Carey Mulligan and Matthias Schoenaerts in the final scene from Far From the Madding Crowd, half a mile away from Mapperton.
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Outside Mapperton while the filming of the recent Far From the Madding Crowd was happening: here is the trailer.
Mapperton was voted ‘the nation’s finest manor house’ by Country Life and it is indeed quite extraordinary: it has beautiful gardens, an excellent café and a feeling of specialness that you don’t get at eg. the teeming Sissinghurst. We went by train: a half hour walk from the shop over Waterloo Bridge, two and a half peaceful hours to Crewkerne (punctual to the minute, which is quite odd for those of used to the old ‘British Rail’) and then fifteen minutes by taxi through the dreamy Dorset countryside.
And finally: this is a very typique painting by Malvina Cheek. It’s the view from her front steps looking across Gainsborough Gardens and down to the City. Incredibly, the view is still just about the same, Happy Hundredth Birthday Malvina!
After the war ended, two topographical books, illustrated exclusively by Malvina Cheek, were published for the Visions of England series by Paul Elek: The Black Country by Walter Allen in 1946 and Derbyshire by Nellie Kirkham in 1947. This is Black Country Scene from the former.
Malvina painted Marlborough House, Falmouth in April 1943. It still exists although has had a lot of difficulties, with the owner failing to keep it in good repair (newspaper report here). It has just been re-sold so perhaps it will now be restored. Here is an excellent 1969 Falmouth Civic Society article about the house.
Malvina has lived in Hampstead for seventy years and not that much has changed.This view of her garden north to Well Walk was painted in the 1980s.
The painter Malvina Cheek was 100 years old last Wednesday. Yesterday she lay on a reclining chair while her friends from the neighbourhood went in to see her and to admire the card from the Queen, all of them feeling very moved that they were with someone who was born on 8th July 1915. Here is a 1980s self-portrait: in some ways she does not look so very different now – although she is a good deal paler and thinner.
Moscow is full of wonderfully restored detail which sometimes puts the British visitor to shame – would a lamppost like this be so beautifully restored in the UK or would it have been replaced by some neon 1970s monstrosity? The latter more like.
The toilet at the Gum Department Store is indeed very lovely, with chrome and marble and wooden loo seats.