Every year we mosey along the M62 to Burton Agnes Hall to admire their Christmas decorations and this year was no exception. There is something homely and admirable about the accessibility of the house and what they achieve with craft-based decorations, fully utilising material from the grounds.
The house itself is a glory with its impressive fireplace and marvellous Long Gallery at the top of the building, but the home-made decorations are charming because they are made by staff and local schoolchildren and the family who live there.
Rainbow Butterflies
Swans, icicles, angels, wreaths; the outdoors and indoors mingling together. And who doesn't love butterflies arranging themselves in rainbow formation? Venturing outside in the crisp winter air, who doesn't wants to tap on the teeny tiny doors of the fairy dwellings? My brain might turn to mush at Christmas-time, but the World is a Harsh Place and my inner child just can't be suppressed!
Chatsworth is on a different scale. Their themed decorations involve far more glamour and glitz than Burton Agnes and are awesome in their own way. In the pictures below spot Cinderella's coach (and pumpkin), kite-flying and a chimney sweep heralding the new Disney sequel to Mary Poppins.
One of my favourite rooms this year at Chatsworth was an animated shadow-play version of Sleeping Beauty. Absolutely enchanting.
The colours, lighting, stage settings and props in each room sparked both wonder and a bit of a chill, since childhood (and fairy tales) can be full or terror as well as fun.
Chatsworth is a breathtaking experience, not only for the glimpses high and low of the kind of luxury few people enjoy, but also of key artworks, including the famed veiled woman sculpted in 1846/47 having been commissioned in Monti's studio in Milan by the Sixth Duke of Devonshire (the current one is Twelfth.) Originally displayed in a London house, it came to Chatsworth in 1999 and featured in the 2005 film of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.
If Burton Agnes is Baby Bear and Chatsworth (See the Princess and the Pea bed above) is Daddy Bear, then Harewood House is Mummy Bear.... below are a few collages from their Christmas decorations, along with charming tales of times gone by. George and Gerald ascend the steps, determined to stay awake....
The art designer Simon Costin has worked with big-named brands in the past and brought his skills to this year's Harewood House decorations, evoking the hopes and dreams of the real-life George and Gerald Lascelles in the year 1929. What seemed clever to me was the perspective of all the decorations was that of a small child, so you saw familiar things as you had never seen them before.
A wedding dress became a Christmas tree, yellow flowers recalled The Wizard of Oz's famous road, an open window became an ice-nightmare recalling the Snow Queen's threat and, dominating my imagination, was a willow god Pan, over 12 feet high, looking equally benign and malign.
I know Harewood the best of the three houses featured in this post because it is geographically nearer where I live. As a family we've spent hours at the Bird Garden and Adventure Playground when the children were young. It was the place where I got the first inklings of the connection between great houses and the slave trade. What impresses me these days is that Harewood's acknowledgement of its past, and its ongoing community work, was one step ahead of the current (justifiable) re-evaluation of Britain's empirical exploitation.
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