THE LADY R FOUNDATION


at

St John's Smith Square

Thursday 17th January 2013

for

VETERANS AID

St John's Smith Square was en fete and filled to the rafters with guests enjoying the finest music, food and drink. This was all for the benefit of Veterans Aid, a crucial charity helping homeless ex servicemen get their lives back after some very difficult times. The Lady R Foundation strives to aid the forgotten and the overlooked and give them hope and support.

Sopranos Sarah Gabriel and Alexandra Kennedy

A great variety of people from all walks of life gathered to support the evening from ex servicemen and others from Veterans Aid, artists, academics, politicians and many more. Acceptance and understanding were the dominant feelings in the room as we listened to music, laughed and learnt from each other and showed our concern for this very important charity.

Oliver Gerrish and Sarah Gabriel

I sat next to Ian, from Veterans Aid, who was fascinating and enormous fun. We spoke for a long time and I have the most enormous respect and and admiration for him. He had really come back from the brink of oblivion and thanked Veterans Aid for it. He was one of four people who told me, just on that particular evening, that Veterans Aid HAD saved their lives. They were not just given a bed for the night, but one for as long as it took to feel better, and were welcomed with open arms with love and respect.

The Company of Pikemen and Muskateers on the steos of St John's

On arrival guests were greeted by Pikemen and Musketeers from The Honourable Artillery Company who stood below the great portico of St John's. Inside champagne flowed and dinner was served. The lobster, donated by one of the many supporters of the evening, was utterly delicious, as was the rest of dinner. What made it even more of a special feast was the marvellous music played by the Paradisal Players under the dynamic baton of Samuel Burstin. We dined alongside the music of Rossini and Rachmaninov. The latter's Piano Concerto No 2 in C Minor was performed by pianist Ana Sinkovec and the Paradisal Players.

St John's transformed in to a grand Baroque banqueting hall

Angela Rippon was a brilliant master of ceremonies for the evening, which culminated in a show stopping performance by The Red Hot Chilli Pipers.

Presenter of the evening Angela Rippon

Maiko, Dowager Viscountess Rothermere

The Red Hot Chilli Pipers

The Lady R Foundation, under the caring eye of Maiko, Lady Rothermere, created such a special and uplifting evening for all, the atmosphere of which I will never forget, nor will I forget the conversations I had with Ian and various other extraordinary people. It is in meeting gentlemen like these ex servicemen that one sees the true grit and determination of man to recover and survive against all odds. I returned home enlightened, educated and looking forward to seeing some of the amazing people I'd met again as they rebuild their lives. Veterans Aid is undeniably a charity that saves lives and sets futures on strong and loving foundations.





For more information on Veterans Aid please see http://www.veterans-aid.net/
and
For information on the Lady R Foundation please see http://www.theladyrfoundation.org/




                        All images in this blog are under the copyright ownership of Oliver Gerrish

Young Georgian
Photoshoot
at

6 Fitzroy Square

with

Matchbox



We had a super photoshoot at 6 Fitzroy Square last week to go with an interview I have done for Matchbox about The Young Georgians and the Townhouse parties Sophie Edmonds and I hold at The Georgian Group.

A throng of Young Georgians

Various Young Georgians descended on the place and Sophie and I decked them out in Georgian attire. The rooms were kept plain apart from two rather vulgar looking obelisks I'd bought, two huge white tassells, a table from Sir Jeffry Wyatt's Endsleigh, a George III tea urn and some material Sophie and I had lying around. Amidst this Georgian version of a car boot sale the scene was set for two hours of posing and poncing. All for a good cause; the Tenth Anniversary of the Young Georgians and the Seventy-Fifth of The Georgian Group.

Robert Adam's interior at 6 Fitzroy Square

Henry Conway - Vice Chairman of The Young Georgians

Sophie Edmonds - Co-Founder of Georgian Townhouse Parties

Photographer Marco Walker entered in to the spirit of the thing and managed to keep us all in line despite some a few mishaps...a nearly major wardrobe malfunction by a magnificent specimen of a Georgian lady, Henry Conway's whig (or was it real?!) molting, my socks slipping down and general tomfoolery.

                Oliver Gerrish, Carolina Busiba and Adrian Steffny

I hope the results of this shoot and article will speak for themselves and show the readers of Matchbox that fun, life and colour are paramount to a charity such as The Georgian Group. Nancy Mitford, Robert Byron and other bright young members of the Group at its inception would hopefully agree too!

Lady Worsley gazes down on some modern Georgian belles

Oliver Gerrish - Chairman of The Young Georgians

Photographer Catherine Chapman

 The Georgian Group is healthier than ever with over three thousand members, countless visits, lectures and events and, most importantly, the support it gives in an advisory or financial way to so many Georgian buildings from the smallest barn to the grandest public buildings.

       Long live the Gorgeous Georgians!!




