Tag Archives: Arts and Crafts house

Blackwell, Arts and Crafts house, Lake District

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So here we are back at Blackwell again, but we’re in a very different setting now. The hall is almost medieval in design and is quite dark. The architect deliberately designed the rooms so that you were moving from dark oak panelling through this corridor to light, very light indeed.

White room from corridor, Blackwell, Lake District

So much in this beautiful room is similar (ish) to Rennie Mackintosh’s Hill House in Helensburgh. Again there are sitting neuks by the fireplace, perfect for curling up with a book. I’m fairly sure that the frieze at the top of the wall and the ceiling is papered with Lincrusta, a kind of wallpaper which incorporates plaster designs sandwiched between the paper. It’s on the ceiling too, a fairly inexpensive way of adding luxury to a room, I think you can still buy it today.

Blackwell, White room fireplace

 

Blackwell, White room chair 1

The corner cupboard below is flanked by two stylised trees, natural motifs are all around the house in the decor, particularly rowan berries, and apparently when the house was taken over after a long period of neglect there was a rowan sapling growing inside this cupboard!

White room corner cupboard

I think all of the rooms have window seats.

Blackwell, White room windows + seat

But the white room has two window seats, one with a view of the garden, above and a great view of Lake Windermere below.

Blackwell, White room windows

It’s such a shame that Blackwell was never a real family home, just a holiday house for a short time in the summer. The pottery in this room is by Willem de Morgan – it’s stunning.

 

 

Blackwell, an Arts and Crafts house, Lake District

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When we were in the Lake District a few weeks ago one of the places on our list to visit was Blackwell, an Arts and Crafts house. I must admit that I hadn’t even heard of it until quite recently. It’s an absolute jewel.

Blackwell, Lake District, Arts and Crafts house

Blackwell has always been a holiday home which is really sad, it would have made a wonderful family home although I suppose the winters in the Lake District can be quite grim. The house was designed by Mackay Hugh Baillie Scott. It’s not far from Bowness on Windermere.

Blackwell, Lake District, Hall stained glass

The photos above and below are of the Hall. The stained glass design of tulips and blue birds looks much better in reality.

aHall 6

The hall is a large room, you could easily hold a dance in it. The copper lighting is original as is the peacock frieze at the top of the walls. This is actually wallpaper which has been recently refurbished. As you can just see on the left there’s another cosy seating area.

Blackwell, Lake District, Arts and Crafts, Hall 1

We joined in a guided tour which was interesting. Some of the designs are very reminiscent of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, he and Baillie Scott were designing at around the same time and were often competing for the same commissions. Of course Baillie Scott was also of Scottish descent.

The hall is a bit of a mixture of Tudor style, with its oak panelling and early 20th century styling. The guide thought that the fireplace was a nod towards Art Deco although the house is a bit early for that, the Dutch Delft tiles around the fireplace seemed a bit incongruous in the setting, but they are attractive. Every house should have at least one window seat I think, and this house has a few. They are perfect for reading in but the scenery outside might be a bit too distracting.

Blackwell Hall , Lake District

Or you could sit in the window below, the light should be good anyway.

Blackwell, Arts and Crafts, Furniture + windows

Blackwell, Hall, Bench, Lake District

This part of the house is quite dark, it was deliberate, to contrast with the bright light of the rest of the downstairs, but I’ll leave that for another post.

Blackwell stands above Lake Windermere, below is a view from the driveway towards the lake.

Windermere, view from Blackwell, Lake District

Hill of Tarvit House

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Hill of Tarvit House is a mansion house about ten miles from where I live in Fife. It’s a Scottish National Trust property that we’ve visited several times before, but not since the SNT decided that interior photography would be allowed.

The photo below is of the main hall with its lovely wood panelling on the walls and ceiling. The chandelier looks dazzling in this photo but it’s actually quite a dark room, mainly to protect the very old tapestry that can be seen on the back wall.

Hill of Tarvit House Main Hall

The staircase comes off the hall.

Hill of Tarvit House stairs

The sitting room in the photo below is also just off the main hall. This property ended up being handed over to the Scottish National Trust because the man who would have inherited it from his parents died in a very well known train crash, he was on the train going to meet his fiancee to take her to his family home. Sadly he was an only child.

Hill of Tarvit House sitting room room 1

This is an Arts and Crafts house and I think it’s the most homely of any of their properties that I’ve explored. A lot of the small contents are the sorts of things that can be seen at antique fairs, so there’s not a lot that seems too precious. Below is a photo of the library, quite cosy really.

Hill of Tarvit House drawing room

The other end of the library.

Hill of Tarvit House library

And a close up of some of the books in the house, I don’t know if you’ll be able to make out any of the titles though. Isn’t that lampshade ghastly!

Hill of Tarvit House books

Below is the built in cupboard in the butler’s pantry. It has some local pottery (Wemyss ware) in it which in its day was not too expensive, but it is now, mainly because the Queen Mother was a keen collector I think.

Hill of Tarvit House butler's pantry

The owners were friends of Sir William Burrell of Burrell collection fame and some of the contents of the cabinet below were wedding gifts from him.

Hill of Tarvit House upper landing

It’s difficult to get a photo of the whole house, below is the best I could manage.

Hill of Tarvit House exterior 2

The garden isn’t huge although there is a croquet lawn which is often in use, it’s surrounded by some really scenic countryside/farmland though which you can see here and here in two previous posts.

Hill of Tarvit House Trees

Cragside, Northumberland

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On our way back up to Scotland, after our short break in Yorkshire a few weeks ago, we stopped off at Cragside in Northumberland, another National Trust property. It was the first house in the world to be lit by hydroelectricity. Thanks again to Margaret @ Booksplease for pointing us in its direction. We were lucky with the weather, although it had been raining most of the week which meant it was a bit muddy underfoot in the gardens. We got a great day for viewing it all, it’s a very popular destination so it was fairly crowded in parts but most people stayed close to the house. I think it’s best described as quirky, I’m glad I don’t have to worry about all those roof angles but the inside is full of Arts and Crafts details.

Cragside house from gardens

It’s a very homely place though, despite being huge, as it’s Victorian, the furniture isn’t too precious, lots of us own bits and pieces of Victorian furniture and knick knacks, so most of it doesn’t seem grand, especially the bedrooms. I’d love to own a patchwork quilt like this though.

A bedroom in Cragside.

I love this quilt too, as you can see, this room has William Morris wallpaper, one of his brighter designs, they can be a bit dark sometimes. I have absolutely no idea what the boxes on the floor at the bottom of the bed are, I don’t even recall seeing them!

Cragside interior bedroom 1

I took lots of photos of the interior as it was such a nice change to be able to, for some reason the National Trust for Scotland still don’t allow photos inside. So I’ll probably show more of Cragside again soon, it’s a real delight for anyone interested in Arts and Crafts design.