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Bignor Roman Villa

The Ganymede mosaic — The Ganymede Mosaic at Bignor Roman Villa

Bignor Roman Villa is for me one of the most special places in all of England. The remains of this important villa nestle in the beautiful Bignor valley in view of the South Downs, a short distance from Stane Street, the important Roman road which linked London with Chichester in the first century AD.

The villa was discovered in 1811 by the farmer George Tupper, who unearthed the famous Ganymede mosaic while ploughing. John Hawkins of nearby Bignor Park took charge of the site and excavations and invited Samuel Lysons, a leading antiquary of the day, to supervise the work. In 1812 more mosaics were uncovered under the orchard hedge, which probably included the Venus panels. Lysons was meticulous in his work, presenting three papers to the Society of Antiquaries between the villa’s discovery and 1818. The barns that were erected to protect the mosaics are rare examples from the late Georgian period and are Grade II listed.

Lisa and her husband, William Tupper, are the fifth generation of the Tupper family to be custodians of this remarkable historical sight. They work closely with William’s father, Tom, and their grandparents, Jack and Jill Tupper. Lisa says: “For our family the Roman Villa stands for longevity, a sense of place and family.” The villa site has remained in the Tupper’s ownership for centuries and the family still farms 2000 acres today. “It is wonderful to think that the Romans were farming here some 2000 years ago,” Lisa continues, “and they were farming 4000 acres, a huge estate.”

The mosaics seem out of time, conserved beneath their thatched Sussex barns. The youthful Ganymede tended his father’s sheep on Mount Ida. Here he is depicted being carried off by an eagle to become a cupbearer to the gods. His cap is typical of those worn in Phrygia, an ancient kingdom in Anatolia, now part of the Republic of Turkey. I have always loved the remarkable mosaic which, although there is some debate over the subject, is thought to depict Venus. The woman’s head is flanked by long-tailed birds and delicate fern leaves above a frieze depicting cherubs enacting famous gladiatorial scenes. The scheme, composition and execution of this panel is exquisite and among the finest in Britain. Away from the main complex, the depiction of Medusa in the bathhouse delights too. In its final form, the villa would have covered some five acres, much of which remains to be excavated. Lisa concludes, “I am delighted to be carrying on the work here that has been going on generation by generation.”

Tea and an enthusiastic welcome await the visitor to the remarkable Bignor Roman Villa, which speaks so eloquently across the millennia. We are fortunate that this exemplary archaeological jewel should be in the generous custodianship of the Tupper family. Bignor Roman Villa is open seven days a week. For more information visit www.bignorromanvilla.co.uk or telephone 01798 869259.

By Revd. Rupert Toovey. Originally published on 26th March 2014 in the West Sussex Gazette.

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Remembering the Great War

Left to right: Jeremy Knight, Exhibition Curator, Jonathan Chowen, Horsham District Council Cabinet Member for Arts, Heritage & Leisure, and Philip Circus, Horsham District Council Chairman, beside ‘Poppies’, made by students of the Camellia Botnar Foundation

Horsham Museum & Art Gallery’s exhibition ‘The First World War 1914-1919 Memories and Memorabilia’ begins a year of commemorations in remembrance of the outbreak of the Great War on 28th July 1914. Three generations were united by the experiences of the First and Second World Wars, wars which for the first time brought industrialized might to the battlefield with terrible consequences.

Jonathan Chowen, Horsham District Council Cabinet Member for Arts, Heritage & Leisure, and Philip Circus, Horsham District Council Chairman, seen here with exhibition curator Jeremy Knight, are passionate historians. Winston Churchill was always influenced by the long shadow of history, mindful to heed the warnings the past offers to the present. Jonathan Chowen also understands the importance of history. “It is so important that each generation learns from history,” he remarks, “especially the First World War and the dire consequences of conflict. Acts of remembrance, like this exhibition, maintain our common narrative as a nation.”

First World War troops in the trenches on the Western Front

First World War troops beneath a pyramid in Egypt

‘Middle East in Convoy W.W.II’, a watercolour by Geoffrey Sparrow

The images of the Great War still have the power to shock a century later and they inform our perspectives and understanding of this period. Amongst sorrow, suffering, sacrifice, courage, duty and hope, however, there are the very human and personal stories. This excellent exhibition seeks to give us fresh insights. I grew up with men who had fought in the trenches, men who had experienced gas attacks and the heat of battle and their stories have stayed with me. During the 1970s Jane Bowen interviewed and recorded the recollections of a number of soldiers, which have been transcribed for this exhibition. I had pictured troops in the trenches for months at a time whereas these recordings reveal that troops were in fact rotated on a regular basis. On average, a battalion could expect to spend ten days a month in the trenches and four to five days a month continuously in the firing line. Such care for our troops stands in contrast to the huge loss of life at the Battle of Mons and elsewhere. Their recorded memories give a very human account of the realities of life in the trenches.

