Scarborough’s Grand Hotel

Above is a detail from a painting of 1867 in the Scarborough Museum and Art Gallery - it shows the seaward side of the just completed Grand Hotel on a day of unusually perfect weather.  The artist is John Wilson Carmichael (1799-1868) whose speciality was maritime subjects and coastal views who retired to Scarborough after a working life based in Newcastle.

In 1852 Cuthbert Brodrick (1821-1905) won a national competition to design a Town Hall for the City of Leeds. When his ambitious design was finally complete in 1858 the opening ceremony was performed by Queen Victoria.  Brodrick was 37 years old and his building had been hailed as a triumph - he stood on the threshold of a brilliant career but it never quite happened.  It has been argued that while his contemporaries mostly worked under the influence of Classical tradition, Brodrick with his preference for the French Second Empire style (“opulent and coarse” in the words of Jonathan Meades) was increasingly out of step with public taste. For the Leeds design Brodrick had made use of Classical elements and restrained his Frenchified tendencies but in his design for the Leeds Corn Exchange he surrendered to his passion for the Halle aux Blés in Paris (later rebuilt as the Bourse de Commerce). For more about the Corn Exchange follow this link to my blogpost of 2008.

Scarborough’s Grand Hotel was Brodrick's last major commission and he seized the opportunity to design a massive and imposing exercise in Second Empire style that wouldn’t look out of place on Haussmann’s Parisian grands boulevards. Built on a V-shaped plan between 1863 and 1867, it was one of Europe's largest luxury hotels adorned with corner domed towers, rounded windows, ornamental balconies and terracotta decoration. On the landward side there are 4 floors plus 2 attic levels, facing the sea an additional 3 basement levels are visible. It is claimed that the 4 domes represent the 4 seasons, while there are 52 chimneys for the weeks in a year and 365 rooms for the days in a year. After remodelling today's hotel has only 250 rooms. It retains a formidable sense of presence on Scarborough’s South Bay but is no longer a destination for the wealthy visitor drawn by the restorative powers of the local Spa waters, operating as a budget hotel as part of the Britannia Hotels group. Britannia Hotels consistently occupy last place in the annual Which survey of customer satisfaction and make less than perfect custodians of Brodrick’s great landmark.  YouTube has many hostile amateur videos of the horrors to be encountered there - one of the less hysterical examples is embedded below and it makes depressing viewing.  There’s no avoiding the evidence of internal dilapidation and the mistreatment of key architectural features and elaborations that seem increasingly obscured by clumsy partitioning and lowered ceilings. This would be Brodrick's last major commission - in 1870 he retired to France where he and his wife lived quietly for decades in the well-heeled western Paris suburb of le Vesinet.

Durham in Six Seconds

A long held ambition was finally fulfilled on an evening in late August when I was in the right place at the right time to photograph the view of the city from Durham Viaduct through the window of a passing train. After a day of persistent rain in Newcastle the sky cleared as the train approached Durham and a much anticipated opportunity opened up as it left the station. Six photos in six seconds of the castle and cathedral commanding the south eastern skyline in a jumbled sea of rooftops and foliage. An Asian restaurant, a Methodist Church and a domed Clock Tower exit left as a bus station and a cluster of back-to-back terraces are revealed. The eleven arch viaduct was built in 1857 by the North Eastern Railway and carries the East Coast Mainline between Edinburgh and King’s Cross. Its importance is recognised with a Grade II* listing by Historic England.  The appeal of the elevated viewpoint is well known - a moment when everything is reduced to manageable proportions, unusual patterns and formations are suddenly visible, and an unnaturally expanded breadth of vision breeds a delusionary sense of omnipotence.  Model makers toil for a lifetime to reproduce these effects on a diminished scale for the reward of having seized a segment of reality, taken control of it and cut it down to size.

