Artist and illustrator Kate McGuire’s Seed to Table exhibition, currently on display in the Terrace Gallery, is an insight into the plants in the Walled Garden.

Q – You spent a year’s residency in the Walled Garden, can you tell us more about this time?

In 2013 I was looking for a traditional walled garden to spend a year developing my knowledge and experience of plants in my practice – primarily plant studies or plant portraits, as I like to call them. The invitation for the residency at Harewood House gave me unlimited access to the gardens and the glass houses which are normally off limits to the public. I had the ear and the eye of Head Gardener, Trevor Nicholson, whose knowledge is second to none. I was generally at Harewood one or two days a week, and often on those days I would snatch Trevor from his busy schedule, to walk with him in the grounds, talking about the plants, the history of the garden and the buildings, and usually securing a new subject for my studies.

Q – Kate, you describe your exhibition as a 3D sketchbook, can you explain more about this?

I do have a sketchbook fetish, borne out of my art college training at Harrogate and Central school of art. Both art colleges were big on the importance of documenting process and development and that has stayed with me. Previously I had kept my studies to beautiful bound sketchbooks I’d bought in Berlin. Perhaps it was the scale of the garden which allowed me to open up to the larger studies you can see in the exhibition. There was no plan as such for how I would work during the residency and no pressure to create ‘final images’, so my objective was simply to observe and document line, shape, colour and capture some of the ‘personality’ of the plants. I would start with one A2 sheet and the plant of my choice, and add pages as the drawing commanded. What you see in the Terrace Gallery is the primary sketchbook work (which I would normally keep tucked away in plan chests) from which I created some limited-edition prints, and the range of cards, mini prints and notebook specifically for Harewood.

Q – What do you love about what you do?

I am constantly in awe of what nature provides – I spent a lot of time on my bike in Berlin, looking at what wild plants were thriving in the city streets, and along the banks of the waterways in industrial and neglected parts of the city. The beauty and tenacity of wild uncultivated plants, which many people would consider to be weeds, is for me a source of inspiration and joy. For example, the simple dandelion – what a plant! It’s so successful as a species, so exquisite in its method of reproduction, every leaf on every plant in existence this minute, is unique…. I could go on. Looking at nature like this creates a reverence in me which sometimes demands that I really take time to look at something, find out about its history in folklore, it’s common and botanical names, its medicinal and nutritional properties. At Harewood, I had the opportunity to look at more cultivated plants, and access the beautiful fruit houses and greenhouses which are tucked away behind the garden walls. I got to find out about how little fireplaces along the exterior walls were used to heat the glass houses, and see original plans of the garden site. What I do feeds my mind and my senses and literally, leads me down the most unexpected garden paths!

Q – Do you have a particular favourite part of the exhibition?

It would have to be the fly posted piece – It’s a rare treat to have the space to lay out so many pieces of work in one room, and an extraordinary experience to be given the opportunity to fly post directly onto the walls of an 18th century stately home! Having spent many years in the fly posting trade I like to bring that into my work where possible. There’s a quality about it which I find beautiful and I love the shift of scale it allows. I did some new studies with this in mind for the exhibition, which show the development of a broad bean from ‘seed to table’. I’m fascinated by what is going on underground as well as above and get an insight into the ‘private life’ of the produce which we see in our supermarkets all picked and packaged. Installing it was fun too – I made a little time lapse film which you can see on my website shortly.

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‘Seeds of Hope’ sound designers Buffalo give us an insight into their approach to this special project

We were delighted to be asked to collaborate with Lord Whitney again, having previously worked with them on The Wood Beneath The World at Leeds Town Hall. The themes of self-sufficiency, resilience, healing and hope really appealed to us.

We knew that getting the tone of the piece right was crucial. We wanted to convey the solemn context and to encourage reflection, but we were also keenly aware to avoid sentimentality. The project needed to communicate gratitude and optimism at its core.

We were given access to the Lord Whitney research, which meant that we could immerse ourselves in the stories of the time, some specific to Harewood and the surrounding area, some not. We discussed the intended narrative and had a chance to look through some of writer David Allison’s work to get a sense of where the characters would fit in and how much of the sound needed to link to them and convey their stories.