Christ’s Hospital school has generously loaned the uniform of Edmund Blunden, the celebrated war poet and a former pupil of the school. Blunden cycled from Horsham to Chichester to sign on and the war played a key part in his life and poetry.

Along with such memories there is a remarkable selection of objects, which provide a tangible connection with the past. These include a First World War periscope, valentine cards, silk handkerchiefs, uniforms and knitwear. There are also the medals awarded to Dr Geoffrey Sparrow, who settled in post-war Horsham, along with a rare copy of On Four Fronts, his account of the war. The watercolour of a convoy in the Middle East, painted by Sparrow during the Second World War and auctioned at Toovey’s last year, adds richness to the photograph of troops beneath an Egyptian pyramid, taken during the Great War, which is included in the exhibition.

Jonathan Chowen concludes, “I am keen to encourage and make visible the extraordinary number of acts of remembrance which are taking place across the Horsham District. The outbreak of the Great War one hundred years ago will make Remembrance Sunday and Remembrance Day particularly poignant this year.” I agree. I have not been called to serve my country on the field of battle. I feel a debt of gratitude to those who fought in the two World Wars and those who serve in our armed forces today, so that we may live in relative peace and security.

This is an exceptional exhibition and thanks must go once again to curator Jeremy Knight.

‘The First World War 1914-1919 Memories and Memorabilia’ runs at Horsham District Council’s Horsham Museum & Art Gallery until 29th March 2014. For further details contact Jeremy Knight at the Museum.

By Revd. Rupert Toovey. Originally published on 5th February 2014 in the West Sussex Gazette.

Geoffrey Sparrow, Horsham Doctor, Artist and Huntsman

Dr Geoffrey Sparrow (image courtesy of Horsham Museum & Art Gallery) — Dr Geoffrey Sparrow on horseback (image courtesy of Horsham Museum & Art Gallery)

Geoffrey Sparrow was a doctor living in Horsham with a particular talent for drawing. His pictures often express his love of horses and hunting and provide a witty insight into country life in and around Horsham between the wars.

An Illustrated Alphabet by Geoffrey Sparrow — An Illustrated Alphabet, hand-illustrated book by Geoffrey Sparrow

The letter 'H' from the Illustrated Alphabet

My family moved to Horsham in the 1960s from Pinner and Harrow, a story common to many at that time. In those days Horsham was still very much a provincial market town with its wonderful, faded, Regency theatre and houses where Swan Walk stands today. The town centre was on a human scale, rich in its vernacular architecture and independent shops. I have fond childhood recollections of watching the Crawley and Horsham Hunt riding out from the Carfax on Boxing Day. The smell of the horses, the colours of the hunting coats and the sounds of hooves on the road, huntsmen’s horns and barking hounds all remain vivid in my memory. I imagine that the town’s atmosphere then had changed little since the days between the First and Second World Wars, when Geoffrey Sparrow was practising as a doctor and making his prints, paintings and drawings.

Geoffrey Sparrow was born on 13th July 1887 in an age of trains and horses, not cars. He grew up in Devonshire and lived for foxhunting. He studied medicine at Cambridge and Bart’s but the Great War disturbed the procession of his life, as it did for many others of his generation. Sparrow volunteered and was accepted by the Admiralty as a temporary surgeon in the Royal Navy in September 1914, bearing the rank of Surgeon-Lieutenant. He served with distinction in numerous campaigns and was awarded the Military Cross, though he never described the events that led to this decoration.

Sparrow was demobilised in 1919. He had thought to specialise in London after the war but his former chief advised that, as he was then thirty-three and unknown in medical circles, he would be better off taking his Edinburgh Fellowship and practising in the provinces. Sparrow enjoyed his time in Edinburgh, which for him had the added appeal of a bit of grouse-shooting!

In those pre-NHS days, Dr Sparrow journeyed south to Horsham, where he joined the old family practice of Messrs Vernon and Kinneir. Well-liked and well-respected, he served prosperous families and schools in the area, like Christ’s Hospital. In addition, he attended to local tradespeople, undertook Poor Law work and public vaccinations and held a part-time position at the infirmary. Foxhunting with the Crawley and Horsham Hunt remained his passion.

During the Second World War he again engaged in military service. At the end of the war he retired from medical practice to devote time to his hunting and art until his death in 1969. Geoffrey Sparrow’s evocative pictures represent a warm and witty commentary on his times. The work is of exceptional quality with a sense of movement and line which delights collectors, especially from Sussex.

