Our Parish Open Day was blest with beautiful sunshine – a perfect Spring day – and enjoyed by 1183 children, families and teachers from Knebworth Primary School and 367 parishioners.  We were particularly pleased to welcome the school for its Centenary Picnic – a hundred years is a fine milestone.  It does give me pause to think, however, that as a former pupil passing the milestone of my 50^th birthday this month, the school was positively young when I was there!  I remember the terror of my first day, having to be bribed out of the car in the High Street with the promise of an Action Man toy, then climbing steep Swangley’s hill up to Mrs Desborough class.  I don’t remember any picnics at Knebworth House, but I do remember the one time I was punished – a slap on the bare thigh with a wooden ruler!   Did I deserve it?  Couldn’t possibly say – I’m a governor now!  

Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com

Ann Judge has asked me to record more extracts from my great-uncle Antony’s letters for the excellent Herts Memories website – www.hertsmemories.org.uk.  It is a little strange for me to be exclaiming aloud for the microphone how much I enjoy boarding school and boxing – neither of which has ever held much appeal for me! – But I have enjoyed the challenge finding of Antony’s voice in his extraordinarily touching and expressive letters to his parents.  His love of home, family and of Knebworth has been easier to me to capture – and I imagine his voice, if not his Edwardian accent, was not so very different from mine.

Antony was my grandmother Hermione’s elder brother, one of the “lost boys” generation immortalised in J.M. Barrie’s ‘Peter Pan’.  He, like his best friend Nico Llewelyn Davies’s elder brothers, was lost to us at an early age, although not in the First World War for which he was too young, but in a flying accident whilst flying in formation at a Hendon air show.  He had already led a remarkable life, a ski champion in the early days of Alpine sports and M.P. for Hitchin by the age of 28.  J.M. Barrie wrote of him:  “Few on the whole have had such a happy life, and it could not have been as happy without his jolly miseries, which were as entrancing as all the rest of him.  Perhaps his laugh was his richest part.  However grim the mood, it was sure to be caught out by his laugh.  I have never heard a more glorious laugh in man or boy; it overfilled him: I think he laughed last in his last moment, or one prefers to believe his laugh accompanies him still.” [Antony: A Record of Youth (1935)]

Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com

I have two invitations for you this month, both free to the people of Knebworth.  Firstly, on Saturday 17^th March we are hosting a Star Party – no, not a Celebrity Bash, an actual Star as in “twinkle twinkle” Party.  Our very first Star Party is a unique opportunity to visit Knebworth Park at night and look at the stars with the Letchworth & District Astronomical Society.  The LDAS will be setting up telescopes on the concert field and there will be talks in our new Lytton Barn (“An Introduction to Astronomy & The Night Sky”).  Start time is 7.30pm and finish at 10.30pm.  Refreshments will be available the Barns.  The event is free, but people must pre-register by 10th March by visiting www.ldas.org.uk.

The second invitation is to our Parish Open Day on Sunday 25^th March.  To celebrate the start of our 2012 Summer Season, Knebworth House, Gardens and Park will be free to all residents of Knebworth Parish.  The Park opens at 11am – please enter via the white gate by St Mary’s, and please bring something that indicates you live in Knebworth (i.e. a copy of this magazine).  This year we are pleased to give a special welcome to Knebworth Primary School, who will be holding a Centenary Family Picnic in the Park.  Happy Birthday Knebworth Primary!                  

Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com

The Knebworth House Education and Preservation Trust is launching a Heritage Lottery Fund bid this month to build an Archive and Study facility at Knebworth House.  Whilst the charity continues to address outstanding restoration issues, it still has to ensure adequate public access.  The HLF currently does not support structural repair, but encourages applications for new and improved access. 

Knebworth House’s museum and literary heritage is the beacon that attracts academics and students from around the world, as well as inspiring local education programmes. The archive’s current dissociation (much is kept off-site) and storage inadequacies (a cramped attic) compromise this.  School and study groups are further compromised by a lack of holding and teaching areas.  Currently there is an over-reliance on fine weather and the use of the gardens. To better accommodate school and other groups – and enable year-round educational and study visits – Knebworth House needs a dedicated archive and teaching facility.  

