Send us a textIn his mid 20s, Lutyens fell passionately in love with Lady Emily Lytton, daughter of the Earl Lytton, a diplomat and Viceroy of India who had really wanted to be a poet. He pursued her ardently, writing letters that were romantic, delightful and often funny. Beating down opposition from Lady Emily’s family, they got marriage in 1897 but were an unlikely couple. She hated bearing children and domesticity. He was often away from home, on an endless round of visits to clients, country houses and building sites. Frustrated and feeling neglected, Emily found spiritual satisfaction in the newly invented religion of Theosophy, falling hook, line and sinker for its beautiful Indian world leader, Jiddu Krishnamurti — an embarrassment for Lutyens when he was designing the Viceroy’s House and laying out the new capital of the Raj, New Delhi. In middle age the architect developed an intimate relationship with the rich and domineering Lady Sackville. And yet husband and wife never ceased to be close, as their letters attest.In this week’s episode Clive and John examine the role that Lady Emily played in Lutyens’s life and vice-versa, with all the joys and heartache, frustration and rhapsodic moments of this singular marriage.
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56:30
Lutyens and Hudson: Huddy and Ned
Send us a textSir Edwin (Ned) Lutyens’s old friend Edward Hudson founded Country Life in 1897. A London printer, he was not a countryman, but commissioned three country houses as well as the Country Life office in Covent Garden. Convinced of Lutyens’s genius, he also ‘boomed’ him through the magazine and lost no opportunity to promote his career.Nobody could be better placed to discuss this extraordinary creative partnership than Clive and John, both of whom are closely associated with the magazine that is Hudson’s legacy.Although not outwardly charismatic, Huddy — as Lutyens called him — had one grande if not wholly required amour. This was for the fiery Portuguese cellist Guilhermina Suggia, who played to his guests. Perhaps there were hidden depths.
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59:40
Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll: Home and Garden
Send us a textThe first of a series on the early-20th-century architect Sir Edwin Lutyens, this episode examines the relationship between the young Ned — gangly, witty, shy — and the craftswoman turned gardener Gertrude Jekyll, his senior by 25 years. With her deep instinct for crafts and passionate attachment to Surrey, she shaped the boyish architect and introduced him to many of his best early clients. She describes the building of Munstead Wood, the house outside Godalming which he designed for her, in her book Home and Garden.
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57:59
The Majesty and Splendour of Westminster Hall
Send us a textClive and John discuss one of the most spectacular medieval buildings in Britain, Westminster Hall. Originally built by William the Conqueror’s heir, the voracious William Rufus, it was a structure of immense ambition — said to be the biggest hall of its kind north of the Alps. In the 14th-century, this huge space was reimagined as a statement of royal majesty by art-loving Richard ll; carved angels looked down on the divinely appointed king from the hammer beam roof. Ironically, this would be where Charles I was tried and condemned to death in 1649. Attached to the Houses of Parliament, this ancient space remains a natural setting for great national events, such as addresses given to Parliament by visiting foreign dignitaries or HM Queen Elizabeth II’s lying in state in 2022.
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King Charles III's Royal Passion for Architecture
Send us a textOne of the greatest of HM the King’s many enthusiasms is architecture. He made his first pronouncements on the subject in 1984 with the famous ‘Carbuncle’ speech and has been championing the causes of tradition, community, Classicism and Transylvania ever since. After 40 years it is time to take stock of his achievement, seen most obviously in the model town extensions (Poundbury outside Dorchester, Nansledan outside Newquay) that are the Duchy of Cornwall’s visionary answer to the housing crisis, but also at Dumfries House, which he rescued from break up. Thanks to the training programmes he has established there, the estate is now a beacon of hope to an otherwise forgotten community in the former coalfields of East Ayrshire.
A podcast about places and buildings, with tales about history and people. From author and publisher Clive Aslet and the architectural editor of Country Life, & John Goodall
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