A celebration of listed buildings

Letters of complaint were sent to The Times about Stephen and Virginia Courtauld’s controversial plan to combine one of the largest medieval great halls in England with a new, luxurious party house in Eltham, on the outskirts of London.

Originally built around 1479, it was a property where Henry VIII  spent much of his childhood and he was the last monarch to spend substantial time there.

After centuries of neglect, the great hall (listed Grade I in June 1973) was in a serious state of disrepair when the Courtauld family took a 99-year-lease on the property in 1933. After an initial outcry against the plan, they finally got their own way to build an adjoining property and brought in Sir Charles Peers – formerly Chief Inspector of Ancient Monuments with the Office of Works – as consultant for the Great Hall repairs.

Even today, most people can only dream of possessing the mod cons this wealthy couple enjoyed; a Siemens internal telephone system, gas-powered underfloor and ceiling heating, a built-in audio system, synchronised clocks, and a centralised vacuum cleaner with pipes and sockets in the skirting of each room.

There was also a room for arranging flowers and a map room so the couple’s secretary could plan their exotic holidays to Africa, Asia, South America (the Courtaulds were avid explorers and among the first to embrace aviation).

Virginia’s bathroom is the ultimate in opulence – an odyssey of onyx and gold mosaic tiles with a statue of the goddess Psyche, Cupid’s lover, sitting above the gold taps.  Stephen’s bathroom is less ostentatious  and tiled in the turquoise and jade shades of the Ionian Sea.

About the Courtaulds

Stephen Courtauld was so wealthy and that he never had to work. He trained as a brewer but inherited shares from his family’s artificial silk empire, manufacturing rayon.

At the beginning of the First World War he joined the Artists’ Rifles and was awarded the Military Cross. After the war he resumed one of his great passions, mountaineering. He completed the ascent of the Innominata face of Mont Blanc and met Virginia ‘Ginie’ Peirano at Courmayeur in the Italian Alps.

They seemed an unlikely couple – Stephen was so typically British and reserved his friends accepted that he would not use two words if one would do. Virginia, by contrast, was a vivacious, divorced marchioness. A descendent of Vlad the Impaler she paraded the ultimate in chic and sported a large tattoo of a snake above her ankle.

The couple became part of London’s Mayfair set, living at Home House in Portman Square and later at 47 Grosvenor Square. They established themselves as great philanthropists, putting their money behind Ealing Studios, The Royal Opera House, and The British School of Rome. Stephen’s older brother Samuel was founder of the Courtauld Institute of Art.

When the lease ran out at No 47, the Courtaulds sought a semi-rural property within a Rolls Royce’s reach of the West End and Eltham fitted the bill.

Stephen and Virginia were heavily involved in the Second World War effort – they gave up their yacht to the Crown and their house was always buzzing with civil defence and WVS personnel.

During the Battle of Britain, more than a hundred bombs fell in the grounds and four on the Great Hall. The danger of being so close to London became too much for Virginia and the Courtaulds moved north, taking their furnishings to Scotland in 1946. It was the end of a dream, and the end of an era. The glamour of those inter-war years was lost forever and the couple later settled in Zimbabwe, in Southern Africa, where they lived until Stephen’s death in 1967, aged 83.

Virginia moved to Jersey in 1970 and died two years later. Their La Rochelle estate was bequeathed to the National Trust of Rhodesia (now the National Trust of Zimbabwe) in 1970.

Visit englishheritage.org.uk

Eltham Palace, Court Yard, Eltham, Greenwich, SE9 5NP

Opens Wednesday to Sunday 10am-4pm. Book online at englishheritage.org.uk

At Abode we not only love to see historic buildings sympathetically restored, but also thoughtfully renovated and future-proofed.

Undertaking work on any home comes with risks, but with a listed property these are enhanced and ultimately more expensive to repair should anything go wrong.

If you own a listed property and would like to speak to us about your insurance needs, please contact us for a no obligation chat. We are able to offer, buildings cover, combined cover and tailored renovation and restoration cover.