![Dartington hall courtyard](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e6/Dartington_hall_courtyard.jpg)
Dartington Hall in
Dartington
Dartington is a village in Devon, England. Its population is 876. The electoral ward of ''Dartington'' includes the surrounding area and had a population of 1,753 at the 2011 census. It is located west of the River Dart, south of Dartington ...
, near
Totnes
Totnes ( or ) is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish at the head of the estuary of the River Dart in Devon, England, within the South Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It is about west of Paignton, about west-so ...
,
Devon
Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devon is ...
, England, is an historic house and country estate of dating from medieval times. The group of late 14th century buildings are Grade I
listed
Listed may refer to:
* Listed, Bornholm, a fishing village on the Danish island of Bornholm
* Listed (MMM program), a television show on MuchMoreMusic
* Endangered species in biology
* Listed building, in architecture, designation of a historicall ...
; described in Pevsner's
Buildings of England
The Pevsner Architectural Guides are a series of guide books to the architecture of Great Britain and Ireland. Begun in the 1940s by the art historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, the 46 volumes of the original Buildings of England series were publish ...
as "one of the most spectacular surviving domestic buildings of late Medieval England", along with
Haddon Hall
Haddon Hall is an English country house on the River Wye near Bakewell, Derbyshire, a former seat of the Dukes of Rutland. It is the home of Lord Edward Manners (brother of the incumbent Duke) and his family. In form a medieval manor house, it ...
and
Wingfield Manor
Wingfield Manor is a ruined manor house left deserted since the 1770s, near the village of South Wingfield and some west of the town of Alfreton in the English county of Derbyshire. There is a working farm that forms part of the old manor.
It is ...
. The medieval buildings are grouped around a huge courtyard; the largest built for a private residence before the 16th Century, and the Great Hall itself is the finest of its date in England. The west range of the courtyard is regarded as nationally one of the most notable examples of a range of medieval lodgings. The medieval buildings were restored from 1926 to 1938.
[Buildings of England - Devon. Authors - Nikolaus Pevsner and Bridget Cherry. Published 1989]
The site is the headquarters of the Dartington Trust, which currently runs a number of charitable educational programmes, including
Schumacher College
Schumacher College is a college near Totnes, Devon, England which offers ecology-centred degree programmes, short courses and horticultural programmes. The College is internationally renowned for its experiential approach to learning, encouragin ...
, Dartington Arts School, Research in Practice and the
Dartington Music Summer School & Festival. In addition to its own live arts and learning programmes, the Trust uses Dartington Hall to host other groups and as a venue for
retreats.
Dartington Hall estate
![Dartington great hall roof](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Dartington_great_hall_roof.jpg)
The estate was held by the Martin family between the early 12th and mid 14th centuries but on the death of William Martin in 1326, the
feudal barony
A feudal baron is a vassal holding a heritable fief called a ''barony'', comprising a specific portion of land, granted by an overlord in return for allegiance and service. Following the end of European feudalism, feudal baronies have largely been ...
of Dartington
escheat
Escheat is a common law doctrine that transfers the real property of a person who has died without heirs to the crown or state. It serves to ensure that property is not left in "limbo" without recognized ownership. It originally applied to a ...
ed to the crown and in 1384 was granted by King Richard II to his half brother
John Holland, 1st Duke of Exeter
John Holland, 1st Duke of Exeter, 1st Earl of Huntingdon ( 1352 – 16 January 1400), KG, of Dartington Hall in Devon, was a half-brother of King Richard II (1377–1399), to whom he remained strongly loyal. He is primarily remembered for being ...
(c.1352-1400), created in 1388
Earl of Huntingdon
Earl of Huntingdon is a title which has been created several times in the Peerage of England. The medieval title (1065 creation) was associated with the ruling house of Scotland (David I of Scotland, David of Scotland).
The seventh and most rec ...
and in 1397
Duke of Exeter
The title Duke of Exeter was created several times in England in the later Middle Ages. Exeter is the main town of Devon. It was first created for John Holland, the half-brother of King Richard II in 1397. That title was rescinded upon Henry I ...
.
Historic buildings
The 1st Duke built the
mediaeval hall between 1388 and his death in 1400 and the sculpted arms of Richard II survive on ribbed vault of the Porch. The 1st Duke was beheaded by King Henry IV who had deposed Richard II, however Dartington continued as the seat of his son
John Holland, 2nd Duke of Exeter
John Holland, 2nd Duke of Exeter, 2nd Earl of Huntingdon, (29 March 1395 – 5 August 1447) was an English nobleman and military commander during the Hundred Years' War. His father, the 1st Duke of Exeter, was a maternal half-brother to Ri ...