A Scurry in a Pewy Country by Geoffrey Sparrow

I am excited that a private collection of some twenty-one examples of his work have been entered into Toovey’s Christmas auction of fine paintings and prints to be held on Wednesday 4th December 2013. Pre-sale auction estimates range from £50 to £500. One of my favourite entries is this book, An Illustrated Alphabet, estimate £300-500, with hand-painted illustrations by Sparrow in watercolour and gouache; the page “H for the Huntsman who rides a grey mare” seems particularly apt. The hunting theme continues with the dry-point etching A Scurry in a Pewy Country, estimate £150-250, which shows Sparrow’s skill as a printmaker.

Dr Geoffrey Sparrow’s work, like the man himself, is regarded fondly around Horsham and further afield. It is worth mentioning how fortunate we are that the wonderful Horsham Museum and Art Gallery has a fine collection of his work, as well as his war medals. For more information, visit www.horshammuseum.org

By Revd. Rupert Toovey. Originally published on 20th November 2013 in the West Sussex Gazette.

Charleston: An Eloquent Home in the Heart of Sussex

Charleston Studio © P. Fewster, courtesy of the Charleston Trust. In later years the studio doubled as Duncan Grant’s sitting room, in which there was always much to delight the visitor’s eye

As you visit Charleston, home to the Bloomsbury group of artists, you cannot fail to be captivated by the extraordinary collection of art and the intimacy of this house and its stories. This week I am delighted to be returning to Charleston once more, to see it through the eyes of author Virginia Nicholson. Virginia has warm memories of happy summer holidays spent with her grandmother, Vanessa Bell, and Duncan Grant at Charleston.

Duncan Grant's Studio. Photograph by Axel Hesslenberg (c) courtesy of the Charleston Trust — “The house still has the evocative smells of books and turpentine, which Virginia describes as memories from her childhood.”

Virginia describes how as a child visiting Charleston on holiday, she found it such a warm, freeing and welcoming place to be. “At Charleston you did art,” she says. “You engaged in the act of creation – messy was good – it was virtuous to create.” Virginia has only distant memories of her grandmother, the well-known artist Vanessa Bell. Her recollections of Vanessa’s lifelong love, Duncan Grant, however, are much more vivid. “There was something of the child in Duncan – innocent, open and benign – he always thought the best. He had an energy and appetite for life.” These playful, boyish qualities were expressed in games of charades and he was even known to dress up as a cow with coathangers for horns. “As children we were paid sixpence an hour to pose to be painted by Vanessa and Duncan,” Virginia explains. “Sometimes we got the fidgets!” There were just seven years between Duncan’s death and the opening of the house to the public in 1986. The house still has the evocative smells of books and turpentine, which Virginia describes as memories from her childhood. There is a tangible sense of continuity at Charleston, as though Vanessa or Duncan might appear in a doorway or the studio.

The house was cold, without even running hot water, when Vanessa and Duncan arrived in 1916. They set about creating an aesthetic whole. Here was a unified work of art, created by bringing together paintings, furniture, objects, ceramics and books. Charleston remains the most complete example of Bloomsbury group sensibilities, a piece of art out of time, set permanently in the 1950s. It is art to be inhabited, not something to be viewed with dispassion through the separation of time. Duncan Grant, David Garnett, Vanessa, her husband, Clive, and the children, Julian, Quentin and Angelica, all lived at Charleston and were often joined by visitors.

Charleston provided refuge for artists, writers and intellectuals during a tempestuous century, marked by the Great Depression and two world wars. Visitors included the writers T.S. Elliot, E.M. Forster and Lytton Strachey, the composer Benjamin Britten and his friend and muse, the tenor Peter Pears, as well the influential economist John Maynard Keynes. Keynes visited Charleston so often that he was given his own room. Roger Fry founded the Omega Workshops in 1913. Famous as an art critic, artist and organiser of the influential London Post-Impressionist exhibitions of 1910 and 1912, Fry was also regularly to be found at Charleston and contributed to the design of the house and garden.

Studio Fireplace © P. Fewster, courtesy of the Charleston Trust. The panel around the fireplace was painted in 1932 by Duncan Grant and the accumulation of cuttings, invitations and photographs are things that caught his eye. The photograph on the left was taken in the 1930s and depicts Duncan and Vanessa Bell’s daughter, Angelica

Together they represent an extraordinary generation. Virginia concludes, “They questioned: how do we live our lives; what do we do; what do we seek? The house speaks eloquently of this. It is liberating and freeing.” It has always seemed to me important to remain questioning. At Charleston they lived out their lives being creative and inquisitive, rather than being content with the superficialities that today’s culture encourages.

With the August Bank Holiday approaching, treat yourselves to a summer holiday visit to the house and garden of Charleston, just across the border in East Sussex. Experience the lives of the artists, writers and intellectuals who lived, visited and were blessed by this most eloquent of houses. Virginia Nicholson has inherited the creative gifts of her forebears and works as an established and highly regarded author. Charleston a Bloomsbury house and garden, written by Virginia Nicholson with her father Quentin Bell, gives a very personal view of the lives and art of those who lived and visited Charleston and is lavishly illustrated. Her book Among the Bohemians – Experiments in Living 1900-1939 adds depth and insight into the lives and work of a generation of eccentric and free-spirited artists. Both are favourites of mine and are available from the Charleston shop, prices £18.99 and £10.99. For opening times and more information, go to www.charleston.org.uk/whats-on or telephone 01323 811626.You may be certain of a warm welcome as Charleston gathers you, as she has gathered generations of visitors before you.

