Saturday 13 September 2014

A Very Personal Heritage Open Day at Willicombe Park






  This is a very personal Heritage Open day story. This is Willicombe Park in Tunbridge Wells, designed by Decimus Burton. But actually it isn't. It is St Christopher's, a Dr Barnardo's home for children and a Nursery Nurse training centre.


These were not the tiles I stood on as a child, they have gone, probably stolen after the arson attack that destroyed parts of this building in the 1980's.


Along with the lighting, the marble fire places and the marble columns on whose plinths I balanced as I tried to reach both arms around and hug their cold smoothness and rest my burning face.




I passed the pram room which is now a swimming pool and remembered silver cross prams on rainy days. On sunny days babies would be lined under the canopy along the front for their afternoon sleep in the fresh air.




 The hallway is now filled with photographic boards of memories instead of my dappled  white or was it black rocking horse? I heard it later went to a bonfire along with the dolls-houses. But I pretend that never happened.

Down to the basement and kitchens and I stand expecting to smell hot, dry clothes drying from the laundry room. My mind was playing tricks.




                                                 The fountain, was my sandpit.
                                                    But now only water plays.


 In the garden I looked for the tomb stones I had found as a child, convinced they belonged to children. They were actually for dogs and now they are gone, but in their place a new beloved pet is remembered.





  Only one row of  balustrades is left, the lower levels gone. The first banks are still there, where I took a tea tray from the kitchens  and navigated the slopes of snow.

I look up at windows and remember when I had rushed up the ornate metal staircase after school to find my favourite baby. He was adopted, not by us, even though I begged my mother for a baby brother.



My nursery school, enforced afternoon sleeps on metal beds with green canvas bases for one hour after lunch.

 Then the ghosts of rose gardens and I pick up a conker and think how some things stay the same. I look at my mother, now an exhibit in a history display and my eyes fill with tears.
I reach out and touch the past.






                                                                 Then it is gone.


Tunbridge wells Heritage Open days

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