Henry Lytton Cobbold

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

In the world of “Harry Potter” messages arrive by owl.  Frankly, like the Post Office, it’s a service that is under threat from modern technology.  I am sure nowadays you receive your messages via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest… or, if you are really old-fashioned, email.  Thus I will surprise you when I tell you that the recorded interview I gave to the St Albans & District Talking Newspaper earlier in the summer was distributed to its listeners, individually, one by one, envelope by envelope, by mail.

Talking Newspapers (www.sadtn.org.uk) is a charity whose purpose is to keep local visually impaired residents in touch with what is happening in their community.  It is a much valued service that is provided totally free of charge.  Its recorded articles are currently distributed on memory sticks, but it wasn’t long ago that they were distributed on audio cassette.  Older readers will need to explain to younger readers what an audio cassette is.

The 30 minute interview I gave turned out to be a very comprehensive round up of all that we do here at Knebworth House – including our work in education and preservation, much of our colourful history and some fun family stories – and if you are interested to listen to it, Talking Newspapers has kindly allowed us to make it available via the “News” page of the Knebworth House website, under the heading “It was a dark and stormy night…” – but I’d be just as happy if you want to send your owl out for a copy.

Martha and I, and all the team here at Knebworth House, wish you a very happy Christmas,

Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com

Are you thinking about next summer already?  We are.  We’re looking for new casual staff to host visitors at Knebworth House, Gardens and Park in 2015.  If you are over 16 and have a National Insurance number, age is no barrier.

Look at Santa – he’s still turning up aged seventeen hundred and forty-four!  He’ll be hosting the popular Christmas Craft Fair in the Park on Friday 14th, Saturday 15th and Sunday 16th November.  Not content with our beautiful deer, he’ll be bringing his own for you to admire – along with an abundance of Christmas gifts and food prepared by his (over 16 and National Insurance numbered) elves.

The change of season, of course, means that visiting Country Houses (as opposed to Country Parks) becomes easiest on ITV.  Here, every Sunday evening, Amazon is hosting you at Downton Abbey – and we are very pleased that Amazon has chosen to make its commercials at Knebworth House.  In fact, as the announcer heralds “Downton Abbey”, a big picture of Knebworth House appears!  Now, you may notice the odd plotline in the show that sounds familiar – I’ll leave you to decide – but apart from the beauty and the history of these two lovely old places, I see very little otherwise to connect Downton Abbey in 1924 and Knebworth House in 2014!

Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com

No history is a more important lesson for current and future generations that the history of the two World Wars.  I am so pleased that Knebworth House and its remarkable archive is playing an active role in interpreting the history of World War 1 for our local schools.   For three days in September, more than 1200 students from secondary schools in Stevenage visited Knebworth House for a WW1 Experience organised by a partnership of Knebworth House, Stevenage Educational Trust and Stevenage Museum.

Actor-interpreters from the National Army Museum welcomed children by assigning them to their regiments and ordering them to line up to await orders for the day.  These included listening to readings from original documents and personal letters from local soldiers, learning about the vital contribution that animals made at the front, and hearing from a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse about her hospital work.

In October 1914, exactly 100 years ago, my great-grandmother, Pamela Lytton (who I remember well as I was 9 when she died in 1971, and had been her frequent tea guest at the Manor House in Old Knebworth) set up a Hospital for Soldiers in London staffed by VAD nurses.  It is thought to have been the first of its kind.  I hope her story, and those of others from our area who played a vital part in the War effort, has inspired their descendants to a better understanding of the best in human nature, and how it can stand up to the worst in human nature.  May we all be the stronger for their courage and example, and the wiser for their stories and experiences.

Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com

I don’t remember when Wocko came to Knebworth.  He joined us as a woodman sometime in the early 1970s, one of a team of five.  He would say he could make anything out of riven timber except a decent living.  There are no full-time foresters now.  But Wocko has always been here, keeping the Knebworth Park deer, the fences, the spirit of our beautiful countryside alive in our increasingly city-influenced community.  Whether you know him from summer shows in his straw hat, weaving willow or hornbeam into sheep hurdles; or playing his accordion or ukulele in the Lytton Arms, for the Morris Dancers or as part of the legendary Nup End Mountain Men; or singing cheeky songs at the Estate Christmas Party or as Master of Ceremonies at Music Hall evenings at the Village Hall; or telling wonderful stories at the Cricket Club bar, or to me and my children on Sunday afternoon walks to explore hidden corners of the Knebworth Woods…  Wocko has become part of the wood of this community of Old Knebworth.  But all things come to pass, and this month Wocko and his lovely wife Jan retire to Market Rasen in Lincolnshire.  He would say that this split is along the grain as opposed to sawn, but a wonderful man is thus riven from us.  We say goodbye with love and great gratitude for all that he has left us, not least the familiar echo that will forever be heard in the halls of Old Knebworth, “Sing along in the chorus, folks!”

Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com

All four-year-olds love dinosaurs.  And there is no better time to go on a dinosaur safari in the gardens of Knebworth House than the height of summer, when the lizards are hiding in the thick foliage and undergrowth of the garden in full bloom.  This summer the dinosaurs have been joined, all over the garden, by other animals – favourites of all ages – crocodiles, panthers, cheetahs, a leopard, a zebra… all part of our Open Air Sculpture Exhibit, which runs until the end of August.  The show features the work of 19 contemporary sculptors, each displaying two or three pieces using materials including bronze, marble, stone, copper and stainless steel.  A pair of wonderful crocodiles are part of a predator series made by Scottish artist Helen Denerley out of scrap metal – beautiful, but even more menacing for their interlocking chain spines and threaded bolt claws.  So if the holiday budget doesn’t stretch to a trip to Africa this year – or the Jurassic period! – Take a safari closer to home!

Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com

During July and August we celebrate 40 Years of Knebworth Park Concerts with an exhibition in the Banqueting Hall of Knebworth House of images and mementos dating back to the first concert in 1974 (illustrated on this month’s cover).  In my January piece I told how the concerts started – below is a roll call of headliners and audiences (approximate attendance numbers) that have made the name “Knebworth” internationally recognised as home to Britain’s biggest and best concert venue:

1974 – The Allman Brothers – 60,000
1975 – Pink Floyd – 80,000
1976 – The Rolling Stones – 120,000
1978 (June) – Genesis – 70,000
1978 (Sept) – Frank Zappa – 40,000
1979 – Led Zeppelin – 200,000 (last UK show with original band members)
1980 – The Beach Boys – 40,000 (last UK show with original band members)
1981/2 – Ella Fitzgerald, BB King etc. – 30,000
1983 – Cliff Richard – 25,000
1985 – Deep Purple – 75,000
1986 – Queen – 120,000 (last show with original band members)
1990 – Paul McCartney, Pink Floyd etc. – 120,000 (broadcast worldwide on MTV)
1992 – Genesis – 90,000
1996 – Oasis – 250,000 (at the time fastest selling show in UK history)
2001 – Jamiroquai, etc. – 35,000
2003 – Robbie Williams – 375,000 (biggest music event in UK history)
2006 – The Who – 5,000
2009 – Metallica – 50,000
2010 – Iron Maiden – 50,000
2011 – Metallica – 50,000
2012 – Red Hot Chili Peppers – 50,000
2014 – Metallica & Iron Maiden – 50,000

I’ve totted that up – and that is two million people with magical memories of the place where we live.

Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com

This month we lost another gargoyle off the roof of Knebworth House – smashed to the gravel below, a victim of the ravages of time and the weather.  It is a stark reminder that 45% of the house remains in perilous condition.  English Heritage has generously offered a grant to tackle the particularly bad upper level of the western central elevation – but in order to accept it, The Knebworth House Education and Preservation Trust needs to find matching funds which it does not have (without crippling its annual operating budget).  We have offered to donate to the charity proceeds from the development of the only land on Knebworth Estate that is not in Greenbelt – two small paddocks in Stevenage Borough – but it remains to be seen whether that is an acceptable option or whether it can be achieved before the offer of the grant is lost.  Either way, repairing this month’s fallen masonry is not an option – it is part of the eastern central elevation.

Happier news is the response to The Knebworth House Education and Preservation Trust’s schools’ story writing competition.  The challenge to 7 to 11 year olds was to write a short story beginning with Edward Bulwer Lytton’s classic line, “It was a dark and stormy night,,,”  The 1^st Prize entry wins a day in Knebworth Park for the author’s whole class.  The competition has had a phenomenal response from all over Hertfordshire – the standard of the entries has been very high and it has been a tough task for the judges to choose a shortlist of 12, let alone a winner.  Maybe this can become an annual “Bulwer Lytton Competition” to challenge the scurrilous one in California that mocks bad opening lines – clearly “It was a dark and stormy night…” has moved beyond cliché, to classic, to inspiration!

Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com

One of my favourite things about the Gardens at Knebworth House is the wood sculptures created by local chainsaw artists Dennis Heath and Dave Flemons.  In return for a corner of the Park in which to do their beautiful work, every year Dennis and Dave contribute a sculpture or two to the Gardens.  Usually, there is a tree that has passed away or fallen during the year.  We look at what is left of the trunk and design something that reflects a theme from a Knebworth House or Lytton family story.  This year there are three beautiful new sculptures:  the mother of the muses, Memory, watching over the four of her daughters that inspired Edward Bulwer Lytton; a huntsman with a rose wooing Snow White (who lived with the seven Kobolds); and my favourite of all, a little girl sitting cross-legged in the orchard lost in the magical world of the book on her lap.  Fantastic work, Dennis and Dave – these beautiful 2014 additions to the Gardens will be much treasured!

Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com

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 1^st 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