, no-one puts the sink against a plain wall. One wants to be looking out of the window across the grounds to the haha (see previous paragraph) while doing the washing up. The shelves above the sink zone are ridiculously narrow and things would be constantly falling off them. Fail. I question the wisdom of having that expensive Persian rug in the kitchen where it will certainly get baked beans etc. spilt onto it. This kitchen could be in ANY house as it takes no account whatsoever of the Tudor house in which it stands. Another zero.

I don't know what function this room serves but I hate it anyway. More nasty armchairs, another spindly table, and that stove thing is a gas burner which should not have been allowed across the threshold. Maintaining a steadfast nought out of ten.

Bathroom, featuring another spindly table and another unwise rug placement. These people are out of control. 


Here is the great hall, which is slightly better than some of the other bits. They have got a proper fire going, and the tables while not right for the room are at least not spindly or circular. They seriously need advice though from someone with a bit of knowledge of the period. That mirror above the fireplace is a crime.

The dining zone which has been made to look unwelcoming and cold, like skool.

I don't like this bedroom either. I would change the furnishings, bed, bed position, plants, everything. The table will have to go, so will the armchairs and that cupboard, the dish on the bedside table, the wall lamps. Bye, all of you.

Here the face of Cranmer, who once lived in this house, expresses what he thinks of what has been done to the place.    Deliver us O Lord from the hands of those who would defile our habitation : abate their pride, asswage their malice, and confound their devices, that we, being armed with thy defence, may be preserved evermore from all perils and spindly tables.

Architectural Disgrace

This is repetitive because I have complained on here about one of these articles before, but really, when you see this you will not blame me. No-one could let idiocy of this magnitude pass without comment.

I refer to a feature in the Times' Saturday magazine, in which a ghastly architect showed off his family's house. He actually makes them live in this place; it's not something he inflicted on some foolish client and then gave no further thought to.

Here, you may think, is a highly desirable, well-preserved (unspoilt) cottage of Cotswold stone with pleasing non uPVC windows and stone slate roof. It has (see left side of picture) a monstrous and most unfortunate excrescence attached.

The addition was put on out of spite because the architect could not get permission to demolish the house. "In hindsight," the architect says, "the planning and conservation people were right to refuse permission 'because there were some original wrought-iron features on the windows'." Actually, mate, there were a lot more things than that which would have made demolition a crime against humanity and against the entire Cotswolds. 
So up went the hideous extension, far bigger than the original cottage and totally out of keeping with it. The architect considers the extension to 'blend seamlessly with the surroundings'. Look, and tell me - does this blend in with the surroundings?

No. Of course it doesn't. It is a mortal wound on the surroundings and quite hideous. 

Inside they have furnished it with unsympathetic furniture including ugly village hall style chairs and put offensive so-called art works on the walls.

All completely inappropriate for a gamekeeper's cottage. 
And I disapprove of that mantelpiece thing they have stuck on the bressemer beam over the fireplace.

The architect's wife is an art adviser. See what she puts in her own house, and reflect - is this wise? Do I require this person's advice? Would I value it? The answer, as we all know, is, no.

See what I mean? And they've children living in the house as well. Most unseemly.

Here's the kitchen

with the family bravely smiling through their tears and concealing their amazement and despair. There is miserable plain white melamine everywhere you look, and the architect boasts that they banish all signs of culinary equipment behind white cupboard doors which he designed himself. Fancy!
"Now, what shape shall I choose? ...Yes, I'm going to have rectangular doors... I think I'll make them the same size as the front of the cupboard... gosh it's difficult designing a plain white door."
Apparently that type of decor is John Pawson-like. This surprises me, since I wouldn't have thought one would need any mentor or outside influence in order to come up with such a dull, utilitarian, characterless kitchen.

Still, it's not all been easy for these poor deres - listen to what happened when they tried to make a wild flower meadow... the posh landscape gardener they called in to help them had decided to 'achieve a grassy carpet of white wild flowers'. Silly woman. Sure enough when the wild flowers came up, OH DEAR! they were all sorts of colours! Look, luv, that is what you get with wild flowers. They're WILD. Anyway a whole lot of many-coloured wild flowers is jolly nice and you should be grateful. However, Architect and Mrs Architect viewed the whole incident as a total disaster and really ought to get out more.

Also in the interview the architect was horrid and unchivalrous about his wife - he said that contrary to her claim that she found the place, really he found it; and he railed against her sofa cushions, in the national press. He said the only thing he doesn't like about his beastly house is some sofa cushions that his wife insisted on having. Poor thing, she must have wanted some shred of comfort to solace her in that disagreeable habitat. 
I consider his conduct childish, peevish, and not admirable.

Yet despite his architectural and husbandly misdemeanours he remains totally unrepentant and in my opinion is not fit to practise as an architect at large in the community, or indeed, as a spouse. 

In conclusion, I think you will see why it was impossible to remain silent on this matter.