Lucinda Lambton's talk: AGM 2007


                 WHAT a great and glorious honour to have been asked to talk here this evening to the Mausolea and Monuments Trust; the excellent body  which I first heard about from Tim Knox  when we were in Pinner together, caressing the curious c.19th pyramidial monument/mausoleum - stuck through with a stone sarcophagus on high protruding from either side  -  that was designed by John Claudius Loudon, the founding father of London’s parks; he who wrote thirty two hefty works on  architecture,  agriculture  and  horticulture….                    There we were, Tim and me,  at the top of the forever  flummoxing Pinner High Street; where, in the midst of post war London development, you suddenly come upon this picturesque hill; what is undoubtedly a village or small country town; flanked on either side by timber framed and brick buildings, dating from the 15th to the 18th centuries, with the church of St john the Baptist standing guardian  overall.                        
                    It is in the graveyard of this church  that you come upon  the singular structure that was designed to house the remains of Loudon’s parents, William and Agnes Loudon. How did such an oddity ever come into being?                         
                   The only explanation that has been given is that  Loudon had commissioned its design in his wildly indecipherable hand, proof of which was given in this VERY funny story: When collecting material for his Encyclopaedia  of Trees and Shrubs, he wrote to The Duke of Wellington asking to see his famous Waterloo beeches. The Duke reading Loudon’s signature as London  and beeches as breeches, was startled that the Bishop of London wanted to see his trousers! He  never-the-less sent them off; in turn  startling the Bishop  with their unexpected arrival!                       
                       It is though, thanks to Loudon, that we are soothed by suburbia, as he created the prototype of umpteen suburban villas,  as well as, amongst his many triumphs, suggesting plane trees for London ands also writing that ‘Breathing Zones’ of green should be left around the Metropolis; not only that, he was the first to design the landscaping of cemeteries; such as his great swathe of beauty at Kensal Green, a  tract of planting at its most picturesque, that shows off to perfection an architectural utopia in miniature, with mausolea and monuments  presenting a showpiece of the  architect’s, sculptor’s, stonemason’s and letterer’s art. 
                          It is a paradise that I am lucky enough to be reminded of daily, when coming in and out of London on the elevated A40.; from where amidst the horror all about you, suddenly there it is,  cutting through the chimneys - by day, green, by night jet black -  giving feasts of food for thought whilst pondering on the people who lie within its walls.                              
                         I have never been in any doubt that there is a perpetual party going on - a glorious and glittering party of c19th luminaries, for, if there is life after death, you could find no more vibrant a collection of characters than those gathered together at Kensal Green, so many of them with mausolea and monuments of considerable distinction; although, it must be said that the outlandish Graeco- Egyptian concoction of a mausoleum to Andrew Ducrow could hardly be described thus!            
                        Designed in 1837 by George Danson in brick , plaster and artificial stone with a WEALTH of flamboyant decoration of winged horses, scarabs and beehives and with sphinxes guarding the door, here is vibrant proof of the mausoleum mirroring an aspect of the age in which it was built. Ducrow was as an extravagant a figure as his mausoleum . ‘The Colossus of Equestrians’ and proprietor of and showman in Astley’s amphitheatre, he famed for his peculiarly picturesque Poses Plastique Equestres when he struck attitudes as Zephyr, Mercury or a Yorkshire Foxhunter whilst riding or driving as many as nine horses at once!!! ‘The displays were ‘but the air on which he flew’ wrote one enraptured critic ‘what God like grace in that Volant motion, fresh from Olympus , ere new lighted on some Heaven kissed hill’. There were elegant variations, with Ducrow in skin tight ‘marbleised attire, motionless atop a plinth. He would then gradually  change from one antique statue to another. ‘Raphael’s Dream was particularly popular!                            
                      Ducrow’s hat and gloves that he wore as Charles II are  laid on  a broken column – all in stone.  Too fancy by far for some : ‘Here is Pondrous coxcombery’ growled The Builder in 1836.                       
                      From the Harrow Road, clapped in a trap of  seemingly  unyielding urbanism, you are shocked quite out of your senses  when, having walked through this cemetery entrance gates, you suddenly find yourself surrounded by such monumental splendour.!                             
