(DARK) KNIGHTSHAYES

I had been chattering to elder daughter about visiting Knightshayes Court ever since Exmoor Jane blogged about it some moons ago. And dutiful daughter that she is she put it on the itinerary to fill most of a day out we were planning together. Confusing Taunton with Tiverton I had thought it was just at the other end of the rather extravagant county of Somerset but of course it wasn't and we were well into the uplands of Devon before we arrived at something that I imagined must be what Mandalay looked like before it was set on fire by Mrs Danvers, and if it did look like that my sympathies, I think, would have lain firmly with Mrs Danvers.

The gardens, though, are magnificent but the house is grimly forbidding. It is arch Victoriana of the very worst kind and clearly designed by the very worst kind of man to be populated by characters from a Gothic film script. I very much doubt if any woman had any say in its design or decoration. It has a cold aggressive and intimidatory maleness to it that must have made it quite horrible to live in. Why were the Victorians like this, I wonder?

Imagine Miss Haversham's house without the cobwebs. And no need for curtains either for why bother with windows when you can have walls panelled in dark wood to make you feel spooky, especially when hung with dead animals. Go into one of the bedrooms and the head of an enormous tiger roars at you from the rug into into which his skin has been deftly turned. Apart from the impractically - imagine blundering about in the dark and tripping over this head the size of two footballs - the things is just so unrestful.

Forced to live in the place no doubt as inheritance no doubt dictated, the family of Heathcoat Amery's seem to have done their best to open the place up, lower some of the ceilings, replace extravagant and incomprehensible ornamentation with something vaguely comfortable on the eye, French windows to the garden, a kitchen in a location actually useful from which to prepare and serve food. But all to no avail. Ever since acquiring the house, the National Trust has set to with a will and in a fury of restoration has unburied the work of that eccentric and horrible man William Burges and returned the house to its original gloomy and brooding state.

What aberration caused architecture to turn from the beautiful proportions and elegant decoration of the Georgians to such monstrosity? The best you can say about Burges is that he had a vivid imagination, but he was also an architectural tyrant, apparently devoid of any sentiment or feeling, but with an indefatigable ability to sell ugliness.

He was employed by the Marquess of Bute (who owned half of Cardiff) to put his stamp on the place and on Cardiff Castle especially. Think Palace of Westminster and Pugin and then imagine that Pugin might have had a wayward and miserable sibling, born in a cellar and with a tendency to drinking too much white wine on an empty stomach, and you have Burges.

On the ruined site of an ancient castle just outside Cardiff, Burges created 'Castell Coch,' which looks like the model for every Disney castle you've ever seen. All turrets and drawbridges but inevitably, this being a Burges creation, set into a dark wood on a dark mountain and with very small windows. Still the sight of those elfin towers sends intending couples scurrying up the hill to get married in this spot of heraldic gloom. Dungeons must surely have more charm.

All I can say is that Knightshayes is built in exactly the same style. And now a fortune has been spent on its restoration. I can admire the great craftsmanship, but just wonder why anyone with any appreciation of beauty should want to lend their name or their money to such an architectural cacophony? It is like seeing hanging, drawing and quartering likened to enlightened retribution.



But the gardens are really beautiful and well worth going to see.