(1395-1447) and grandson
Henry Holland, 3rd Duke of Exeter
Henry Holland, 3rd Duke of Exeter, 3rd Earl of Huntington (27 June 1430 – September 1475) was a Lancastrian leader during the English Wars of the Roses. He was the only son of John Holland, 2nd Duke of Exeter, and his first wife, Anne Staff ...
(1430-1475) successively. On the death of the 3rd Duke in 1475 without issue, supposedly drowned at sea on the orders of King Edward IV, Dartington again escheated to the crown. In 1559 it was acquired by Sir
Arthur Champernowne
Sir Arthur Champernowne (c.1524 – 1 April 1578) was an English politician, high sheriff and soldier who lived at Dartington Hall in Devon, England.
Champernowne belonged to a large Anglo-Norman family that originated from Cambernon, in No ...
,
Vice-Admiral of the West
{{Unreferenced, date=December 2008
The historical title Vice-Admiral of the West is sometimes applied to holders of the crown appointment Vice-Admiral of the Coast of counties in the South West of England.
The duties of a Vice-Admiral of the coast ...
under
Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen".
El ...
, whose descendants in a direct male line lived in the Hall for 366 years until 1925.
The hall was mostly derelict by the time it was bought in 1925 by the British-American millionaire couple
Leonard Elmhirst (orig. from Yorkshire) and his wife
Dorothy (née Whitney) from New York. They commissioned architect
William Weir to renovate the medieval buildings and notably restore the
Great Hall
A great hall is the main room of a royal palace, castle or a large manor house or hall house in the Middle Ages, and continued to be built in the country houses of the 16th and early 17th centuries, although by then the family used the great ...
's
hammerbeam roof
A hammerbeam roof is a decorative, open timber roof truss typical of English Gothic architecture and has been called "...the most spectacular endeavour of the English Medieval carpenter". They are traditionally timber framed, using short beams pr ...
.
20th Century and the Dartington Experiment
The influence of
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore (; bn, রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He resh ...
on Leonard Elmhirst, and the interests and money of his wife Dorothy, led them to undertake an experiment in rural reconstruction at Dartington Hall, which was purchased in 1925. It is said that Tagore had become familiar with Dartington during his travels in England and influenced Elmhirst in his selection of the estate.
The energy and investments of the Elmhirsts, a number of significant innovations in rural regeneration became organised departments working on the estate. These innovations included "the social and spiritual ‘questing’ that underwrote support for peace movements, Eastern mysticism and ultimately social science; the progressive educational values that led to the founding of Dartington School; the artistic commitments that made the place an innovator in pottery and textiles and – by 1938 – a refuge for sixty or so avant-garde Continental dancers, sculptors and playwrights; and the agricultural ventures which, if never profitable, became a seedbed for research."
In 1928, Leonard Elmirst began collaborating with
Alice Blinn
Alice Blinn (April 18, 1889 – January 20, 1982) was an American educator, home efficiency expert, and magazine editor. Born in Candor, New York, she attended the New York State normal school and became a teacher. After teaching briefly, in 1913 ...
, who worked for
Delineator Home Institute to create a
home economics
Home economics, also called domestic science or family and consumer sciences, is a subject concerning human development, personal and family finances, consumer issues, housing and interior design, nutrition and food preparation, as well as texti ...
training centre and modernise domestic activities of the village. Blinn recommended initiatives including education, apprenticeship programmes, a laboratory, a modern kitchen, cafeteria, laundry, and lavatories, based on what was available in a modern American home. Unable to persuade Blinn to move to England, Elmhirst abandoned the plan. Blinn's recommended kitchen equipment was installed but arranged in a typical English fashion because the headmaster's wife did not like the design.
In 1935, the Dartington Hall
Trust
Trust often refers to:
* Trust (social science), confidence in or dependence on a person or quality
It may also refer to:
Business and law
* Trust law, a body of law under which one person holds property for the benefit of another
* Trust (bus ...
, a registered
charity
Charity may refer to:
Giving
* Charitable organization or charity, a non-profit organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being of persons
* Charity (practice), the practice of being benevolent, giving and sharing
* Ch ...
, was set up in order to run the estate.
