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.