Summer 2010

Weather

Our life. like that of the farmer, is dominated by the weather.  Yet unlike the farmer we are more affected by what weather forecasters say than the actual weather.  Forecasters are like soothsayers or medicine men with the public apparently hanging on their every word. They are never away from our wireless and TV and like Alice give the impression that what they say three times is true and in their case they say it many more than three times an hour. Rain and cold appear to be their enemies against which they warn. Years ago such conditions were good for venues like ours.  In those days people had waterproofs and warm clothing and took a little rain or cold in their stride.  Nowadays everyone must always go about in shirt sleeves. Central heating and air conditioning are a modern blight as they seek to banish the seasons from most people’s lives. Houses like ours were not designed for that kind of living.

What a weather year this has been. A winter with proper cold and some snow and here some really beautiful wintry days.  When the sun is low in the sky it can produce wondrous light effects.  I now feel that a sunny day in a cold winter is among the very best days of the year and we enjoyed many of them this year. 

Since we opened in mid February (Gardens & Farm only) others did not share my view of the  cold but we had excellent snowdrops over a longer season than I can recall. Then for each of our busy Bank Holiday weekends the forecasters threat of rain (which never came) cold and damp (which did) helped keep numbers low. Between these weekends we have had (almost) non stop sun.  Indeed we’ve had no rain to speak of for months. Our Front Pond is fast drying up and the main Moat will struggle to last the summer.We are suffering signs of drought: dust everywhere, brown lawns and a very thin hay crop.  Rain is essential for our well-being and we need it regularly but forecasters seem to view it as the enemy. I do not pretend to be a soothsayer but water shortages later in the summer seem inevitable. 

Re-Creations

We are now in the middle of our Main Re-Creation of Tudor Life (it ends on Sunday 11 July) and are enjoying (suffering from ?) hot sticky weather.  Keeping visiting school-children watered to prevent dehydration has been a challenge. 

We started the Re-Creations half a lifetime ago in 1978 with a Civil War event but from 1979 it was all Tudor up until 1995.  It was then that we started our WWII Events of which we now have three a year.  (The next two are the 31 July/1 August coinciding with our Glenn Miller 1940s Concert - and first weekend in October.) 

We are always on the look-out to do something new and last Christmas we ventured into the Victorian era with our Victorian Christmas.  Each event has strong associations with Kentwell’s past.  Tudor obviously for that was the House’s heyday.  WWII because the House played its part then first to house evacuees and later was requisitioned to be the garrison for a huge Transit Camp in the Park.  Victorian because there was a large family living in the Hall in mid Victorian times which was when what we now think of as Christmas was invented. The Puritans had abolished Christmas and until Charles Dickens and Prince Albert combined (though acting independently) to re-create it there was very little to it. This year we are adding a Victorian Garden Party this August (21 & 22).  It will be interesting to see how it goes.

New Events

Every time we create a new event it involves a huge effort for what is a very small team (essentially my wife and myself and one or two dedicated helpers). We stint on nothing and then have to wait to see if what we have done is well enough received.  For the Victorian Christmas we had extraordinary weather - in this instance to help us.  Snow lay all around and snow before Christmas is a very rare event in these parts.  Everyone thinks of snow when imagining a Victorian Christmas so we could not have had a better setting. On the other hand associated with the snow it was bitterly cold and it was a struggle to keep it at bay.  With temperatures throughout the event averaging about -4 degrees C it was a struggle we lost.  We usually have quite warm days then and a temperature of ±10 degrees.  The event though was greatly enjoyed by those taking part and also by the visiting public so we shall do it again this Christmas.  Like everything else we do our Victorians Christmas was very different from what people might encounter elsewhere.  As well as having Victorians, we dressed the whole House as in Victorian times and also had a Charles Dickens reading A Christmas Carol complete with ghostly special effects. Those taking part had great fun and the public much enjoyed it too.  We only hope that none think we laid on the snow especially for them and will do so every year !

The Victorian Garden Party on 21& 22 August - truth to tell the idea for this was to give our Victorians a day in the sun after their freezing at Christmas but like a lot of ideas this is gradually developing a life of its own. I have this notion of what Victorian Garden Parties were like.  Today’s Garden Party is very different.  Ladies dressed in their finest still abound and show off but none of the activities which graced the Victorian precedent. If you want to find out how we get on with it you’ll have to come to see it !

Our Scaresville Event is also new in these terms.  It started in small way in 2007. I liked the notion of creating scares.  It fed my creative juices.  I attended a conference held in a barn on a cold wet day and came away enthused. I thought not only that we could do that but that we could do it better than anyone. So 2007 was a sort of trial and the response a great encouragement to us.  Scareville became established in 2008 and was bigger and better in 2009 when it won the award for the best Halloween Event in the country.  This was very satisfying when there are so many other well established venues with comparatively huge budgets.  