It quickly became clear to us that the project required natural, acoustic sounds as it was focused so firmly on the regenerative powers of the natural world – the gardens as a provider and place of healing. We decided early on that the two rooms of The Bothy should be treated differently to the outside spaces. Inside, we looked at manipulating ‘found’ sounds. We determined that the music didn’t need to ‘tell a story’, as John the Bothy Boy’s journal would do this. Instead, we created an abstract, ambient soundscape that would give visitors a sense of time being fluid, that your senses had been disrupted and you are hearing echoes of the past in the present.

We wanted to convey a sense of the slow, almost imperceptible growth of plants over time and have this interlink with repetitive sounds of human activity across the years. You’ll hear the drag of garden tools on stone, the knock of crock pots, what could be the gentle unfurling of leaves and the creak of expanding wood. In the Head Gardener’s office you hear the echo of footsteps and are introduced to the beautiful ‘The World Is Waiting for The Sunrise’ (music by Ernest Seitz, lyrics by Gene Lockhart) in the form of a distant tuneful whistle.

In the Walled Garden you come to the poignant Seeds of Hope sunflower installation in the Glasshouses, representing the 1,269 soldiers who were cared for at Harewood House when it was an auxiliary hospital. We introduced melody and instrumental sounds, attempting to convey the dignity, healing and hope that we felt the sunflowers represent. We used the cello to introduce parts of the melody from ‘The World Is Waiting For The Sunrise’ and, drawing on our research again, this time from a piece in the Harewood Parish magazine, which notes how the soldiers would enjoy watching the sunflowers turn, we recorded cello tuning keys, which creak as they tighten the strings, to represent this poignant image. You also hear a series of overlapping, high-pitched tones that feature in all the pieces but are most prominent here.

The First World War was the first truly industrial war and little thought had been given to the effect of new technologies on the human ear drum. As a result, many soldiers suffered at least some degree of immediate hearing loss. This led to sergeants using high pitched whistles as a method of communicating with their charges as this was the only sound that they could all hear. The whistling tones that you’ll hear are intended to call back to the soldiers’ time on the front line and to recognise that, beyond the injuries obvious to the eye, they suffered a multitude of less obvious physical and mental injuries that would often stay with them long after their recuperation.

After tracing the paths through the Peace Meadow you come to the Orchard, where our final piece ties together the three pieces. Again you hear the cello, this time backed by repeated, metronomic piano chords, as it moves from abstraction to the slow, poignant and now complete melody of ‘The World Is Waiting For The Sunrise’, albeit with an altered time signature, intended to convey a sense of solemn reflection and finally cautious, peaceful optimism.

Listen to the tracks

Find out more about Buffalo

Two new electric shuttles are now transporting hundreds of visitors around Harewood, in another step forward towards the charity’s environmental goals.

The new buses have been specially commissioned and built bespoke, to adapt to the needs of Harewood, including the ability to navigate the steep inclines down to the Lake and to accommodate wheelchairs, for which they have a special ramp. Doors and windows provide shelter from the inclement Yorkshire weather (the previous shuttles were more like golf buggies) and users have been delighted by the quiet where they can hear more from their driver as part of a much more luxurious trip than ever before.

The modern, silent buses can seat seven people, and six people when a wheelchair is on board. Charged each evening, they can then run effectively, and more efficiently than the previous shuttles, for the duration of the day, picking visitors up from 11am and continuing right thorough until the last shuttles at 5pm.

You might not know, but the majority of the shuttles are run by a team of Harewood volunteers, including Martin and Tim, who provide a wealth of information and good Yorkshire character to visitors needing a lift from the Courtyard to the House and even up to the entry archway.

The short film features Martin, our longest standard volunteer of 20 years! Spot the the kids in shorts on their scooters despite the rain.

Maria Mahon, Kitchen Gardener, Harewood House

Walk around the walled garden today and you’ll see some wonderful examples of heritage kale growing in our vegetable beds.

Check out the glorious display of contrasting colours and textures, ranging from the slender, dark green blistered leaves of ‘Nero di Toscana (1792)’, a variety which reaches over 5ft tall and is sometimes referred to as ‘Black Kale’; to the voluptuous, mid-green, densely curled leaves of the ‘Dwarf Green Curled (1779)’ which, as the name suggests, is a shorter variety reaching just 2ft high.

