Anglesey Abbey

Anglesey Abbey

18th March 2013

Warning: contains history stuff.

Whilst Mark was off visiting Marshall Aerospace (who are contracted to do the wing fatigue test for both the RAF and RAAF), Cal was off exploring the University city of Cambridge. Be-ing Cal, there are no photos of this. However, in the afternoon we went to Anglesey Abbey for lunch, and a wander around the gardens. The snow drops were still out, and a number of daffodils were struggling to be seen. There were also quite a number of Hellebores (Christmas Rose) out . . . some time after Christmas. Cal made these in sugar art in one of her classes with Alan Dunn.

If we came looking for the ruins of an Abbey we were going to be disappointed. A community of Augustinian Canons erected the original buildings as a priory sometime between 1100 and 1135. The canons were expelled in 1535 by Cal's favourite fat man during the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

The former priory was acquired around 1600 by Thomas Hobson, who converted it to a Jaco-bean country house. Hobson retained a few arches from the original priory, which are now part of the dining room (just love what was done with the arches in the early part of the 20th Century - great lighting).

Apparently "Anglesey Priory" did not have the right ring to it, and the name was changed to "Anglesey Abbey". Eventually the buildings fell into a state that required significant TLC.

Anglesey Abbey was purchased in 1926 by two brothers – Huttleston and Henry Broughton, and I’ll digress momentarily to give some of the background to the purchase. The brothers were born to an Englishman, Urban Broughton, and his American wife, Cara Leland Rogers. Urban was a surveyor who had already amassed some wealth, but then married into more. His wife was heiress to multimillionaire American oil magnate Henry Huttleston Rogers. The family moved back to England in 1912.

Cutting a very long story short, the brothers determined that they needed a property with a number of specific characteristics: It had to be close to Newmarket race course (they had acquired a taste for horse racing – closely associated with Royalty); it had to be a house that was in need of renovation (so they could put their stamp on it); and it had to have extensive grounds that could turn into a landscaped garden. They found the property at Anglesey in 1926 for the princely sum of (from memory) £10,000 (or was that £26,000) - even so, a veritable bargain.

Huttleston’s father was given a peerage for his services to Anglo-American relations, but before it could be conferred Urban died – leaving a rather remarkable Lord and Lady – Huttleston and his mother. He took the title "Fairhaven" as a tribute to his birth town in Massachusetts.

Huttleston was without a doubt suffering from CDO, and if there was a way of rearranging the alphabet to account for the gap between the D and the O he would have probably done it. He had an obsession with time and everything had to be done precisely. For example, cocktails were precisely 7:50 pm in the library – and you were only offered one drink – from memory it was Gin and Pineapple juice. At precisely 8:00 pm he and his guests (which would number 3) would leave for the dining room, and dinner was served at precisely 8:03. To keep up with this tradition, tours of the house always start 3 minutes after the hour.

He often entertained royalty, with the Queen Mother visiting on a number of occasions for the races. Rather than signing a guest book, Huttleston gave his (Royal) guests a diamond tipped pen, and asked them to sign his window. The bookshelves in the library are also quite amazing, and look like they were made yesterday. The timbers came from the old Waterloo bridge that was demolished in 1934.

[From the National Trust Website] Huttleston used his wealth to indulge his interests in history, art, and garden design, and to lead an eighteenth-century lifestyle at the house. On his death, Huttleston left the abbey to the National Trust so that the house and gardens could "represent an age and way of life that was quickly passing".

A Gainsborough

Miniature Mosaic set into a desk

Absolutely stunning embroidery that was HUGE

England also has much to thank Lord Fairhaven. In trying to save as much of the national heritage as much as possible the good Lord purchased the entire Runnymede property, saving it from destruction and giving it back to the nation.

Lord Fairhaven's obsession with the Royal family - he has an entire gallery devoted to painting s of Windsor Castle

Delightful silver ship in the dining room

A Jacobean ceiling in the drawing room - replicated from a local pub - the pub ceiling was moulded and this one cast from that - a good thing too as the pub subsequently burned down