HE was made for triumph, acclamation and a life as gilded as the garlands that frame the Royal Alcove he designed in Buckingham Palace’s Throne Room. Instead, John Nash— the man who turned the drudgery of mere Buckingham House into the splendour of a palace, the man who gave the country its triumphal Marble Arch, the man that had London ‘eclipse [Napoleon’s] Paris’—was nearly obliterated by his political affiliations, a penchant for overspending and a difficult personality that made him the Marmite of his times.
A ‘wild, irregular youth’ by his own admission, Nash had a disastrous start to adult life. In 1775, at 23, he had married Jane Elizabeth Kerr, the daughter of a Surrey surgeon, who soon revealed herself to be as liberal with her graces as she was with his money. As his marriage imploded, Nash’s business took a hit: the houses he had developed in Bloomsbury failed to sell and he was declared bankrupt. But the man with the ‘face of a monkey’, as diarist Harriet Arbuthnot brutally described him, had the resilience of a phoenix. Cutting his losses, he moved to Carmarthen, where he kept ‘the best company of Bon Vivants’, hunted ‘with the most desperate sportsmen’ (according to architect William Porden) and set up an architectural practice that soon proved successful.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der August 02, 2023-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent ? Anmelden
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der August 02, 2023-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent? Anmelden
Happiness in small things
Putting life into perspective and forces of nature in farming
Colour vision
In an eye-baffling arrangement of geometric shapes, a sinister-looking clown and a little girl, Test Card F is one of television’s most enduring images, says Rob Crossan
'Without fever there is no creation'
Three of the top 10 operas performed worldwide are by the emotionally volatile Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, who died a century ago. Henrietta Bredin explains how his colourful life influenced his melodramatic plot lines
The colour revolution
Toxic, dull or fast-fading pigments had long made it tricky for artists to paint verdant scenes, but the 19th century ushered in a viridescent explosion of waterlili
Bullace for you
The distinction between plums, damsons and bullaces is sweetly subtle, boiling down to flavour and aesthetics, but don’t eat the stones, warns John Wright
Lights, camera, action!
Three remarkable country houses, two of which have links to the film industry, the other the setting for a top-class croquet tournament, are anything but ordinary
I was on fire for you, where did you go?
In Iceland, a land with no monks or monkeys, our correspondent attempts to master the art of fishing light’ for Salmo salar, by stroking the creases and dimples of the Midfjardara river like the features of a loved one
Bravery bevond belief
A teenager on his gap year who saved a boy and his father from being savaged by a crocodile is one of a host of heroic acts celebrated in a book to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Humane Society, says its author Rupert Uloth
Let's get to the bottom of this
Discovering a well on your property can be viewed as a blessing or a curse, but all's well that ends well, says Deborah Nicholls-Lee, as she examines the benefits of a personal water supply
Sing on, sweet bird
An essential component of our emotional relationship with the landscape, the mellifluous song of a thrush shapes the very foundation of human happiness, notes Mark Cocker, as he takes a closer look at this diverse family of birds