Most of our Events have a (quite high) degree of replication to them. This approach simply does not work for Scaresville where most scares are the product of created surprises and there is no surprise when the visitor knows what’s coming. Though of course we can use the visitor’s anticipation against them. However, each year we have to come up with something new or new angles on previous notions. In one way this is a delightful challenge but in another it is very daunting.

As a taster for Scaresville we are thinking of organizing an Open Air screening of Witchfinder General based upon the real Matthew Hopkins who in Civil War days roamed this area finding out witches. It was filmed in these parts in 1969 some of it actually at Kentwell. Some think it the scariest film ever made. We are hoping to incorporate aspects of Hopkins into Scaresville this year but more than that I will not say. Personally I wouldn’t go anywhere myself just to be scared but happily there are others who think differently.

This year Scaresville will run for a fortnight from 15 October right up to Halloween itself - booking opens on 1 August.

Functions etc

It is strange how we get pigeonholed in peoples’ minds.  Some think we only do Tudor Events, others only Concerts and now there are some who think we only do Scaresville.  Few people realise that we do EVERYTHING ! Partly because we enjoy the variety but also because we must go where the income is.  Judith has been doing Weddings here for nearly 30 years but we do relatively few weddings compared with many another venue, about 15 or so each year and each one special.  We cannot imagine how people can do 60 or 70 a year let alone, as with the big wedding factories, 300 or 400 a year.  We feel that all semblance of individuality is lost at these sort of levels which are the supermarket equivalents.  We like to think of ourselves as providing something rare - not just a special day (which every wedding should be) but a very special day.  We particularly delight in special or unusual requests.  We have a number of weddings where people wish to devise their own Ceremony, not a legal one, but something that will have great meaning for them. With what Kentwell has to offer we always have or can fashion the perfect location.

We also do a few Conferences, Corporate, Family or Activity Days each year.  I delight in devising challenging or just fun activities for such occasions. Then we have Dinners from the grand for quite a large company to smaller intimate affairs and quite modest ones too using the Great Kitchen where we can seat 25 in kitchen comfort. We even host  Retreats for barnstorming - hard and intense work relieved by fun & games after dinner.  Indeed in these difficult financial times we do very few but those we do do are no less stimulating for us to arrange. 

Open Air Entertainments

We are masochists, I suppose, in persisting with our short summer season when every-thing (weather and economy) appears to conspire against us. It is a monumental effort for a small House such as ours to put on such a season and to do it all ourselves. We are one of the few Houses to do so.  Most let the venue and leave another to put on and promote what they will. This means that we take the financial hit ourselves if for one reason or another it is not a success.  We do have one compensation and that is that we choose and control the performances we put on.  There is delight in having a performance of something you favour in your own garden.  Often that proves a costly indulgence but always some recompense. We are advised that we should go for what the public like not what we ourselves enjoy. 

This year we again have Shakespeare (Merry Wives and As You Like It) which we have been doing for nearly 30 years.  Unfortunately Shakespeare is not as popular as it was in the 1980s and 1990s when few venues put it on Open Air. This is sad because the standard of our current performers is very high and we now have larger casts in place of the doubling up of earlier years. I do recommend the current company highly and hope many of you will find come along. 

Our Gilbert & Sullivan this year is my favourite of all their collaborations The Pirates of Penzance. I’ve lost count of the number of times I have seen it but I always enjoy it.  It is such rollicking good fun.  I know the South Anglia Savoy Players will do a topping performance one that I expect to scoop all the prizes when they take it into competition.  The two choruses, especially the policemen are what this company does best. Happily tickets are selling well.  

We have another Glenn Miller 1940s Night - our 11th I think it is. I have always had a weakness for Glenn Miller’s music and it does not pall after all these years.  People like it because, apart from the Glenn Miller sound still proving popular, many can come dressed up in 1940s gear. There is also great enthusiasm for jiving and jitterbugging.  The classes we hold before the performance proper starts are always packed out and the demonstrations greatly enjoyed.

We have at last managed to pair what I think are the best Elvis and the best Freddy Mercury tribute performers in the business to create The King & Queen Concert.  If you like either Elvis or Queen you are in for a real treat. As they are both absolutely cracking performers. Over 50 years ago I shared a flat with a chap who was an Elvis look-a-like a happy chance which we shamelessly milked to gatecrash no end of parties. Why not get out your blue suede shoes and drain pipe trousers and sturt about as you did 50 years ago ?

We end our little season with A Last Night of the Proms again featuring the London Gala Orchestra and a big choir to deliver Betthoven’s Ode to Joy and many other favourites leading up to the usual Last Night fare.  It should all prove great fun.  

House Opening

Amid all the Events we put on some people don’t realise that there are days when you can visit to enjoy just House & Gardens without the distraction, if you see it as such, of a special event.  We have many such days during school holidays.