LETTERS Hall of infamy
Sir: Sir Ian Gilmour's 'stately rebuke' to Andrew Lycett (Letters, 28 September) for his article, The sad decline of a stately pile' (21 September) was an unworthy contribu- tion to what looks like an attempt to stamp out public criticism of the way Hevening- ham Hall has been allowed to fall into an almost terminal decline. Only lately, after almost a decade, has John Martin-Robin- son been able to reverse the decline by tackling the east wing.
In the House of Lords last July, Lord Marlesford said: 'My Lords, I visited Heveningham on 2 June, and perhaps My Noble Friend [Lady Black)] will take it from me that the house — indeed the whole property — is in a deplorable state. The garden is a wilderness.'
Lord Marlesford is an extremely well- informed neighbour; his opinion one would naturally prefer to that of Mr Tam Dalyell, whose praise of the 'care and accuracy' of the restoration Mr Lycett is accused of 'suppressing'. Are we to demand why Sir Ian Gilmour 'suppresses' Lord Marlesford's Opinion? And why does he sneer at the Opinions, reported by Mr Lycett, 'of a few people visiting the Hall, whose knowledge of architecture may be on a par with his own'?
I was one of the many visitors to the Hall this summer, and was surprised by the range and vehemence of similar expres- sions of dismay and disgust. One of my companions, a very 'creditable' architect, was almost speechless with indignation. Three architects of my acquaintance, emi- nent for their skill in restoring historic buildings, were among the five who suc- ceeded one another as advisers to the late Mr al-Ghazzi, unable to establish confi- dence with their employer.
One of the more nauseous features of the Telegraph magazine article quoted so seri- ously by Sir Ian Gilmour was its claim that Heveningham 'has been restored to glory after decades of neglect, a mysterious fire and the hounding of its former owner, an Iraqi whose devotion to the house was revealed only after his death'.
This year's visitors were channelled through the once-beautiful stable-yard, where the paving worn into patterns by the horses has been crudely levelled. They come to a famous little oval room decorat- ed with a great many engraved pictures stuck straight on to wallpaper. An obser- vant young Frenchman in 1784, when the house was scarcely finished, noted that this wallpaper was blue: it is now an unpleasant boudoir-pink. Next to it, in 1784, was the breakfast-room, 'hung with beautiful pic- tures and covered in a light blue paper'. Its walls now appear to be covered in a milk- coloured emulsion. Pier-glasses, in wholly unsuitable picture-frames, have been hung between the windows, here and elsewhere in the house. Most of the house remains unfurnished, except for a few pieces of Knightsbridge kitsch.
The remarkable dining-room, with reliefs described by the Frenchman's tutor as being painted in a wild-poppy red against white, looks more or less its original colour, but a gaping gash remains where the fire- place was wrenched out by intruders during the 'devoted' recent ownership. A ceiling in one room is now being very properly restored, so far as one could see through a barred doorway. Outside, apart from the orangery, the gardens are a desolate wilder- ness, with whole ranges of decaying glasshouses. In 1784, the proud owner and builder, Sir Gerard Vanneck took his French visitors on horseback for ten or 12 miles through his park on paths of turf, or earth carefully sanded: 'I was enchanted as I rode'.
A week or two ago, I visited Mount Edgcumbe and was enchanted. The house had been gutted by the Luftwaffe, and the miles of wooded, and sea-framed, park had lost nearly a thousand trees in the gale of January 1990. Yet the family had restored and furnished the interior to great perfec- tion. It and the park are now maintained, immaculately and with pride, by Plymouth Corporation. I thought with bitterness of Heveningham, brought so low without the aid of the Luftwaffe, and still not fit to visit.
Norman Scarfe
3 Burkitt Road, Woodbridge, Suffolk
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