MM #64: Kiplin Hall, Back from the Brink

View of Kiplin Hall on October 28, 2019

How long have I been in love with historic homes in the UK?  At least 30 years!

These homes, preserved for our education, wonder and enjoyment, share numerous common elements.  Walled gardens, sweeping lawns, ancient families, period furniture, and, of course, a striking home.  But each one has a unique tale, and inevitably, intriguing idiosyncrasies.  Welcome to the story of Kiplin Hall!

Built in the early 1620's, it was owned by four fascinating families related by blood and marriage.

The beginning: in the 13th century, Kiplin became part of the landholding of Easby Abbey, a monastery five miles to the west.  (Yes, you have read about Easby on my blog - see this post.  Small country, small world.)  After the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII, the land was purchased by the Calvert family.  George Calvert was born there in 1859 and built the Hall between 1622 - 1625.

Scores of flowers despite our visit in late October!

In the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods, a gentleman's house was a visible symbol of his status.  George Calvert built a tall, symmetrical red-brick house, using fashionable design features such as the diamond-shaped diapering pattern in blue-black bricks on the east front.  Many contemporary houses had corner towers with leaded domes; Kiplin was unique in placing the towers in the center of each façade.

Ironically, George Calvert and his descendants never lived in the house.  George was instrumental in establishing the colony of Maryland in the US, and his descendants lived there or in the south of England.  In 1722, Charles Calvert sold the Hall and its 800 acres to his mother's second husband, Christopher Crowe.

The first owners to live in the Hall, the Crowe family increased the estate to 4,500 acres.  To make the Hall more fashionable and comfortable, Christopher Crowe added the central staircase, Georgian fireplaces, and decorative plasterwork.  The estate passed to Christopher Crowe's nephew, Robert, in 1782.  When Robert's daughter Sarah inherited Kiplin in 1818, the estate passed through marriage to the Carpenter family.

Ceiling in the dining room

Sarah and her husband John Carpenter continued to improve and enlarge both the estate and the home.  The symmetry of the original building was further altered in the 1820s, when they built a Gothic style Drawing Room to the south.  Lady Sarah also developed the pleasure gardens, creating paths through the woods and the walled gardens.

In 1868, Kiplin passed to a cousin, Walter Cecil Talbot, on the condition that he change his name to Carpenter.  He rose to Admiral in the Royal Navy, and made many enhancements to the estate buildings and gardens.  Countless items in the house were collected, commissioned or made by the Carpenters.  Family scrapbooks and photo albums compiled between 1860 and 1904 give a wonderful picture of the country house lifestyle of the period.  The death of the Admiral in 1904 marked the end of an era.

This mahogany cabinet was designed by Chippendale and was

commissioned to house the decorative panels of pietra dura.

Pietra dura means hard stone, and the charming scenes of the

Italian countryside are made of marble and other colored stones.

Miss Bridget Talbot

Kiplin began its decline as a country house when Sarah Talbot Carpenter married and moved away.  Between 1905 and 1930, Sarah sold off most of the estate until only the Hall, a few outbuildings and 120 acres remained.  In 1938, Sarah made her cousin, Bridget Talbot, joint owner of Kiplin.  Bridget lived a varied and adventurous life, including serving the Red Cross on the Italian front line during the First World War, which earned her an Italian Medal of Honor and an OBE.  In a major campaign in the 1920s and 1930s to save the lives of Merchant Seamen, Bridget invented a waterproof torch for lifebelts that became a standard part of safety equipment.

During the Second World War, Kiplin Hall was requisitioned by the Army and later turned into flats for Royal Air Force officers.  (This room in the house has been left as is to show how it looked at that time, with modifications to bedrooms in order to create flats.) There was considerable damage and little hope of compensation.  Nevertheless, Bridget worked tirelessly to save Kiplin.

Left: "Bugingham Palace" - Get it?!?         Right: Conkers, also known as Horse Chestnuts

From the 1940s to the 1960s, Bridget struggled to ensure Kiplin's survival.  She approached many organizations and negotiated with the National Trust for years.  On several occasions she announced her decision to demolish the increasingly derelict Hall, but she never did.  Finally, in 1968, Bridget established the Kiplin Hall Trust.

Following Bridget's death in 1971, the trustees endeavored to maintain the Hall.  Financial assistance from Maryland in the 1970s and 1980s carried the house until its future was finally secured in the 1990s.  Income produced from quarrying gravel in the parkland was sufficient to put the trust on a firm footing, and also created an attractive lake.  Major restoration work since 1998 has brought Kiplin back to life as a welcoming Victorian country house.  Bridget, your hard work paid off - you can rest easy now!

Mosaic Monday

Welcome to Mosaic Monday, a weekly meme where we get together to share our photo mosaics and collages.