We have consulted English Heritage on how this might be achieved, and a plan has been drawn up.  The bid needs local support, so if you are happy to lend yours, I’d be very grateful if you’d address a letter to the Knebworth House Education and Preservation Trust (at “Knebworth House, Knebworth SG3 6PY”, or via my email below).  Letters can be simple, but ideally say three things: 1) What you, or the community, have gained from the heritage assets at Knebworth House; 2) Why they should be supported; and 3) How you, or the community, would gain from an improved Archive and Study facility at Knebworth House.  The bid is an 18 month process and the form-filling dauntingly complex, but with your support the charity has a good chance of securing this investment and creating a valuable local facility for our and future generations.  Many many thanks.

Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com

2012.  The facilities at Bulwer Lytton House – moving to Stevenage.  The facilities at the Old Boys Home – moving to Hitchin (except Stepping Stone, which has nowhere to go).  The erosion of Knebworth’s facilities continues.  And will continue, until all of our services are in our local town – and we are simply a dormitory suburb that may as well be called Stevenage South.  Too bleak a forecast?  Okay, let’s start again…

2012.  Olympic Year.  The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Year.  The Centenary of Knebworth Primary School.   Brian Worthington’s Knebworth Festival Committee planning another brilliant Village Festival.  Knebworth Park back on the world map as a headline concert venue for The Red Hot Chili Peppers.  England to win the European Cup.  Knebworth House’s Parish Open Day only a couple of months away.  Snowdrops, daffodils, bluebells, all getting ready to bloom.  The days are already getting longer…  There.  Feeling better?… Phew! 

Happy 2012!

Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com

We’re polishing our armour this week.  Not a chore, thankfully, that most households have to deal with nowadays.  It is, however, a sizable task at Knebworth House.  All the breastplates, swords and shields are off the wall, ready for a vigourous rubbing until their lustre is restored.  What do we use to ensure that long-lasting shine?  Well, it’s down to Halfords for some tubes of Autosol.   You can imagine the expression of the Halford’s salesman when Clare, our archivist, explains what it is for.  Henry V, you can be sure, wished he had a Halfords in town.

The miracles of Autosol sadly won’t help the Regency prints that were damaged last month, when a piece of crumbling stucco fell into one of the roof drains prior to the heavy rain storm.  It is not the first time I have been woken at 2:30 in the morning by a waterfall coming through my bedroom ceiling, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.  Unfortunately this time the volume of water was such that it penetrated through into the lower floors, most seriously into Mrs Bulwer’s bedroom, which preserves the exact wall decorations the dowager left when she died in 1843.  In the lower floors the waterfall becomes a stream, spread the width of the wall.  What best to catch the flow of rainwater down a bedroom wall? – Why, a stainless steel fish kettle, available from M&S for £39.50.  This Henry, you can be sure, is pleased there is an M&S in town.

If you are not joining us for our Christmas Carol readings on 16^th, 17^th and 18^th, may I take this opportunity to wish you a very Happy – shiny armoured and dry bedroomed – Christmas!              

Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com

Rushing to an 8:30am Primary School governors meeting I stepped out of the back door of Knebworth House into a blaze of lights and cameras – rather like that scene in “Notting Hill” – “Midsomer Murders” was literally on my doorstep! 

The film company are here for 3 weeks.  This weekend, as part of the story, the Sealed Knot English Civil War re-enactment group have been staging a battle with canons and muskets between Knebworth House and St Mary’s Church.  A massive snakelike tube has been draped around the House balustrade puffing smoke into the air – to create atmosphere – and the courtyard has been full of soldiers in 17th century dress drinking tea out of white plastic cups, alongside 21^st Century armed policeman taking snapshots of each other in front of the House – and therefore I imagine probably not the Hertfordshire Constabulary!

All good fun, but one has to remember to stay away from the windows, else one appears in the film as a possible murder suspect!  Being Sunday morning, I was still in my dressing gown as I took the rubbish out to the courtyard bins – I hesitated, wondering if I’d get disapproving looks… before realising those looks would be coming from men in floppy hats and britches!  So, out I strolled out confidently through the fake mist in my slippers. Another typical weekend at Knebworth House!