As part of Seeds of Hope, reimagining the Walled Garden 100 years ago, we have brought the kale on early so visitors can see, hear and read about all this super food.

Kale would have been a dominant feature in the Brassica beds of 1918. It has many virtues and fits with the pressing need at that time for reliable, prolific and nutritious crops. It has gained momentum as a super food over the past few years, one reason being that it contains six times more calcium and seven times more vitamin A than an average portion of broccoli.

Gardeners would have found it easy to cultivate, as it tolerates relatively poor soils and doesn’t suffer quite so much from all the usual pests and diseases which can ruin a crop of many of the others in the Brassica family. And it is generally a very hardy plant, with many varieties able to withstand a hard winter frost. Indeed, kale contains its own ‘anti-freeze’, which actually makes the leaves taste much sweeter after a frost; Brussel sprouts share this quality too.

Whilst cultivating this latest version in the Walled Garden, it has become clear that our much-loved green vegetable can be grown practically all-year-round, which would have made it ideal during the wartime. Its cut-and-come-again ability is just another boost to its super power crop and by picking a few leaves from the bottom of each plant, from several plants at a time, it can provide a constant supply of fresh greens for the dinner table for many months. New leaves from the top of the plant just keep growing, leaving  a large, thick green stem at the end of its productive life. Depending on the variety and the harvesting, one kale plant can last anything from 3-6 months, making it a wartime staple.

Steamed, fried, softened in butter, there are some wonderfully inventive and tasty kale recipes, some of our favourite links are below. The kale will continue to look good in the garden for the next few months as we continue to cultivate and plant.

Kale and chickpea curry recipe

Kale recipes

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Harewood House Trust has marked the tercentenary of Thomas Chippendale with the acquisition of a copy of his famous catalogue of furniture designs, The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker’s Director.  Read the latest instalment of the Chippendale300 journey from Professor Ann Sumner, Historic Collections Advisor.

This copy is a 2nd edition dated 1755 and was owned by the 1st Earl of Harewood. In excellent condition it was acquired from a New York dealer by Simon Phillips at Ronald Phillips Ltd, who generously donated the volume back to the Harewood House Trust permanent collection.

The fine, engraved armorial bookplate is of Edward Lascelles, 1st Earl of Harewood (1740 – 1820), cousin of Edwin Lascelles who commissioned the Chippendale firm at Harewood and who succeeded him. It has a fine 19th century, brown morocco and gilt binding, by Riviere and Sons of Bath, with a spine in seven compartments and the crest of the Earl of Harewood, decorated with fine gilt tools, with gilt edges. It is in overall excellent condition.

The Gentleman and Cabinet Maker’s Director by Thomas Chippendale, 2nd edition 1755, with 19th century brown Morocco leather and gilt binding, Harewood House Trust.

Chippendale produced the first edition of The Gentleman and Cabinetmaker’s Director in 1754 as a commercial enterprise to improve his professional reputation and attract new business. He could not have envisaged its wider success, the impact it would have on 18th century furniture styles and his own legacy. It is the very reason that so many people today still know the name ‘Thomas Chippendale’ while some of his talented rival cabinetmakers are not as renowned today. Chippendale explained the title in the preface, ‘as being calculated to assist the one in the choice, and the other in the execution of the designs, which are so contrived that if no one drawing should singly answer the Gentleman’s taste, there will yet be found a variety of hints sufficient to construct a new one’. The planning of the publication throughout 1753, was no doubt organised to coincide with his significant move in 1754 to St Martin’s Lane and to a new workshop, with the formation of a relationship with financing partner the Scot, James Rannie of Leith, so his firm would be ready and prepared for any new custom it generated. He worked closely with the talented engraver Matthias Darly who produced the illustrations from Chippendale’s drawings, many of these original designs for the Director survive in the MMA New York and in the V&A.

While some furniture designs had occasionally been published before 1754, Thomas Chippendale’s Director was the first ambitious publication on such a large scale. It included designs for ‘Household Furniture’ in the ‘Gothic’, ‘Chinese’ and ‘Modern Taste’, the latter referring to what would today be termed the French Rococo style. The Director was initially launched in April 1754, with 308 supporters signing up, many of these were tradesmen with some architects and sculptors as well as potential patrons from the nobility and gentry. The majority of those who subscribed however, were craftsmen engaged in the furniture trade.

