Yesterday I took the train to Surrey to tick off two more National Trust properties.
I was a bit late visiting the first one.
Cost of off-peak return from Waterloo to Clandon: £14.50 Cost of off-peak return from Wimbledon to Clandon: £8.00 (so maybe do that)
You alight the train a couple of stops before Guildford and walk a mile down the road past two pubs, the village hall and a lot of houses you can't afford. If you find West Clandon Village Pound you've gone the wrong way.
NATIONAL TRUST:Clandon Park Location: West Clandon, Guildford, Surrey, GU4 7RQ [map] Garden open: 11-4pm Wed (daily, Apr-Oct) Admission: free House open: not since 2015 Tours: not again until 2024 Website:nationaltrust.org.uk/surrey/clandon-park Four word summary: burned to a shell Time to allow: maybe half an hour
Clandon Park House was commissioned in the 1730s as the country seat of Thomas Onslow, a rich baron whose father was the longest-serving speaker of the House of Commons. Thomas had previously been MP for the whole of Surrey, back when that included Lambeth as well as Leatherhead, so had the means to commission a glitzy Palladian mansion bedecked with marble and Flemish sculpture. The National Trust acquired the building in 1956, though not the surrounding 500 acre park, and pledged to look after it. But on the afternoon of 29th April 2015 a fire broke out in the basement and spread so quickly that the entire building burnt to a shell, bar the Speakers Parlour which remains essentially intact. Staff tried rescuing as many of the contents as they could but most were lost, and Clandon is easily the National Trust's biggest disaster of the 21st century. So, come and see a cuboid shell under sheets of scaffolding surrounded by a bit of grass.
It's free to look. I stood beside the shuttered ticket office for fifteen minutes before I worked this out, then headed into what they call the Garden and wandered around the site. The house is massive but invisible, bar a couple of gaps in the sheeting where the doors used to be, and is being supported by a serious lattice of metal poles. It's an eerie sight and a tragic one, with colourful hoardings around the base offering some insight into what was lost. The tone is oddly upbeat, more 'look at the craftsmanship on this not-quite charred table leg' than 'oops, what an irreplaceable loss'). Across the lawn is a wharenui, a rare Maori meeting house shipped here from New Zealand by the 4th Earl of Onslow, although not much of it is original any more and the sacredcarvings are due to be shipped back. Up top is a short cypress avenue overshadowed by towering redwoods and at the far end of the lawn a formal Dutch Garden (alas currently closed for stonework conservation). And that's pretty much all the public has access to, or at least I assume it is because I didn't see a map of any kind anywhere and it looked like the surrounding woodland became rapidly out of bounds.
The National Trust's headache is what to do with what's left of the building. Their original plan after the fire was to restore the ground floor using the insurance money and to add a less showy first floor for events and exhibitions. But last year they changed their minds and the current intention is to leave the building as a shell, perhaps with walkways and a roof terrace, and to simply celebrate its form and structure. They claim this would be "a unique way to understand and enjoy a country house", but many more traditional members think this is a travesty and have put a forward a resolution at the upcoming AGM demanding the restoration and recreation of at least the Marble Hall. Expect smoke, if not fire. In the meantime pre-booked tours through the site and its basement are sometimes offered in the summer months, but they seem to have ended early this year and to be honest there's very little to draw you here.
The second National Trust property is only a mile and a half away but to get there, in the absence of a decent public footpath network, requires a walk along an unkempt tarmac ribbon beside a dual carriageway. I wouldn't risk it with children in tow and you'd never manage it in a wheelchair. Eventually you reach the village of East Clandon, which comes as sweet relief, and just beyond that is the entrance to the next car park. Pedestrian visitors are not anticipated.
NATIONAL TRUST:Hatchlands Park Location: East Clandon, Guildford, Surrey, GU4 7RT [map] Open: 10am-5pm House open: noon-4pm (Apr-Oct) Admission: £11.00 Website:nationaltrust.org.uk/surrey/hatchlands-park Four word summary: parkland and plentiful pianos Time to allow: a couple of hours
Fanny Boscawen used her husband's Admiralty salary to pay for her dream home in the Surrey countryside, only for him to die soon after its completion so she moved back to London and sold the place on. The Sumners stayed longer and later Lord Rendel bought it for his family until inevitably one of his descendants was forced to hand the place over to the National Trust. Along the way Hatchlands gained Robert Nash interiors, Humphry Repton re-landscaping and a Gertrude Jekyll parterre, all of which somehow survived a spell as a girls' finishing school. Today it's a bit of a mix but essentially a lot of lovely pastoral grounds, a choice of traditional cafes and a house that contains a quite frankly astonishing collection of art and music.
Only six ground floor rooms are open to the public and one of these is essentially the bottom of a staircase. Also no photography is allowed because this is still a family home, but that's fine because it just helps everyone to focus on the contents. The walls are covered with hundreds of old masters from the Cobbe Collection, originally purchased to decorate a grand villa in Dublin - yeah that's a Titian, that's a Gainsborough and that's thought to be the only surviving contemporary portrait of William Shakespeare. But it's the keyboard instruments that dazzle, with pianos, harpsichords and spinets squeezed into every last space, many of which had a really famous owner. "You're standing beside Chopin's grand piano", said the room guide, "and that one was Marie Antoinette's, and later you'll see Bizet's, Lizst's, Mahler's and Elgar's, and did you see Charles II's virginals?" I hope the fire policy is stronger here than at Clandon because this lot are truly irreplaceable.
Other than the house what you're really getting for your entrance fee is the chance to roam a 400 acre estate. It has that look of manicured farmland, all rippling pasture and strategically located oak trees, with a few patches of woodland added later to provide diversity and to hide the adventure playground. A lot of well-scrubbed Surrey families were heading out along the waymarked trails yesterday, as far as their children or joints would permit, and don't forget you have to walk all the way back again. At one point a hilltop vista opened up towards Woking, so an ideal spot for watching a Martian invasion, but generally the trees screen everything, even the main house. There are many National Trust properties with more to see, but only one has Chopin's grand.
Getting home was another slog, Hatchlands being an hour's walk from either of the nearest stations. I plodded on to Horsley rather than returning to Clandon, following another narrow main-road-side path and then cutting through another commuter village. The bus service is pretty terrible too so all this is best done by car, sorry.
