Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today however we are at Glynes, the grand Georgian family seat of the Chetwynds in Wiltshire, and the home of Lettice’s parents, the presiding Viscount and Countess of Wrexham and the heir, their eldest son Leslie. Lettice is visiting her old family home, which she does sporadically throughout the year, to see her parents and eldest brother.
As Lettice elegantly alighted from the London train at Glynes village railway station, there on the platform amid the dissipating steam of the departing train, stood Harris, the Chetwynd’s family chauffer. Dressed in his smart grey uniform, he took Lettice’s portmanteau, hatbox and umbrella and walked out through the station’s small waiting room and booking office, leading Lettice to where the Chetwynd’s 1912 Daimler awaited her. As they drove through the centre of the village and past the church hall, Harris told Lettice from the front seat, that Lady Sadie was helping co-ordinate a jumble sale to help raise funds for the local school. Quietly, Lettice breathed a sigh of relief and settled back more comfortably into the car’s maroon upholstery. Lettice has a strained relationship with her mother at the best of times as the two have differing views about the world and the role that women have to play in it. However she is her father’s undeniable favourite, and it is he whom she has really come to see on this visit, hoping to gain some additional inspiration and insight from him as she makes plans to start acquiring oriental furnishings to redecorate Wanetta Ward’s Pimlico flat.
As the Daimler purrs up the gravel driveway, Bramley, the Chetwynd’s butler, steps through the front door followed by Marsen, the liveried first footman. Marsden opens the door of the Daimler for Lettice.
“Welcome home, My Lady,” Bramley greets her with an open smile. “What a pleasure it is to see you.”
“Thank you Bramley,” she replies with a satisfied smile as she looks up at the classical columned portico of her beloved childhood home basking in the late summer sunshine. “It’s good to be home.”
“How was the train journey from London, My lady?” Bramley asks Lettice as he falls in step a few paces behind her.
“Oh, quite pleasant, thank you Bramley.”
“I’m afraid that Her Ladyship is…”
“Oh yes, Harris told me, Bramley. She’s down in the village organising things for a jumble sale, in aid of the village school, I believe.”
“A worthy cause, My Lady.”
“Indeed Bramley.” Lettice peels off her gloves as she walks through the marble floored vestibule and into the lofty hall of Glynes. The familiar scent of old wood, tapestries and carpets welcomes her home.
“Would you like to refresh yourself, My lady?” Bramley closes the front doors and then the vestibule doors behind her before walking over to her, holding out his arms.
“No thank you, Bramley.” Lettice replies, handing the butler her thick arctic fox stole and then shrugging off her powder blue three quarter length coat. “Where is Father?”
“In the library, My Lady.” He accepts Lettice’s elegant picture hat of powder blue felt ornamented with pheasant feathers. “Shall I serve tea there?”
“Thank you Bramley,” she flashes him a beaming smile of thanks. “You are a brick!”
“Very good, My Lady.” Bramley departs, slipping through a discreet doorway off the main hall that is one of many leading to the servants’ quarters of the Georgian mansion.
Lettice turns to her left and walks up to a pair of beautiful walnut double doors and knocks loudly.
“Come!” comes a muffled male voice from inside.
Lettice opens the doors and walks through into the light filled library where she is greeted by the comforting smell of old books and woodsmoke. The walls are lined with floor to ceiling shelves, all full of books: thousands of volumes on so many subjects. Sunlight pours through the tall windows facing out to the front of the house, burnishing the polished parquetry floors. Dust motes, something Lettice always associates with her father’s library, dance blithely through beams of sunlight. The fire, another constant in the library, crackles contentedly. And there, sitting at his Chippendale desk, sits Viscount Wrexham, addressing correspondence.
“Ah! My darling girl!” the Viscount puts aside his pen, pushes his chair back over the richly woven carpet and stands. Walking around the desk he paces across the length of the room and embraces his youngest daughter tenderly.
“Pappa!” Lettice sighs, allowing herself to fall into his arms.
“How are you, Lettice? How was the trip down from London?”
“I was just telling Bramley, it was fine, Pappa. It gave me a good chance to read my new novel from Boots.”
