Marcus Binney is one of the unsung heroes of the last 50 years. He has saved more of England’s built heritage than any other person alive. When he founded SAVE (Save Britain’s Heritage) in the mid-1970s with no more than a wing and a prayer, nobody had any idea that the organisation would become the stormtroopers of heritage. He once told me that his stepfather, a decorated soldier, had advised him: “It doesn’t matter what you do in life, whether you are a soldier, a poet or an architectural historian, the most important quality is courage.” This Marcus has had in spades, holding every secretary of state to account and perhaps, for this reason, he has never received his dues. It is good, therefore, that he recently won the European Heritage Champion Award.
Nothing is so strange as someone else’s school, their ceremonies and rituals. At the beginning of September, Sir Nicholas Coleridge, my friend of 50 years, was installed (into his designated seat in the chapel, as far as I could tell) as provost of Eton. In a mixture of Black Rod, Blackadder and Game of Thrones, the ceremony began with Nick hammering on the gates to be let in. Gathering in the splendour of the beautiful School Yard, we waited as the governors read a letter of affirmation from the King (who appoints the provost) before speeches, three thunderous cheers, a trumpet fanfare and Matins. Lunch followed, and the only hitch to a wonderful day came when the gas supply was cut off. If hot roast beef was off the menu, the kitchens heroically whipped up cold salmon for 200. <em>Floreat Etona!</em>
We spent August on a crawl of northern churches and abbeys in Yorkshire (my childhood county), before going up to County Durham and across to Lancashire. En route we took in the Noel family’s tombs at Exton by way of the submerged Normanton church at Rutland Water. There followed a splendid diet of 19th-century heroes: GF Bodley at Clumber Park and William Burgess at Newby Hall and Studley Royal, the last a jewel ignored by most visitors in favour of the more spectacular Fountains Abbey at the other end of the garden. Then on to Byland and finally Rievaulx, seen between the Palladian follies on the terraces above. Wandering through this most perfect of spots put me in mind of Virginia Woolf: “How England consoles and warms one, in these deep hollows, where the past stands almost stagnant.” A highlight of the trip was a day at Bishop Auckland, admiring the Bishop’s Palace, the Faith Museum and the gallery of Spanish art with Jonathan and Jane Ruffer. Their achievements are incredible – I raise my mitre to them.
Collectors of old books and things dream of a space in which to live and lay everything out. Stephen Calloway and Susan Owens have created just such a house in their wonderful restoration of the Foresters Hall at Debenham. We were there to discuss Sir Roy Strong, whose authorised biographer I have become. Interviewing that elegant generation who caught the end of the 1960s and made a splash with their peacock feathers, I am enjoying myself enormously. This stylish new world did not, however, please everybody. As the young director of the National Portrait Gallery, Roy was famously accosted by one of the trustees, Sir Gerald Templer: “Strong, get your hair cut!” Unphased, Roy shot straight back: “Field Marshal, my hair is the same length as that of Prince Rupert at the Battle of Edgehill!” One of Roy’s greatest concerns has been the fate of parish churches, and he is a passionate proponent of adaptation. If anybody has any memories or anecdotes about him, please do get in touch.
I recently published a book about my old life in the art world: Rogues and Scholars: Boom and Bust in the London Art Market, 1945-2000. I have been on tenterhooks as to whether or not the Times Saturday magazine will run an interview with me about it by Rachel Campbell-Johnston. An excellent journalist, Rachel inevitably began her piece with the usual clichés about the “snooty” art world, of which I must be the embodiment. This had the comic effect that when the photographer arrived to illustrate the piece, his instruction from the editor was to pile in as many grand portraits as possible and I was reduced to an all but indistinguishable figure in the corner. By the time this column comes out, the piece may or may not yet have appeared between the usual features on pop stars and men with tattoos.
Questions after my first lecture on my book at the Edinburgh National Gallery began with the tease: “Which are you then, a rogue or a scholar?” I was tempted to respond with that old Yorkshire expression, best enunciated in a Dales accent: “Cheeky monkey!”
<em>James Stourton is a former Chairman of Sotheby’s UK. His new book, Rogues and Scholars, is published by Bloomsbury</em>
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