Wickham Place is the London home of Lord and Lady Southgate, their children and staff. Located in fashionable Belgravia it is a fine Georgian terrace house.
Tonight, we are in the magnificent and opulent formal dining room of Wickham Place. There is a second, more intimate dining room used for smaller and less formal occasions, so this is known as the ‘Golden Dining Room’ by both the family upstairs and the downstairs staff because of its beautiful golden damask wallpaper and for the number of gilded frames around the room from which the Southgate ancestors look out with glazed painted gazes.
Lord and Lady Southgate are entertaining the United States Ambassador to England, Mr. Whitelaw Reid*. As a fellow American, Her Ladyship has invited a number of her friends from across the Atlantic Ocean who now live in London society like she does. This includes Viscount and Viscountess Astor** who arrived late, not an uncommon occurrence when Lady Astor is attending any function. Now, with the American style hors d’oeuvres prepared by Mrs. Bradley the Cook consumed and aperitifs drunk in the reception room, everyone has taken their seats around the long Chippendale dining table as Withers the Butler and the Wickham Place footmen prepare to serve from the Queen Anne sideboard, burgundy and Mrs. Bradley’s boeuf pressé (pressed beef) with horseradish duchesse potatoes and greens.
As it is a formal occasion, and the company quite exalted, this evening the Southgate golden candelabra, expertly polished by Withers, have been placed down the table and the gilt white Paragon dinner service is in use. These are complimented by a profusion of golden rose blooms cascading from beautiful glass vases placed intermittently down the table. These have drawn the attention of Lady Astor, a keen horticulturist and floral arranger.
“You know Vera,” she remarks. “I must compliment you on your beautiful floral arrangements this evening.”
“Thank you, Nancy.” Lady Southgate replies, smiling proudly. “That’s a great compliment coming from you. The floral bounty from the greenhouses at Cliveden never cease to delight us when we visit.”
“That’s Copcutt***. He’s a genius decorator. Did you have them sent up from Buckinghamshire?”
“I did have the roses sent up from our own greenhouses in Avendale Park, but Cecily and I arranged them here.”
“Oh that was very good of you to involve your sister-in-law.”
“I needn’t have bothered,” Lady Southgate looks disapprovingly down the table towards her husband’s youngest sister, who sits uncomfortably between two handsome young men who try to no avail to engage with her. “It was quite obvious she wasn’t interested. She thrust a handful of roses into a vase, breaking several stems and ruining some perfectly good blooms in the process before crying off with one of her headaches.”
“Yes,” Lady Astor replies wistfully, also sighting Cecily Southgate ignoring the entreaties of the two eligible young bachelors by staring steely down into her plate. “She is somewhat of a reluctant debutante, isn’t she?”
“Reluctant,” Lady Southgate scoffs. “Recalcitrant is more like it.”
“It can’t have been easy for her, Vera. Cecily,” Lady Astor sighs. “Well, she isn’t exactly the greatest beauty in London, and her mother is still renown for her beauty and intelligence.”
“Don’t I know it. You know Richard allows Lydia to have her own suite of rooms here so she can still do the round during The Season.”
“Well, she is his mother, and you have to admit that she really is too vivacious, witty and beautiful to retire to live a quiet life in Buckinghamshire. It must be hard for Cecily to always be in her mother’s shadow.”
“But that’s why I brought Cecily up to London from Avendale Park: to get her away from her mother. How can I help her blossom if Lydia just follows her, or worse proceeds her? As the current Lady Southgate, I was going to present her at court last Season.”
“But of course, Lydia had her own way, and presented her daughter herself.”
“Apparently her pedigree, even as the Dowager Southgate is better than mine as a ‘Dollar Princess’.”
“Don’t worry Vera. ‘Dollar Princesses’ outnumber those with Lydia’s pedigree in London society these days. Just look at me!”
“I’d lock Lydia in the Dower House at Avendale Park if I could.” Lady Southgate mutters quietly, grateful that her husband sits at the opposite end of the table to her and therefore cannot hear her over the polite dinner chatter and the sound of cutlery against crockery.
“Most of us would like to lock up our mother-in-laws,” Lady Astor chuckles. “Especially when they are as ageless and charming as Lydia.”
“Nevertheless, I think I’ve created a monster, bringing Cecily up from Buckinghamshire and allowing her to stay at Wickham Place whenever she wants.”
“I thought we were in agreement that your mother-in-law is already a monster.”
