In 1953 my parents, David and Anne Yorke, moved out of London and settled in Steyning, West Sussex. London of the early ‘50s was more reminiscent of the drabness and austerity of Orwell’s 1984 than the “Swinging London” of the next decade. In contrast, Steyning was an attractive historic town, with a fine Norman church, opposite Gatewick, the house they bought that year. It must indeed have seemed a haven, in comparison with the bomb-damaged and smog-ridden London they had just left. My paternal grandfather, The Hon. Claude Yorke (1872-1940), the third son of the 7th Earl of Hardwicke, had been a professional architect and my father had inherited his love for historic houses. Gatewick was mostly built from about 1690. It had in its time served as a vicarage and has a splendid Jacobean style folly in front, built in 1749. But by 1953, it had acquired quite a number of architectural excrescences that my father was only too happy to sweep away. An ugly mock Tudor porch of about 1930 was replaced with a copy of a doorway originally from Downing Street, then on display at the V&A.

An old barn at the side was embellished with battlements and Georgian “Gothick” window trompel’oeils, and it partly served as a loggia to house his collection of marble statues and busts (Lots 406-413) where one could sit and enjoy the view. In the ‘50s, Gatewick was largely surrounded by countryside, and my father created something of an Arcadia with lawns, trees, vistas, and architectural features, such as an obelisk, and the head of a River God, forming a keystone to the arch over a waterfall.

In the 1950s, there were good antique shops in nearby Worthing and Brighton. My father loved Georgian and Regency furniture, paintings and objets d’art, and he learnt much from my grandfather. Their favourite pastime was hunting for antiques together in Bermondsey and Caledonian Markets up until the Second World War. Antique collecting was then considered rather eccentric and fine objects, such as miniatures (Lots 76-85) and cameos (Lots 276-284), could be bought for comparatively little. My father grew up partly in Ulster Place, a Nash terrace just south of Regent’s Park, in a house cluttered with items his father had collected. Claude Yorke died in 1940 but his house miraculously survived the Blitz and the collections were held together, almost entirely thanks to Florence Barnet, the redoubtable housekeeper, while my father was away at war. Once he had bought Gatewick, he could house both his father’s and his own collections. As well as items from the various London antique markets, they also included inherited family pieces, such as a set of gilt chairs and studies for murals at Wimpole Hall, Cambridgeshire, the seat of the Earls of Hardwicke from 1740 until 1894.

In addition, my grandfather loved porcelain, something that features prominently in the sale, even if my father confessed a certain ignorance of it. My grandfather’s star purchases included two massive hall tables, one supported by gilt eagles (Lot 21) and the other by a gilt Cupid and Father Time (Lot 5). As an architect, he was also no mean cabinet maker: he constructed fine display cases for bouquets of flowers he made himself from sea-shells (Lot 263), for which he created something of a brief vogue in America immediately after the First World War. My father was always proud of purchasing an expanding dining table by Gillow and loved showing off a Regency sewing box by R Wass. with its original contents (Lot 67). My mother, a great granddaughter of Sir Edward Burne-Jones, treasured her family heirlooms, such as a Morris & Co jacquard-woven hanging (Lot 312) which hung above her bed. There is also an occasional table (Lot 313) at which William Morris used to sit when visiting Burne-Jones’s London house, the Grange. She introduced my father to Victorian tastes, but she admitted that when it came to objets d’art she too preferred Georgian and Regency.

This arcadia was celebrated by the Westmoreland artist, Claude Harrison, who became a great family friend and with whom my father kept up over forty years of correspondence. Among other things, he painted a conversation piece (Lot 346) of the family in front of the house in 1954 and portraits of my brother Charles and myself also in the Gatewick setting in the ‘70s (Lot 345). His most symbolic work was perhaps a letter head for our writing paper. The design included the south front of Gatewick with the Jacobean folly, with satyrs, cupids, and pugs, a breed much loved by my mother. They provided plenty of background barking! With this, Claude Harrison best captured the spirit and atmosphere of Gatewick under my parents’ occupancy.

It is sad to bid farewell, but now it is time for us to move on and let others enjoy the building – and in this sale – its contents.

Collection Highlights

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Auction Details

Wednesday 16 October, 10.30am BST
Donnington Priory, Newbury, Berkshire RG14 2JE

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