 

Jane Parminter and A la Ronde

In 1784, at the age of 34, Jane Parminter having recently inherited her father’s estate embarked on a Grand Tour of Europe with three companions, her sister Elizabeth, her cousin Mary and another female friend. Their travels would last almost ten years and although Jane kept a detailed journal, all but the first volume were destroyed in the Baedeker bombing of Exeter.  What details we have of their itinerary has been extrapolated  from the significant quantity of paintings, prints and souvenirs they brought home. It seems certain that they explored France, Germany, Switzerland and Italy and likely that they also took in Spain and Portugal (Jane was born and spent her early years in Lisbon where her wine merchant father had his own business). 

As expedition leader, Jane had revealed an unusual strength of character and defied the limitations that polite society routinely imposed on unmarried females. She and her cousin Mary had become firm friends and resolved on their return to build a new house of their own specification in which to share their lives. In 1796 Jane bought a parcel of land on high ground between Exmouth and Lympstone, with a panoramic view of the Exe Estuary.  The plan for the 28 acre plot was to build a house of their own design, create a 'ferme ornée' (or ornamental farm), and establish a school for girls from disadvantaged backgrounds. There’s no settled view on just who was responsible for the design or the plans from which the house was built - the 16 sided floor plan must have come from Jane and the many affinities with the Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna (which made a powerful impression when they visited) in spatial organisation likewise.  Few practising architects would have contemplated such a radical departure from convention.

The completed house became a base for their philanthropic activities, a refuge from a male dominated world and above all a treasure box for all the memorabilia gathered on their travels where much time had been spent staring into cabinets of curiosities and dreaming of creating their own.  Daily life would never have been straightforward in such an unusual layout which left oddly shaped rooms and difficult spaces for staircases.  But they persevered, ignored the discomforts and gradually populated the spaces and decorated the walls to schemes entirely of their own devising.  This sense of autonomy and freedom from masculine interventions was crucial to the plan - it was their good fortune that the Parminter and Walrond inheritances made it all possible.

Best known of all their schemes is the Shell Gallery at the very top of the house - nobody knows how long they spent in a very cramped space, collaging sea shells in multiple configurations across eight separate surfaces or whether it was all done unassisted. But the sheer scale of ambition and endeavour is compelling, though the installation is now too fragile for visitors to inspect. It has recently been repaired and spruced up and the process was broadcast by the BBC in April this year.  When Jane died in 1811 she left the property to her cousin Mary on the condition that it could only be bequeathed to an unmarried female relative. That condition was honoured on the death of Mary in 1849, not until 1887 would the condition be rescinded and a male heir take possession.  This lead to a programme of modernisation that included replacing the thatched roof with slates, installing Dormer windows in the upstairs rooms, introducing central heating (hence the massive radiators seen in the photo) and obtaining a Dumb Waiter to bring meals from the kitchen  to the upper level, thus avoiding the restrictive staircase.

This story of female agency and empowerment is especially fascinating today to all who share concerns about gender imbalance - Jane Parminter exhibited a firm resolve to be unconstrained by male expectations of female conduct in an age where the rights of women came second to their status as male property. That it left a deep scar can be seen in Jane’s determination that no man should get his hands on the home she had worked so hard to create.  A la Ronde is the monument to her singular independence, strength of character and intellectual sensibility. 

 

Pioneers of German Graphic Design - Part Two

This is the long promised follow-up to the post of May 26. A further selection from the book, Pioneers of German Graphic Design, Callisto Publishers Berlin, 2017 (ISBN: 9783981753912) featuring Karl Schulpig to Jupp Wiertz plus an appendix of less well known designers.  The visual ingenuity and graphic impact of these images have lost none of their power over the years and will continue to serve as a vital source of inspiration for generations to come.  A superb book that I shall never tire of browsing.