High Cross House was built in 1932 as a home for the headmaster of Dartington Hall school. It was designed by Swiss-American architect
William Lescaze
William Edmond Lescaze, FAIA (March 27, 1896 – February 9, 1969), was a Swiss-born American architect, city planner and industrial designer. He is ranked among the pioneers of modernism in American architecture.
Biography
William Lescaze w ...
and is now regarded as an important
modernist building. It is Grade II* listed.
The building was one of the main venues for the 2019 Sea Change Festival, including appearances from
Stewart Lee
Stewart Graham Lee (born 5 April 1968) is an English comedian, screenwriter, and television director. His stand-up routine is characterised by repetition, internal reference, deadpan delivery, and consistent breaking of the fourth wall.
Lee b ...
,
Adrian Sherwood
Adrian Maxwell Sherwood (born 20 January 1958, London, England) is an English record producer specialising in the genre of dub music. He has created a distinctive production style based on the application of dub effects and dub mixing technique ...
, Emma Warren, Babak Ganjei,
Salena Godden
Salena Godden is an English poet, author, activist, broadcaster, memoirist and essayist.
Born in the UK, Salena Godden is of Jamaican-Irish heritage and based in London. Widely anthologised, she has published several books. She has also writt ...
and
Mark Stewart and
Gareth Sager
Gareth Sager (born 10 August 1960 in Edinburgh, Scotland) is a British guitarist, keyboardist, musician, composer and songwriter, and is a founding member of The Pop Group, Rip Rig + Panic (with Neneh Cherry), Float Up CP and Head.
In h ...
of
The Pop Group
The Pop Group are an English rock band formed in Bristol in 1977 by vocalist Mark Stewart, guitarist John Waddington, bassist Simon Underwood, guitarist/saxophonist Gareth Sager, and drummer Bruce Smith. Their work in the late 1970s crosse ...
.
Aller Park, the original Dartington Hall School, was built 1929-31 and designed by Ides Van Der Gracht of the New York firm of Delano and Aldrish. Intended as a junior school, it was built in a lavish Americanised Tudor style. Soon afterwards came Foxhole, the senior school built 1931-32, and boarding houses Blacklers (1933), Chimmels (1934) and Orchards (1935) in a straightforward modern idiom. A modern extension was added to Orchards, and a drama hall built nearby - both of 1964. East of the medieval Hall an arts centre and dance school with a large hall was built 1930-32, with several additions in 1938 and 1966. To the North of the Hall, Higher Close Students Centre was built in 1963 adjacent to the present main car park. Huxhams Cross and Broom Park were built 1932 as estate workers houses. At Shinners Bridge is the central Office of the estate (1935) and the Sawmill (1931-32). The Cider Press Centre was built 1976 for the growing tourist trade.
The estate today
In addition to historic buildings the estate has a number of legacy 20th century buildings from the Elmhirst's social enterprises, including the defunct Dartington Hall School, which closed in 1987, and High Cross House which is now a base for Dartington Trust's teaching staff and academics. Other buildings are being used by various departments at the Trust, including the Old Postern which is home to
Schumacher College
Schumacher College is a college near Totnes, Devon, England which offers ecology-centred degree programmes, short courses and horticultural programmes. The College is internationally renowned for its experiential approach to learning, encouragin ...
, and other buildings around the Hall which host the Arts at Dartington, the Dartington Music Summer School & Festival, and Research in Practice. The Cider Press Centre, a shopping centre at Shinners Bridge, is also run by the Trust.
In September 2022, undergraduate students returned to Dartington estate with the launch of the BSc Regenerative Food and Farming, the first degree in England to focus specifically on sustainable approaches to agriculture.
The Hall and medieval courtyard functions in part as a conference centre and wedding venue and provides
bed and breakfast
Bed and breakfast (typically shortened to B&B or BnB) is a small lodging establishment that offers overnight accommodation and breakfast. Bed and breakfasts are often private family homes and typically have between four and eleven rooms, wit ...
accommodation for people attending courses and for casual visitors. The Barn Cinema and the White Hart Bar and Restaurant are used by estate dwellers, residents from the surrounding countryside, and visitors alike.
