Farnborough Hall

Entrance

The area where the borders of North Oxfordshire, South Warwickshire and Northamptonshire meet is one of the hidden gems of England with rolling wooded hills where the tail end of the Cotswolds meets the Warwickshire plain and the Burton-Dasset Hills. It is largely off the beaten track but contains rich fertile rolling farmland interspersed with river valleys, lakes and ancient villages with atmospheric stone cottages, village greens and old churches often clad in the distinctive red Hornton sandstone so characteristic of the area. So it was with a sense of anticipation I headed north on the A423 about five miles from Banbury (M40 Junc. 11, then A422, then A423) and following the signposts about half a mile on a single track road towards Farnborough Hall. The location seemed reassuringly rural and off the beaten track but the property gets only a small entry in the National Trust Handbook (confusingly listed under the “West Midlands”) and contains the endorsement “Farnborough Hall is occupied and administered by the Holbech family” so I half wondered were visitors welcome? I need not have worried because at the end of the narrow road what awaited was a wonderful welcoming property full of family artefacts lovingly displayed, marvellous but homely interiors and a garden which contains a feature of pure genius.

Garden Front

Farnborough Hall is a beautiful stone house, richly decorated in the mid-18th century, which has been the home of the Holbech family for over 300 years. The rooms, decorated with Rococo plasterwork by William Perritt, are quite outstanding and house a collection of paintings and furniture. The hall displays one of the largest collections of Roman busts. The landscaped gardens contain 18th century temples, a terrace walk and an obelisk. A superb 1740s landscaped garden remains largely unchanged, containing a broad ornamental terrace with temples.

Ice House

It is a country house just inside the borders of Warwickshire, England near to the town of Banbury, and with an Oxfordshire postcode (OX17 1DU for satnav junkies). The property has been owned by the National Trust since 1960, but is administered and occupied by the Holbech family. The Holbech family acquired the Farnborough estate in 1684 and the honey-coloured two-storey stone house was built soon after. Major changes to the property occurred between 1745 and 1750 when the entrance front was remodelled and the rococo plasterwork was added to the interior. This work was carried out by William Holbech who wanted a suitable setting for the sculpture and art he had brought back from his Grand Tour. He most likely used designs by his close friend Sanderson Miller, an architect, who lived a few miles away. Long Palladian facades with sash windows, pedimented doorways and a balustrated roofline were added to the earlier classical west front.

Hallway

Interior of Oval Pavillion

Unlike many of its contemporaries, Farnborough Hall and its landscaped gardens have experienced little alteration in the last 200 years and they remain largely as William Holbech left them. The entrance opens straight into the Italianate hall. The walls are adorned with busts of Roman emperors set into oval niches and the panelled ceiling is stuccoed with rococo motifs but for me the highpoint was the family baby grand piano with a notice saying “please play me!”. The dining room on the south front was especially designed to display works by Canaletto and Giovanni Paolo Panini. The original works are long gone, being replaced by copies. The drawing room has panels of elaborate stuccowork featuring scrolls, shells, fruit and flowers; these serve as a framework for more Italian works of art. A stucco garland of fruit and flowers encircles the skylight above the staircase hall and on the top landing a local guide explained the history whilst showing a charming collection of family cradles.

Arbour

In the mid 18th century the gardens were significantly enhanced by Sanderson Miller to dramatic effect. The land at the front of the Hall slopes downward to give a view of lake below. To the left of the house a grassy Terrace Walk is flanked by trees and excellent views of the Warwickshire plain can be had from here. The terrace leads past an Ionic temple and an oval pavilion, which has two storeys and elaborate plasterwork, to an obelisk at the end of the walk. There is a great S-shaped terrace with two temples giving outward views. As the Oxford Companion to Gardens notes 'This majestic concept was conceived in the early days of the English landscape movement and ranks with Rievaulx Terrace and Castle Howard as steps toward the landscape parks of the late eighteenth century'. However, a keen gardener told Graham Stuart Thomas that 'There is only a grass walk, and a couple of temples. There is no real garden'. The two pools at Farnborough Hall, now dredged, would give him something else to look at. A series of waterside and woodland paths have been created in the Sourlands area of the park.

Cascade

For me the gardens with their naturalistic human scale are the most satisfying I’ve ever experienced in an English country house, a judgement no doubt prejudiced by the beautiful clear May Day on which they were viewed. For the devices employed are both simple and satisfying and still impress after over 250 years. In front of the house the river had been dammed to create a scenic lake, one of five originally in the grounds of which 3 are still extant. Following the path down you come upon first an arbour and then “Grannies Rose Garden” where the roses are enclosed in box hedging. Following the path down you come to the Cascade, where an ornamental waterfall was created when the river was dammed. There was a nesting swan at the foot of the cascade looking wonderful as she turned her eggs carefully before continuing to incubate them.

