Postcard from . . . Eltham Palace

Δημοσιεύθηκε: 3 Απριλίου 2015 - 20:09

In the suburbs of southeast London stands a chimera. Tucked beside a nondescript road, in a part of the city I would have difficulty finding again without a map, is Eltham Palace, a lavish art deco mansion built around the remains of a medieval royal residence.

Eighty years after it was first unveiled, Stephen and Virginia Courtauld's ultra-modern reimagining of what was once the home of Henry VIII is still a shocking architectural non sequitur. But the surprises don't end there. This weekend the house reopens to visitors after a £1.7m refurbishment by English Heritage that has peeled back yet new layers in its history.

Previously unseen rooms will be on show, including a wartime bunker and dressing room, but the standout is a hitherto undiscovered "map room". Even the conservators were taken aback when they discovered, beneath layers of paint and varnish, the huge maps on which the Courtaulds once plotted their travels. Running alongside these are delicate, brightly coloured paintings of pagodas, church spires and mythical beasts curling their tails and flexing their wings. The restoration project ends in October but those visiting the palace soon will be able to watch the conservators still at work as new images are revealed.

The story of Eltham Palace begins either in 1086 or 1933, depending on which part of the house you stand in. The site was first recorded in the Domesday survey and later used to build a palace for King Edward IV that welcomed kings and queens of England for centuries. Its fortunes began to wane in the civil wars, when it was ransacked, then fell into disrepair. By the time the Courtaulds found it in the 1930s, it was being used as a barn.

John Seely and Paul Edward Paget, the architects hired by the couple, set about restoring the most important surviving building, the Great Hall, before creating an opulent modern home around it. Early guests likened the finished product to a Hollywood film set, echoing perhaps their host's link with films. Stephen Courtauld's fortune came from his family's textiles business, but his own interest was Ealing Film Studios, and each room feels like it could be a different set.

The tabular content relating to this article is not available to view. Apologies in advance for the inconvenience caused.

>The entrance hall, with its huge concrete and glass-domed roof and exotic pale-wood veneers, is completely distinct from the drawing room's heavy wood beams painted with Hungarian-style folk art and neither looks as though it belongs in the same house as the exotic, Grecian-inspired golden bathroom that Virginia used. The Courtaulds' interior designer, Peter Malacrida, was an Italian aristocrat and journalist turned designer who even came up with a painted interior for their pet lemur's cage.

Malacrida's work extended to the couple's luxury yacht, which also gives the house one of its rare unifying themes. Eltham was styled to look in part like an ocean liner, then considered the height of sophistication. Guest rooms come complete with built-in furniture, electric heaters and a loudspeaker system that broadcast gramophone music, while corridors have porthole-inspired shapes.

It was built for entertaining and one of English Heritage's innovations is an interactive tour in which visitors are treated as guests at a Courtauld house party, and invited to play the part of one of the socialists, politicians, or explorers who spent weekends here.

The Courtaulds didn't have much time to enjoy their new home before the second world war broke out, forcing them to shelter in the basement until they left in 1944 and the army moved in. The family's rather comfortable wartime bunker, complete with billiards room, photographic darkroom and two extra bedrooms, is also newly opened.

It was Nancy Mitford who described the 1930s as the decade when the age of luxury gave way to the age of comfort. Eltham Palace, with its eclectic mix of mod cons and historical grandeur, suggests that if you had enough money, you could enjoy both.

Eltham Palace is open Sundays to Thursdays 10am and 6pm (Sundays only in winter) and every day in some school holidays. Admission is £13 for adults, £7.80 for children and free for English Heritage members. There is on-site parking and the nearest rail station is Mottingham, english-heritage.org

© The Financial Times Limited 2015. All rights reserved.
FT and Financial Times are trademarks of the Financial Times Ltd.
Not to be redistributed, copied or modified in any way.
Euro2day.gr is solely responsible for providing this translation and the Financial Times Limited does not accept any liability for the accuracy or quality of the translation