In North Devon, the
Beaford Centre
Beaford Arts is an arts organisation in Devon, England. It was established as The Beaford Centre in 1966 by John Lane (writer and artist), John Lane for the Dartington Hall Trust. It promotes and supports the arts in rural north Devon - an area of ...
was set up as an arts centre by the Dartington Trust in the 1960s to bring employment and culture to a rurally depressed area, and continues to thrive. With similar social objectives, the Trust established the
Dartington Crystal
Dartington Crystal is a British manufacturer of crystal glassware, based in the town of Torrington in North Devon, England. The company manufactures their glassware using traditional glass blowing techniques.
Many of their ranges continue t ...
factory at
Great Torrington
Great Torrington (often abbreviated to Torrington, though the villages of Little Torrington and Black Torrington are situated in the same region) is a market town in Devon, England. Parts of it are sited on high ground with steep drops down to ...
in June 1967 under the name of Dartington Glass.
Dartington Music Summer School & Festival
Dartington Music Summer School & Festival is a department of the Dartington Trust. It is both a festival and a music school with an "ethos of bringing together top-quality performers and composers to work with students and amateur musicians in concerts and classes in a relaxed, informal atmosphere." Participants, both amateur musicians and advanced students, spend the daytime studying a variety of different musical courses, and the evenings attending (or performing in) concerts. In addition to instrumental and vocal masterclasses, there are courses at various levels on subjects such as composition, opera, chamber music, conducting and improvisation. Courses include choirs, orchestras, individual masterclasses, and non classical music such as Jazz, Salsa and Gamelan. Composition teachers have included
Luciano Berio
Luciano Berio (24 October 1925 – 27 May 2003) was an Italian composer noted for his experimental work (in particular his 1968 composition ''Sinfonia'' and his series of virtuosic solo pieces titled ''Sequenza''), and for his pioneering work ...
,
Luigi Nono
Luigi Nono (; 29 January 1924 – 8 May 1990) was an Italian avant-garde composer of classical music.
Biography
Early years
Nono, born in Venice, was a member of a wealthy artistic family; his grandfather was a notable painter. Nono beg ...
,
Bruno Maderna
Bruno Maderna (21 April 1920 – 13 November 1973) was an Italian conductor and composer.
Life
Maderna was born Bruno Grossato in Venice but later decided to take the name of his mother, Caterina Carolina Maderna.Interview with Maderna‘s th ...
,
Harrison Birtwistle
Sir Harrison Birtwistle (15 July 1934 – 18 April 2022) was an English composer of contemporary classical music best known for his operas, often based on mythological subjects. Among his many compositions, his better known works include ''Th ...
,
Peter Maxwell Davies
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies (8 September 1934 – 14 March 2016) was an English composer and conductor, who in 2004 was made Master of the Queen's Music.
As a student at both the University of Manchester and the Royal Manchester College of Musi ...
,
Brian Ferneyhough
Brian John Peter Ferneyhough (; born 16 January 1943) is an English composer. Ferneyhough is typically considered the central figure of the New Complexity movement. Ferneyhough has taught composition at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg and ...
,
Witold Lutosławski
Witold Roman Lutosławski (; 25 January 1913 – 7 February 1994) was a Polish composer and conductor. Among the major composers of 20th-century classical music, he is "generally regarded as the most significant Polish composer since Szyman ...
and
Elliott Carter
Elliott Cook Carter Jr. (December 11, 1908 – November 5, 2012) was an American modernist composer. One of the most respected composers of the second half of the 20th century, he combined elements of European modernism and American "ultra- ...
.
Dartington Gardens
![Dartington autumns colours-35](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/Dartington_autumns_colours-35.jpg)
The gardens were created by Dorothy Elmhirst with the involvement of major
landscape design
Landscape design is an independent profession and a design and art tradition, practiced by landscape designers, combining nature and culture. In contemporary practice, landscape design bridges the space between landscape architecture and gard ...
ers
Beatrix Farrand
Beatrix Cadwalader Farrand (née Jones; June 19, 1872 – February 28, 1959) was an American landscape gardener and landscape architect. Her career included commissions to design about 110 gardens for private residences, estates and country ho ...
and
Percy Cane
Percival Stephen Cane (1881–1976) was an English garden designer and writer.
Biography
Cane was born and educated in Essex, studying horticulture and architecture. He designed scores of gardens over a long and distinguished career, and won ...
and feature a
tiltyard
A tiltyard (or tilt yard or tilt-yard) was an enclosed courtyard for jousting. Tiltyards were a common feature of Tudor era castles and palaces.
The Horse Guards Parade in London was formerly the tiltyard constructed by Henry VIII as an entertainm ...
