From loonies to an eccentric

After a few futile attempts over the years, we finally managed to visit a nearby 'stately home', Port Eliot, in St Germans. There are lots of reasons to go, including:

*  It's only open for a relatively short time each year - precisely 100 days to conform to an arrangement they have with Plymouth City Council ("we'll look after your portraits as long as you grant the public access for a 100 days each year").
*  It's reputed to be one of the longest continually occupied sites in the UK - starting some 1500 years ago in the late Iron Age, through an Augustinian priory/monastery founded in the fifth century to the 500 year occupancy of the family of the present owners, Lord and Lady St Germans.
*  It has an amazing mural painted over a 20 year period by a well known local artist, Robert Lenkiewicz.
*  It has an extensive collection of paintings by Sir Joshua Reynolds, another local artist but probably better known than Lenkiewicz.
*  There is a tenuous family connection in that some of Mrs P's forebears worked on the Eliot Estate, in fact one of her x4 great grandmothers died on an estate farm almost within sight of the house.

So, many reasons to visit and we were glad that we did. Extremely friendly and informative staff and a nice tea in the main dining room. But I much prefer Mrs P's scones. I did have a little frisson of excitement as we had tea as I thought that we were being served by the lady of the manor, Lady St Germans. It struck me as fitting that we should be served by the family that Mrs P's forebears had waited on so long ago. Sadly, it was not to be. Bring on the Revolution!

The first glimpse of Port Eliot as we came down from the car park in a nearby field.

Port Eliot from the front. The present house incorporates the remains of the Augustinian priory, which was pulled down during the Reformation. At one time the nearby River Lynher came up, more or less, to the line of the wall, so it really was Port Eliot. But, in the late 1600s, the Eliot family decided that they wanted a parkland view and had the river diverted about a quarter of a mile away. You can do that sort of thing when you've got money and lots of peasants to call upon.

Just behind Port Eliot is St German's Parish Church. There have been a succession of churches on or near this site for centuries. The original Celtic church (founded circa 500AD), dedicated to St Germanus, was just to the east and was succeeded by an Anglo-Saxon structure in wood which, in turn, was succeeded by the Norman structure you see. It is, officially, a priory church and, at one time way back (about a 1000 years ago), was the cathedral church of Cornwall. This status came to an end when there was a merger with the Diocese of Exeter and, to come relatively up to date, the Cornish cathedral is now in Truro.

The west doorway of the church with its typically Norman carvings.

Looking up into the bell tower at the bell ropes.

Inside the church looking east. A few years ago I sang at a choir festival here and it was one of the coldest experiences of my life.

Looking up to the rather fine barrel vaulted ceiling.

Photography was not allowed within the house but I did sneak one (naughty, naughty). A very ornate chandelier designed, or so we were told, by the principal designer of the Ballet Rambert. Pretty to look at but a complete dead loss as a source of light. There were a few fairy lights intertwined with the flummery but they wouldn't have contributed much to brighten the gloom.

Perhaps my main reason for wanting to visit Port Eliot - the Lenkiewicz mural in the Rotunda (the circular tower on the left of the front panorama of the building). The photograph above is an extremely wide-angle view of the room and shows the mural pretty much in its entirety. A great shame that you can't see the detail. To the left is the 'dark' side with cheerful themes like loss, death, betrayal, divorce etc. To the right is the 'light' side which shows an unfinished rural idyll. Interspersed throughout were portraits of family, friends, enemies and whoever had an interesting face and was around at the time. There are also some 'jokes' that need to be pointed out and explained - luckily we had a very informative guide. Some don't like Lenkiewicz's work but I'm not one of them. If you like big, bold, irreverent art, he's your man.

And here's the man himself in the early to mid 1970s in front of the mural he was painting down on the Barbican in Plymouth. I can't claim that I knew him but we did exchange pleasantries a few times as I passed on my way to do some fishing off the sea wall near the Fish Market. Licentious, larger than life, with a great empathy for the underdog, he was a complex man and well worth reading about. Here's an example of one of his adventures: in 1981 he faked his own death in preparation for a forthcoming project on the theme of Death (1982): "I could not know what it was like to be dead," he said, "but I could discover what it was like to be thought dead."

And this is what his mural looks like today. Lenkiewicz died a few years ago and could never be described as a favoured son of Plymouth. The City Council still has a bee in its bonnet over the fact that he didn't having planning permission for the mural! Only in Plymouth could such a unique work of art, and potential tourist attraction, be allowed to decay so tragically.