Stanley Kubrick lived a couple of miles from our home at Childwick Bury, a mansion of sorts, on the edge of the village of Childwick Green. The house is open to visitors these weekend as part of the Hertfordshire Arts Festival.
Walking to Childwick Green from home is one of our favourite longer walks, it about a three hour trip. For many years we walked that way always intrigued by the high hedges concealing the house, aware of whom lived within and hoping for a glance of someone coming or going with the kind of voyeuristic fascination that celebrities attract. Childwick Green could be regarded as a typical English village, its ambience and charm belonging to a bygone era. Unusually, there are two mansions in the village of, I would guess, some 4,000 to 5000 square feet, big houses built mid 19C of mellow red brick and black timbered gables, built in the style of Voysey though not his work.
The village, manicured green lawns, white painted picket fencing, glorious rhodadendrons in Spring and tiny flint walled church, has less than twenty house. Once former farm workers homes they are now converted into 'commuter' homes sporting extensions, conservatories and the vehicles of up market living. The two mansion houses dominate. The one open to visitors gaze at the end of a honey coloured gravel drive flanked by rose gardens, the other revealed only by chimney pots distantly peeping over an inpenetrable hedge.
Kubrick died in March 1999 and with his death the mystery of the house lessened. Our neighbour, an arborist, knows all the gardeners in the district and told us that Kubrick's head gardener had never seen him in twenty odd years of working at the house. Inaccurate probably, but helped perpetuate the legend that grew around the man.
Over recent years since his death the once tall hedge has been cut back revealing the house in a parkland setting. His widow and daughter have become more active in the community, his daughter is patron of the local "Art Films" society. His widow, though I did not know it at the time, was a regular customer at my former shop.
The house itself is not open to visitors, the stable block, presumably used when Kubrick was alive, is similar to a Gallery. The work of local artists and his wife's work are on display together with some excellent contemporary wood carving by a local artist from trees felled on the estate. One end of the stables displayed an American made film about the life and work of Stanley Kubrick, family shots from years earlier and interviews with contemporaries, actors and directors.
Discussions are in hand for my wife and a colleague to produce an installation in the stable for next years Arts Festival, Mrs Kubrick has determined to make participation an annual event. Who knows, maybe we will get to see the inside of the house.
One thing for sure, walking in those grounds and outbuildings you had the sense you were being observed, as if you had entered upon hallowed ground and would be judged for the dignity and respect that you held for the man and the place.
Walking to Childwick Green from home is one of our favourite longer walks, it about a three hour trip. For many years we walked that way always intrigued by the high hedges concealing the house, aware of whom lived within and hoping for a glance of someone coming or going with the kind of voyeuristic fascination that celebrities attract. Childwick Green could be regarded as a typical English village, its ambience and charm belonging to a bygone era. Unusually, there are two mansions in the village of, I would guess, some 4,000 to 5000 square feet, big houses built mid 19C of mellow red brick and black timbered gables, built in the style of Voysey though not his work.
The village, manicured green lawns, white painted picket fencing, glorious rhodadendrons in Spring and tiny flint walled church, has less than twenty house. Once former farm workers homes they are now converted into 'commuter' homes sporting extensions, conservatories and the vehicles of up market living. The two mansion houses dominate. The one open to visitors gaze at the end of a honey coloured gravel drive flanked by rose gardens, the other revealed only by chimney pots distantly peeping over an inpenetrable hedge.
Kubrick died in March 1999 and with his death the mystery of the house lessened. Our neighbour, an arborist, knows all the gardeners in the district and told us that Kubrick's head gardener had never seen him in twenty odd years of working at the house. Inaccurate probably, but helped perpetuate the legend that grew around the man.
Over recent years since his death the once tall hedge has been cut back revealing the house in a parkland setting. His widow and daughter have become more active in the community, his daughter is patron of the local "Art Films" society. His widow, though I did not know it at the time, was a regular customer at my former shop.
The house itself is not open to visitors, the stable block, presumably used when Kubrick was alive, is similar to a Gallery. The work of local artists and his wife's work are on display together with some excellent contemporary wood carving by a local artist from trees felled on the estate. One end of the stables displayed an American made film about the life and work of Stanley Kubrick, family shots from years earlier and interviews with contemporaries, actors and directors.
Discussions are in hand for my wife and a colleague to produce an installation in the stable for next years Arts Festival, Mrs Kubrick has determined to make participation an annual event. Who knows, maybe we will get to see the inside of the house.
One thing for sure, walking in those grounds and outbuildings you had the sense you were being observed, as if you had entered upon hallowed ground and would be judged for the dignity and respect that you held for the man and the place.