For more information on The Georgian Group please see www.georgiangroup.org.uk
For information on Matchbox please see www.matchboxmag.com
For information on Marco Walker please see www.marcowalker.com

                        All images in this blog are under the copyright ownership of Oliver Gerrish

The Young Georgians

visit

Chiswick House

Chiswick House is one of the most important buildings in the history of British Architecture. Built in 1729 by Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington and 4th Earl of Cork, Chiswick passed in to the hands of his descendants, The Dukes of Devonshire. Two hundred years of owning this wonderful treasure of a house, which was deemed by Lord Hervey to be 'too small to live in, and too big to hang to a watch', came to an end in 1929 when the 9th Duke sold the house and estate to Middlesex Country Council. The house at that time became a fire station. On the tour we had two friends who are descended directly from the Earls of Cork. I think they found it fascinating too, although they were rather shaken by one or two particularly unattractive family portraits!

Lord Burlington's entrance front of Chiswick House

The Devonshires, under the famous Georgiana Duchess, had thrown out huge wings to the left and right of Lord Burlington's original square villa. These have now gone and the purity of the building, inspired by Lord Burlington's study of Sixteenth Century Italian architect Andrea Palladio and his assistant Vincenzo Scamozzi, is back to its glorious best.

The interior is geometrically planned around a central domed octagon. Despite the modest scale of the villa the perfection of the proportions and quality of the craftsmanship create a palatial effect which is hard to forget.

Dr David Jacques talks to the group

Dr David Jacques took the tour of the garden, which was envisaged by William Kent and Lord Burlington to be a continuation of the house. It is Kent's version of a garden in ancient Rome and is filled with follies and architectural conceits to show-off Lord Burlington's education in all things Palladian and Classical.

Young Georgians nosing round the garden

Marvelling at the Octagonal Hall

Chiswick House and gardens are in a better state than ever. Even the ultra modern cafe fits in well with the overall effect. This extremely precious building is at last being given the recognition and care it deserves to preserve it for future generations who wish to know where we came from and are going to in British architecture. Lord Burlington's mini masterpiece is open for business!!

For more information on Chiswick House and opening times:

http://www.chgt.org.uk/

                        All images in this blog are under the copyright ownership of Oliver Gerrish

Salon Tuesday Photoshoot

by Catherine Chapman
with

Soprano Sarah Gabriel and countertenor Oliver Gerrish


6 Fitzroy Square

Oliver Gerrish Diptych

Sarah Gabriel in Vivienne Westwood

Sarah Gabriel, in Vivienne Westwood, and I, in vintage three-piece Huntsman, spent half a day in the Robert Adam splendours of 6 Fitzroy Square being photographed by the sublime Catherine Chapman.

Oliver Gerrish in Huntsman

It was a real collaboration as at times I held the 'Disc of love' (as named by me for some reason) to shine light on to Sarah, and vice versa.


The Baroque forms of Sarah's Westwood blue dress reacted marvellously with the cool and plain Georgian interiors in Catherine's photographs.

Beauty and the Hobbit!

At one point Sarah stood on a chair and let the dress billow out on to the floor and the lofty room assumed new proportions and Sarah's legs were taller than me. I felt like a hobbit!!...and looked a little like one too with my attempt at a beard!

Scottish Widow...

Sarah and I met doing the opera 'Artaserse' by Hasse. She was a spurned and angry maiden and I an arch villain of the nastiest kind...but in real life we have become great friends. Two years ago we started Salon Tuesdays at The Georgian Group with a concert in which we performed with Chris Suckling's 'Abbandonata'. Since then we have performed with harpsichordists Nathaniel Mander, Erik Dippenaar, Chris Bucknall and Oliver-John Ruthven, trumpeter Simon Desbruslais, violinists Oliver Webber and Davina Clarke amongst others, tenor Ben Fleetwood Smyth and countertenor Raffaele Pe...to name but a few. It has been such a thrill to perform in a chamber situation and I love bringing top music in to 6 Fitzroy Square, one of London's grand Georgian Townhouses.

We believe that the concerts, by candlelight and with wine, are a unique experience and an oasis amidst the modern craziness of London.

Oliver Gerrish

All photographs in this post are the property of photographer Catherine Chapman



For more information on the works of Catherine Chapman please see:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ceeterooniepix


For information on Salon Tuesday's Concerts please see:

www.georgiangroup.org.uk

and on the wonderful venue that is 6 Fitzroy Square:

www.sixfitzroysquare.com/vebo/

Young Georgians

visit

The House of Saint Barnabas

and

68 Dean Street

and Cess Pits...

The House of St Barnabas, or 1 Greek Street, is arguably Soho's finest house and contains one of London's great Rococo Georgian interiors and is a grand reminder that Soho was once the habitat of haute fashion Eighteenth century London.

The famous interior of 1 Greek Street was rebuilt by the Beckford family in 1754.

The staircase and Soho Rooms have particularly fine plasterwork and, in the latter, door surrounds.

It is wonderful seeing a Georgian building still evolving in such a way and those in responsible for it cherishing this amazing architectural legacy.

Rococo meets The Hobbit!

