Website Launch...

This Easter we officially launched our new website:

www.willowbrookpark.co.nz

We shall of course, continue blogging at willowbrookpark.blogspot.com; but are now open for bookings and enquiries through our shiny new portal.

Thank you for all our loyal reader who have followed the progress over the years. We will not dispoint you - we will still share the best of our daily exploits with you here on the blog; but please spread the word far and wide that we are open and ready for you!

David and Peter.

Happy Easter!

Glad Easter tidings from Willowbrook Park.

Noli me tangere (Do not cling to me). Antonio Correggio, 1525.

Jesus appears to Mary. Alexander Ivanov, 1835.

The Clocks of Willowbrook, Part 1...

This is the first in a series of posts exhibiting our collection of clocks, and we are going to start with the long case clock which stands inside the foyer. 

The clock was purchased in 1990 from Colin Bent of Albion Clocks in London, but dates back to 1740, coincidentally the same year the Royal London Hospital was opened.

It is a 'Country' long case clock, meaning that it only has an hour hand and only strikes the hours. This is because it was intended for listening to, rather than looking at. It was made in 1740 by Humphrey White of Fairford in Gloucestershire. 

From what we can tell from a variety of historical sources and registers, Humphrey White was the son of Thomas White (born 1677 - 1748). Thomas White had been an apprentice of Thomas Tompion, who is considered the father of English clock-making (famous amongst other things for creating the two very long pendulum clocks for the royal observatory for Charles II, which only required winding once a year and were accurate enough for performing astronomical calculations). 

Humphrey must have started working in the family business as he grew up, taking over it before 1740 (8 years before his father passed away). The Whites, along with another clock-maker Richard Honeybone, provided clocks to most of the Cotswold area. Fairford clocks are still very sought after today in the Cotswolds. There is an auction of one of Thomas White's clocks this month. How wonderful it would be to reunite father and son's work after all this time!

Above: The restrained style of the Georgian Country Clock standing in the foyer.

Below: A close up of the face showing the manufacturer's name.

Below: The full clock face with single iron hour hand and wonderful brass spandrels.

Below: The weights and pendulum.

It has a wonderful sonorous bell...

The next post of the series will exhibit the long-case clock on the landing upstairs. Join us then.

Lakeside Folly - The Finished Result...

Today we are staying outside with our tour and catching up with the progress made on the folly since the first post. Here is the finished product that Peter and Dirk worked so hard on...

Above: The Folly as it was before the wedding.

Below: The roof being hoisted into position back in November.

Below: The view as it was later that day once the roof had been bolted to the side walls.

There was a brief hiatus in progress just before Christmas, but that didn't stop family enjoying it on Christmas day...

Then Peter and Dirk finished the external walls, and plastered and painted it and fitted the columns ready for it to be enjoyed by our wedding couple. The photographers realized it made for some great photos...

Later that night (2 am), after we had done most of the tidying up, I crept out to see what it looked like with the landscape lighting we had installed, and was thrilled to find this marvelous reflection in the lake...

Above: The folly reflected in the lake.

Below: The statue of Bacchus also lit up. 

The lighting works well, because you can see the folly very clearly from the manor. When I crept over there I surprised a number of frogs that were ribbiting away, which could almost be heard from the back lawn, as well as a few rabbits I think. There was the sound of splash splash, and then silence. In time we hope to light up the jetty, as well as install the lake fountain, which will be lit up at night too.

The Portico and Loggia...

The more observant readers will have noticed that last weekend the artist's impression in the left side bar changed to an actual photo of the manor. It is so nice to have a photo of the whole project sans construction equipment and scaffolding!

Today we are going to look at the entrance and the loggia. As one pulls up at the foot of the steps they are greeted by this sight...

I think another pair of urns, planted up with a well manicured selection of flowers and ivy would look good between the door frame and the inner columns under the lights.

By night guests are greeted with this sight...

We are very happy with how the doors turned out. The execution of our design, the final colour of the stain, and the placement of the knockers we brought back from London all came together nicely. The wood is yellow cedar, which is a lot harder than the more common red cedar. They had to stain it repeatedly to get it to darken up (compared to the carriage house doors, which are red cedar, and only required the standard 3 coats of stain before they turned a warm dark brown).

The view of all the column capitals and the hanging lantern from the front doors...

By night the lantern shines leaving a wonderful pattern of light across the plaster...

whilst the carriage lights on either side of the door provide additional illumination...

The columns at night...

Around on the northern side of the manor, we have used the same components in the loggia...

We will have to take some more photos at night to show you how wonderful this looks from the cocktail lawn. I will do that next month when I am home again. Please stop by again tomorrow when we share photos of the lakeside folly which Peter and our friend Dirk built.

The Billiard Room...

Just off the foyer one can retreat to the billiard room for a post supper dram and a gently competitive game of pool, snooker or billiards.

The green silk walls complement the green of the table, and the leather club chairs. Elsewhere the mahogany paneling provides a masculine club ambiance. The architrave to the left of the mantelpiece, which balances that of the door on the right (the entrance to the Gold Drawing Room) will serve as a frame for a cue rack and accessory hooks.