(thought actually to be the remains of an Elizabethan water garden) and major sculptures, including examples by
Henry Moore
Henry Spencer Moore (30 July 1898 – 31 August 1986) was an English artist. He is best known for his semi- abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art. As well as sculpture, Moore produced ...
,
Willi Soukop
Willi Soukop (5 January 1907 – 8 February 1995) was a sculptor, member of the Royal Academy and early teacher of Elisabeth Frink. Soukop's work is prominently on display at Hull University
, mottoeng = Bearing the Torch f learn ...
and Peter Randall-Page. There is an ancient yew tree (''
Taxus baccata
''Taxus baccata'' is a species of evergreen tree in the family Taxaceae, native to western, central and southern Europe (including Britain and Ireland), northwest Africa, northern Iran, and southwest Asia.Rushforth, K. (1999). ''Trees of Britain ...
'') reputed to be nearly 2000 years old and legend has it that
Knights Templar
, colors = White mantle with a red cross
, colors_label = Attire
, march =
, mascot = Two knights riding a single horse
, equipment ...
are buried in the graveyard there, although there is no evidence to substantiate this.
Former activities
Dartington Hall School
Dartington Hall School, founded in 1926, offered a progressive coeducational boarding life. When it started there was a minimum of formal classroom activity and the children learned by involvement in estate activities. It was to have "no corporal punishment, indeed no punishment at all; no prefects; no uniforms; no Officers' Training Corps; no segregation of the sexes; no compulsory games, compulsory religion or compulsory anything else, no more Latin, no more Greek; no competition; no
jingoism
Jingoism is nationalism in the form of aggressive and proactive foreign policy, such as a country's advocacy for the use of threats or actual force, as opposed to peaceful relations, in efforts to safeguard what it perceives as its national inte ...
."
With time more academic rigour was imposed, but it remained progressive and had mixed success educating the children, sometimes the more wayward ones, of the fee-paying parents. A noted alumnus was
Lord Young, a founder of ''
Which?
''Which?'' is a United Kingdom brand name that promotes informed consumer choice in the purchase of goods and services by testing products, highlighting inferior products or services, raising awareness of consumer rights and offering independen ...
'' and the
Open University
The Open University (OU) is a British public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate students are based in the United Kingdom and principally study off- ...
.
Lucian Freud
Lucian Michael Freud (; 8 December 1922 – 20 July 2011) was a British painter and draughtsman, specialising in figurative art, and is known as one of the foremost 20th-century English portraitists. He was born in Berlin, the son of Jewis ...
attended the school for two years and his brother
Clement Freud
Sir Clement Raphael Freud (24 April 1924 – 15 April 2009) was a German-born British broadcaster, writer, politician and chef.
The son of Ernst L. Freud and grandson of Sigmund Freud, Clement moved to the United Kingdom from Nazi Germany as ...
was also a pupil there. Other noted alumni include
Eva Ibbotson
Eva Maria Charlotte Michelle Ibbotson (née Wiesner; born 21 January 1925 – 20 October 2010) was a British novelist born in Austria to a Jewish family who fled the Nazis. She is known for her children's literature. Some of her novels for adult ...
, songwriter
Kit Hain
Kit Hain (born 15 December 1956) is a British musician, songwriter and writer. She was a member of the rock duo Marshall Hain and had a solo career as a performer and songwriter.
Musical career
Hain met Julian Marshall while they were pupils ...
,
Ivan Moffat
Ivan Romilly Moffat (18 February 1918 – 4 July 2002) was a British screenwriter, film producer and socialite who, with Fred Guiol, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for adapting Edna Ferber's eponymous novel into the ...
,
Jasper Fforde
Jasper Fforde (born 11 January 1961) is an English novelist, whose first novel, '' The Eyre Affair'', was published in 2001. He is known mainly for his '' Thursday Next'' novels, but has published two books in the loosely connected '' Nursery Cr ...
,
Sheila Ernst,
Lionel Grigson
Lionel Grigson (12 February 1942 – 14 June 1994) was an English jazz pianist, cornettist, trumpeter, composer, writer and teacher, who in the 1980s started the jazz course at the Guildhall School of Music. As Simon Purcell wrote in ''The Ind ...
,
Miriam Gross
Miriam Gross, Lady Owen is a literary editor and writer.
She was the deputy literary editor of ''The Observer'' from 1969-81, the women's editor of ''The Observer'' from 1981-84, the arts editor of ''The Daily Telegraph'' from 1986-91, and the ...