It was a relatively expensive publication compared to the slim volumes of furniture designs gathered together previously. Subscribers pre-publication, would have paid £1 14 s 0d for bound copies or, after publication £2 2s 0d. Chippendale recognised the advantages commercially of gaining orders from booksellers and attracted four London dealers as subscribers too but the only regional bookseller was Stabler and Barstow of York. The quick publication of a second edition the following year, which was basically a reprint of the original with corrections indicates the popular success of the Director. It was clearly a central tool in generating new commissions for his firm and it is a copy of the 2nd edition which Harewood House Trust has recently acquired. Undoubtedly the publishing of the Director was a success. All major known commissions by the Chippendale firm date from after its publication. The first two volumes contained 161 engraved plates showing a rich range of fashionable household furniture. The first two editions were dedicated to the Earl of Northumberland, a distinguished patron of the arts. Many aristocrats ordered copies of the Director but the majority of subscribers were practicing tradesmen.

Ribband Back Chairs, an engraving from Chippendale’s Director, 1755 Harewood House Trust.

The finest example of a commission closely related to the Director designs is at Dumfries House in Ayreshire, Scotland, which is where I went recently to lecture and to see the magnificently preserved early furniture. The fact that a copy of the 2nd edition was in the Lascelles family possession suggests that this book potentially belonged to Edwin Lascelles and was inherited by his cousin the 1st Earl of Harewood and that it influenced Edwin’s decision making a decade later when he decided to employ Thomas Chippendale at Harewood, although we cannot prove this book actually belonged to him. The only fully documented Chippendale furniture dating from the period when the Director was published and illustrating his fully Roccoco period is that at Dumfries House, making it a unique survival of the Chippendale firm’s activities in the 1750s.

By contrast, Edwin Lascelles at Harewood was not commissioning Chippendale until the late 1760s. Thomas Chippendale first came to Harewood in 1767 and his first furniture arrived here in 1769, so over 15 years after the first publication of Director. Harewood therefore is an example of his later mature Neo-Classical furniture, rather than his early Rococo style. Nevertheless there are still illustrated plates in the book which closely relate to furniture at Harewood today. The acquisition of this copy of the Director, returning it to Harewood in Chippendale’s tercentenary year, was extremely important to us in piecing together the influences there may have been on Edwin Lascelles when he made the decision to employ Chippendale for the firm’s most lavish and expensive commission, which would late over 30 years and be completed by Thomas Chippendale Junior.

The publication of the Director also inspired other workshops to emulate this success and create their own furniture pattern books. Chippendale responded to a weekly publication by William Ince and John Mayhew with the publication of his own 3rd revised edition of the Director in 1762 and rose to £3 for a bound copy. The third edition was a significant expansion, reflecting the changing taste of the period with a significant shift towards Neo-Classicism and Chippendale’s response to what other rivals were doing too. It contained 200 engraved illustrations and was dedicated to HRH Prince William Henry. Ten original plates were discarded and 50 new engravings were included. This third edition was published five years before Chippendale set foot in Edwin Lascelle’s new house at Harewood, reflecting how established the workshop was by the time he was commissioned to furnish the Adam interiors at Harewood.

We might have assumed that the Lascelles family would have owned a third edition of the Director, but this was not the case, it was an earlier second edition that passed down in the family. The three editions of the Director have played a significant part in Thomas Chippendale’s legacy not only in Britain but it ensured his international reputation, influencing design in France, Spain, Scandinavia and crucially in America. We are not alone in celebrating the acquisition of a copy of the Director – the Chippendale Society announced in January 2018 that they had acquired a copy of the Director in French, a very rare edition which was actually owned by a German Friedrich Otto von Munchhausen (d 1797) who was the model for the fictional Baron Munchausen. This Director has its original leather binding Germany was one of the most receptive markets for the book, as well as France and we even know that Catherine the Great of Russia owned a copy.

