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<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\nBletchley Park, Milton Keynes, MK3 6EB A bright and sunny day in March saw us braving the roundabouts of Milton Keynes to Bletchley Park<\/a> for a birthday outing. I must admit that, were it not for motherly duty, it would not have been my destination of choice\u2026but it\u2019s funny how your views can change.<\/p>\n Entrance is not cheap, but tickets are valid for a year and it\u2019s impossible to see everything in a day. It promotes itself as the home of British codebreaking, maybe even the birthplace of modern information technology, and played a major role in World War Two, producing secret intelligence which had a direct and profound influence on the outcome of the conflict.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s much more than that. For a start, the park itself is beautiful and the mansion worth a visit in isolation. It was there in late August 1938 that \u2018Captain Ridley\u2019s Shooting Party\u2019 arrived, looking for all the world like a group of friends out for a relaxing weekend at a country house. In reality, they were members of MI6 and the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS), a secret team whose numbers included scholars turned codebreakers. Their mission: to scope out whether it would suit as a wartime base for intelligence activity, well away from London.<\/p>\n Their story, and the history of intelligence gathering in the years prior to WW1, is told in an exhibition in the Visitor Centre in Block C. If this sounds dry and tiresome, well it isn’t. The organisers focus on human interest stories to bring the work of codebreakers from MI1(b), MI1(d) and Room 40, to life.<\/p>\n Those from Room 40, for instance, a cramped room at the Admiralty, helped bring the US into the Second World War by deciphering the Zimmermann telegram, sent by the German Foreign Minister to the Ambassador in Mexico urging him to \u201cmake war together, make peace together\u201d. In return for becoming a German ally, it promised the US states of Texas, Arizona and New Mexico as a prize after the war.<\/p>\n The codebreakers included such characters as Dillwyn \u2018Dilly\u2019 Knox, who relied on inspiration striking while in the bath (the bath features in the exhibition). This is surprisingly common, see Life in the slow lane<\/a>. Knox’s<\/em> love of poetry is also highlighted as it led him to cracking the code.<\/p>\n They featured, as might be expected, serving army and navy personnel, but they also attracted classicists, historians, and linguists, including Lytton Strachey\u2019s brother Oliver. And against an overwhelming number of men, special mention should go to Claribel Spurling, who is said to be the only person to score 100% in what was viewed as an impossible test set for potential new recruits. She succeeded where many men from redbrick universities, who sent in vastly overblown accounts of their capabilities (we are shown a few for good measure), failed.<\/p>\n The Visitor Centre mixes old and new, with a current display on the vulnerabilities of the Internet, but a walk around the site has even more to offer. There are the Codebreaking Huts, where you can experience how it felt to work there during WW2, and Alan Turing\u2019s wartime office. Further on, the museum in Block B includes Enigma machines, a reconstructed Turing-Welchman Bombe and many other items of interest.<\/p>\n All of which is interspersed with little gems like videos on how pigeons saved lives, in one case delivering a message back to base just before the bombers set out to target a village which was already in the hands of the Allies. A walk in the park, meanwhile, is rendered more atmospheric by recordings being played of action on the tennis courts, and picnicking, while in the National Museum of Computing, elsewhere on the site, sound artist Matt Parker has recorded and archived over 100 sounds from the historic collection of computers it contains.<\/p>\n Even by splitting up, the four of us managed only a fraction of what Bletchley Park contains and, dying for a cuppa, we met and collapsed in one of its many cafes. There, with the attention to detail evident elsewhere, we could travel back in time and sample recipes from a wartime era. Three of us were sufficiently restrained to sample just tea and cake, one of us fell for an original bread and butter pudding. Afterwards we three decided we had erred on the side of caution. We won\u2019t make the same mistake again.<\/p>\n Sir John Soane\u2019s Museum, <\/b>13 Lincoln’s <\/strong>Inn Fields, London\u00a0WC2A\u00a03BP. Admission free<\/b><\/p>\n Evening opening by candlelight – Sir Soane’s Museum<\/p><\/div>\n Tucked away on one side of Lincoln\u2019s Inn Fields is an extraordinary house and museum. Its creator was Sir John Soane and the building houses the collections he arranged as \u2018studies for my mind\u2019. They remain as they were at the time of his death in 1837.