Here you can glimpse it just beyond the trees. King George the IV didn't get along with his father too well, so when he came of age he moved down to Brighton. Due to large debts he was only able to afford a small house. But, he made sure that the house he did choose to rent was in the most fashionable and visible place in Brighton. Over the years, as he accumulated more wealth he expanded his small farm house into what is now the Royal Pavilion. It was used as a retreat for the royal family up until Queen Victoria who found it impractical due to too many kids and the fact that the common populace could come and gawk at her now that the trains allowed anyone to come to Brighton on holiday.
Here's the front left corner of the building with it's huge onion domes. Some people were quite appalled at the architecture comparing it to a box with various tubers placed on top.
Here's a picture along the back side. For future reference the music room is on the right the saloon in the middle, and the banquet hall further down on the left side of the picture. The entire building was purchased from Queen Victoria for 53,000 pounds by the city in the early 1900s. Victoria kept most of the furnishings for the royal collections, but the city has been hard at work for many years to re-create the pavilion as it was during the days of King George IV.
And here is the entrance to the royal pavilion. Unfortunately due to the fact that they have furniture inside that comes from the Queen's royal collection, no tourists are allowed to take pictures inside. Something about the copyright of images of royal property. The guards inside said that there are probably professional images on the internet, but I wasn't able to find any that really show off what I wanted to show. I did find some though, so I'll use them the best I can.
The entire pavilion is decorated in the style which is what artists and architects thought the Orient looked like. But, they weren't exactly sure as they'd never been there themselves and had designed most of these things based on what they were told by others and had read. I thought it was a bit too gaudy, lacking the simplicity of most oriental art. Maybe it looks like what Roccoco would be if done in the East.
The Banquet Hall
This was the room I would have really loved to get pictures of. Notice how small the people in the picture are? That's not because it's an old picture and people were smaller back then, this room is HUGE! Not only is it huge, but there were never very many people invited to the dinners. The audio-tour said that dinner parties might reach as many as 30 people, but no more. George IV liked to sit in the middle of the table, instead of the head, surrounded by women.
Besides the hugeness of the room, the other remarkable thing about the room are the chandeliers. The one in the middle weighs 16 tonnes. It's being held aloft in the claws of a huge metal dragon. There's actually one seat at the table that some women were afraid to sit at due to the fact that the dragon was staring down at them. Also, there are 4 other chandeliers in the corners of the room, each held up by it's own metallic dragon. It's really sad they wouldn't let me take pictures.
The Music Hall
This was the other awe inspiring room. It is almost as large as the banquet hall, but more square. It was quite a sight, very reminiscent of all those old Victorian parties that girls love to read about in Jane Austin's books. The walls were done in a very dark wall paper and the carpet was handwoven and 2 inches thick. The reason they called it the music room is because this is where they had dances accompanied by George IV's personal orchestra which was supposedly one of the best in the world at the time. They had many composers and performers come here. Rossini was said to have performed here for George IV and sometimes George would even play for the guests himself.
If you can see the doors in the center of the back wall, they're not doors, but pipes for an organ. The keyboard is hidden beneath it. The doors on either side of the organ where were the musicians could enter and leave the hall without disturbing the guests.
Notice the gold section of the roof above the chandeliers. You can't tell in the picture but that roof is covered in hundreds of thousands of small gilt cockle shells. Each one had to be done by hand, but it looks beautiful up there glittering in the light.
Apparently this room has had a torrid past. Some Chinese have said it is due to the fact that there are dragons and snakes intertwined in all the decorations around the room, which is supposedly bad luck. Back in 1971 an arsonist tried to burn down the building and pretty much destroyed this room. It took a team of men almost a year to re-gild all the cockle shells, one-by-one. Then in 1987 there was a huge hurricane that hit Brighton. One of the large concrete spheres on the roof came loose and flew through one of the windows in the top of the dome. It landed on the floor leaving a huge hole and destroying the newly re-produced carpet.
Well, if you ever come to Brighton you should definitely spend a few hours checking this place out. It's really quite spectacular.
No comments:
Post a Comment