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'A rich, luscious account of a postwar Britain that often gets lost'
Mail on SundayIn 1945, Eddy Sackville-West, Desmond Shawe-Taylor and Eardley Knollys - writers for the
New Statesman and a National Trust administrator - purchased Long Crichel House, an old rectory with no electricity and an inadequate water supply. In this improbable place, the last English literary salon began.
Long Crichel's visitors' book reveals a
Who's Who of the arts in post-war Britain - Nancy Mitford, Benjamin Britten, Laurie Lee, Cyril Connolly, Somerset Maugham, E.M. Forster, Cecil Beaton, Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson - who were attracted by the good food, generous quantities of drink and excellent conversation. In later years the house and its inhabitants were to weather the aftershocks of the Crichel Down Affair, the Wolfenden Report and the AIDS crisis.
Through the lens of Long Crichel, archivist and writer Simon Fenwick tells a wider story of the great upheaval that took place in the second half of the twentieth century. Intimate and revealing, he brings to life Long Crichel's golden, gossipy years and, in doing so, unveils a missing link in English literary and cultural history.
'The Crichel boys . . . left behind merely a memory of charm, kindness and generosity, to which Fenwick pays a tender tribute'
Financial Times
About the author
Simon Fenwick is an archivist and author. He has worked on the papers of both Paddy Leigh Fermor and William Wordsworth, as well as for various country houses, private individuals and charities. He has also written for
The Times,
Telegraph,
Independent and
Guardian as well as for art magazines. His latest book is
Joan: Beauty, Rebel, Muse: The Remarkable Life of Joan Leigh Fermor.
Summary
An elegant biography of Long Crichel, a house in a secluded village in rural Dorset which, during the second half of the twentieth century, became a hub of creativity and social activity for its denizens and their guests.
Foreword
An elegant biography of Long Crichel, a house in a secluded village in rural Dorset which, during the second half of the twentieth century, became a hub of creativity and social activity for its denizens and their guests.
Additional text
Fenwick gives us some fascinating vignettes of the often downplayed cultural life of post-war Britain
