Where in London can you find mermaids, meet the gods Venus and Vulcan, participate in a festival of debauched madness, be inspired to eat more healthily and enjoy the capital’s poshest loo?
A strange pub quiz question, perhaps, but the answer is Charlton House.
Often overlooked — except by locals — this is a place rich in history. The house, arguably the most impressive early Jacobean mansion in the city, was completed in 1612 for Sir Adam Newton, a Scottish courtier to James VI, who came down to London when James VI of Scotland was crowned James I of England.
Newton was tutor to Prince Henry, James’s son, playing a critical role in nurturing the young prince who would become king but for his untimely death in the same year that the house was completed. Such important royal patronage required a prestigious building, so Newton commissioned an innovative design that set his home apart from the old-fashioned traditions of his Tudor neighbours. Nobody knows the architect, but it’s thought it could have been John Thorpe, who designed Holland House in Kensington among others. Or perhaps Newton might have designed it himself.
John Darlington
A long gallery for exercise and to display oil paintings of the relatives, a magnificent oak staircase, a hall, private saloon and plenty of grand bedrooms make up the statement building, but it is the ornate plasterwork and gorgeous fireplaces where Newton truly went to town. The finest room in the house is the second-floor saloon, which is dominated by a huge fireplace flanked by near life-sized statues of Vulcan and Venus. These are exquisitely carved in alabaster, most likely by the King’s master mason Nicholas Stone.
Here Vulcan, with a pair of horns denoting cuckoldry, holds his luxurious beard and gazes ruefully at his beautiful wife opposite. Venus, all but naked, stares back nonchalantly, a dark vein in the marble above her upper lip giving her the impression of a rather cavalier moustache. Throughout the house the plasterwork is full of symbolism — biblical scenes copied from 16th-century engravings, demonstrating the owner’s piety, but also themes of peace, envy, humility and death. The mermaids promised earlier sit astride a fireplace mantle holding mirrors. They are a commentary on vanity and worldly pride — a message for those admiring the many luxuries of the house not to get too above themselves on this earth.
Vulcan gazes ruefully at his beautiful wife. Venus, all but naked, stares back nonchalantly
Today Charlton House is run by the Royal Greenwich Heritage Trust and its interiors alone are well worth the trip, but there’s much interest in the gardens and park too, including the 17th-century banqueting house, which some attribute to the great British Architect Inigo Jones. This summer house, with its distinctive pyramidal swept roof, was used by Newton’s successors as a place to eat and entertain, to hold masques and to be closer to the birdsong and scents of garden. In a later life it was used as an air-raid shelter and public toilets, but has now been partially restored by the trust with the help of World Monuments Fund and others.
Nearby a lonely entrance gateway, one now isolated from the main building to which it welcomed guests, is a walled garden and a ha-ha — a sunken ditch and wall which allowed those inside the house to gaze uninterrupted over the bucolic parkland beyond, but also stopped the pesky livestock from getting in and eating all the ornamental plants.
John Darlington
Silken relics, rude rabbles
Plants, nature and gardening are celebrated at Charlton. Not only are the interiors decorated with winding vines, stylised laurels and austere lilies made from plaster or wood, but the garden once contained an orchard of mulberry trees. These were a response to James I’s request for the nobility to plant 10,000 mulberries in order that a fledgling English silk industry might rival that of our southern European neighbours. Alas, the British climate and less productive black mulberries planted here meant that the industry did not take off. Whatever remained of Charlton’s orchard was gone by the early 19th century, and only one survives, which is celebrated as the oldest surviving black mulberry in London.
Continuing Charlton’s strong horticultural theme, one of Newton’s many guests was the King’s Italian teacher, Giacomo Castelvetro, who had been horrified at his experience of Scottish and English eating habits. These, he observed, consisted mainly of meat, a lack of green vegetables and far too much sugar. While at Charlton he wrote The Fruit, Herbs and Vegetables of Italy — a celebration of the healthier Mediterranean diet of his home country. Given today’s enthusiasm wholesome eating, it’s justifiable to say that Charlton was 400 years ahead of its time — eat your artichoke heart out, Jamie Oliver. No word on Charlton’s take on turkey twizzlers, sadly.
So, do visit Charlton House and explore its fascinating past. But, depending on your taste, you might time your arrival to coincide with the annual Charlton Horn Fair, a festival with medieval origins. Daniel Defoe, the diarist, writing in the 18th century, noted that Charlton was “infamous for the yearly collected rabble of mad-people, at Horn-Fair; the rudeness of which I cannot but think, is such as ought to be suppressed, and indeed in a civiliz’d well govern’d nation, it may well be said to be unsufferable.” Sounds like rather a lot of fun.
John Darlington is director of projects for World Monuments Fund Britain