As we continue our blog series, Lord Montagu explains how he gave special permission for students to pick flowers from the gardens to create wallpaper for the aptly named Flower Press bathroom.
The floral theme of the Flower Press bathroom continues from the adjoining bedroom, but here the feel is more that of a gardener’s bothy.
The interior design students picked lots of spring and summer flowers from gardens of Palace House and pressed them. Student Bethan Humphries told later me that one of the gardeners apprehended her, but she was able to explain that I had given her permission to pluck some of the blooms from their stalks!
Later, they were scanned and the original colour returned to their petals using Photoshop. Using the best example of each flower, the floral components were then carefully arranged into a repeating pattern. Or for those who wish to look closely, each flower is annotated with its name.
The shower cubicle features tiles which were painted by my mother, depicting her home at Longdown about five miles from here. One set depicts the view from her kitchen window with her horses in the field, and the other her garden with her house in the background.
I am so pleased to have been able to incorporate these tiles here as my mother was a keen gardener herself. The stripey blind at the top of her design was reproduced, so the room’s real blind matches.
The copper bath, which I like to think of as an ornamental water trough, is positioned to give daytime bathers a view of the gardens beyond. Other references to the garden bothy theme include a planter’s dibber light-pull, a metal-leaved chandelier and a pair of garden gates above the basin which open to reveal a mirror.
Lord Montagu tells the full story here: https://youtu.be/Wdn6qOXbmD4
COMING NEXT: Lord Montagu’s Motor Room tribute to his father