Nesting Swan

But the work of genius is the naturalistic terrace which follows the contour of the land on the far side of the house. Rising gently in an “S” shape for two thirds of a mile on the contour overlooking the Hanwell Valley (which unfortunately today contains the M40 motorway) it is a 30 wide grass strip enclosed by laurel bushes on the with bastions each planted with a tree on the slope side and on the other side it has a shaded woodland return walk. You can imagine the ladies with their parasols embarking on this post prandial excursion. As you ascend the landscape and vistas unfold before you and there are punctuation marks to mark the waypoints in your perambulation. The first is a door in a wall marked “Game Larder.” On entering there is the dramatic surprise that Sanderson Miller no doubt intended. For what unfolds is a view of Farnborough Village and Church and the Game Larder has been embellished into a viewing pavillion to take in the vista. Further up the terrace you come to an Ionic Temple providing another shelter and viewpoint for it was important Georgian ladies neither sweated nor got wet! Further on you come to The Oval Pavillion which in its open base has seating and a stone table and above a delightful circular viewing room with ornate plastered walls and ceiling. Finally at the crest of the terrace walk is an imposing obelisk dating from 1751. To return you take the aptly entitled return walk which is a parallel woodland walk and on this day the woodland floor had a delightful carpet of bluebells which had replaced the daffodils of a couple of months previously. The return walk to the house also allows use of the pavilions.

Game Larder

Oval Pavillion

Ionic Temple


Obelisk

There is no catering at the house but they encourage you to stop in the (National Trust) village of Farnborough where the village hall and the community raise funds by having afternoon teas. The village has changed little since this description of 1868.

FARNBOROUGH, a parish in the Burton-Dassett division of the hundred of Kington, county Warwick, 6 miles S.E. of Kington. Banbury is its post town. The Fenny Compton station on the Great Western railway is 1 mile N. of the village. Farnborough is situated near the foot of Farnborough Hill, and the Oxford canal passes in the neighbourhood. In the Domesday Survey it is called Fernberge, and afterwards passed to the families of Say and Raleigh. The living is a vicarage* in the diocese of Worcester, value £304. The church is dedicated to St. Botolph. The parochial charities produce about £50 per annum, £40 of which are an endowment for the free school. W. Holbech, Esq., is lord of the manor. Farnborough Park is the principal residence. Here is a meet for the Warwick hounds.

The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland (1868)

Farnborough is a delightful village but not as delightful as the cakes served in the village hall. As you enter the tablecloths, good crockery and teapots and nice chairs indicate this is a better class of tea and cake and so it proves. £1.50 buys you a masterpiece of the cake maker’s art with a wonderful selection laid out. Tea is served on proper china from generous pottery teapots. All is well in the land! The Victoria sponge is a proper eggy colour but for myself I wish to propose marriage, sight unseen, to the baker of the ginger cake with stem ginger icing! There are displays of village life all round the hall and the overriding feeling is if this is how good it is in the Shires we should all grow hairy feet and become Hobbits!

Village 1920

Farnborough Village

No doubt in 1751 William Holbech could look over his lands and admire his handsome seat filled with treasures from the Grand Tour set snugly in the midst of this fertility with the wonderful vistas created by the genius of Sanderson Millers landscaping scheme. This wonder is still there 257 years later and we owe some gratitude to the National Trust and the Holbech family that it is still there for us all to enjoy.




See also nearby Upton Hall;



http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/09/upton-house-oxfordshire.html







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Buon' Amici

Buon’ Amici

Buon’ Amici is Italian for “Good Friends” and certainly every time you go into this friendly coffee bar in Kingsbury, Aylesbury, that is the way you feel. It always has a large contingent of regulars including the local Italian community, normally discussing football. In an arc stretching from Bedford through Leighton Buzzard to Aylesbury you’ll find a strong Italian community and the artisan businesses such as coffee shops, bakeries, hairdressers and restaurants utilising the skills they brought from their homeland. One of the reasons they settled in this area was after the Second World War Italy was devastated and had huge unemployment whilst Britain had a manpower shortage as it set about rebuilding. Italians were allowed to come over to work in the Brickworks, cement plants and sandpits which were north of the Chiltern escarpment. Conditions were harsh in dangerous and backbreaking conditions by today’s standards; only young Italian males could be employed, they had to live in camps for three years before they were allowed bring their wives and children into the country and their movements were restricted as “controlled aliens.” As they left the camps and set up home they integrated well into the local communities whilst keeping their Italian connections. Aylesbury in the 1950’s had much manufacturing with food processing, printing and engineering.