,
Martin Bernal
Martin Gardiner Bernal (; 10 March 1937 – 9 June 2013)
was a British scholar of modern Chinese political history. He was a Professor of Government and Near Eastern Studies at Cornell University. He is best known for his work ''Black Athena'', a ...
,
Matthew Huxley
Matthew Huxley (19 April 1920 – 10 February 2005) was an epidemiologist and anthropologist, as well as an educator and author. His work ranged from promoting universal health care to establishing standards of care for nursing home patients and th ...
,
Max Fordham,
Oliver Postgate
Richard Oliver Postgate (12 April 1925 – 8 December 2008), generally known as Oliver Postgate, was an English animator, puppeteer, and writer. He was the creator and writer of some of Britain's most popular children's television progra ...
,
Richard Leacock
Richard Leacock (18 July 192123 March 2011)
The Telegraph (Lon ...
,
Jasia Reichardt
Jasia Reichardt (born 1933) is a British art critic, curator, art gallery director, teacher and prolific writer, specialist in the emergence of computer art. In 1968 she was curator of the landmark ''Cybernetic Serendipity'' exhibition at London's ...
and the sculptor
Sokari Douglas Camp
Sokari Douglas Camp CBE (born 1958 in Nigeria) is a London-based artist who has had exhibitions all over the world and was the recipient of a bursary from the Henry Moore Foundation. She was honoured as a Commander of the Order of the British ...
.
Son of the founders,
Michael Straight
Michael Whitney Straight (September 1, 1916 – January 4, 2004) was an American magazine publisher, novelist, patron of the arts, a member of the prominent Whitney family, and a confessed spy for the KGB.
Early life
Straight was born in New Yo ...
, also attended the school. Straight later attended Cambridge and became a speechwriter to
Franklin D Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
, and publisher of the
New Republic after the war, which the Whitney family owned. In his memoir ''After Long Silence'', Straight stated he had been recruited as a Communist agent by Cambridge spy
Anthony Blunt
Anthony Frederick Blunt (26 September 1907 – 26 March 1983), styled Sir Anthony Blunt KCVO from 1956 to November 1979, was a leading British art historian and Soviet spy.
Blunt was professor of art history at the University of London, dire ...
, but had become disillusioned with the Party after the war.
W. B. Curry was headmaster of the school from 1931 to 1957, and wrote two books about it, ''The School'', published by
The Bodley Head
The Bodley Head is an English publishing house, founded in 1887 and existing as an independent entity until the 1970s. The name was used as an imprint of Random House Children's Books from 1987 to 2008. In April 2008, it was revived as an adul ...
in 1934, and ''Education for Sanity'', published by Heinemann in 1947.
The author
Dennis Wheatley novelised the activities of some people based at the school in his 1947 book ''The Haunting of Toby Jugg''. This was a supernatural thriller which sensationalised some real-life events before the war, setting them at a fictional school called "Weylands". Years later, it was revealed that these events had attracted the attention of
MI5
The Security Service, also known as MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), G ...
in a declassified report called "The Case Against Dartington Hall".
At its peak, the school had some 300 pupils. However, with the advent of state-based progressive education, the death of its founders, and the appointment of a new headmaster in whose time the school attracted considerable negative publicity – not least owing to his calling the police to the school to combat alcohol and drug abuse taking place, the death by drowning of a student, and his wife's modelling for pornographic photographs – the school suffered a dramatic drop in recruitment. The school was forced to close in 1987. After the school's closure, a number of staff and students set up
Sands School
Sands School is a democratic school in Ashburton, Devon in England.
Background
Sands School is the second democratic school in England which was started in 1987 by a group of students and teachers from the recently closed Dartington Hall Sch ...
which still carries some of the principles that Dartington once had.
It has been suggested that the school 'Knotshead' in the novel ''A Private Place'' by
Amanda Craig
Amanda Craig (born 1959) is a British novelist, critic and journalist. She was a recipient of the Catherine Pakenham Award.
Early life
Born in South Africa, Craig grew up in Italy before moving to London. Her parents were British journalist, ...
was based upon Dartington Hall school, as the events in the book are similar to those that occurred within the final years of Dartington Hall.
Literary editor
Miriam Gross
Miriam Gross, Lady Owen is a literary editor and writer.