On a scheduling note, our Christmas Craft Fair has moved forward a few weeks this year to 19^th & 20th November – so put the date in your diary if you need a new dressing gown for taking your rubbish out on a Sunday morning!

Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com

“Step through the time portal…” invites the Knebworth House Education and Preservation Trust’s new brochure of Educational Visits to be offered in the coming year.  Along with old favourites such as the “Tudor Treasure Trail”, “Victor’s Victorian Ventures”, “Monsters and Mazes” and “Our Home Through History”, for next year the Trust’s excellent Education team has updated its creative writing activity day, “The Pen is Mightier”, and added two brand new programmes, “How Plants Grow” – to be led by a member of the Knebworth House Gardens team – and an A Level English Literature day themed around Edward Bulwer Lytton and his literary contemporaries.  The Trust will also be continuing its outreach programme, where two of its costumed “Time Trekkers” visit schools and lead activities such as Tudor music & dance or Victorian dinner customs.

We are very proud of Knebworth House’s Education programme – and its success is reflected, this year, in a third successive win of the Sandford Award, for excellence in heritage education.   It is not just because is spells a pronounceable (and appropriate) acronym that the word “Education” sits so importantly in the centre of the charity’s name – congratulations to KHEPT!  

Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com

September sees the final completion of our extension to the Barns – made possible by consecutive Sonispheres – which connects the Garden Terrace Tea Room with the Park Toilet block that was built a couple of years ago.  The extension includes a Park Gift Shop (no more portacabin – hooray!), which we were able to open at the beginning of May, a lecture/conference room, a new function room with a capacity of 250 (larger than our main Barns), a catering support kitchen and ancillary toilet facilities.  There will be a small garden to one side of the new function room, which will connect to the gazebo in the main Knebworth House Garden, and thus become a perfect garden wedding venue.

The extension continues the style of the original Barns, which some will remember were 16^th Century tithe barns moved from Manor Farm and Lodge Farm in the village.  The Manor Barn was literally lifted up, intact, onto giant wheels and pulled by traction engines the mile or so from Park Lane.  At the time – the early 1970s – it was the largest building in this country ever to be moved on wheels.  The extension matches these older barns by being oak-framed and timber clad, and creates an attractive and welcoming three-sided courtyard for our visitors, leading to the arched entrance into the formal gardens.  The new courtyard is the perfect size for the marquee that hosts the Hertfordshire Business Awards this November, which this year will be hosted by broadcaster Paul Ross.

Did anybody watch “The Hour” over the summer?  If you did, you may have thought Juliet Stevenson’s home looked familiar.  I haven’t seen the programme yet, but apparently one of the characters comes to an unfortunate end in a hotel room, which is actually one of our bedrooms – not to worry, apparently we have Agatha Christie coming this month.  I’m sure she’ll sort it out!    

Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com

For the last three years we have had an exhibition of Zimbabwean stone sculptures in the Gardens at this time of year – this year we move closer to home with an exhibition of Stevenage wood sculptures.  Those who know the Gardens will be familiar with Dennis Heath’s work – whenever a tree dies we ask Dennis to transform its trunk into a permanent sculpture that somehow represents a Lytton family, or garden, story.  Last year he transformed an upright cedar bough into a jousting knight, to represent my father’s illustrious history on the Bank Holiday field of combat.  

This month, some 100 of Dennis’ – and his colleague Dave Flemons’ – sculptures will be on display throughout Knebworth House’s 28 acres of formal Gardens.  The pieces represent a wide range of figurative and abstract subjects, with woodland and wild animals a specialty.  Many of the pieces will be for sale, including Dennis’ popular carved seating and benches – perfect love seats for your summer garden.

The artists work with a range of different sized chainsaws to create the work – including unusual “mini” chainsaws to fine-tune the subtleties of the carving.  Demonstrations will take place at various times throughout the exhibition – full details will be on our website www.knebworthhouse.com.  I am hoping that Dennis will have time to work on a new upright bough we have next to the tennis court.  I envisage it becoming my grandmother, Hermione, pausing on her afternoon walk to watch her great-grandchildren playing happily on the same sunny court she and her brothers used to play on a century ago.   

Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com