Upton House

Following our frustrating day a little while back we decided to try Upton House again.  The web site said the house and restaurant were open, though not the gardens and grounds due to high winds.

As our main aim was to see the Heal poster exhibition we were happy.

We had a packed lunch in the car then headed for the cafe before using our house entry ticket.  We've done the house quite a few times in the past but with the gardens closed we might as well have a walk around. As always it was very interesting and I took quite a few photos.  Unfortunately on getting home and having a look a lot of them were out of focus, it seems my camera setting was wrong, though the house lighting was challenging in places. The house has a permanent exhibition of Shell posters from the 1930s, the Heal furniture shop posters from the same era are in the new squash court, as opposed to the old squash court which has more of their traditional paintings on show.

Apparently the posters have been in a basement of the Tottenham Court Road store for years and only recently discovered.  The connection with Upton House is that the owner of Heal's, Sir Ambrose Heal, was a friend of Walter Samuel, the 2nd Viscount Bearstead and owner of Upton.  I was allowed to take photos of the posters but can't blip them as apparently the copyright is not clear, that is why the NT don't have any postcards for sale made up from them.

The main picture is a snapshot of part of the art deco bathroom clad, walls and ceiling, in aluminium.  The extra is one of their posters, this one of the Shell-Mex building, looking very similar to a blip of mine from last May