Castle Drogo

Another week, another NT property: Castle Drogo this time, a rather interesting NT property in Devon. It's an early C20th castle designed by Edwin Lutyens for Julius Drewe. It has leaked since the day it was built. Not ideal.

I have seen it before the scaffolding went up, and it's a dark, squat place, well in keeping with the surrounding granite landscape of Dartmoor.

Going up the scaffolding tower to the viewing platform was fine until I got about half way up when I remembered just how much I hate heights, but once up the top, it was curious how looking down on the roof work felt like looking onto a film set, or the beginnings of a building being built.

We're due to have scaffolding put up around Croome soon, and coming here made me aware of how much the lighting inside Croome will change once the shrinkwrap sheeting is applied. The view too.

It was also the first day for our new assistant creative director, Ashleigh. We drove down together and this gave me a good opportunity to bring her up to speed with the different threads of our creative endeavours at Croome.

Talking these things over caused me to reflect further on the idea of redefining the country home, and how this is effectively what the 6th Earl was up to when he got Capability Brown, Robert Adam and others in to redefine the idea of a country home prevalent at the time. Whilst we're not about to move walls, add wings or alter the landscape, there is still a lot we can do so that visitors to Croome have a similar experience to the 6th Earl's visitors in terms of finding something very different to what can be experienced elsewhere.

The Earl's visitors would have been met with the most cutting edge, contemporary designs of the day, and of course it would have all been brand new. That's what made it so enjoyable, and such a talking point.

Shoes #1

This isn't a photo of Croome either, but rather Canons Ashby, another NT property.

I was there yesterday to find out a bit more about the shoe project they've been doing, in collaboration with the Northampton Museum and Art Gallery (who have the biggest shoe collection in the world). This is part of the Cinderella Syndrome project, looking at how to exhibit shoes in museum-type settings.

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, visitors have responded very well, as shoes are meaningful to all of us. They're practical but personal, and are often a means for expression of individual personality. The imprint of the wearer's foot inside, and signs of wear outside, hint at both the presence of an individual in the world and their story - who they are, where they've been and what they've done.

As well as Jane Seddon and Rebecca Shawcross from the museum, I also met Ellen Sampson, a shoe designer, lecturer at the RCA, and freelance curator. As we're just about to start a project around shoes at Croome, these were all very useful contacts to make. I wonder whether we can can find a way to fund a resident shoe-maker for six months... 

Hello World

I've been meaning to get this blog started for a while...

Not a photo of Croome, but as this is the first post, I figured I'd start with something I've been doing recently, rather than going back to the start of the project - more about this later.

Last Tuesday I was at the new library in Birmingham with the National Trust Futures Group (more about that later too). It was an inspiring day, starting with a tour of the library, and the Reference Works photo exhibition in particular, with photos of people involved in all areas of the building work (amongst others). Nicky from GRAIN talked to us about photography and mentoring the Midlands. We also had a brief talk from the Arts Council in the Midlands, and from the National Trust's Foghorn Requiem project at Souter Lighthouse.