Today, something different. The highly renowned Glaswegian architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh designed only one house in England, 78 Derngate. It was right at the end of his working life, and was actually a remodelling of an existing terrace house in Northampton. A brilliant piece of design, when you consider the restrictions imposed by the structure, and the strictures of 1916 wartime England.
To get there, we first left our little park of the last week. Driving out through Woburn Sands, we noticed a rather well-sited Cost Coffee outlet, in an old gate-house on a level crossing, and right on the platform of the local station! and drove up the M1 to Northampton. As we neared the city, we found a service area on the motorway, with a McDonald's so — guess what — we dropped in. We also noted that this might be a good spot to stop overnight!
From here, we drove down to the Morrison's store just on the outskirts of the city centre. They have a 3-hour parking limit, which we thought would be ample, particularly as Derngate was just a short walk from there.
We walked up to the house. From the outside, unless you knew what you were looking for, you could easily miss it. It's a narrow tenement, with the front in the same brick as all the buildings around it. It's only when you start to look at the detail that you notice differences. Mackintosh added a subtle bay window to the front of the ground floor, and the design of the door itself is subtly spectacular. The work was done in 1916, and Mackintosh was anticipating the Art Deco styles of the mid-20s — amazing. This house was a wedding present for the Bassett-Lowkes, and would only be a stop-gap until they built a more spacious home, moving into it only nine years later.
The entrance to 78 Derngate is through a purpose-built, very modern museum next door at number 80. We got there just in time to join a tour group being taken through by John, a guide who is totally immersed in his subject.
First, he took us outside to look at the back of the house. Here, it is completely different from its neighbours (although its immediate neighbour, 82 Derngate, now echoes it somewhat. But either side of these two, you see the red brick that the properties would have been before Mackintosh stamped his imprint. Mackintosh was nothing if not thorough — even the planters outside were his design!
We then went into the kitchen, which is at the level of the back yard — but, if you place it with respect to the front entrance, it is in the basement, below the street level. Except for the fireplace (which is a later replacement of Mackintosh's range that was there), the kitchen is entirely Mackintosh. The view out to the garden was designed to maximise the lighting in the room. The tiles are original, and the paintwork has been renewed matching the original paint. The kitchen was full of modern electrical equipment — an electric bread warmer, electric kettles and coffee percolators, and so on — all this in 1916-17!
From here we went upstairs to the dining room, facing the back of the house. Mackintosh removed the stairs that took up one side of the house and replaced them with stairs running across the house slightly towards the front, creating a lot more space for the main rooms at the back of the house. The dining room, on the ground floor, is ALMOST all Mackintosh. He had a somewhat strained relationship with his client Wenman Joseph Bassett-Lowke, who was a renowned manufacturer of scale models — he had founded the firm of Bassett-Lowke which specialised in producing construction sets, and model railways, boats and ships. He had his own ideas of design, and when Mackintosh was slow in suggesting the wallpaper for this room, Bassett-Lowke took the matter into his own hands. The dining table is apparently original.
From the dining room, we went to the from of the house and found ourselves in the hall/lounge. This is entorely Mackintosh! The darkness of the woodwork is offset by the bay window, and by the panels of decorative leaded glass in the wall leading to the stairs. On the mantel is a bust of George Bernard Shaw, a visitor to the house. The wallpaper, incidentally, is not! Because of restrictions — and because Mackintosh wanted to use 'Art Deco' designs that didn't yet exist — he stencilled his own designs onto paper, and this is what was applied to the walls.
Up the stairs, to the rear, we find the Basset-Lowkes' bedroom, with softer colours than the room below. It also has a vanity basin, unusual for this period.
Across the stairwell with its lattice screen we find the bathroom at the front of the house. This had the most up-to-date American fittings of the time — American plumbing was (justifiably) far better regarded than British!
Up the stairs again, to the rear, we find the most amazing room — the guest bedroom. Mackintosh went all-out to achieve an Art Deco treatment of this room — it goes so far as to almost pre-figure the Op Art movement of even later. It has been said that the room does not encourage a guest to stay too long. The wall treatment was not wallpaper, as this was severely restricted in wartime Britain — it is actually fabric, pinned to the walls and the ceiling!
Opposite this bedroom, Bassett-Lowke had an office, but this is now simply a bit of exhibition space, leading directly across and into to the exhibition space in Number 80. Here we found the lamp that hasd once graceed the Entrance Hall, and an original chair by Mackintosh — from the board room in the Art Gallery in Glasgow, also designed by Mackintosh, and which is now the last remaining piece of furniture from that boardroom, as it was on loan to 78 Derngate when a fire destroyed the boardroom and its contents — it is now on permanent loan to 78 Derngate!
After a wonderful afternoon communing with the Scottish architect and his client, our time in the car park was getting short, so we made our way back to the car and adjourned to the Motorway Service Area we noted earlier — perhaps to return to 78 Derngate again tomorrow, to go round on our own and get some clearer pictures!
Distance driven — today, 59 miles ( 95 km ); to date, 31,058 miles ( 49,983 km )
Nice gift! Fun house. Another nice say. Love, cathy and crew.
ReplyDelete