The house of St Barnabas has even hosted such modern luminaries as Girls Aloud, seen here in their heyday

1 Greek Street has been an important hub for the homeless community since the mid Nineteenth Century, when the amazing chapel was built at the rear by Joseph Clarke FRIBA. The Chapel is a wonderfully untouched Victorian building the organ looks pretty original too!!

The organ in the Chapel at the House of St Barnabas

Next stop for the Young Georgians was a stone's throw away at 68 Dean Street. We had to make a brief stop to see the amazing newly restored rococo shopfront at 88 Dean Street, a labour of love for for young newsagent owner Romil Patel. It was restored by local craftsmen and is a most precious survival of what was once a whole array of marvellous Georgian shop fronts.

88 Dean Street

David Bieda has restored and revived 68 Dean Street, one of the great surviving examples of early Georgian domestic architecture in London. The house was rebuilt by John Meard Junior, one of the top carpenters of his generation, in 1732. He was Master of the Worshipful Company of Carpenters and worked with Sir Christopher Wren on the woodcarvings at St Paul's Cathedral and various London churches. 

The house is like a Georgian skyscraper at six storeys and contains an extremely rare survival of an early Georgian servant's floor and two marvellous cesspits, one grand for the family and another rather dank one for the staff...the smell of Georgian London is almost tangible!

The smart cesspit

The dank cesspit

The Drawing Room on the piano nobile of 68 Dean Street

Soho still contains such a wealth of Georgian architecture and that, bottled with the area's lively character, helps to conjure up the period better than nearly anywhere else in London.

For information on 68 Dean Street please see:-

http://www.sixty8.com/index.html

and The Young Georgians:-

www.georgiangroup.org.uk

            All images in this blog are under the copyright ownership of Oliver Gerrish

Renishaw Hall
and Radburne Hall
Derbyshire

with
The Young Georgians

Renishaw Hall is one of the great treasure houses of England. It is grand, huge and certainly stately, but what marks it out as exceptional is its literary associations in the early Twentieth Century. This rambling embattled pile was home to the famous trio of Sacheverell, Edith and Osbert Sitwell. We visited very soon after the death of our friend Sir Reresby Sitwell, son of Sacheverell. Reresby was a wonderful man with a marvellous sense of fun and a deep sense of responsibility for Renishaw. With true Sitwellian style, despite the recent sad event, The Young Georgians were still welcomed to Renishaw.

We started in the Hall, where John Piper's wacky and wonderful wall paintings stop you in your tracks the moment you are through the door. Piper has taken the magnificently varied roofscape of Renishaw and thrown over it all the colours of a huge fireworks display.

The Sitwells were a minor gentry family and their original, relatively modest, 1625 house is still at the chore of the present albatross. The fortune of the family was made from coal.

The lower rooms at the centre of the house give on to Sir Sitwell Sitwell's (!) grand suite of Georgian rooms by Joseph Badger of Sheffield. The first is the Dining Room, with its marvellous apse. It is like a more homely version of Adam's State Dining Room at nearby Kedleston Hall as its decoration and proportions are not perfect and even slightly gawky, but all the more lovable for it. The Drawing Room has a marvellously realistic looking inlaid wooden floor, which is in fact painted. This was Penelope, Lady Sitwell's idea. She also gilded various ornaments in and around Renishaw. The Drawing Room also contains Sir John Singer Sargent's famous portrait of the young Sitwells with their parents. The legend goes that Sir George Sitwell wanted Edith's large Plantagenet bumpy nose painted as perfect. He was proud of his own straight patrician nose. Sargent instead gave Edith the perfect nose and Sir George quite a honker!

From the Drawing Room the visitor suddenly finds himself in the most up to date style of the early Twentieth Century...      Edwin Lutyens' Billiard Room. As the Sitwells at that time knew anyone who was anyone, this cosmopolitan room should come as no shock. The final room on in this parade is the Ball Room, tall and vast with a sumptuous array of Italian furniture and works of art, some of which came from the Sitwell's legendary Tuscan palace, Montegufoni.

The Young Georgians and the stable block at Renishaw

The house is a veritable treasure trove and the gardens are equally splendid. Even in the very varied weather of Derbyshire the Italianate air of the place is hard to miss.

Young Georgians at lunch

Radburne Hall has been home to the Chandos-Pole family and their ancestors since the early Middle Ages and is one of the finest mid Eighteenth Century houses in England. It was built by Warwick architect William Smith the Younger and contains the highest possible craftsmanship from that period. The Hall with its screen of Ionic columns is bold and stately and the saloon, with its unrivalled collection of Joseph Wright of Derby paintings, is a box of delights.

Mrs Jill Chandos-Pole helped to save the house in the 1950's when she arranged a deal with Nestle for some outlying land on the estate near to Derby. This deal lead to the restoration of Radburne by John Fowler, whose work still survives splendidly today under red and white gingham throws and the careful and loving eye of Jill.

Radburne is one of my favourite houses in England and long may it keep Derby at bay!

Radburne

Self and Jill

For more information about the Young Georgians and the Georgian Group please go to:

www.georgiangroup.org.uk

All images in this blog are under the copyright ownership of Oliver Gerrish