Lots of response to the image of the tawny owl in the T-Rex’s mouth featured in our article last month – it got picked up by national newspapers including the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Express – so hooray to Patti Razey who first spotted the nest. Patti is our “Dinosaur Painter” – a crucial role at Knebworth House during the winter months when we scramble to get as much repairs and maintenance as possible done before we open again in March. Not a great call for Dinosaur Painters nationally – I don’t know whether Patti lists it on her business cards. I remember we once went to the Yellow Pages to find a “Coffin Restorer” when we were renovating the Mausoleum in the Park. A dying trade, you might say – not so many people being buried above ground nowadays!
Fortunately we are still able to find a “Gargoyle Maker” – another crucial Knebworth House requirement – thanks to the craft surviving for the many cathedrals of the land. We need one currently, because the elevation above the House’s garden front entrance goes under scaffold this month for urgent water damage repairs. We are required to replace the Victorian decoration as close to its original design and materials as possible.
We have a bit more leeway with the dinosaurs – but that doesn’t stop Patti being meticulous with her colours and her scale detail. Maybe the owl was trying to tell her that, to be authentic, a real T-Rex should have a nice line of des res winter double glazing between its teeth too!
Happy New Year to all,
Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com