I’ve given birth to an idiot!

Once a medieval palace, the remains of Eltham were leased by Stephen Courtauld in 1933. He employed a couple of top notch designers/craftsmen and they set to creating an art deco masterpiece. And that’s where we visited today.

A mere view and DLR (and south eastern train) away from Canary Wharf on the south side of the Thames is Eltham. A short walk up to and beyond the High Street is the entrance to the palace. After unsuccessfully avoiding the guy selling subscriptions to English Heritage, we went in, eager for coffee and cake, having finally managed to digest last night’s ridiculous quantity of calamari.

The tea room was actually not very nice. We’re not sure what they were cooking but it smelled pretty bad. And the decor was a bit depressing with high windows just in case you felt like seeing nothing but the sky.

Fortunately there was no impact on the edibles – the Victoria sponge was lush and, according to Mirinda, so were the scones.

Before venturing into the interior, we were instructed to put blue plastic bags on our shoes. We were also told we could walk all over the original carpets but not the reproduction rug in the main entrance room. This was a little bit weird but we accepted the strange request and wandered around the repro carpet.

We had a pair of info things which eloquently filled us in on everything about the interior of the house. I didn’t find out who the girl was supposed to be on the recording but she sounded like good fun and was probably someone who was once a guest of the Courtaulds.

She spoke adoringly of the wonderful entrance, how the dome looked amazing and the light spread throughout the space perfectly. It does look amazing. Particularly the decorated walls.

She was a bit upset about the telephones. The internal ones were fine and visitors could use them whenever they liked but the external phone was hidden away in a cupboard and was coin operated. When we peeked into the cupboard we noticed the seat. It would be to small for Day-z’s butt, let alone a full size human!

Back in the entrance room, the walls have marquetry panels with scenes showing the northern and southern extent of European civilisation. There’s a Viking and a Roman soldier, scenes from Italy and Sweden. All very impressive and yet approachable.

In fact, outside, over the entrance, is a lovely sculpture of Vesta, welcoming guests, beckoning them into the lovely interior. I’ve been looking for a statue of Vesta for years to go in our lares niche at the top of our stairs but without luck. These guys were very smart and hired Harry Carlton Attwood to make one up for them.

Please come in and bless us with your presents

Meanwhile…back inside…there are two small panels high up with little carved figures on them. One of them represents Alice in Wonderland, the other Alice Through the Looking Glass. Here’s a photograph of the Wonderland one from the guide.

Alice in Wonderland in relief

Of course, we were not allowed to take photographs and as they had no decent postcards (and given the fact that our scanner is in Farnham and I’m in Canary Wharf), I was forced to take photos from the guide book.

The oldest part of the house is the Great Hall which, although it’s been redecorated and changed a few times down the ages, still looks very old. Although, unlike most great halls, it felt quite warm and inviting. The Courtaulds used it for big parties.

Possibly the best bit of the house was the small bamboo ladder which runs from the floral room to the small cage upstairs. This was the special ladder for Mah-Jongg, Virginia Courtauld’s pet ring-tailed lemur.

Apparently lemurs have quite a lethal bite on them. Normally they’re ok but when they take a dislike to you, watch out. Percy Lemon, the radio operator of an expedition to the South Pole, found out the hard way.

At the farewell party, Mah-Jongg bit him, severing an artery. Percy was doused in iodine and it turned out he was allergic to it. He was out of action for three months. Meanwhile Mah-Jongg was absolutely fine.

They bought Mah-Jongg at Harrod’s, back when that sort of thing was allowed. He went everywhere with the Courtaulds. After his death they had a memorial made for his grave in the garden and then, when they moved to Scotland, they took the memorial with them.

After the Courtaulds left, the Army Educational Unit took over Eltham and, round the side of the house, there’s a lovely set of sculpted reliefs on the wall depicting various army people.

The soldiers sweetheart

Back in 1396 Richard II had a stone bridge built across the massive moat and it is this bridge that all visitors walk over to enter the house and gardens. Apart from the Great Hall, which has been extensively rebuilt, the bridge is about all that’s left functional from the original building. There are bits and pieces of ruins scattered everywhere outside, lending a sort of folly-ish nature to the garden.

Eltham was Edward IV’s favourite palace outside of Westminster but he probably wouldn’t have liked what the Courtaulds did to it. The palace of Edward IV was about 100 times bigger and had a very impressive moat right around the main compound.

A lot of the moat is now just grass and you can walk over, and then, under one of the bridges behind the house.

Bridge over the Grassy Moat

We spent a delightful few hours in and around the house before heading back to the flat. We stopped off at Carluccio’s in Canary Wharf for some lovely Italian lunch…since we needed reminding of Italian food after last night’s salty calamari.

Back at the flat, Mirinda watched a few episodes of her favourite show (The Secret Life of Us) where I overheard one of the characters say “I’ve given birth to an idiot” because her daughter wanted a nude wedding.

We spent a lovely lazy evening watching TV, typing this post, before going to bed. What a lovely weekend it was.