Ten myths and misconceptions about the National Trust’s proposal for Clandon Park
The ceiling of the Marble Hall, Clandon Park (pre-2015).
The materials and techniques used in creating the stucco ceilings are poorly understood today, and those high-level craft skills no longer exist. That is why they cannot be authentically reconstructed.
These techniques and materials are well understood by people who are interested in them and use them today to create beautiful period interiors. Smell the coffee, National Trust!The stucco decoration was a unique work of art. Any recreation of them would not be the real thing.
These ceilings did not leap from the imagination of an artist of genius like a painting by Picasso. They were designed, drawn on paper, mapped out on the ceiling and then moulded by hand. The process involved a designer, who may have been the architect, and a team of craftsmen. The roundel showing Hercules and Omphale (above) was copied from an engraving which was copied from a painting by Annibale Caracci (below), hardly the product of a unique flash of inspiration. The value and significance of Clandon Park is in the interiors as a whole, within the building. As we have an exact record of what they looked like, craftsmen and -women can recreate the designs without any use of guesswork.The work of modern stuccadores is not as good as that of their eighteenth-century colleagues and a reconstruction would be a 'lifeless fake'.
These people are very good and very committed. They are talented sculptors who study historic examples carefully to get the style just right and bring their own verve to the project. Britain is currently a world leader in heritage craft. Since the triumphant restoration of Uppark, in which only minimal original plaster was used and the ceilings are mostly new, no-one has called it a 'fake'.The proposed interventions will be reversible, so that it will still be possible to restore the interiors at a later date.
Well, perhaps in theory, but £40 million of the insurance payout and more money from the National Trust’s reserves will have been spent on these steel structures and skylights. That money will be gone forever. The walkways and flat roof would have to be removed again at vast cost before any restoration could take place. If this scheme goes ahead, restoration will be off the table for good.The fire created 'sublime aesthetic value ... found in the stripped back grandeur of the skeleton and new multi-height spaces'.
We appreciate that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but, seriously?The fire-ravaged house 'presents a rare opportunity to study the construction of a Georgian country house in detail', and that is why the brick walls should not be covered in plaster again.
The interesting evidence can be recorded and some of the less important rooms can be left in their fire-damaged state. There is no need to leave the walls of the state rooms bare and charred for ever.The views from the roof will be worth seeing.
Yes, if you like dual carriageways and tower blocks. The park was designed by Capability Brown to be seen from the windows of the house. The proposed cavernous space will not have somewhere to stand in front of every window with a view, sadly, which means that some of Brown's efforts will go to waste.The scheme is necessary to make all levels of the house accessible.
Chatsworth has a lift. Buckingham Palace has a lift. There are lifts in historic buildings of all kinds. Installing a passenger lift to all floors as part of a major restoration of the historic interiors is not a problem.The scheme will make the building economically viable and contribute to the local economy.
Maybe it will, and maybe it won't. The jobs manufacturing the materials for the new structures will be created overseas. Apprentices won't be trained in heritage crafts. With properly reconstructed original interiors, on the other hand, Clandon could be a prestigious events and wedding venue again and attract visitors as before. An ambitious restoration project would get people talking, as did the project at Notre Dame, and attract visitors from far and wide. Simon Thurley, former chief executive of English Heritage, cautions, 'Consolidated ruins are not much fun to visit'. If this one runs out of steam, then what?And here is one from a former Trustee of the National Trust: 'There are four other stately homes advertised on the Visit Guildford website, as fine in their own way as pre-fire Clandon. The 'Country House Laid Bare' proposed at Clandon will complement and inform visits to all those properties, and indeed to any country house in the country.
' Hatchlands Park and Polesden Lacey (NT) are lovely houses, as are West Horsley Place and Loseley Park (not NT), but they are architecturally not in the same league as Clandon, which was designed by one of the most famous Italian architects of the time and decorated by the best stuccadores working in Europe. In that respect, Clandon is utterly different from anything else in the area and on a par with the very finest houses in Europe. Experience at the helm of a heritage charity ought to bring with it an appreciation of what makes historic houses special and unique.
The ceiling of the Palazzo Farnese in Rome.