“Not a classic, I’ll wager.”
“No Pappa,” Lettice laughs. “Just a sentimental love story. I’ll leave the classics to you. Have Mayhew’s* found you any new rare editions of Goethe**?”
“No, but in their last shipment there was a beautiful velum bound 1910 edition of ‘Der Ring des Nibelungen’*** illustrated by Arthur Rackham****. I’ll show it to you. I know you always loved his illustrations of faeries and pixies as a child.”
“I’d like that, Pappa.”
A soft knock at the library door disturbs them.
“Come!” Viscount Wrexham calls commandingly.
Bramley enters carrying a silver tray laden with tea things and a biscuit sachet. “Tea, My Lord.”
“Bramley?” the older man looks in surprise at his butler. “I don’t remember calling for…”
“I ordered tea,” Lettice looks at her father, placing an assuring hand on his forearm. “I’m parched.”
“Capital idea, my girl!” the Viscount beams. He walks back over to his desk. “Put it on the table by the fire, would you Bramley.”
“My Lord.” The butler does as requested and for a moment the room falls silent, save for the gentle tick of the clock on the mantle, the crackle of the logs in the fireplace and the chink of porcelain, silver and cutlery as he sets out the tea for two.
“Thank you, Bramley.” Lettice acknowledges the butler.
Looking back across the room the butler asks, “Will there be anything else, My Lord.”
“I don’t think so, Bramley. No.” Viscount Wrexham replies after a moment’s deliberation.
“Very good, My Lord, My Lady.” After completing his task Bramley retreats obsequiously back through the library doors, which he closes quietly behind him.
“Shall I be mother?*****” Lettice asks as she walks over to the small three legged Georgian port table.
“Please, my dear girl.”
Taking up the cup of milky tea proffered to him by his daughter, both Viscount Wrexham and Lettice stand by the fire for a few moments, enjoying the chirp of birds in the shrubbery just outside the library and the warmth the burning logs in the fire put out. Lettice has always loved her father’s library as much for the fact that it is always the warmest room in the house as that it is filled with more books than she could ever hope to read in a lifetime.
“Now,” Viscount Wrexham asks Lettice, lowering his teacup into its saucer and setting it back down on the table’s surface. “You mentioned over the telephone that you had a problem you wished to discuss, Lettice?”
“Not so much a problem, Pappa, as I need your help with something.” Lettice begins.
“Well, what is it?”
“Well it’s about a new client really, Pappa.”
“A new client?” Viscount Wrexham’s eyebrow arches sharply over his right eye as he scrutinises his daughter.
“Yes Pappa, for my interior design business.”
“Yes?” he bristles slightly.
Lettice remains silent for a moment, chewing the inside of her cheek thoughtfully. Remembering her father’s words over luncheon at her Cavendish Mews flat a few months ago, warning her about designing for the ‘right sort of people’, she thinks carefully about what to say. She is aware that he and her mother scarcely tolerate her desire to be an interior designer, so she knows that he won’t approve of her decorating for a moving picture actress.
“Well, she’s… she’s an American, and she spent the last few months living in Shanghai.”
“Damn Americans!” Viscount Wrexham blasts. “There are so many of them in London these days, one can scarcely go anywhere without running into one, or worse than that, hearing one. Must you do business with one?” He looks beseechingly at his daughter.
“As you say, Pappa,” Lettice attempts to soothe her father. “There are so many about, even in the highest circles now. Some are even presented at Court.”
“I blame that damn Gordon Selfridge!” the older man huffs. “If he hadn’t come over here with his damnable American department store, all his countryfolk wouldn’t have come flocking after him.”
Lettice sighs and cannot help but roll her eyes as she looks to her father. “Pappa! Really!”
“It’s true, Lettice! We were fine with the Army and Navy Stores****** before he came along, bringing that gaggle of American women in his wake. Anyway, you were saying about this, American woman?” His disgust hangs on the last two words.
“Well, as I said, she has been living in Shanghai for a while…”
“Damnable colonial outpost!”