Please include at least one photo mosaic/collage in your post.
The link will be open from 1 p.m. Sunday until 11 p.m. Monday (U.S. Mountain time).
Remember to add the link to your Mosaic Monday post and not the one to your blog.
Please link back to this post so that your readers will be able to visit and enjoy more wonderful mosaics; taking the MM blog button from my sidebar is an easy way to link back.
As host I will visit every participant and leave a comment so that you know I stopped by.
Please try and visit as many other blogs as you can, especially those that join in later, so that everyone's creativity can be appreciated fully.
Thank you for joining in today and sharing your mosaics with us. 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Showing off 'a small island' - Part I (we don't need no raincoats!)

In 1995, Bill Bryson published 'Notes from a Small Island', his reflections on the UK as he was about to return to his native US.  In this series of posts, I will do my part to wax lyrical about my adopted country of the UK, through the lens of family members who were making their first trip there.

"You never know what is in your closet until you look"

Of course, any successful holiday (read vacation for anyone outside Europe) relies on planning.  In this respect, my sister and her husband were remarkably flexible, given that their current motto is to 'relentlessly root out hurry'.  We talked about planes, the best beer to drink, trains, the best beer to drink, villages to visit, must-see museums, the best beer to drink, and of course, clothing.   In Texas, coats are not commonly worn, so in the days leading up to departure, our recommendation to bring raincoats was met with a 'Hmmm - do we have any?'  Several hours later, I was relieved to get the above picture and text - success!



Spousal Unit planned a wonderful routing for us through Minneapolis and Amsterdam.  I love the Amsterdam airport - immigration and customs are a breeze.  Before we knew it, we had coffee and had settled into our gate to wait for our quick flight over to Newcastle.  It was then that he pointed out where I was sitting.  Off to a good start!  Hopefully this would not be auspicious for our trip, which would include a lot of walking!

The next day, our two guests arrived at the Darlington train station, via the Virgin train service from Kings Cross in London, where they had spent almost a week exploring all that the metropolis has to offer.  (Which, by the way, did not include any weather requiring rain coats.)  We whisked them off to my in-laws with just enough time to enjoy Mom's tea and to re-pack for our morning departure to the Yorkshire Dales.

Over 25 years ago, Spousal Unit introduced me to the public footpath system in the UK, and I know I fell in love with both at the same time - they are inextricably connected in my heart.  Thus it brings me great delight to share this national treasure with others. 

River Swale

How to describe the footpaths?  They are not just trails; they are an up-close, intimate look at the country.  Farms with all their best (sheep and their lambs) and their worst (just try tip-toeing through pastures frequented by a large herd of sheep).  Hand-built dry stone walls that have withstood the tests of 3 centuries stretch before you for miles.  Stiles that are often works of art in their own right.  And, our family favorite - 'random acts of castling' - the fact that you can be walking a path and all of a sudden come upon the ruin of a castle or an abbey.  So it was that we chose our first walk with my sister and her husband - to feature a 'random' abbey, Easby Abbey near Richmond.

Cottage garden with Easby Abbey in background

A small portion of the ruined abbey

I suppose I should thank Henry VIII.  "From 1536 to 1540 King Henry moved to dissolve the monasteries across England, as an act of religious defiance to the papacy in Rome, and in order to raise money from the sale of expensive materials that could be salvaged from the roofs and windows of the structures. Today, the English countryside is littered with some 800 sites, remnants of the religious metamorphosis England underwent at the hands of one of the most ruthless of Tudor monarchs. For visitors to England, a trip to one of these offers a unique window into the history of the country, and like the medieval castles that punctuate the countryside in most counties, the Monastery ruins are mysteriously ethereal in their ability to bring the past to life." (England.net)

For all we know, absent dear Henry, the monasteries might have disappeared altogether without the protection that comes from a designation as a historic site.  Or access might be restricted at the site of a functioning abbey.  Instead, today we get to admire nature's way of reclaiming a site, even in the smallest of nooks and crannies.






I suspect that footpaths also appeal to the voyeur in all of us - the opportunity to peer over a garden wall, especially the high ones, to see what is being protected from our view.  Quite quickly, my sister and her husband recognized that flower gardens, big and small, are a rampant past-time.  No matter how small the space, even if only a doorway, it possesses flowers.

A critical aspect of walking in the UK (and it may be the only reason some people engage) is the stop you make mid-way (or at the end, or BOTH, as the case may be) at a tea/coffee shop or the pub.  (I am still not sure if pub owners strategically placed their establishments at the end of paths, or if the path makers were always headed to the pub!)

View of Richmond Castle with River Swale below

Bridge over River Swale

On this particular day, our round-trip walk led us to the tea shop within the re-modeled rail station.  (This renovation is a superb example of using a historic space in a creative way that honors its roots - you can learn a lot about the history of rail in Richmond while enjoying an ice cream or a variety of baked goods, not to mention purchasing adult beverages from the distillery, watching a movie or perusing the art gallery.) For our part, we tucked into scones and tea (and bought some beer and cider, if truth must out!)

Waterfall on River Swale

Although it was not a long walk, it felt good to replace the hiking boots with sandals, which gave my sister and her husband another cultural experience: the sight of people changing their shoes in a public car park (read parking lot) is as ubiquitous as tea.

But there was not a raindrop to be found anywhere - tell me again why we brought the rain coats?


Linking  to Our World Tuesday