Give me a toy
dog over a sofa in Perspex.
By Kent Barker
I’ve been having problems with the roof recently. I won’t bore you
with the details. It’s nearly as dull as asking someone how they are… and
having them tell you! But I will say that, inevitably, the latest firm of
roofers blamed the previous ones: “Cor, whoever did this didn’t do you any
favours. What they should have done is….” And ten minutes later your head is
reeling with valleys and flashings and holing gauges.
But mine is a pretty modest roof so,
as you can imagine, I was more than a little sympathetic to the homeowner who
has 7.5 acres of roofing to maintain. No, that’s not a misprint. Seven-and-a-half
ACRES – that’s 326,700 square feet.
However when I say ‘home’ owner, perhaps I should have added the prefix
‘stately’, for this is Knole—an extraordinary medieval edifice of (at least)
365 rooms, 12 entrances, 7 courtyards and 52 staircases—very few of which, as
Horace Walpole opined in 1752, lead where you want to go!
The homeowner in question is the
National Trust. Knole was handed to it by the fourth Lord Sackville in 1946—presumably
after an estimate for roofing repairs. (“Cor guv, you’ve got a job on here and
no mistake. Even for cash it’s going to set you back a bob or two….”). And the
National Trust has recently embarked on a series of repairs, including
recreating a massive pitched tile roof to a barn which has been missing since a
fire in 1887.
Now, I’m a fan of the National Trust
and have been a member for many years. And, because of the building works, I
may not have seen Knole at its best. But, even so, I have to say the visitor ‘experience’
that I did have was pretty dispiriting. To start with, the whole place is so dark.
I sort of understand that 400 year-old fabrics fade in bright sunlight, but
that means that there are blinds down over most of the windows. This has the
added disadvantage of preventing you gazing out over the magnificent deer park
or into any of the seven courtyards. So murky
is it that the enthusiastic volunteer guides are issued with powerful torches to
show you some intricate piece of frieze or moulding.
Thus, one gloomy corridor leads to another, each lined with
threadbare furniture and vast, melancholy, portraits. Everywhere were roped-off
sections and exhortations not to touch any of the exhibits. So extensive were
the exclusion zones that it came as a real shock actually to be invited to walk
on a carpet—though it turned out this was merely a cheap imitation rug. One
prize possession—the Red Knole Sofa—was entirely encased in ugly, utilitarian
and anachronistic Perspex to keep wandering hands (or tired bums) off it. Mind
you, it was we, the visitors, who were confined to a glass cage when entering
the splendidly ornate ‘King’s Room’ lest, presumably, we should sully the
exhibits with our foetid breath.
And don’t get me started on the portraits. Room after room, wall
after wall. So many dead people it felt like a mausoleum. I was so turned off I
missed the nine by Sir Joshua Reynolds. And, although I understand that a cartoon—or
even a copy of a Raphael Cartoon is not, in fact, a cartoon as the Disney generation
understands it, but rather a preliminary drawing for another work of art (in
this case tapestries in the Sistine chapel)… although I understand that, I’m
not at all sure that everyone else would. Nor was there anything that readily
explained it.
But, before this becomes a complete rant, let me get to my main
point. The problem is that nothing at
Knole suggests any sense of FUN. Dusty, dry, academic, worthy, yes. Where,
though, is the human touch? Who lived here?
What did they do? How did their lives differ from ours? I’m not always
in favour of audio-visual displays or actors talking to you from cobwebby
corners. But, heavens above, there must be something
the Trust can do to make a tour round these rooms more exciting. How about a
few holograms or some modern interpretation boards or signage? Build me a
reproduction red Knole sofa and let me sit on it. Put it next to its precursor,
the wooden settle and its successor, the overstuffed DFS jobby, so I can see
the progression.
The most exciting things in any of the rooms are small toy Dalmatian
dogs hidden in corners for children to spot and tick off on a list. Initially I
thought them ludicrously out of place and time. By the end I came to enjoy searching
for the fluffy dogs more than looking at the dull old exhibits.
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