From 5th April, there will be an exhibition of embroidered textiles in Knebworth House by the Letchworth-based Filamenti textile group. A wide range of two- and three dimensional work will be on display, with aspects of Knebworth House and its history as the theme. For example, the pattern of the carpet in the Library has been developed into a colourful printed velvet stole, another work uses the suffragette colours to reflect Constance Lytton’s part in the fight for votes for women, and an original Elizabethan wall painting has been interpreted to make a piece in crewel work for a kneeler cushion for a prayer stool. The exhibition runs until 1st June on weekends and school holidays.
Part of my piece last month expressed personal opinions that some do not share and I have been happy to debate these and to respect alternative views. The rest of the piece was an attempt to convey some of the facts about the Cricket Club’s planning application. In this I seem to have failed, as a number of misconceptions still remain. The club’s current ground is not fit-for-purpose for the Club’s own reasons as well as for ours. A tightly-budgeted small family business like our own – much smaller than many other local businesses – can afford to make local donations occasionally, and sometimes regularly, but not to have its donations relied on indefinitely. No other landowner or business has yet stepped forward to offer the club a sustainable site. When the club moves or dissolves, the current site will be returned to park land to ensure the park’s sustainability.
The Knebworth House Education and Preservation Trust is an independent charity on which my family are minority trustees. Other trustees include the Chair of North Herts District Council, the Chair of Knebworth Parish Council and the Mayor of Stevenage. Our company tenders to administrate the charity, which it currently does, on an arms-length and non-commercial basis in strict accordance to the Charity Commission. Martha and I are not trustees or signatories of the charity. The charity contributes directly to Old Knebworth Village Green, in its capacity as majority shareholder of the Green’s management company. The charity has the rent for its pub assessed independently and, in order to assist the current pub management, has been deferring the uplifts that are its contractual right for some time. The charity is currently loss-making and without the funds to achieve its backlogged key objectives of restoring an English Heritage “Priority Building At Risk”.
I am always happy to explain my family’s issues, thinking and decisions – and to debate my personal opinions as sometimes expressed in this column – via email, via the website below.
Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com