Franco & Mama Lucia

Buon’ Amici is a welcome family business in a town which could be entered for the “Clonetown Britain” awards. The owner and barista who produces Aylesbury’s best coffees is my good buddy Franco Masella ably assisted in the cucina by Da Mama, Lucia. The Masella family ran the well regarded Italian Eatery “Pepes” in Tring for many years so Mama’s Pannini’s, Ciabatta’s, sandwiches and Pizza are made fresh with proper ingredients and her Lasagne al Forno has the authentic filling of beef and pork mince. The pastry cabinet normally has a display of Italian pastries from the bakery and the Mama’s lemon drizzle sponge is a big hit! It could have been so different. Franco had a successful coffee stall in the Hale Leys Centre in Aylesbury and the property company gave notice to end his lease as they decided they wanted to get a chain in as a “better covenant” and to increase the “food offer” to extend the shopper “dwell time” in the centre. There was outrage locally as Franco’s stall was particularly appreciated by disabled customers who enjoyed the easy access. Franco met with the surveyor for the property company as there was a campaign and petition by the local paper, The Bucks Herald, to stop him closing. To no avail, when they met with the wide boy surveyor, he told him he wasn’t interested in “whinging disabled people” and he had already done a “deal” for the unit. Today Franco’s pitch is held by a chain called BB’s which also has an outlet in the other shopping centre in Aylesbury and no less than six units in Hale Leys are empty. In the past two years many of the family owned businesses in Central Aylesbury have closed down squeezed between the Supermarkets and Retail Parks and avaricious landlords increasing rents by reference to “comparables” paid by the space bandits which is probably why both Hale Leys and Central Aylesbury have so many vacant shops.


Kingsbury, Aylesbury

After almost two years in temporary accommodation in a local bar Franco and his family got a shop between the Market Square and a newly pedestrianised “café quarter” of Kingsbury which was renovated at a cost of £2 m by the local council. It is a good pitch and his local customers in the Town Centre have returned including the disabled customers. I should explain that due to the wonderful Spinal Injuries unit at Stoke Mandeville Hospital we probably have a high proportion of disabled people locally as many have settled in the area because of the facilities. These are not just medical as at Stoke Mandeville we also have the Guttmann Sports Centre, the home of the Stoke Mandeville Games which lead to the Special Olympics; locally we are proud of the role Stoke Mandeville played in changing both the reality and perception of disability and are very protective of the mobility impaired people who live here. Franco’s always seems to have a good mix of customers who appreciate the hospitality that only a family business can offer, not forgetting proper coffee. Truly, it is a gathering place for
“good friends.” As the sign over the door says; Buon’ Amici, La Passione Del Caffe!


La Passione Del Caffe!

Give my regards to 55, Broadway.

Art Deco flourished through the 20s & 30s popularised by the Paris Exhibition of 1925and was applied to all forms including architecture. Influences included Cubism (with zigzags & geometricals), Ancient Egypt (following the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun by Howard Carter & Lord Carnaervon in 1922) and Aztec & Mayan art (from South America & Mexico). It was a machine age style which utilised the innovations of the times such as plastics, chrome & aluminium. At a time of economic depression and the approach of war there was a desire for escapism. People enjoyed the pleasures of life during the 'Jazz Age'. Speed and streamlining became important especially in the new modes of travel such as the first commercial flights, trains such as the Orient Express and ocean-going liners. It was also a very appropriate style to apply to a transport undertaking such as the London Underground looking to develop a house style and image from the amalgam of private operations which had constructed the original Tube.



There was a fortunate meeting in the 20’s and 30’s in London of a British Arts and Crafts revival, talented immigrants from Eastern Europe and Germany and corporate sponsors of posters, art and design such as the GPO, Shell Oil and last but no means least, London Transport.

55 Broadway - Original Ground Floor layout


55 Broadway - New reception area


Foundation Stone

In the 20s & 30s London Transport owed much of its corporate design to Frank Pick especially in his employment of Charles Holden as architect from 1924. In 1931 they went on a tour of Scandanavia and the Netherlands which gave them some inspiration. On his return Holden worked on the Piccadilly line designing stations such as Osterley and Southgate, many occupying corner sites. The distinctive house style was applied to all new stations built in the 1930s including those designed by other architects. The influences from Pick and Holden’s European tour are clearly seen in many station buildings with, for instance, the “totem” on Osterley Station on the Piccadilly Line echoing the “Telegraaf” Amsterdam by Staal and Langhout.