 

Blackwell Stained Glass

One of the glories of Baillie Scott's masterpiece, Blackwell, built 1898-1900 for the Manchester family of brewers - the Holts, is the generous provision of stained glass mullioned windows, often paired in inglenooks or punctuating  long corridors. Their designs express a sense of joy at the beauty and transience of the natural world where  everything appears to be in motion - flowers sway in the breeze, semi-abstracted bluebirds swoop from treetop to roof top.  All is elegantly stylised in clusters of intersecting curves, organised in dynamic compositions.  Smaller and cruder versions of these motifs can be found on many an interwar suburban front door, often in combination with rustic cottages with woodsmoke curling up into the clouds. Disappointingly I can find no online information about who designed these windows or who supplied them. Simpson’s of Kendal could have been the supplier but there’s no confirmation of this. It must be possible they were simply ordered from a catalogue though the design incorporating the Holt Coat of Arms must have been a special commission.

 

Blackwell, Windermere

It’s often intriguing to compare the grandeur of the big house bought with the fruits of entrepreneurship with the circumstances of the consumers whose discretionary spending was the source of the fortune that paid for it. In the case of the Holt family of Mancunian brewers the contrast with the coarse and smoke-filled Public Bar favoured by the Lancastrian working man could hardly be greater.  Blackwell was a summer residence built 1898-1900 in a wonderful position on the heights overlooking the eastern shore of Windermere where the extended family would gather in the pursuit of leisure.  A long and elevated terrace offered glorious views of the lake and hills beyond while the house was designed for spacious comfort in artistically uplifting interiors. For the architect, Baillie Scott, this was his first major commission since returning from self-imposed ‘exile’ on the Isle of Man and a great opportunity to showcase his individual vision of Arts and Crafts domestic building alongside his talent as an impresario, bringing together brilliant designers and highly skilled craft workers to enhance his vision with wonderful stained glass, wall coverings and fixtures and fittings - no detail overlooked or left to chance. 

A double height Main Hall, approached via a long low corridor has a medieval flavour.  Around the oak panelled walls runs an exquisite carved frieze by Simpson of Kendal based on a rowanberry motif. Above is the wallpaper, Peacock Frieze, supplied by Shand Kydd. Six copper lamp fittings designed by Baillie Scott were installed to illuminate the family billiard table. Scott’s design for the Great Hall was closely based on his competition entry for a House for an Art Lover (“Haus Eines Kunstfreundes” ). A corner staircase rises to the bedrooms and a minstrels’ gallery. The Holt family would pass their leisure time in the Main Hall where beneath a coffered ceiling - French windows gave on to the garden. The hall led into the dining room with its fireplace inglenook, a favourite device of Baillie Scott’s, surmounted by a massive lintel formed from voussoirs of local stone and slate. Beautiful stained glass with floral and bluebird motifs added elegance to the sense of enclosure.

The White Drawing Room is a theatrical coup, approached along the same gloomy oak lined corridor it marks a thrilling transition to a sudden flare of evening sunshine with panoramic views of the lake below. Beneath another Rowanberry Frieze inside another inglenook is the finest fireplace in the house embellished with stained glass, ceramic tiles, mosaic floor, ornamental fire dogs, alcoves, mirrors and white painted slender columns topped with capitals of carved birds, fruits and leaf motifs. Female dinner guests were obliged to withdraw to the White Room while the alpha males gathered round the billiard table - I think the ladies got the better deal. At this point in his career Scott was still absorbing the influence of Voysey and introducing local vernacular elements (cylindrical chimneys, slate roof, multiple gables) into his design for the exterior. The completed house has a commanding presence in the landscape and the positioning of windows and whitewashed rough-cast stone finish invited comparisons with another influential figure - Mackintosh (Hill House was completed in 1904) are often evoked and the two architects were stylistically close at the time. Both entered the competition to design a House for an Art Lover organised by the German design magazine “Zeitschrift Für Innendekoration”.  Baillie Scott was awarded second prize and Mackintosh, who had failed to follow the brief, nonetheless obtained a special award.

 In a future post we’ll take a closer look at the use of stained glass at Blackwell.