                     Throughout the cities of the world and so often amidst grimmest surroundings, there are such enclaves of 19th century Elysian fields; places of breathtaking beauty and interest that are is so  often bewilderingly neglected today. Time and again I am bashed in the head with befuddlement; when driving through some densely built up area, and suddenly spotting, through a gateway,   grand and beauteous countryside,  filled with sculptural interest and with locals walking by, harassed  by urban life; and seemingly unaware that the Garden of Eden is  but mere feet away.                   
                     How well I remember, for example, beating a path to the Key Hill Cemetery in Birmingham to find the monuments to  the writer  Harriet Martinau and Alfred Bird who invented the custard!             Amid traffic ridden roads and garish garages suddenly there again was ravine of perfect peace:  a great canyon of a cemetery filled with local monumental  lore. From within, over a small wall, I could see mothers dragging children through the asphalt jungle, when with one step they could have so easily have stepped from earthy hell into this Earthly paradise. Not one though even glance in that direction!                
                    So it is too with Arnos Vale in Bristol, where, surrounded by particularly  vile development, two Doric temple lodges - supremely strong in their severity - proclaim the great  Civic pride  behind this cemetery, leading  you into an architects dream!  Here the skyline is pierced through with  a multitude of styles.                             
                   Not only is your aesthetic sense satisfied in a 19th century memorials but also your sense of curiosity, adventure and discovery What rich endlessly linking historical pickings can be gleaned : how once I delighted in finding a great monument to  the man who bought the first gorilla to England, in one Liverpool cemetery; while  the  monument to  he who  bought the first banana to Britain in another nearby!!!!                           
                   Back though, to Bristol’s  Arnos Vale, where there is singularly splendid  Hindu temple; which,  to my delight I discovered to have been be built by a  James Prinsep, who studied under Pugin  and  who then was to spend an alarmingly fruitful life in India – working in the Calcutta mint for which he devised scales that could weigh a three thousandth part of a grain ! He redesigned the Benares Mint  and became the authority on Indian currency. A prolific architect, he also  devised the  Ganges drainage plan of Benares. He devoted his later years to Indian antiquities ; deciphering  inscriptions on temples which had  even baffled the author of the first Sanscit-English dictionary.  This Hindu Temple in Bristol is therefore a work of serious scholarship„.not to be confused with the  fancy dress  Eastern garb  that was to clothe such  British buildings as Brighton Pavilion.                It was designed to honour the remains  of Raja Rommahun Roy…..known as the father of modern India, and the first Indian to be buried in Britain, in  1833.                
                        It is a beautiful little building, sadly all too rare an achievement today with  monumental masony . For now I fear there is a quite  lamentable quantity of ill designed modern monuments,  sadly illustrating the  descent of our funeray art. Gaze about you at memorial monuments of the c.18th and  c.19th  and your every artistic sensibility is satisfied,. Seek out that of the 20th and 21st centuries and every one is smashed.                  
                      As with architecture, so too with this miniature branch of structural design, the blighting blank modernist block of the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s reigned supreme. But here the similarity ends…..whereas great improvements  have swept through the architectural world in the last ten years, they have been woefull missed by the monumental mason.                        
                    Walking through to-day’s cemeteries and graveyards is like being in the most brutalist of developments, with one hideous difference - that they are still being built, hand over fist, with the same blinkered fervour of the post war years.   Great tracts of consecrated land continue to fall victim to what can only be described as a grotesque modernistic world in miniature. Rules and regulations as to the size, height and material of memorials have resulted in grim uniformity. Democracy in life has become a dictatorship in death, with every one of us still forced to suffer a Ceaucesu-like regimentation of marble and stone blocks, riding roughshod over our remains.    Even the most aesthetically aware now have to end their days under a banal block on the landscape. The graveyards of the past were intended as morally uplifting oasis, reflecting the tastes, the dreams and the ideals of the age. What in Heaven’s name do today’s clumpingly sterile black marble BLOCKS, relieved only by grisly green marble chippings, reflect of our ideals today?  ‘God’s Acre’ has been reduced to a sterile strip, swept clean of all spirit.                          