Charles Holden 1875 - 1960


A leaflet from the Black Country firm of Rubery, Owen & Co. who did the steelwork. The photo shows the construction method - A structural Steel Frame with Portland Stone cladding

When it was completed in 1929, The London Underground's new headquarters, named after its postal address of 55, Broadway, was London's tallest office block. A skyscraper of its day, it is now dwarfed by almost every major office building in the city. But that doesn't stop it from appearing monumental. Inside it houses the headquarters of London Underground, St. James's Park Station and the small Broadway shopping arcade.




55 Broadway shopping mall


First use of cruciform plan for a London office building

1929 - The tallest office building in London

In 1926 The Underground Group commissioned 55 Broadway, over St James's Park station, as its new headquarters. It was to replace Electric Railway House, whose offices were too cramped for the growing organisation. The headquarters was to symbolise the company's vision of public transport being at the heart of London's social and commercial life. Frank Pick, assistant managing director of the Underground Group, commissioned the architect Charles Holden of the firm Adams Holden and Pearson to design the building. On its completion in 1929, 55 Broadway was the tallest office building in London on one side overlooking the Houses of Parliament and on the other side overlooking Buckingham Palace. The Directors had a clear idea of their place in the world! However, building restrictions prevented the floors above the seventh being used as offices. The modern and assertive design was considered an architectural masterpiece with the cruciform layout enabling natural light and ventilation throughout. It was awarded the London Architectural Medal by the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1929.




A typing pool on 4th Floor East Wing showing the open plan offices


Monument on the Ground Floor staircase lobby to Lord Ashfield, founder of London Transport

The Underground Group's desire to make a bold architectural statement in keeping with the ideals of the company had been realised. The obsession with clear design and image was continued through to Harry Beck’s famous schematic map, commissioning its own “machine typeface” to make its posters, signage and publications clearer, building instantly recognisable branded station buildings and station fittings and using engaging and innovative advertising in the 30’s. Today London Underground’s trademark roundel is the second most recognised brand worldwide.

Electro Magnetic train frequency "Clocks" in Reception

Holden commissioned some of the most famous sculptors of the day to carve large figurative reliefs, depicting the four winds, directly onto the stonework. These are high up each side of the four wings. The sculptors were Eric Gill, Henry Moore, Eric Aumonier, Samuel Rabinovitch, Allan Wyon and Alfred Gerrard. Holden commissioned Jacob Epstein to create two groups over the entrance fronts called “Day” and “Night”. Their primitive, vital style and the figures' nudity created a furore. Both Pick and Holden stood by the sculptor, Pick even tendering his resignation in support of Epstein. His resignation was not accepted and the sculptures stayed. However an inch and a half had to be removed from the penis of the figure in 'Day', as the original size offended contemporary sensibilities. Epstein's sculptures were not universally slated. One contemporary commentator wrote, “When one looks at them one hardly likes them, but they make such a powerful impression on the mind that when one has left the building they stand out in the memory and seem vividly to symbolise their subjects”. The same commentator went on to say “one would be happier if all buildings were as good as this.”


Staircase to First Floor


Henry Moore "West Wind"

The other sculptures on the building are also worthy of mention. Eric Gill was put in charge of "The Winds" which adorn the higher walls of the building. He created three himself, the others were by contemporary artists including Henry Moore, whose "West Wind" was his first public commission, and can be seen on the north side of the east wing.






Jacob Epstein "Day"

"Buildings of Britain" by Nicholas Pevsner and Bridget Cherry, 1973. noted;

“Broadway architecturally means No.55, the headquarters building of LONDON TRANSPORT, by Charles Holden, 1927-9, a bold building for London and its date, even if in some ways still keeping a retreat open to the broad Georgian road. The composition in blocks and their stepping back high up in is entirely of the 20th Century. Functionally it is ingenious. The building had to combine the necessities of an underground station with a large number of offices. So a large part of the area is one storeyed. The centre tower is 175 feet high, containing lifts, staircases, lavatories etc. It has a square, gradually diminishing top. From the tower extend four spurs. What there is of sculptural decoration is of extreme interest, two large groups by Epstein, 'Day' and 'Night' (East side of North and South wings). E. Aumonier (West and North Wing), A.Wyon (West and North Wing), A. H. Garrard (West Side, South Wing), and F. Rabinovitch (South Side, East Wing). They are considered revolutionary at the time, and Dr Holden had to use all his persuasion to have them accepted. Architectural detail is curiously undecided. The ground floor has granite columns; they are circular piers rather than columns, it is true, and have plain blocks as capitals, but they appear as columns all the same. The windows are upright and have glazing bars reminiscent of Georgian sash window, and the spurs are connected by diagonal arches high up and close to the junction of the tower.”




