Coughton Court and an intimate crowd
Ed Hollis gives an 'intimate' talk at Coughton Court and is entertained by the chatelaine's grandson.
Edward Hollis
Posted: 12:18:00 26/10/09
Coughton Court
Magnus, the grandson of Mrs T – not the prime minister, but the chatelaine of Coughton Court – has been detailed to introduce me. He’s studying business management at Exeter, and this is his last weekend of the summer vacation. Mrs T, like her namesake, has autocratically lassoed him to help out at the festival. Magnus is no architecture buff, but, as we’re walking into the tent, he points out a window in one of the octagonal towers at the heart of his ancestral home. ‘That window there’ he says’, ‘lights a room that none of us can work out how to get into.’ When did they forget? I wonder, and how? It’s fascinating to think that the history of architecture – like the history of everything else – is as much an issue of amnesia as memory. I recall the citizens of medieval Rome, who, having forgotten who built the monuments amid which they built their miserable shacks, and what they were for, imagine that they were mountains thrown up by giants, imbued with magical properties.
It’s fascinating to think that the history of architecture – like the history of everything else – is as much an issue of amnesia as memory.
The talk is, er, intimately attended, and while this is only slightly painful –I’m well acquainted with lecturing to half empty halls – while I’m talking ad lib everyone looks at me and I look at them – we connect; but when I read from the book it’s most odd: everyone stares off into the middle distance, eyes glazed with what I hope is not boredom. It must be like audiences for classical music - I certainly never know where to look in a concert.
After that talk, and a magnificent summery lunch of salads in the tent, I get a lift up to Birmingham to catch the train home. It’s like travelling to a different world, and as quickly as the dreaming spires of Coughton Court disappear below the rolling horizon, so the gigantic silver blob of Selfridges looms up behind the sharp gothic ruins of Victorian Manchester.
Unaccountably, there being no reviews this weekend, and a small audience at the Coughton Court event at Throckmorton, my ranking on Amazon jumps by 2000 places.
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