                            The tide is starting to turn however and signs of  longed for change can now be seen. Harriet Frazer, for example , with  her organisation ‘Memorials by Artists’ has established a nationwide service to put the bereaved in touch with craftsmen best suited to their needs. Thanks to her, there are now over a 2.346 exquisite modern memorials world wide.   For me,  Harriet has always seemed like a great Statue of Liberty, who, with beacon aloft, has been shining the light of freedom into the churchyard for the last twenty years , with great memorials that have been created  in stone, slate,  cast iron and wood, all wrought into a multitude of most marvellous forms - invariably with words that move you to tears.                   
                         To see all these extraordinary works is to rejoice that, at long last, a very grave wrong is being put to rights.  For with their beauty, dignity and artistic dash  they have triumphantly trounced the bureaucracy that has laid cultural and artistic waste to so many of our churchyards and cemeteries.   Nor, of course, is it just Britain’s funerary art that has  so wretchedly progressed with the modern age. Although I have recently found strangely inspiring  developments both in Turin and Budapest.                        
                         In Italy, the great tradition of commissioning monuments produced stupendously realistic marble monuments with the new money of the c.19th ; with such marble scenes as the lace nightgown clad marble man on his deathbed  in Genoa -  draped with lace edged embroidered ‘sheets’ a bed cover with a recognisable satin ‘sheen’  -  surrounded by his wife, five sisters and a brother all life size, and all dressed in their most elaborate marble best. Pleats, lace trimmings and a multitude of tiny buttons are all exquisitely defined. What too about the two life size figures of a son bidding his father good bye as he lifts the elaborately carved ‘tapestry of life’ for him to pass under?  Most extraordinary of all is a gargantuan head and shoulders of a pink granite woman, rearing high over two life-size bronze ‘workers’ ploughing with oxen!                   
                       Such figurative memorials have only falteringly continued in the c.20th and c.21st  Italy, but the mausoleum has magnificently marched into the modern age with mostly hideous but sensational mausolea by the thousand in  their cemeteries . For example, in Il Cimitero Monumentale di Torino,  you find yourself strolling down streets of fiercely modernistic little buildings – In concrete, steel, stone and glass – each one the size of a one bedroom house, their forms streak off in every direction. Great Epstein-like men and women shoot forth from box like blocks and pyramids, modern mosaics are ‘splashed’ onto one shining black cube, another of violently coloured blue and green glass has cascades of mirrors. There are extended pyramids and ‘masts’ ,  all making up a most surreal modernistic  ‘townscape’ in miniature. Although each and every one is hideous, as with the c.19th cemeteries, this is like a great pattern book of contemporary architectural design; like a template for a town employing every  modern material.                       
                          Only  last month I found my cup of happiness  - and sadness – overflowing when walking through the cemetery in Budapest, filled with heroes of all the uprisings and with Art Nouveau  monuments and mausolea of quite staggering beauty. Most surprising of all was a seemingly billowing white stone sheet draped over two life size stone men and two stone horses , all leaping forth from four corners hauling that sheet on their heads. All brightest white, it dates from 1994. Startling in the extreme, it was designed Miklos Melocco for Jozsef Antall  …Hungary’s  first post communist prime minister.                           
                             As for the great hero Kossuth; he lies within a classical mausoleum the size of a Cambridge college.   In the United Kingdom , the ancient art of building a mausoleum – the mansion of a monument in which to rest for eternity –  as you all know became popular during the 1700s. This 18th century revival was of course all part of the new understanding of antiquity which caused a craving for classical architecture.  The mortuary monument, on its relatively modest and manageable scale, provided a heaven sent opportunity to emulate the buildings of Rome, Greece and Egypt, while placing them piously and picturesquely in the landscape. So enthusiastically was this opportunity seized that Britain led most of Europe in building these neo-classical mausolea.     Before the 18th century revival of the classical mausoleum, affluent families had almost invariably built private chapels attached to churches.  In North London at St Lawrence, Little Stanmore, there is a ravishingly beautiful example, created on the very cusp of the change – a classical chamber for the dead still comfortingly clinging  to the body of the church.  It was built by James Gibbs, the 1st Duke of Chandos, in 1735 in honour of his second wife, Cassandra.  Amid the subtle paintwork of trompe-l’oeil trickery and grisaille – all by Gaetano Brunetti – the Duke stands bewigged and on full Roman rig attended by his devout spouses, his first wife Mary as well as Cassandra.                         
