Your Nearness Will Give The King Comfort..

...well it was a good idea perhaps but Wallis Simpson didn't take up the offer from Perry Brownlow of Belton House as a hideaway before fleeing to France around the time of Edward VIII abdication and I'm not really surprised, as historian Anne Sebba suggests in her article about Wallis Simpson's relationship with Belton House. Edward, however, was a fan of the estate in Lincolnshire and had a personal connection to the family.

I visited Belton and allowed my imagination to run wild while in a country house which has links to my small obsession: Edward & Wallis, my on going paintings of and about Wallis Simpson can be found here.

The Tapestry room was the first room I walked into after the grand marble hall, and it is lovely. Its the room that feels most like the occupants had just popped out. An antique radio softly plays 1930's music, the lighting is subdued and the furnishing cosy but grand at the same time. Scattered on side boards and the piano are pictures of Wallis & Edward at various times during their early life together.

The photograph on the piano was taken at their wedding, another is of Wallis while she worked with the red cross during the war, signed and with an inscription that I couldn't make out. This was the only very obvious display linking Belton House with Royalty, everything else, other than naming a bedroom 'The Windsor Room' is more subtle, a painting here and there and books about Windsor Castle upon the book shelves.

I have never felt as at home in a country house room as I did in the The Tapestry Room. I really did want to ask everyone to leave because I was going to put my feet up, read the paper and listen to the radio.

The Windsor Bedroom

Bathroom leading from the Windsor room,

At Belton House I got really distracted by the bathrooms, there are two open to the public, one has been chopped about and carved from its joining room, long narrow and oddly fascinating, how would one even move about comfortably within it? The other was far more grand and yet charmingly shabby at the same time and is attached to the Windsor bedroom. This bathroom is the most wonderful shade of light blue but with the blind down it is dark and solitary in feel, a loosely painted female nude hangs on one wall, a floral arm chair in a corner, the toilet and bath neatly partitioned along one side of the room.

There was something striking about this bathroom, more so than the bedroom next door. More intimate some how with the thought of a guest getting ready for the day or making preparations for sleep and because of the way the house is designed the bathroom is, rightly so, the most private room and despite its less than feminine colour this felt very much like a room for the use of a female. Of course much of this could be down to the way the bathroom has been subsequently dressed. I'm not sure I want to know really.

There are several busts dotted around the house, I liked the ones that were in surprising places such as above doors and high atop book shelves. I'm still really taken with busts and marble at the moment.

One of the volunteers explained to us that the house is dark because thats how it would have been originally, with its candle light chandeliers. There are allot of large mirrors surrounded by gold placed about the walls in the hope of reflecting what light there is back into the room. I loved this Belton gloom.

I understand completely why Wallis Simpson would perhaps not want to stay here, it is dark and some what imposing inside and although beautiful and secluded outside it would have felt far remote from the city and life of London. Perfect for me, not so much for a socialite. This house is dark and encourages thoughtfulness and reflection. I imagined it to have been be a relaxing escape rather than a gilded cage.

Belton House

I definitely allowed fact and daydream to muddle up a bit here. I think its a theme with these houses, they encourage it.

I was taken with the black and white floor in one of the entrances, almost as much as I was at Chatsworth, I havn't really got to the bottom of why.

You can see more pictures from Belton House and gardens on my Flickr.

The Yellow bedroom was one of my favourite rooms, perhaps because it was empty of furniture, only paintings hung on the fadded walls, depicting family and children it was the one place that felt full of ghosts, not the woo ooo kind, just the remnants of past occupants.

'Your Nearness will give the king comfort, you will not be completely cut off from him. From Belton you can bring your influence to bear and restrain him from any hasty or irretrievable action. meanwhile Kitty and I can look after you' The Heart Has Its Reasons, A Memoir by The Duchess Of Windsor, 1956