The Georgian Group
at
Iford Manor
and
Trafalgar Park

6th April 2013






Last saturday actually felt like real Spring, or even Summer. England was looking its verdant best and the first stop on the Georgian Group tour was Iford Manor, a piece of Italy transported to Wiltshire. I managed to arrive after the group, due to the usual dismal traffic out of London, while my group of Georgians were at the start of the tour by Elizabeth Cartwright-Hignett. The house is home to much of her family's famous collection of works of art from Aynho Park, the Cartwright ancestral home. This collection fits wonderfully in to the warren of rooms, which range from late Mediaeval to Arts and Crafts.

The principal facade of Iford Manor from the bridge

Iford is internationally famous for its gardens, which cling to the sides of this perfect stretch of the Frome Valley. The gardens are awash with Classical statuary, fragments of ancient buildings and are crowned by the unique Cloister, one of Sir Harold Peto's masterpieces and now home to the annual Iford Festival.

Peto lived at Iford from 1899 until his death in 1933 and his great collection of artefacts from ancient Europe dominate the gardens and even nature itself. Under the careful stewardship of the Cartwright-Hignetts plant life marches beautifully alongside statuary, broad walks and pools.

Iford really has to be seen to be believed; what appears to all the World to be a grand Bath townhouse with half of ancient Rome behind it. One man's dream in the early Nineteenth century is alive and well more than a century later and if you could bottle Iford it would be nothing less than a marvellous magic potion!

Peto's Cloister

Trafalgar, or Standlynch to give it its ancient name, is another perfect house. Unlike Iford, which has grown piecemeal over many centuries, Trafalagar started life as a country villa and soon became a fully fledged grand Georgian pile with the addition of wings and links and a single storey portico. By this time it was worthy to be the great house of the family of Admiral Lord Nelson.

Georgians admiring Trafalgar

The Earls Nelson lived at Trafalgar until 1948. It is now home to Michael Wade and his family. He has brought the house back to life as a family home and his imagination and good taste are evident throughout.

We had a most delicious lunch in the magnificent octagonal red dining room and then the tour started in the Hall, probably my favourite country house room in England. It is one of the most perfect Palladian spaces in Britain and has an accoustic that makes you just want to launch in to song! Then came the Cipriani Room, with its exquisite paintings by that artist and then the library with its grand Regency fittings.

The Hall

     The Cipriani Room

The derelict link to the North Wing at Trafalgar

It was utterly fascinating to see the North Wing, which is derelict at present and in a state of restoration. This is a country house in itself and has at its centre a very fine room with a good Neo-Classical plaster ceiling. The link from the main house is a wonderful 'Derelicte-Chic' space...like a very lofty abandoned Georgian chapel, or perhaps something forgotten

by Inigo Jones.

The garden front of Trafalgar in the April sun

The Georgians left, having had a wonderful and fascinating time, and I stayed for tea on the lawn beneath a Georgian masterpiece on a balmy late Spring early evening.






For more information of Iford and Trafalgar please see:-

www.ifordmanor.co.uk
www.ifordarts.co.uk
www.trafalgarpark.com
and for The Georgian Group:-

www.georgiangroup.org.uk