“And,” Lettice raises her voice slightly, irritated at her father’s interruptions. “She wants her home decorated with oriental antiquities, or at least that what I’m thinking of doing after she told me that she wants Asian décor. I thought a few well placed antiques might add an element of elegance and style.”
“Well, she can’t have any of ours, Lettice!” Viscount Wrexham snorts derisively. “You can’t go promising what isn’t yours to give away!”
“I haven’t promised her any of the family’s antiques, Pappa,” Lettice sighs in frustration. “No, I have a contact in London who can help me find suitable pieces.”
“Then why do you need my help, my girl?”
Lettice tries to keep the irritation from her voice as she continues, “Well, I want to do my research before I go to them, and that is where I need your help, Pappa, or rather,” She waves her hands elegantly around her, indicating to the rows of books around them. “Your library’s help.”
“My library’s help?”
“Well yes, Pappa. There are so many books here, and I know you have an avid interest in antiques and art. I was hoping that I might be able to consult, or even perhaps borrow some of your books on oriental art.”
“Oh! Well, that’s alright then! Good show, my girl!” Viscount Wrexham beams in delight. He walks back across the library towards his desk with purposeful steps. “You know Lettice, you are the only one of my progenies who truly share my love for books and art.”
“Well, it’s why I immediately thought of you, Pappa.” Lettice flatters.
“Now, let’s see.” Viscount Wrexham mutters to himself as he drags his library stairs along the floor until he reaches a particular set of shelves. “I’m sure I had something up here.” He climbs the steps and begins running his fingers along the dark vellum volumes with gilt letting and others with brightly coloured dustjackets. “Ah! Here we are!” He pulls out a buff coloured volume. “Yes! ‘Nipponese Woodblock Prints’.” He hands it down to Lettice who has moved and stands at the foot of the movable steps her father stands on. “And ‘Traditional Chinese Arts and Crafts’.” He passes another pale brown book down covered with Chinese characters. “And here’s a book on cloisonné art.” He passes another red volume down. “And a book on satsuma ware from the Meji Period. I also know I have a few scrapbooks in here from when your Mother and I travelled through the Orient. I’ll keep looking. Start with those.”
Lettice smiles and sighs with satisfaction as soon the correspondence her father had been writing is covered by beautiful books on oriental arts and design. Volume after volume is brought over by Viscount Wrexham, so many in fact that soon there is barely room on the desk for the silver photo frames, the stuffed owl under glass and the salver on which his ink pots stand, which are a constant on its surface.
“Thank you so much, Pappa!” Lettice smiles in delight as she looks at a beautiful illustration of Japanese ladies in brightly coloured kimonos with ornate headdresses sitting on tatami mats. Her head swims with imagery and her mind considers what beautiful oriental antiques she might be able to acquire for Wanetta Ward’s Pimlico flat.
*A. H. Mayhew was once one of many bookshops located in London’s Charring Cross Road, an area still famous today for its bookshops, perhaps most famously written about by American authoress Helene Hanff who wrote ’84, Charing Cross Road’, which later became a play and then a 1987 film starring Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins. Number 56. Charing Cross Road was the home of Mayhew’s second-hand and rare bookshop. Closed after the war, their premises is now the home of Any Amount of Books bookshop.
**Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 – 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature and aesthetic criticism, and treatises on botany, anatomy, and colour. He is considered to be the greatest German literary figure of the modern era.
***Der Ring des Nibelungen, also known as Wagner’s Ring, is a cycle of four German-language epic music dramas composed by Richard Wagner. The works are based loosely on characters from Germanic heroic legend, namely Norse legendary sagas and the Nibelungenlied.
****Arthur Rackham (1867 – 1939) was an English book illustrator. He is recognised as one of the leading figures during the Golden Age of British book illustration. His work is noted for its robust pen and ink drawings, which were combined with the use of watercolour, a technique he developed due to his background as a journalistic illustrator. His books are highly sought after by antiquarian bibliophiles, including me. Amongst other first editions of his work, I have a copy of his 1910 velum bound English edition of Der Ring des Nibelungen.