Visiting Dumfries House last month in the middle of the heatwave, I was shown around by head guide John Morrison who pointed out a wealth of Chippendale’s fine mahogany furniture, extravagant Rococo mirrors and a unique moment in the Earl of Dumfries’ study where the fine mahogany library table, with rich ormolu handles, supplied in 1759 is on view. Resting on the desk is a copy of Chippendale’s Director, the later edition of 1762 open on a plate illustrating a very similar desk. That copy of the Director is on loan to Dumfries House from another famous Yorkshireman Alan Titchmarch. The Earl had visited London in early 1759 and Chippendale’s workshop in St Martin’s Lane. It proved to be an expensive shopping expedition as he was so taken by Chippendale’s designs. By May 1759, 39 crates of furniture arrived safely in Scotland, despite Chippendale’s concerns about damage en route from London.

At Harewood today there is one particular pair of commodes which relates to the Director designs. For decades now we have referred to two fine mahagony commodes as the ‘Goldsborough Commodes’ and one of the pair was lent to the excellent exhibition in Leeds Thomas Chippendale 1718 – 1779: A Celebration of British Craftsmanship and Design which closed in June this year. They probably date from earlier in Chippendale’s career than the main Harewood commission, perhaps stylistically to c 1765 We’ve always thought that they were supplied by Chippendale to Daniel Lascelles of Goldsborough Hall, the bachelor brother of Edwin Lascelles, who commissioned him at Harewood. Chippendale’s men worked at Goldsborough on various dates between 1771 and 1776 and there is a considerable group of furniture, later transferred to Harewood and elsewhere, which can be securely shown to have been designed for Goldsborough, notably from the dining room. However, Adam Bowett who was co-curator of the Leeds exhibition has clearly demonstrated that these two rococo commodes are not mentioned in the 1801 inventory of Goldsborough, nor in the Princess Royal’s list of furniture transferred from there to Harewood in 1930. He therefore, proposes that they were made for Harewood all along and were among the numerous mahogany chests of drawers recorded in the 1795 inventory. Could it be that they were early purchases which encouraged Edwin Lascelles to return to Chippendale when he required major pieces for his newly built Harewood House?

One of a pair of commodes (c. 1765-70) at Harewood House, previously thought to have been made for Daniel Lascelles at Goldsborough Hall.

The commodes are typically Rococo in style and demonstrate Chippendale’s typical design elements with their serpentine profile and the double ogee at the front and side aprons. Again there are scrolled foliate cartouches at each corner, carved volute feet, S-shaped keyholes and distinctively designed brass handles.Both are now united and displayed in the same room in Lord Harewood’s Sitting Room on the State Floor. Chippendale illustrated six ‘French Commode Tables’ (that is the ‘Modern’ or what we would call Roccoco style today) in the 1754 and 55 editions of the Director and altogether ten in the expanded 1762 edition. It was clearly a genre and style endured with his patrons and where he felt comfortable but Adam Bowett points out in the luxurious new catalogue for the exhibition that this commode ‘has hints of a nascent neo-Classicism seen in the oval paterae at the sides of the angle brackets in addition to the use of acanthus leaves, beading and husk flowers’ and he draws attention to the top drawer which ‘opens to reveal a baize-lined sliding shelf, bordered in mahogany, either for brushing clothes or for writing’. Recently taking students form the Attingham Summer School around Harewood we were able to open these draws and illustrate this to their gasps of amazement.

French Commode Table, a preparatory drawing for Chippendale’s Director and published in the 1754 and 1755 editions. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Today we open the Director on a page which illustrates one of Chippendale’s designs for ‘French Commode Tables’ which is very similar indeed to our ‘Goldsborough’ commodes, for while they may no longer be felt to have been made for Goldsborough and have in fact most likely been here at Harewood over the centuries, old habits die hard and we shall have now to remind ourselves that they are better described as the Harewood Rococo commodes!

Ann Sumner, Historic Collections Advisor for Harewood House Trust, and guide John Morrisson at Dumfries House

I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to Dumfries and the opportunity to see a Collection which relates so closely to the designs in the Director and on 1 August, Yorkshire Day, I lectured here at Harewood for our members celebrating the legacy of one of Yorkshire’s most famous sons. We hope to welcome you to Harewood to see our new Director on display this summer and our exhibition Designer, Maker, Decorator which runs until 2 September 2018.