                          The Duke’s vainglorious monument was carved twenty seven years before he died.  ‘My Lord advances with majestic mien, smit with the mighty pleasure to be seen’ wrote Alexander Pope in one of many satires written of the man.  As Paymaster General to George I, Chandos had amassed a prodigious fortune, and he speculated on a grand scale, providing Poe with yet more fodder.   Yet since heaven the Duke’s ambition rocks,     Since all he got by fraud is lost in stocks. …O! wert thou not a Duke my good Lord Humphrey From bailiffe’s claws thou scarce could keep thy bum free.   Much of the Duke’s money, though, was spent to grand architectural effect, both on his mausoleum and on Canons, his palace nearby, where the staircase alone was made from 22 foot long slabs of marble.  (After the house was demolished this ended up in the Odeon Cinema in Broadstairs,where it was blitzed during the war!).  His private chapel was one of singular magnificence with a full choir in permanent attendance, who would sing to the dining company every evening.                    It was in St Lawrence’s at Stanmore that the Duke would sit – flanked by men dressed as the Vatican Swiss Guard - listening to Handel, who  was his Master of Music, composing the twelve Chandos anthems, as well as his first English oratorio, Esther, on the Grinling Gibbons carved organ.    Beneath the floor of the mausoleum at Stanmore, there is an especially sad crypt, with a quantity of children’s coffins all of softly sunken lead.  The bodies of five of the 1st Duke’s sons are also there, as well as that of  Anne Wells, wife of the 2nd Duke, who had been bought for £20 from her former husband – a ‘brutal ostler’ who, in the 1740s,  was offering her for sale in the streets of Newbury.                                
                          The classical mausoleum went on being built throughout the 18th  and 19th  centuries.  Indeed one of the purest of all mausolea, looking especially like an ancient prototype, was designed in 1852 at Hamilton in Lanarkshire.  It was built for ‘El Magnifico’, the 10th Duke of Hamilton, described as ‘the proudest man in Britain’, who furthermore believed himself to be the rightful King of Scotland.  Having inherited a gigantic fortune, he was to aggrandize his estates on an epic scale; and in death too  was determined to reign resplendent; with a great domed drum of a mausoleum designed by David Bryce, with sculpture by Alexander Handyside Ritchie.  (It is said that Ritchie was a ‘hit and miss sculptor’ and here he decidedly missed)     The stones of the Hamilton Mausoleum were dovetailed together with the minimum of mortar but with such maximum success that, despite having a coal seam mined beneath, it swayed and it sank, but it never fell down.  At the Duke’s funeral in 1852, the Times wrote that the building ‘is believed to be the most costly and magnificent temple for the reception of the dead in the world – always excepting the pyramids’.     Inside a marble, granite, porphyry and jasper floor mirrors the architecture that soars overhead.  Its centrepiece of a radiant star is lit directly from the cupola –‘the eye of God’ – shining from above.   Although the Duke died before the building was completely finished, enough progress had been made for him to be lain in his megalomaniac monument as his funeral service reverberated around him. The acoustics were fine; BUT unfortunately a  25second echo rendered the service incomprehensible .  The Duke was laid to rest in a sarcophagus of ‘utmost rarity’ which he had originally bought on behalf of the British Museum.  It was thought to contain the body of the Queen of Amasis, but when the remains were discovered instead to be those  of a mere court–jester called Irit-irw, the Duke refunded the money.  On his last journey abroad he procured Eastern spices for his own embalmment, and would often try the sarcophagus out ‘for size’, albeit with singular lack of success since he had failed to take account of the obligatory lining and, when he died, his feet had to be cut off to crush him into his treasure.  There are no longer any Hamiltons in the crypt. When the mining set the mausoleum trembling in the 1920’s all the bodies were hauled off on coal carts to the cemetery nearby.                     
