Renishaw Hall in Derbyshire is not far from where I grew up in Nottingham, and although born in Devon, most of my childhood was spent there, either in a decaying and freezing cold Gothic Victorian apartment or in my grandmother’s Edwardian house not far from Nottingham Castle. Like Renishaw, my grandmother’s house, on a considerably more modest scale, was frequently exorcised.
Edith Sitwell, poet, author, determined eccentric, 1920s rap artist, who described one of her hobbies as silence, was one of my teenage heroes, so on a recent visit to Renishaw Hall, courtesy of Alan Powers, Trustee of Pollocks Toy Museum, I took my battered copy of Edith’s ‘English Eccentrics’ with me, and posed it next to another photo of Edith.
A group of us, including artists, a historical hat maker, printmakers and the Associate Rector of St James’s Church Piccadilly, had travelled from London by coach up to Derbyshire. An overlong journey, but luckily I was sitting next to Jane the Hat so there were good conversations.
The visit was organised by Alan Powers to see his exhibition in Renishaw. As the coach drove down into the village of Eckington, Alan channelled Edith and performed a fragment of her poem Facade, sadly without her famed Sengaphone – a type of megaphone – and impressed us all, including Dean the coach driver.
The exhibition celebrates a meeting a hundred years ago when Edith’s brother Sacheverell Sitwell introduced Diaghilev of the Ballets Russes to the toy paper theatres of Pollocks and Webb in the east end of London. The bright, hand-coloured scenery and characters influenced the look and costumes of the the Triumph of Neptune ballet amongst others, the subject of the show at Renishaw.
The Hall is scattered with assorted treasures from the Sitwells’ travels, and hung with portraits of ancient Sitwells. Alexandra Sitwell, Edith’s charming great-niece, who showed us round, assured us that the Hall isn’t a museum – the current family use it. A saddle hung on a hook near an door leading outside, and amongst the odd throne or two and elaborate tapestries were references to Alexandra’s favourite dachshund Moon.
One of the Hall guides told me as a child she had met Edith. ‘She was very kind to staff,’ she told me, ‘and had beautiful silver fingernails,’ This reminded me of how the Sitwells had initially made their fortune centuries ago. Iron ore was discovered on their land and was used to manufacture iron nails. Before I left, I mentioned my Museum of Dust to Alexandra Sitwell and asked her if I could possibly have a Sitwell sample to add to it? Unfazed, she very kindly agreed, and the following week a tiny TipTree jam pot of dust arrived in the post, which has now been added to my Museum. Not sure what Edith would have thought about it…
