To be fair, its quite a good read, just douse heavily with salt where it says 'all the events are factual'. Its true in the same vein as the Morecambe and Wise 'Andrew Preview' sketch is factual about music. All the words might be true, but just 'not necessarily in the right order'.
I'm reading the Rob Gittins novel 'The Poet and the Private Eye' at the minute and to be honest I can't make up my mind. Its actually quite a good read, but this heavily fictionalised take on Dylan Thomas's last days doesn't do the campaign for taking the poet seriously any favours.
To be fair, its quite a good read, just douse heavily with salt where it says 'all the events are factual'. Its true in the same vein as the Morecambe and Wise 'Andrew Preview' sketch is factual about music. All the words might be true, but just 'not necessarily in the right order'.
0 Comments
I mentioned the stairs in Allerton Hall in a previous post, and there are a couple of useful things you can deduce from looking at the former home of the Prioelau's. First, the impressive entrance lobby is what they had and wanted to replicate to some degree in the building of the house on the Square. You can't read too much into that though, as the style of stairs is pretty much standard in the terraces, but a small thing that is quite interesting when visualising is the carpet is looking at the fairly faithful presentation in Allerton Hall.
We actually know quite a lot about the furnishings in Abercromby from various records, but one interesting snippet is the 'look' of the carpet, central on the treads, held in place by brass stair rods ( as seen above). Slightly unusual in number 19 though, rather than having a single run of carpet, each step had its own individual Axminster rug. In addition there were three 'black skin' rugs ( presumably bear) in the lobby, and a 'real bronze figure of a boy holding Cornucopea fitted for gas with shade condenser'! It would have been impressive. Shan't post today. I can't shake this ruddy chest infection and it makes me irritable. So I shall 'irrit' to myself instead. Back tomorrow.
This one is totally unrelated to Dylan Thomas or Abercromby Square, but what the hell, its my blog!
As its getting to that Christmas time and my yearly re-watch of the fantastic kids tv show 'Box of Delights' with Pat Troughton ( and the wonderful use of the word 'scrobbling', which I'd love to use more in my vocabulary) I thought I'd mention a cd I love which is well worth buying if you get the chance. Its primarily music by Hely-Hutchinson, but is great Christmassy music. Also, the soundtrack for Box of Delights was presumably done on a budget, as the cd is pretty much the incidental music for the whole series. And includes that haunting and earwormy theme-tune :-) Happy listening! A quick photo of Allerton Hall, now a pub and eatery. The Hall was the former home of William Roscoe, but during the early 1860s it was rented by Charles Kuhn Prioleau ( latterly of 19 Abercromby Square) through his father in law. It was used for entertaining visitors from the Confederacy during the early years of the war and reputedly even flew the confederate flag when visitors were expected.
While much has been rebuilt, it is a useful reference point for some of the grandeur Prioleau was aiming to replicate in the new townhouse he was having constructed. Even the curved staircase shows some interesting parallels with listings of later furnishings in the Square, though that is a different post! Great news for all Dylan Thomas fans. The elusive fifth notebook, home of the original drafting of many of the poems, has turned up after all these years. Brilliant news!!!
Not the most entertaining photograph on earth, but I thought I'd show the design of the staircases common all around the Square. As there was no electric lighting when the buildings were constructed, the servant's staircases only had very small windows for light, but the main stairwells for visitors all have a similar glass dome at the top, with some lovely coving underneath. This provided the main daytime ( and moonlight) illumination until the gas burners were installed. As you can see from the picture, they are actually very effective in location and design. |
Archives
March 2024
Categories |