Cockley Moor
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Helen Sutherland at Cockley Moor Helen Sutherland at Cockley Moor 1939 - 1965 by Val Corbett w Helen Sutherland at Cockley Moor I ^ verything was a rhythm and a rite and a ,1. J ceremony from the moment of rising in the early morning. Everything was an event; a sacred event. Everything was a tradition, a lesson, everything was bequeathed, everything was a most saintly habit. Everything was an inner elevation and a prayer. All day long, sleep and wake, work and short rest, bed and board, soup and beef, house and garden, door and street, courtyard and threshold, and the plates on the table. Charles Pfcguy. Basic Verities. The inscription in the hall at Cockley Moor. c o U c e5 E33I HSden ae U7a11• SJrts Train Scrvtcn provided by Wctt Com S3 \i'(')NSoi{> © Val Corbett 1996. Designed by Cumbria Supplies Design &Advertising - 95625. Published byMidnight Oil, Chapel Yat, Helton, Penrith CAIO 2QA. ISBN 0 9521428 1 3 Introduction s g? 3 • /;c idea qj an exhibition and a publication about Helen a _A_ Sutherland and her collection has been 'waiting in the wings'for B many years. It was Northern Arts successful bid to host Visual Arts Year •5" UK in the Northern Arts Region that provided the cue - and enabled the I 2 funds to be forthcoming. This publication and the exhibition held in Penrith Museum in the Summer of 1996 are the result and together they give a fascinating insight into Helen Sutherland, her way oflife, and her collection. It is clear beyond doubt that this relatively unknown figure played a highly significant role in the story ofEnglish Art of the mid-twentieth century. The best actors and actresses speak of how they try to 'get inside' the character they are to play. In this essay Val Corbett has achieved that same quality of 'insideness', presenting a rounded and vital portrait of Ilelcn Sutherland, whilst at the same time giving the reader new insights into her life and character. Eschewing the temptation to chop her subject into bits, she has instead drawn the various elements in her rich life together to present the whole person, through close reading of her voluminous correspon dence. The art of letter writing has been dealt a severe blow by more modern methods of communication, and yet it has many merits, especially because much 'soul-baring' can take place on the pave, at a distance. It is significant that Helen Sutherland. ' ,s ' ' g* the principal players in this drama - Helen's family', as Val calls them - o § were all singular, and often single too, in their yearning for Kathleen u U Raine's 'numinous' world, that glimpse ofthe mysteries of 'the other' which •g they all tried so hard, and often so successfully, to express in their work. To do this they needed space, spacefrom each other, space to think and space to 2 create. Winifred Nicholson saw the essence of that mysterious life force in colour and flowers, viewed from her fastness on the Roman Wall; Ben Nicholson through form and clean geometry; DavidJones through language and history; and Kathleen Raine through poetry and her deep study of William Blake. Helen Sutherland recognised them all as kindred spirits, and wanted to share her space with them - hut very much on her terms. I think it is significant that she chose such a high, remote part of Cumberland to spend the last twentyfive years ofher life, in the shadow of Helvellyn, aptly described as one of the 'roots of heaven'. Not content merely to 'Lift up her eyes unto the hills' she moved there lock stock and barrel - with paintings, books, music and vintage claret. High places, high standards, high living in both the material and the more spiritual, esoteric sense ofseeking the heights oftruth, ofmeaning, ofbeauty and oflove. This is the story of that episode in her life. Nick Jones for Eden Arts. 5 • /I /hen Helen Sutherland came to remote Cockley Moor, high C/5 V v above Ullswater in the Lake District, she was nearing her sixties, probably an age when most of us would be considering a move to some convenient spot suitable for our later years. It is some indication of her n indomitable character that this does not appear to have entered into her decision-making. Rock Hall near Alnwick in Northumberland, where she had lived throughout the Thirties, was of a formidable size with fourteen bedrooms, five sitting rooms, a library and a picture gallery, plus capacious staff quartersfor the many senmnts. Tlie upkeep of the garden alone required fwe gardeners. Her lease of Rock, from her friends the Bosanquets, was coming to an end, and some move became inevitable. During the thirties her finances became increasingly