1st Floor Central Lobby and entrance to East Wing - The texture of the Travertine Marble was to give the impression of movement

55, Broadway has also been a direct contributor the design of clear modern typefaces. A sans-serif typeface was commissioned in 1913 by Frank Pick, Commercial Manager of the London Electric Railway Company (also known as “The Underground Group”), as part of his plan to strengthen the company's corporate identity. In 1933, The Underground Group become a major part of London Transport and the typeface was adopted for the complete network.


Boardroom 7th Floor


The listed oak lined corridor on the 7th Floor leading to the Boardroom and Chairman's office

The font family was originally called "Underground", it became known as "Johnston's Railway Type", and later simply "Johnston". It comes with 2 weights, Heavy and Ordinary. Heavy contains only capital letters. Johnston's former student Eric Gill also worked on the development of the typeface and the design was later to influence his Gill Sans typeface, produced 1928–1932. Frank Pick later commissioned Percy Delf Smith (another former pupil) to draw up a 'petit-serif' adaptation of the typeface, originally for the headquarters building at 55 Broadway, SW1.





55, Broadway was a pioneering building in a number of ways. It very cleverly uses an irregular shaped site by using a cruciform plan with the arms being different lengths but giving a visually symmetrical appearance when seen on its corner elevation from Toothill Street. By using a cruciform arrangement (Which Holden and other architects were using for hospitals, such as St. Luke’s in Malta, which he designed) the light wells were brought out from the centre of the building to make maximum use of available light with lifts and services placed centrally, reducing corridor lengths. Following American practice, offices were open plan, permitting the spread of light and making their layout easy to alter.


The American Cutler mail handling system which delivered letters directly to the basement mail room

There were other innovations such as a central mail handling system whereby it could be “posted” on each floor and go directly down a chute to the mailroom in the basement. The plan also allowed natural ventilation throughout so the building does not need energy greedy aircon to this day.




Former Chairman's Office - 7th Floor

Despite its Portland Stone appearance the construction was entirely modern utilising a structural steel frame so the stone cladding is just that. It was built on 700 piles on airspace above St James Park Station and is the prototype for the many similar developments throughout London built over the “cut and cover” sections of the Underground which to this day make a substantial contribution to improving the railway. In one pile was placed a “time capsule” with notes about the building and the Underground and containing photographs of the site, a railway car and a bus. The building was set back above the seventh, ninth and tenth floors in line with the London Building Acts requirements. These helped to delineate the hierarchy with the Directors offices on the 7th Floor where the East Wing still contains the original oak clad boardroom and Chairman’s offices whose interiors are listed.

In the 1980s the ground floor of the building was redesigned to create a new, improved reception area and a shopping mall. 55 Broadway is now a Grade II listed building.




10th Floor restaurant - Originally Director's Dining Room


One of the four 10th Floor Roof Gardens

The builders of 55, Broadway saw good design as good for business. By the example it set under Frank Pick the Underground was gradually able to change the public’s attitude to railway stations which had been seen as shabby and inhospitable places. Sir Nicholas Pevsner wrote that Pick saw in every detail a “visual propaganda” and he used this not only to improve the Underground but the environment as a whole. Charles Holden brought the Underground station to the forefront of modern architecture: This achievement is unequalled by any other transport company before or since.


St. James Park Station entrance

The apex of his achievement for the Underground and the building which proclaims its sense of purpose and commitment to the people of London is 55, Broadway. As the Blitz and the 2005 London Tube bombings more recently have shown this is not any ordinary transport undertaking but a publicly owned company synonymous with a public duty to the city where it runs the world’s largest metro system. With property values in London becoming more unreal due to Non Doms. and the like, no doubt some wide boys (Generally called “consultants” or “rising stars”) will look at the possibility of asset stripping this unique listed building and creating a “new culture” in some god forsaken rented cubicle factory. No doubt this will promote co-operative working by having an atrium with some poor imitation of a Calder mobile representing a tube train and a statue of an ordinary tube worker looking up at it saying “this costs a fortune and we’ll never own it!” The same wide boy asset strippers would never think it is sensible to sell their own house and move into a trailer park.



Nope, the Underground doesn’t need this ersatz corporate culture for it has a real mission of a World Class Tube for a World Class City. And in 55, Broadway it has the real deal, an award winning, iconic, paid for, fit for purpose building over a tube station whose purpose and intent is captured on the poster issued when it opened “London’s Underground – Always at Your Service.”

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