<\/p>\n Soane was born in Berkshire in 1753, and studied architecture at the Royal Academy in London. At the age of 35 he was appointed \u2018Architect and Surveyor\u2019 to the Bank of England, and in 1792 he bought and rebuilt No. 12 Lincoln\u2019s Inn Fields as a home for his family, to include an architectural office. In 1808 he bought No. 13, the house next door and rebuilt the rear part of it as an extension to No. 12, and in 1823 he bought and rebuilt No. 14. In 1833 Soane bequeathed his home to the nation by means of an Act of Parliament, with the proviso that it should be kept as near as possible in the state in which he would leave it. A major restoration project was completed in 2012.<\/p>\n The collections in the house served as a laboratory for Soane\u2019s evolving ideas \u2013 incorporating architecture, sculpture and painting. The facades of the three houses were developed to resemble a palace fa\u00e7ade, with the central projecting Portland stone of No. 13 flanked by the brick facades of Nos. 12 and 14. Inside is a veritable treasure trove. What I found particularly striking are how each of the spaces and rooms within the house has its own character and reflects different aspects of Soane\u2019s personality. For example, Soane created a Monk\u2019s Parlour \u2013 a suite of rooms for an imaginary monk, Padre Giovanni, whose tomb is apparently in the yard. However, inscribed on the headstone are the words \u2018Alas, poor Fanny\u2019. Buried in the tomb, in fact, is Mrs Soane\u2019s dog. The ceiling of the Monk\u2019s Parlour is composed of models for plaster ornaments designed by Soane for the Bank of England and other projects.<\/p>\n The basement crypt, which was constructed in the former wine cellars, was intended to be reminiscent of Roman burial chambers or catacombs. The Sepulchral Chamber contains the sarcophagus of King Seti I, which was discovered in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt.<\/p>\n The Colonnade and Dome contains treasures from antiquity, including a female torso from the Erectheion, a temple on the Acropolis, and a Roman theatrical mask. Marble statues and fragments of classical Greek and Roman busts, urns and other items reflect Soane\u2019s classical education within the Renaissance tradition.<\/p>\n As you walk through the museum, there is evidence of how Soane worked on the design of a myriad of items, from buildings to interiors, staircases, clocks, glass and lighting. The Breakfast Room has a shallow canopy dome with concealed skylights and more than a hundred pieces of mirror, described by Soane as \u2018a succession of those fanciful effects which constitute the poetry of architecture\u2019. It is the most architecturally influential room in the house.<\/p>\n But the most famous room in the house has to be the Picture Room, where Soane designed a hanging system of movable walls to display 118 paintings. They include three Venetian scenes by Canaletto, including the view of the Riva degli Schiavoni. But most famous of all are the two series of pictures by Hogarth depicting A Rake\u2019s Progress <\/em>and An Election. <\/em>These are the original paintings that Hogarth displayed in his studio to encourage the sale of sets of engravings. Having seen so many reproductions of these pictures, it is thrilling to see the originals.<\/p>\n Visiting this museum is a visual feast. Take time out to go there and marvel at the extraordinary talent and vision of a quite exceptional person.<\/p>\n St Barthlomew by Damien Hirst \/Sandra Levy<\/p><\/div>\n Chatsworth House is a must-see. \u00a0Set in an estate of 35,000 acres on the banks of the river Derwent, it has been home to sixteen generations of the Cavendish family since 1549, and is of course the seat of the Duke of Devonshire.\u00a0 It is of course impossible to talk of Chatsworth\u2019s recent history without paying a brief homage to the extraordinary Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire, who died in September 2014.\u00a0 The youngest of the Mitford sisters, Debo loved the countryside, and is credited with reviving Chatsworth House and the estate after her husband inherited it on the death of his father.\u00a0 Her taste was eclectic and a recent sale of her effects included a collection of Elvis Presley ephemera and a chick-shaped powder compact, reflecting her fondness for hens.<\/p>\n Thanks to Debo\u2019s efforts, thousands of people in the last 60 years have been able to visit and enjoy Chatsworth, which has one of the foremost collections of paintings, sculptures, drawings, furniture and books in the country.<\/p>\n Guest reviewer Sandra Levy, an artist herself, gives us a tantalising glimpse into one aspect of the collection, the contemporary pieces:<\/p>\n Digital Portrait by Michael Craig-Martin\/Sandra Levy<\/p><\/div>\n On a recent visit to Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, I was astonished to find a stunning collection of contemporary art dotted about amongst the antiques. I say \u2018dotted about\u2019 but actually they were beautifully placed \u2013 an installation of white cylindrical pots by Edmund de Waal glimmering against a dark mantelpiece,\u00a0 a corridor of family portraits by Lucian Freud, a digital portrait by Michael Craig-Martin glowing in a dark hall and slowly changing its colours at random.