On the south wall between the two windows hangs an oil painting of galleons at sea. Below this is a little bookcase with pewter stags on top. We have some splendid coffee table type books for the case so guests can flick through them if they wish to retreat into the room for a cup of tea or coffee and some quiet time.

The space on the wall above the painting is reserved for a stag's head, but only one that I have shot myself and not one off the shelf as it were. I have a policy (vermin aside), that I won't kill an animal unless I am going to eat it. So, unless I shoot the stag myself and fill the freezer up with venison (thus rendering the head nothing more than a byproduct) the space will have to stay empty.

For a change of scenery, tomorrow we are going to venture outside and take a look at the portico, front door and the loggia. We look forward to seeing you then.

The Gold Drawing Room...

Welcome back to the tour. Day 10 continues with The Gold Drawing room. This is one of the 3 rooms which has silk upholstered walls. We are very pleased with this room, and can't wait to start to use it for publicity shots. We have a friend who has put us in touch with an advertising agency who are always on the look out for new and unique venues for photoshoots. I'm sure Willowbrook fits the bill.

Below: Vases of Stock and Delphinium flank the marble fireplace. In front of the fireplace sits a vintage fireguard. I plan to have it reupholstered in the same silk as the walls soon.

On one wall is a large Chippendale styled cabinet.

On the other wall a bay window overlooking the front courtyard, with a console and large bust of Apollo.

Two smaller cabinets to match the larger one will arrive soon and will go on the walls on either side of this alcove.

Between the French doors on the western wall hangs an oil painting after Claude Lorraine. Below it is a small mantel clock, a gift from Peter when I was 22. It has a lovely sonorous Westminster chime.

Please tune in again tomorrow when we retreat into that most masculine of rooms, the Billiard Room.

Willowbrook Park Breakfast...

The morning after the wedding we got to cook the Willowbrook Park breakfast for our guests for the first time. This hearty cooked breakfast is a contemporary take on the classic full English using only home grown and locally sourced produce. We served freshly baked artisan bread, beef sausages and bacon from Willowbrook Farm, and free range eggs from our neighbours (until we get the hens we are after for our farm). It also has roasted potatoes, tomatoes, and basil from our potager garden.

We had several dry runs before the day, including deciding exactly how we wanted to set out the plate. We were very excited to be using our newly completed kitchen for the first time for guests.

I had even found a wonderful bottle of olive oil at duty free on the way out of Sydney, which reminded me more of a bottle of Chanel No. 5 than a bottle of oil...

It makes a wonderful addition to the cook-top, and I think will make a great decanter for our usual olive oil in time to come. We are loving our cooker by the way, and the subway tiles. The splashback was supposed to be quartzite to match the benches, but it never arrived, so we chose the tiles 2 weeks ago to get the job finished, and I think they work well.

Our guests chose to take their breakfast in the dining room, so we started to get that prepared. We served a wide range of wholesome goodies including cereals, homemade breads and preserves, and fruit harvested from our orchard, along with a selection of fruit juices (orange, apple and cranberry), and teas and coffee (I was on Barista duty). I prefer pink grapefruit juice above all other fruit juices for breakfast, but unfortunately our trees have not yet started to bear enough fruit to make a decent amount of juice, and there was no fresh pink grapefruit juice available at the local market. I will have to remedy the situation this autumn.

Above: The morning sun at dawn streaming through the French windows into the dining room as we started to set up the buffet, below.

Please join us again tomorrow when we invite you inside The Gold Drawing Room.

The Ballroom, Music Room, and Piano Shifting...

Welcome to day 7 of the tour (my gosh, this could go on for weeks)! Today we share one of our reception rooms for the first time, the ballroom. We took some of the inspiration from the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, and although in no way as large and as grand, there are distinctly recognizable elements, such as the mirror at the south end, doubling the size of the room and showing the view of the gardens to the north. Then there are the gilded consoles and pier lights above, between each of the French windows.

There are 3 large chandeliers as well, centrered on the doors into the music room...

and highly polished oak floors with parquetry borders. The photo below was taken the night before our guests arrived, at twilight with the sunset starting to stream in through the French doors and set the crystals aglow. We had cleared all the furniture out of the room so that the floors could have one final polish. I doubt they will ever be as flawless again (Louis XIV didn't have to contend with stilletto heels and disco dancing!)

Throwing open the bifold doors we now enter the music room, with the Broadwood Grand...

It had arrived a month or two earlier (before the terrace marble was down or the balustrade was completed)...

The boys were very careful not to damage either the piano, or the floors in anyway. They have over 25,000 pianos on their books that they look after, repair, tune, refurbish or restore.

The lid, legs and music board ready to be reassembled...

The piano with its old wooden frame, laid on its side so the legs could be screwed in. Each leg had a large wooden screw on the end.

The lyre-shaped peddles...

The final product...

Being an antique piano, before the age of steel frames etc, it will never be able to be tuned to concert pitch, but we are happy with it being tuned to a semitone below. I'm sure our friends will be able to tune their flutes, cellos and violins down a notch a la baroque chamber orchestra. A shiny new black Yamaha would just have been so wrong for this room. I do hope you agree? Now there are no excuses for Peter and me to get on and learn that duet.