Confederacy of a Dunce - The Soane Trail

Monday, July 18, 2005

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This weekend the Dunces took an excursion to Pitzhanger Manor House, after seeing a brief mention in this week's Time Out.

Pitzhanger Manor House

It was designed as a country home by architect John Soane, whose London house (Sir John Soane's Museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields) is perhaps my favorite museum at the moment. The latter is a fascinating combination of architectural design features (Soane was not afraid to knock down and rebuild in his preferred style) and an impressive collection shoehorned into every conceivable space. The preservation of its appearance, contents and general state (as well as its accessibility to the public) were preserved through an act of Parliament negotiated by Soane before his death. Pitzhanger Manor, on the other hand, was not similarly preserved. Soane bought it in 1800 and completed his renovations (tear down most everything and rebuild it entirely) in 1804; for the next six years the family used it as a weekend country retreat before selling it on (from Ealing history site). Subsequent residents included the four spinster daughters of former Prime Minister Spencer Perceval (1843-?) before it was sold to the Ealing council in 1901 for use as a library (and doubtless renovated many, many times by its different residents). In 1985 the library moved to a new location and the council began restoration of the house to reflect its appearance in Soane's time. But because the collections have been moved to Soane's museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields, the focus here is more upon the architecture and design. It's an excellent companion to Soane's museum, which contains many similar architectural features but in which the focus is upon the items he collected, which are displayed on (under, against) every surface (and sometimes hidden behind other items). After seeing the clutter of the collection, it's fascinating to go to Pitzhanger and see the design features essentially on their own (rooms contain basic period furnishings but virtually none of Soane's collections or personal effects). Our next Soane-themed visit will have to be Moggerhanger House near Biggleswade, a house designed by Soane for the director of the Bank of England, which has only very recently reopened following extensive restoration work.

After visiting Pitzhanger House we had an excellent dinner at Taqueria, a new Mexican restaurant in west London which seems to go a long way toward answering concerns about the dire lack of authentic (and/or interesting) Mexican food in London (and we're not the only ones to complain). It's a different take on Mexican than I'm familiar with, more like tapas than anything else. I've already exceeded my allotted writing time so let me just say briefly, YUM.

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Monday, July 18, 2005 1:52:37 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)