Mental Snot: A California Yankee in Lord Bath's Court

Jan 31, 2002

A California Yankee in Lord Bath's Court - Part II

LONGLEAT

Longleat Manor has been owned by the same family for over 450 years. The head of the household was given the title of Marquess of Bath by... oh, some King. If you really want the house history, look it up.

**Longleat (can you tell what website I "borrowed" the photo from?)**

Anyway, without giving away any details, the reason Pikka’s mom lived on the estate was that she had once been married to Longleat’s current owner, the 7th Marquess of Bath, Alexander Thynn. They remained friends after the marriage was over, so Pikka had grown up knowing Lord Alexander. However we didn’t want to bother him, so we decided to take the official tour of the house (part of the house was open to public tours about 50 years ago to help defray the expense of maintaining such a massive estate).

Unfortunately the tour was somewhat pricey. Not that it wasn’t worth it, but this was supposed to be a cheap trip and Gaby and I were both in between paying gigs at the moment. But the tour guide allowed us to look through the adjoining great hall while we decided.

Now I’m a Discovery Channel addict. I love the thing, and it is frequently on in the background while I’m at home. Sometimes I even pay active attention to a particularly riveting show. Like the one I saw on this eccentric English aristocrat who inherited his family’s house and had taken to painting massive murals inside. While the murals were quite original and inventive, this still angered some people who thought it improper to paint the walls of a house that was almost 500 years old.

So when I saw a photograph of the Marquess in the great hall -- to the right of a mounted petrified antler of some humongous prehistoric elk-like creature, across the room from the bloodstained shirt that King George the something (who can keep track of all those numerals?) had been executed in, directly underneath a wall of ancient weapons from around the world -- I realized that this was the artist I had seen on the Discovery Channel!

This coincidence was far too amazing for my jetlagged mind to comprehend! Now I wanted to see the murals!

We went around to the home’s private entrance and rang the bell. When one of the staff opened the door, we were informed that Alexander was about to have visitors for lunch and was too busy to see us. And no, she would not tell him that we were there.

So we took a few steps back as she retreated inside the house -- and Pikka called Alexander directly. Never stop at the middleman when you’re just a cell phone call away from the top dawg.

Back we went to ring the doorbell, and in we went to meet the Marquess. This guy is a character out of a very unique film that just hasn’t been made yet. A true eccentric who manages to dislike conformity and convention while still being able to inherit a huge fortune, a pseudo-royal title and a veritable palace. Let me just add that I liked him very much. He was warm, entertaining, funny, and he poured us all some wine. You can’t go wrong there.

The four of us talked for a while as I played with his labrador puppy. I was mainly interested in the murals -- we had walked past a few already, and the room we were in was completely painted over as well. The murals are very three dimensional -- literally. The paint rises off the walls in sloping contours that I was only able to see a hint of on the documentary. His trick is to mix sawdust in with the paint which allows him to mold it to any shape he desires.

Slowly his guest started arriving, and the wine and conversation continued to flow. And when they went off to dine we were given free reign to wander the house and examine the murals at our leisure.

That’s right -- not a guided tour, but unfettered access! Pikka knew her way around the house, the labrador puppy decided to join us, and off we went!

Somewhere along our journey, the poor little lab puppy had to take a piss. As puppies are prone to do, it decided not to warn us. Nor did it aim for any of the large sections of wood flooring. It chose to piddle on one of the home’s amazing rugs.

I have to admit here that we did look for someone -- anyone -- to inform of this transgression, but it’s not easy finding other people in that house. So I think the puppie’s faux pas remained a secret until I spilled the beans a few sentences ago. Oops! (Hey, it wasn’t my fault he had to pee!) Anyway...

In the two main staircases, about a hundred and fifty portraits in Alexander’s inimitable style met your eye as you moved about. (One of the staircases was devoted to portraits of his past mistresses, all 72 of them.) And in the hallways, if his murals didn’t cover the walls, framed paintings by artists from around the world filled up every available space.

Alexander’s murals were incredible. Everything from demonic creatures filling one hallway to the delightfully perverse Kama Sutra bedroom where a giant tree with silver apples surrounded you, each of its apples ripe with visions of carnal actions.

Each room had its own unique theme. Even the ceilings were intricately adorned, if not by his paintings, then by his nephew’s psychedelic mosaics.

I think the rooms that stood out the most were the nurseries. Every imaginable earthly fable was represented somewhere along the walls of one room, while the next room had a painted visage of heaven and the third adjoining room enveloped you in chilling scenes from the underworld. I can’t say that a child raised in those rooms would be particularly sane at the onset of puberty, but what a wonderful madness it must affect the young with!

Towards the end of our journey through the private portion of the house, we stumbled across the butler. He graciously offered to take us to the public area of the house where a guided tour was about to start.

I’m telling you, it’s really damn cool to be brought in front of the tour guide and a group of tourists and have the butler say, “These are Lord Bath’s guests, they’ll be joining the tour.”

This part of the house was just as amazing as the other half, though it was much more -- opulent? cold? unlived in? -- than the infinitely more inviting private area. But we were there to see history, and history we saw.

I won’t go into more details about this part of the house, you can go take the tour yourself or see some photos online. I’ve been rambling long enough and still have another 4 days to cover.

At the tour’s end, Pikka drove us to the bus station at Bath. Bath is a beautiful city, and much like Jerusalem all the buildings in the city are required to be made from the same material. (I believe Jerusalem uses a type of limestone, and Bath had... well I dunno, I can’t remember every detail, can I? It was some other type of cool rock.) We saw the city darken as sundown morphed into nighttime so we missed the legendary glint of the bright sun off the stone walls. But what I saw definitely made me want to go back someday.

**Gaby and Sasha (Click to enlarge)**

After a quick driving tour, Gaby and I left Pikka’s company and got on the bus back to London. Exhausted from the day’s travels, I slept the whole way back.

Later that night we went to a party at her friend Sasha's flat, and I proceeded to tell everyone there that a common American like myself had shared wine with the Marquess of Bath in his stately manor before traipsing off to survey the artwork.

This pissed many of them off to no end, which only made me repeat it to more and more people. Apparently this isn’t the sort of thing most Brits get the opportunity to do themselves. (Ha ha!)

CONTINUED IN PART 3