<\/p>\n An exquisitely gilded statue of St Bartholomew, by Damien Hirst, is the centrepiece of the altar in the chapel, and an elegant, streamlined silver chaise longue stands nonchalantly at the foot of a dark red four-poster bed.<\/p>\n Lockhead Lounge\/Sandra Levy<\/p><\/div>\n And down by the lake, wasn\u2019t that the same installation of tripod-like trees that I saw in the courtyard at the RA\u2019s Summer Exhibition? Yes, it was, (and, reader, it looked so much better by the lake).<\/p>\n Some of these works have been bought, some are on loan and some commissioned by the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, whose passion for art in every media, and generosity and enterprise in presenting it to the public deserve our deep gratitude\u2026<\/p>\n Sandra Levy<\/strong><\/p>\n The Full English and The Elizabethan Session<\/strong><\/p>\n The first is The Full English<\/em>, which, unlikely as it sounds, is the triumphant offshoot of an ongoing research project. The Full English is originally the name of the massive \u2013 and now online \u2013 archive of the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS), collected over the past 150 years by indefatigable enthusiasts including Vaughan Williams and Percy Grainger. Folk singer Fay Hield was commissioned by the EFDSS to create music drawing on the songs and tunes in the archive, and she gathered together singers and musicians from a variety of backgrounds to do so.<\/p>\n The result is an album of endless delights, from the sublime harmonies of the a capella first track \u2018Awake, awake\u2019 (about a faint-hearted lover who runs away for ever at the first onslaught from an irate father) to the exquisite pastoral scenes evoked in Vaughan Williams\u2019s \u2018Linden Lea\u2019 \u2013 included as an example of folk-inspired classical music. (It was in fact while cruising for a version of Linden Lea on Spotify that I stumbled across the album, only to find that Mr Verity was well ahead of me, and had bought the CD some months before but failed to get this to register with me . . . )<\/p>\n The musicians are all virtuosi \u2013 on several instruments each \u2013 and include Seth Lakeman, Martin Simpson and Sam Sweeney, and the blend of their voices is thrilling. Nancy Kerr\u2019s voice and diction are unique, seeming to contain authentic echoes of the past. I couldn\u2019t begin to describe in words the way she pronounces \u2018moon\u2019, in the curious song \u2018The Man in the Moon\u2019, which captures some of the strangeness of last month\u2019s red moon.<\/p>\n The Man in the Moon he must lead a queer life<\/p>\n With no one around him, not even a wife<\/p>\n No friends to console him, no children to kiss<\/p>\n No chance of him joining a party like this.<\/p>\n But he\u2019s used to high life, all circles agree<\/p>\n That none move in such a high circle as he<\/p>\n And though nobles go up in their royal balloon<\/p>\n They\u2019re not introduced to the Man in Moon.<\/p>\n Hear it for yourself here<\/a>.<\/p>\n So I have to accept that I\u2019m a fully paid up folk fiend now \u2013 but if you see me reaching for the bells and hankies, just stop me.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/a>Scroll down for reviews of Sir John Soane’s Museum and other delights.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>Contemporary Art at Chatsworth<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>I have never thought of myself as much of a folk fan, though I don\u2019t know why, because I loved Fairport Convention, John Martyn and Pentangle; when I heard Bellowhead playing in Hyde Park I thought they were terrific; and I rushed straight out and bought (well, stayed in and clicked on) the Inside Llewyn Davis<\/em> CD the minute I\u2019d seen the film. But my conversion has been sealed by two further CDs I can\u2019t stop playing.<\/p>\n<\/a>A second EFDSS commission, this time in partnership with Folk by the Oak, who run an annual folk festival at Hatfield House, led to The Elizabethan Session<\/em>, which I was lucky enough to get for my birthday. Eight leading folk musicians, including Nancy Kerr and Martin Simpson, immersed themselves in the myths, music and people of the Elizabethan age. Within the space of a week, inspired by Hatfield House, they wrote songs, premiered them and recorded them. Again, the results are extraordinary \u2013 new pieces that conjure all the squalor, intrigue and splendour of the past. \u2018Elizabeth Spells Death\u2019 dramatises Elizabeth I\u2019s internal struggle as she signs the death warrant of Mary, Queen of Scots (on the actual document, her signature has been crossed out and then rewritten) and is truly chilling.\u00a0‘The Oak Casts his Shadow’, inspired by a bizarre recent theory that Elizabeth I was in fact a man, explores the\u00a0war of the sexes through the imagery of the English countryside and the heavens, and is\u00a0both written and\u00a0sung by Nancy Kerr.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n