*****The meaning of the very British term “shall I be mother” is “shall I pour the tea?”
******Army and Navy Stores was a department store group in the United Kingdom, which originated as a co-operative society for military officers and their families during the nineteenth century. The society became a limited liability company in the 1930s and purchased a number of independent department stores during the 1950s and 1960s. In 1973 the Army and Navy Stores group was acquired by House of Fraser. In 2005 the remaining Army & Navy stores (the flagship store located on Victoria Street in London and stores in Camberley, and Chichester) were refurbished and re-branded under the House of Fraser nameplate. House of Fraser itself was acquired by Icelandic investment company, Baugur Group, in late 2006, and then by Sports Direct on the 10 August 2018.
Cluttered with books and art, Viscount Wrexham’s library with its Georgian furnishings is different from what you might think, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my collection.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
The majority of the books that you see lining the shelves of the Viscount’s library are 1:12 size miniatures made by the British miniature artisan Ken Blythe. So too are all the books you see both open and closed on the Viscount’s Chippendale desk. Most of the books I own that he has made may be opened to reveal authentic printed interiors. In some cases, you can even read the words, depending upon the size of the print! I have quite a large representation of Ken Blythe’s work in my collection, but so little of his real artistry is seen because the books that he specialised in making are usually closed, sitting on shelves or closed on desks and table surfaces. Therefore, it is a pleasure to give you a glimpse inside two of the books he has made. The one open at the rear of the desk is a Japanese scrapbook, which is illustrated with scraps of Japanese imagery from the Nineteenth Century and older. It was not unusual for European travellers in the sentimental and exploratory Victorian Age to fill scrapbooks with images and art from places they visited as keepsakes. The open book in the forefront is an early Twentieth Century book of Japanese woodblock prints. To give you an idea of the work that has gone into this volume and the others, the book contains twelve double sided pages of Japanese images and measures thirty-three millimetres in height and width and is only three millimetres thick. What might amaze you even more is that all Ken Blythe’s opening books are authentically replicated 1:12 scale miniatures of real volumes. The other closed books on the desk that you can see contain images of Japanese woodblock prints, except the red volume, which is a book of Japanese postcards. To create something so authentic to the original in such detail and so clearly, really does make this a miniature artisan piece. Ken Blythe’s work is highly sought after by miniaturists around the world today and command high prices at auction for such tiny pieces, particularly now that he is no longer alive. I was fortunate enough to acquire pieces from Ken Blythe prior to his death about four years ago. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter. I hope that you enjoy this peek at just two of hundreds of his books that I own, and that it makes you smile with its sheer whimsy!
Also on the desk to the left stands a stuffed white owl on a branch beneath a glass cloche. A vintage miniature piece, the foliage are real dried flowers and grasses, whilst the owl is cut from white soapstone. The base is stained wood and the cloche is real glass. This I acquired along with two others featuring shells (one of which can be seen in the background) from Kathleen Knight’s Dollhouse Shop in the United Kingdom.
On the desk are some 1:12 artisan miniature ink bottles and a blotter on a silver salver all made by the Little Green Workshop in England who specialise in high end, high quality miniatures. The ink bottles are made from tiny faceted crystal beads and have sterling silver bottoms and lids. The ink blotter is sterling silver too and has a blotter made of real black felt, cut meticulously to size to fit snugly inside the frame.
The Chippendale desk itself is made by Bespaq, and it has a mahogany stain and the design is taken from a real Chippendale desk. Its surface is covered in red dioxide red dioxide leather with a gilt trim. Bespaq is a high-end miniature furniture maker with high attention to detail and quality.
In the background you can see the book lined shelves of Viscount Wrexham’s as well as a Victorian painting of cattle in a gold frame from Amber’s Miniatures in America, and a hand painted ginger jar from Thailand which stands on a Bespaq plant stand.
The Persian rug you can just glimpse in the bottom left-hand corer of the photo was hand woven by Pike, Pike and Company in the United Kingdom.
The gold flocked Edwardian wallpaper is beautiful hand impressed paper given to me by a friend, which inspired the whole “Cavendish Mews – Lettice Chetwynd” series.