“No, I don’t mean Lydia. I mean Cecily.”
“Cecily?” Lady Astor looks aghast at Lady Southgate. “Whatever do you mean, Vera?”
“Well, by bringing her to London, Cecily has done more than just the season.”
“What has she done?”
“I think she’s befriended some suffragettes. I found a copy of ‘Votes for Women’ in her parlour last week.”
“Well, good for Cecily.”
“Nancy!” Lady Southgate looks askance at her friend.
“Oh pity the poor girl, Vera. If she can’t win a heart or a husband, perhaps she can win the vote. I am very supportive of women’s suffrage. In fact, if I’m being honest, I would love to be a Member of Parliament myself.”
“Nancy! Politics! Really? You shock me.”
“Yes Vera. Why should Waldorf and Richard have all the fun and affect the decisions that impact us? Well, well. I’m already seeing Cecily in a better light.”
*Mr. Whitelaw Reid was an American politician, newspaper editor and writer. He was appointed the U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St, James’ by Theodore Roosevelt in 1905. He served in this role, including during the William Howard Taft administration, until his death in 1912.
**Waldorf Astor, Second Viscount Astor and his wife Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor, Viscountess Astor were American-born members of the British aristocracy and were also British politicians. Lady Astor although not the first woman elected to the British parliament, was the first woman elected to take her seat there. Both were members of parliament at different times for Plymouth.
This year the FFF+ Group have decided to have a monthly challenge called “Snap Happy”. A different theme, or a selection of themes to choose from or combine is provided on the 5th of every month, and the image is to be posted on the 5th of the following month.
The themes for February are “lost treasures”, “on a tabletop” and “old gold”.
I decided to submit this photo because it features items on a tabletop, including some beautiful old gold roses, but more so because this upper-class domestic scene is actually made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures, some of which come from my own childhood, and was shot on my own dining room tabletop!
Fun things to look for in this tableaux include:
The Chippendale dining room table and matching chairs are very special pieces. They came from the Petite Elite Miniature Museum, later rededicated as the Carol and Barry Kaye Museum of Miniatures, which ran between 1992 and 2012 on Los Angeles’ bustling Wiltshire Boulevard. One of the chairs still has a sticker under its cushion identifying which room of which dollhouse it came. The Petite Elite Miniature Museum specialised in exquisite and high end 1:12 miniatures. The furnishings are taken from a real Chippendale design.
The table is set correctly for a five course Edwardian dinner, using cutlery, crockery and glassware from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering in the United Kingdom. Each glass is hand blown using real glass. The plates have been gilded by hand and the cutlery set is made of polished metal. The linen napkins and napkin rings were made by Karen Ladybug Miniatures in the United Kingdom. The silver cruet set, which peeps from behind the yellow roses, has been made with great attention to detail, and comes from Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. The gold candelabras on the table and the mantlepiece ate also 1:12 artisan pieces that I was given as a teenager. The gold roses are hand-made, and the bowl they sit in is made of hand blown and decorated glass. They also come from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures.
The sideboard that can be seen laden with lidded tureens, bottles of wine and Mrs. Bradley’s boeuf pressé is of Queen Anne design. It was given to me when I was six. It has three opening drawers with proper drawer pulls and each is lined with red velvet.
On the sideboard there are additional pieces of the hand gilded dinner set made by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures, silver lidded tureens from Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, and bottles of wine and a decanter made from real glass by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. The plate of beef I have had since I was a teenager when I bought it from a dollhouse specialist. The vase on the sideboard and on the pedestal by the fireplace are beautifully hand made by the Doll House Emporium.
To the left of the vase on the sideboard stands a very special sterling silver 1:12 artisan made sugar castor. The sugar castor is 1 ½ centimetres in height and half a centimetre in diameter. Its finial actually comes apart like its life size equivalent. The finial unscrews from the body so it can be filled. I am told that icing sugar can pass through the holes in the finial, but I have chosen not to try this party trick myself. A sugar castor was used in Edwardian times to shake sugar onto fruits and desserts.
The Georgian style fireplace I have had since I was a teenager and is made from moulded plaster.
All the paintings of the Southgate ancestors around the room in their gilded frames are 1:12 artisan pieces made by Amber’s Miniatures in the United States.
The flocked wallpaper is beautiful hand impressed paper given to me by a friend who encouraged me to use it as wallpaper for my 1:12 miniature tableaux.
