3. The Bowles Boys and the history of the house and the Bowles family

The Bowles Boys

Narrator:

Peter Deering was seven when he first came to play here.

Peter Deering:

… as I lived just on the hill outside the gates here I used this garden and the fields around as the 

playground.

MUSIC: Hide & Seek Rag (McConnell - ATV 8B 43) FADE IN AND UNDER

Narrator:

Bowles was happy for Peter and his local friends to come here and play games or fish. In winter, when the river and the lake froze over, they skated.

Peter Deering:

… All the equipment was kept in a cupboard under the stairs here, including the skates …And there was always a rush … to get the best bit of gear, especially if you could get Bowles’s own skates, which were permanently fixed to a pair of boots (otherwise you had to get a pair that you clamped onto your shoes).

MUSIC: Up and end

Narrator:

But it was not all fun and games. The boys, usually about three of them, were put to use, helping out in the garden, as Peter remembers.

Peter Deering:

... we would just come over anytime, morning or afternoon, and the drill was to come in, pull three weeds from the front drive here, which was a custom for everyone that came no matter who they were.

SFX: A SINGLE WHISTLER

Peter Deering:

And we’d walk in the front door and whistle, and if Bowles was in the house he’d whistle back. and if he didn’t whistle back then we’d proceed into the garden, whistling until we heard a whistle back. And then we’d join in with whatever he was doing: weeding, replanting or just trying to find something.

SFX: A SINGLE WHISTLER & A WHISTLED RESPONSE

[……..]

You’d walk though the garden with him and he’d say oh there’s such-and-such a thing here that should just be coming into bloom… and sure enough there would be… he always walked with his hands behind his back … And his coat, a raincoat generally, which had long torn strips hanging from it, tied up in a knot at the bottom and a slouchy, trilby hat. Generally he wore a pair of flannel trousers and a tweed jacket. He always wore… a bow tie.

History of the House

Narrator: Myddelton House was built in the early 19th century. By Victorian standards it is not large, although it does have some 25 rooms above ground level. The basement was big enough to fit a servants’ hall, a warren of domestic offices, the kitchen - with a huge double range, the butler’s pantry, scullery, day larder, poultry larder, boot room and wine cellar.

Just imagine what it must have been like…

SFX: Audio Montage of a busy household

Each day, at dusk, it took two housemaids an hour to close the folding shutters. There was no gas or electricity – only oil lamps that had to be trimmed, polished and filled. Candlesticks were put out ready on the hall table. There were silver candlesticks for visitors, brass for family, and in the basement the servants’ used huge tin ones, called “dripping pans”.

By the 1920’s, visitors to Myddelton House found themselves in a world where time seemed to have stood still for half a century.  In fact, Bowles never had electricity put in here.  And gas was only installed in the house after the Second World War, when the Austrian cook said she would not work here without it.

After Bowles died in 1954, the contents of the house were sold at auction. The sale went on for three days!  Although some paintings stayed within the family, many of Bowles’s finest water-colours are now housed at the Natural History Museum in Kensington and at the Royal Horticultural Society’s Lindley Library. The house and grounds were sold to The Royal Free Hospital and the London School of Pharmacy.

Even though he is now long dead, visitors to Myddelton often note the warm atmosphere and say that it feels as if Bowles is still here.

History of the Bowles Family 

Narrator: Bowles had Huguenot ancestors - the Garnaults – who lived in Bowling Green House, an Elizabethan building that stood near this site. The Garnaults settled in England in the late 17th century after they fled from religious persecution in France. They made their fortune as craftsmen jewellers and went on to use their wealth to buy controlling shares in the New River Company.

At around the same time, the Bowles family were working as printers and publishers in St Paul’s Churchyard, in London. They produced maps, portraits and political cartoons - including William Hogarth’s famous series, The Rake’s Progress.

The two families were united in February 1799, when Henry Carrington Bowles married Anne Garnault. Anne inherited the Bowling Green House Estate. She died in 1812, when she was only 41. After her death, and despite his success in business, Henry Carrington Bowles felt ashamed of being associated with “trade”,. And he wanted to escape his title: Mr Bowles of Bowling Green House! He demolished the Elizabethan house and replaced it with a smarter more imposing, fashionable, yellow brick residence. The new family home was named Myddelton House - after Sir Hugh Myddelton, the imaginative engineer who built the New River. A section of that river used to flow through the garden.