stretched, and although by most standards she was still a rich woman, some degree of retrenchment was inevitable. The relatively modest size of Cockley Moor fulfilled her need to run a smaller household. Cockley Moor. c She wrote in a letter dated March 31st 1939 to Jim Ede, one of her closest o friends: U n It is a strange moment for a crisis for me -I have just decided on a house and offered to buy it c and negotiations are now going on - It is in Cumberland •I am sorry to leave Northumberland o - andall those lines ofcommunication I knowandlove here, (but this ofcourse has the charm gC of being afresh adventure and it seems as ifpartof me welcomes that now, tlw' I tried to avoid t it).... I did not atall wish to go into the Lake Country which I think is almost melodramatic J§ yet that is where Iseem to be going - but a little off the beaten tourist track • the house is a ja" kind offarmhouse and practically all the rooms face south - with a marvellous view - I'm high * up, over 1300feet! a little stream runs through my meadoiv dowti to a lovely Aira Beck - they tellme rare and beautiful orchids growin quantities and curlews sing above the house .... the Church is about Vf* miles away, the village -V-* ofa mile distant. My onlybother perhaps is that everything and everyone else is dowtdiill! It was the only house I sawwhich really spoke to me in my own language -1 think it could beasnearly what I want as anything else in this world can be - ofcourse there are several things I wish different - but the essential things seem right. It is within a little community ofcountry people and I think it could be a lovely home for visitors and holidays. It needs a little doing to it - I shall have about 80 acres ofland I think - a small garden - it is very unpretentious and plain - but if Cod grants us peace Ifeel a life could be builtup there Well I do not quite know what makes our decisions ofthis kind so important to ourselves - it is made up ofthe good and alas the evil and weakness in us - It will be beautiful having a piece ofground which is myowti -I ought to have had that really long ago but I seemed to get so rooted until Ifound the expenses growing sofar beyond me. It was, in so many ways an unfortunate time for such a major move. The outbreak of war was scattering many of her friendships, probably at a time when she was most in need of their supportive web. Near her Northumberland home were the Bosanquets and Hodgkins, both familiar to her since her marriage in her early twenties. She had a strong friend in 'her' Vicar as well as in her neighbour, Lord Grey of Falloden, whose estate bounded Rock. Her close friends the Edes had left for Tangier, and another long-term friend, Vera Moore, was stranded in France. In addition there were the uncertainties generated by the onset of war. It is not hard to imagine the veryreal anxieties and sense of loss she musthave felt. One of the few people she knew in Cumberland was Winifred Nicholson, who had been a friend since her early days at Banks Head in the late Twenties. But Banks Head, near * a a. a 0 The drawing room. Lanercost on the line ofHadrian's Wall, was still a fair step from Matterdale. However, it seems typical of her great strength of character that she did not appear to dwell on these concerns, but rather tried to see a positive side to these inevitable changes. Beatrice, her elderly melancholy maid, moved with her, along with a chauffeur-gardener, but this reduction in staff was drastic, and her inability to quickly find more must have accentuated her changed circumstances. Her description of her time at Rock being her golden years must surely have never felt more justified. r Helen Sutherland commissioned extensive improvements to Cockley Moor. In principle, these were to be completed in time for her u move, which was scheduled for the late autumn of 1939. Leslie Martin, an up- and-coming young architect much associated with the Constructive Art movement of the Thirties, was commissioned to design a bold new drawing room, sometimes known as the Music Room. This was to run along the south rJ front of the house, with a suite of rooms for her personal use above. The former farmhouse had already been converted into a 'gentleman's residence' by Lady Lawson, its previous owner, but Helen Sutherland was after somethingmore ambitious. Leslie Martin had already designed a new vicarage for Rock to a joint commission from her and the Church. Later Sir Leslie Martin, he shared in the design of the Royal Festival Hall and had overall responsibility for the South Bank Centre, the definitive example ot British Brutalist architecture of the 1960s and 1970s.