Clandon is not the only house looking less than its best
Modern art being displayed for sale in rooms without furniture at Croome Court in Worcestershire.
Gill Robinson is dismayed by the National Trust’s plan to leave Clandon as a burnt-out wreck with modern additions. She says,
I have a friend who won't go to Croome for this reason. She says it's boring. When she goes to an historic house she doesn't want to see what builders have done in recent years and empty rooms. She wants to see the house as it was with lovely furniture and curtains, and I have to admit that Croome could be improved greatly with more furniture and paintings which are kept hidden from the public.
Important pieces of furniture at Croome Court are put on a pedestal rather than being placed in the rooms they were originally intended for.
A ‘re-imagining’ too far? Imitation hall chairs displayed at Croome while the real ones are in storage.
Did you know that the ceiling and fireplace in the Tapestry Room at Croome are 20th-century reproductions? The originals were taken to the Metropolitan Museum after the war. We haven’t yet heard anyone call them "‘plastic pastiche’… Meanwhile, some important pieces of furniture by Ince and Mayhew are not on display, or occasionally put on a pedestal when it would be so simple to put them back the the spaces for which they were originally made. And we are all still waiting for the Adam bookcases brought back from the V&A Museum to be replaced in the room for which they were made.
Croome’s Adam furniture sits in packing cases while the rooms are empty.