                          Mausolea are often great mansions for the dead and at Arbroath in Angus, there is one without precedent and without equal.  It was built  by Patrick Allan-Fraser of Hospitalfields  to house his parents-in-law, his wife and himself for all eternity, and as a philanthropic gesture it was also designed to give the town a mortuary chapel for their dead.  The castle-revival style of Scotland, so often lumbering, has in this case been set a ‘leaping with towers, domes and spires, all thrusting  heavenwards.  It was begun  in 1875 and continuously carved for the next 25 years by stonemason  James Peters of Arbroath, with local delights being lauded in the red sandstone of Angus: rabbits peer from pillar capitals and cranes cross their bills in a most decorative way.  There is a frog modelled on a corpse which has been brought in by children who asked for it ‘to be built  into the chapel’.  Pillars are carved as tree trunks in a variety of barks and there are quantities of bulrushes, flowers and foliage – none the same – throughout the building.  Every centimetre of the building, even that which would never be seen, has been meticulously executed and unless you are rambling on the roof you will miss the most moving of all.  There, all but hidden from view and marching around a little tower, is a humble Highland funeral – every kilted and shawled figure bowed down with grief.  Both Patrick Allan-Fraser and his wife Elizabeth were worthy patrons of local life, nurturing the best of the artists and craftsmen of Angus.    One most unexpected results of their care was the bringing to life of Nanky Poo in The Mikado – first sung by the son of the Allan-Fraser’s estate-manager whom they had sent to train as a tenor in Italy.   There are as well all too woefully know, precious few 20th century mausolea in Britain but, strange to say, those with the most unbroken line to the classical past were built in the early 1900’s as Brookwood Cemetery in Woking.  There are temples honouring the Parsees – originally the ancient Persians – who have preserved their Zoroastrian religion, in its pure form, for 3,500 years.  These three little buildings have been set down in ‘paradise’ – the ancient Persian word for garden – with plants that were all chosen because they still bear their Persian names: asparagus and spinach as well as jasmine, lilac and nectarine.  These mausolea have a dash of magic – another word with its roots in the Magi of Persia – in that they are true classical temples, uncluttered by artifice, direct descendents of their ancient ancestors from 1500bc.                             It is sad, indeed, to realise that this architecture of death with the mausoleum is all but a dead architecture in the United Kingdom  today.   Let us end though on a cheerful note; the survival of The Earl of Kilmorey’s mausoleum in Twickenham – to be seen only from the top of a bus, when,  trundling along, between Edwardian houses you suddenly spot it; over a high wall - a glimpse of Egypt, in an overgrown plot of land. It is  a perfect pink and grey granite mausoleum in the Egyptian style, that was built by the Earl for his beloved mistress Pricilla Hoste in 1850. Designed by the architect Kendall, it was first erected in Brompton Cemetery near to where Kilmorey lived, and thereafter wherever he went, so too did his mistress in her smoothly splendant home;  with it being rebuilt near to wherever he lived - this, despite the fact that he was married with a wife and children.  To add insult to injury to his spouse when 'in the mood' he would rehearse his own funeral 'summoning his servants' according to 'The Isleworth Citizen', and....dressed in 'a white garb' would proceed to the mausoleum'.  When he finally expired, he was buried in a dressing gown of  rat’s fur  and borne along an underground tunnel – built especially for the purpose -  to lie at last with his beloved! Today if you lie on the roof of his little Egyptian building, you can see, through a glass panel, both their velvet clad coffins lying side by side.   The mausoleum is now cared for by the Environment Trust, with volunteers  planting trees in the surrounding grounds. The education staff of the nearby Orleans House Gallery, the arm of the council that is responsible for the building, are hoping to  do more to encourage interest in this curious little enclave.                                So it is onwards we all go, doing what we can to ensure the survival of the multitude of mausolea and monuments that still survive throughout the land!     


Click here for Membership Application