Favourite Writing - Brazilian Adventure

Museu do Ipiranga - São Paulo (Photo: Nanahbhz)

'Victory has got a half-nelson on Liberty from behind. Liberty is giving away about half a ton, and is also carrying weight in the shape of a dying President and a brace of cherubs. (One of the cherubs is doing a cartwheel on the dying President's head, while the other, scarcely less considerate, attempts to pull his trousers off). Meanwhile, an unclothed male figure, probably symbolical, unquestionably winged, and carrying in one hand a model railway, is in the very act of delivering a running kick at the two struggling ladies, from whose drapery on the opposite side an eagle is escaping, apparently unnoticed. Around the feet of these gigantic principals all is bustle and confusion. Cavalry are charging, aboriginals are being emancipated and liners launched. Farmers, liberators, nuns, firemen and a poet pick their way with benign insouciance over a subsoil thickly carpeted with corpses, cannon-balls and scrolls. So vehement a confusion of thought, so arbitrary an alliance of ideas, takes the reason captive and paralyses criticism'

Brazilian Adventure by Peter Fleming. His description of the statuary in Sao Paolo

The Orangery Garden 1998 - 2012

The Orangery was developed from an carpentry shop where they made the stairs and window frames for the houses being built in Wandle Road in the 1890s'. The land was bought by Nicholas Castagli, who did up several houses in the street before developing The Orangery in Georgian style using old pine doors and fittings. We were its first owners. 

The house is approached through a tunnel between two houses and is protected by an electric gate. It has its own driveway and a parking area sufficient for two cars. Looking through the gate from the roadside, one couldn't see the house or even the cars, so it was very secluded.

The garden was paved and planted when we moved in.

The entrance to The Orangery between no's 76 and 80 Wandle Road

The entrance to The Orangery from inside the gateway

The Orangery garden. The houses behind are separated by their gardens from the back of the house

The Orangery garden in spring

The Orangery garden in spring - overlooked by two bedroom windows and the study window

The Orangery - main seating area

The Orangery - main dining area 

Mahonia, wisteria, choysia and honeysuckle

The conservatory

See also The Orangery 1998 - 2012

The Orangery 1998 - 2012

The Orangery was originally a carpentry shop where they made the stairs and window frames for the houses built in Wandle Road in the 1890s. It then lay derelict before being built up into a Geogian 'orangery by Nicholas Castagli. It is approached through a tunnel between two houses and protected by an electric iron gate and its own driveway and has a parking area sufficient for two cars. Looking through the gate from the road, one couldn't see anything of the house or even of the cars, so it was very secluded.

                                                         The Orangery Drawing Room

The prevailing impression inside the Orangery was one of light and peace. The main room had long windows to the garden and the front door and hall were also glazed. 

The hall had double old pine doors

There was no road noise because the house is buried deep in the gardens of the surrounding houses. In fact it has no less than 16 shared boundaries, which sounds problematic but in fact is not. The tall houses in Wandle Road, Broderick Road and Beechcroft Road protect it not only from noise but also from traffic fumes, so the air is always fresh. In addition, there are trees around the boundary, some of which are technically in other people's gardens but we used to take it upon ourselves to keep them pollarded and trimmed so that the Orangery didn't become shadowed and overgrown. Out of every window throughout the house you can see the garden and greenery and glimpses of the sky, so that one never felt in the slightest hemmed in.

The drawing room was large enough to be able to place sofas and a desk so that one can walk round them, rather than having to being ranged along walls as in the usual town houses. At the end of the room, we built a conservatory that increased the feeling of light, and was used for entertaining as well as doubling as an artist's studio. 

The conservatory with garden beyond 

The kitchen looking into the drawing room. It had old pine doors that were habitually left open. 

 

The kitchen

The house had a passage connecting to the bedrooms and bathrooms with my study was off it. It had lots of cupboards and storage space for my files and papers.

The Study

        

Main bedroom

The main bedroom was furnished with screens and scrolls and paintings, with windows on two sides and an ensuite bathroom. 

                    On the other side of the house was a bedroom and bathroom with a terrace. 

The second bedroom with its terrace

Drawing room with paintings and plaster frieze over then fireplace. The set of paintings are by Nobu. 

Looking into the main bedroom

 

The main bedroom

Painted panel in the main bedroom 

Painted panel on the bathroom door 

See also The Orangery Garden 1998 - 2012