She was the deputy literary editor of ''The Observer'' from 1969-81, the women's editor of ''The Observer'' from 1981-84, the arts editor of ''The Daily Telegraph'' from 1986-91, and the ...
wrote an account of her time at the school in her memoir, and also published in the May 2011 edition of ''
Standpoint'' magazine.
Tagore
Inspired by a long association with
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore (; bn, রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He resh ...
's
Shantiniketan
Santiniketan is a neighbourhood of Bolpur town in the Bolpur subdivision of Birbhum district in West Bengal, India, approximately 152 km north of Kolkata. It was established by Maharshi Devendranath Tagore, and later expanded by his son ...
, where Tagore was trying to introduce
progressive education
Progressive education, or protractivism, is a pedagogical movement that began in the late 19th century and has persisted in various forms to the present. In Europe, progressive education took the form of the New Education Movement. The term ''pro ...
and rural reconstruction into a tribal community, the Elmhirsts set out in the 1920s on a similar goal for the depressed agricultural economy in rural England.
In May 2010,
Sotheby's
Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, and ...
sold a group of 12 paintings by
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore (; bn, রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He resh ...
, which had been given by Tagore to Leonard Elmhirst. In Autumn 2011, The Trust proposed the sale of additional artworks by
Ben Nicholson
Benjamin Lauder Nicholson, Order of Merit, OM (10 April 1894 – 6 February 1982) was an English painter of abstract art, abstract compositions (sometimes in low relief), landscape and still-life.
Background and training
Nicholson was ...
,
Christopher Wood,
Alfred Wallis
Alfred Wallis (18 August 1855 – 29 August 1942) was a British fisherman and artist known for his port landscapes and shipping scenes painted in a naïve style. Having no artistic training, he began painting at the age of 70, using househo ...
and others, again at Sotheby's. The sale generated some criticism from local people, who voiced concerns about deaccessioning of the Trust's art assets. The Trust argued that the founders went to considerable lengths to make clear that art works and other assets could and should be used and sold at the discretion of the Trustees to support the activities of the Trust.
On the sale of works of art from the collection
dartington.org
Dartington College of Arts
Dartington College of Arts was a specialist arts institution based at the hall from 1961 to 2010, with an international reputation for excellence, focusing mainly on the performance art
Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...
s. In 2008, it became part of University College Falmouth
Falmouth University ( kw, Pennskol Aberfal) is a specialist public university for the creative industries based in Falmouth and Penryn, Cornwall, England. Founded as Falmouth School of Art in 1902, it was later known as Falmouth College of Ar ...
and subsequently relocated to Falmouth, Cornwall
Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...
. In 2021, the Trust re-opened the Dartington Arts School with five new Masters programmes, including Arts and Place, Arts and Ecology and Poetics of Imagination.
Gallery
File:Main entrance Dartington.jpg, Courtyard north entrance
File:Dartingon Gardens@ Photo by Meladina.jpg, View of gardens and Hall
File:Tower at Dartington.jpg, Tower of the former St Mary's church
File:Zen garden at Dartington.jpg, Zen garden
File:Inner quad Dartington.jpg, North corner of Courtyard
File:Gardens in Winter.jpg, Gardens in winter
See also
* D. G. Champernowne, mathematician and economist, buried in the church yard
* ''Dart'', a poem by Alice Oswald
Alice Priscilla Lyle Oswald (née Keen; born 31 August 1966) is a British poet from Reading, Berkshire. Her work won the T. S. Eliot Prize in 2002 and the Griffin Poetry Prize in 2017. In September 2017, she was named as BBC Radio 4's second Poe ...
(Dartington Hall's gardener)
*Schumacher College
Schumacher College is a college near Totnes, Devon, England which offers ecology-centred degree programmes, short courses and horticultural programmes. The College is internationally renowned for its experiential approach to learning, encouragin ...
, a department of the Trust based primarily at the Old Postern on the Dartington estate.
References
Further reading
*Anonymous, ''Dartington'', Webb & Bower, 1982.
*
*Wheatley, Dennis. The Haunting of Toby Jugg (1947). Critical novel, based on life at the school.
*
*
*MacManus, Steve (2017). ''Elmsworld. My Life At Dartington Hall School 1963-1971'', eBook Publication, .
External links
Dartington Trust
Higher Education at Dartington Trust
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20161003052328/https://www.dartington.org/whats-on/summer-school/ Dartington International Summer Schoolbr>Dartington Hall School alumni website
*
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