By Revd. Rupert Toovey. Originally published on 21st August 2013 in the West Sussex Gazette.

Eric Ravilious, Sussex Artist and Designer

Eric Ravilious Wedgwood Mugs — A collection of Wedgwood mugs, designed by Eric Ravilious. From left to right: a George VI coronation cup, circa 1937, an alphabet mug, circa 1937, and an Elizabeth II coronation cup, circa 1953

The artist Eric Ravilious lived and worked in Sussex. Known primarily for his watercolour landscapes and wartime studies, Ravilious was also a talented illustrator and designer. His paintings now regularly realise tens of thousands of pounds but examples of his ceramics designs for Wedgwood remain relatively accessible to collectors.

Eric Ravilious was born in 1903. As a very young boy he moved with his parents from Acton to Eastbourne in Sussex. There his father ran an antique shop. Ravilious was educated at Eastbourne Grammar School. In 1919 he won a scholarship to Eastbourne School of Art and in 1922 to the Royal College of Art in London, where he met his lifelong friend and fellow artist Edward Bawden. Both men studied under the artist Paul Nash, who was generous in encouraging and promoting their work. Ravilious subsequently taught part-time at both art schools.

In the early part of the 20th century there were attempts to address the separation between craftsmen and artists. Among the leading voices in this movement were William Rothenstein, principal of The Royal College of Art, artists like Paul Nash, Eric Gill, John Piper and Graham Sutherland, and Roland Penrose’s Omega Workshop, which involved the Bloomsbury artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. All these artists engaged with ceramics. In 1935 Eric Ravilious was invited by the Wedgwood factory to design a commemorative mug for the coronation of Edward VIII. After the King’s abdication in 1936, the design was reworked for the coronation of his brother, George VI, and subsequently for that of our own Queen Elizabeth II – both mugs are illustrated here. The designs give a reserved English voice to the joy and excitement that these coronations brought to our nation in the most wonderful way. Each monarch’s royal cipher and coronation date are set in bands of blue and pink, beneath cascading fireworks against a clouded night sky. The designs are modern and yet they capture the ancient in the subject, something that is often reflected in Ravilious’ work. There is a sense of continuity; this modern artist’s work sits comfortably in the evolving procession of English romantic painters from the late 18th and early 19th centuries, artists like John Sell Cotman and Samuel Palmer. These influences and qualities gift Ravilious’ work with a very English corrective to modernism’s extremes, expressed in his emotionally cool, structural paintings and designs. Today, George VI and Queen Elizabeth II coronation mugs like these could be bought at auction for around £600 and £120 respectively.

The delightful alphabet mug illustrated was commissioned by Wedgwood in 1937. Banded in apple green, each letter of the alphabet is accompanied by a printed vignette; ‘A’ is for aeroplane, ‘E’ is for eggs, ‘O’ is for Octopus and so on. This mug would sell for about £350 at auction today.

Ravilious Travel Pattern — A Wedgwood 'Travel' pattern part dinner, tea and coffee set, designed by Eric Ravilious, circa 1953

In 1938 Wedgwood commissioned Ravilious to design the ‘Travel’ pattern dinner service. It captures modes of transport in an enchanting way. The trains on the meat platter and plates leave a trail of smoke as they hurry towards us, contrasting the sailing boats, which seem almost becalmed in the gentle breeze. This small selection of Travel pattern dinnerware would sell in one of our specialist auctions for around £800.

Eric Ravilious’ work continues to be reassessed and celebrated by art historians. Tragically in 1942, while he was working as a war artist, the rescue plane in which Ravilious was travelling off the coast of Iceland was lost. He died with the airmen for whom he had such respect. The body of work that he produced during his short lifetime is made exceptional by both its quality and Ravilious’ own very particular voice, expressed in paint, design and print. For the moment, the pieces he designed for Wedgwood represent an affordable way to collect examples of his work, but prices are set to rise.

It seems to me that our current, somewhat fragmented, postmodern age is suffering from a cult of celebrity. Artists have not been immune from this and many have once again lost their connection with craft and design. Eric Ravilious and his fellow modern British artists enriched our lives in the interwar years of the 20th century, as they allowed their artistic voices to inform the manufacture and design of ceramics. Perhaps it is once again time to give voice to the artist as craftsman.

By Revd. Rupert Toovey. Originally published on 19th June 2013 in the West Sussex Gazette.