Podcast

Transcript

Four voices: male voiceover [MV]; Jackie Bird [JB]; Claudia Noble-Pyott [CNP]; second male voiceover from 1930s [MV2]

[MV]
Love Scotland, brought to you from the National Trust for Scotland.

[JB]
Today we’re going to step back into the gilded age of Edwardian Britain, evocatively described as a leisurely time when women wore picture hats and did not vote, when the rich were not ashamed to live conspicuously, and the sun never really set on the British flag.

How much of that description, written as it was after the horrors of the Great War, was rose-tinted nostalgia? We’ll never know. But in the early 1900s, even though it was a time of great inequality, the Industrial Revolution had created a new social class which had become embedded in society – a wealthy, sometimes fantastically so, middle class.

Now heading along a tree-lined driveway to a National Trust for Scotland property which showcases that era of affluence. Hill of Tarvit Mansion, with its glorious design, fabulous interiors and its own hickory golf course, is a fascinating location in itself. But I think the most compelling part of Hill of Tarvit’s story isn’t the impressive house and its riches, but the tale of the family who built it, of their aspirations, enterprise and bravery, and ultimately of their tragedies. It confirms that at the same time you can have everything and nothing at all.

[music plays]

The interior of Hill of Tarvit Mansion does not disappoint. I’m in the French drawing room alongside Claudia Noble Pyott, who came here as a visitor and fell in love with the place as I have. Claudia, thank you for having me here.

[CNP]
It’s very good to have you here, Jackie. Welcome to Hill of Tarvit.

[JB]
Well, thank you. You are now the Trust boss here, I have to make that clear. I’m not great at doing justice to rooms like this. I will try and help you out, but can you describe where we are?

[CNP]
Now we are in a room that has beautifully carved ornate walls, wonderfully decorated ceilings with hand-cast flowers and silk bands between the flowers, a lovely oak floor, a beautiful big bay window on one side of the room overlooking the golf course, and the most spectacular marble fireplace with a gorgeous French clock on it.

[JB]
Now what is so interesting, if I’m correct, is that the room was designed around that clock.

[CNP]
It was designed around the clock. The space behind the clock was specially made for the mirror in it.

[JB]
And it’s not a large mirror; it’s about just over a metre wide, something like that, but the entire dimensions of the room … And if you think that sounds strange, then it’s not just this room, as it happened, because this is a mark of the entire house.

[CNP]
It absolutely is. The Great Hall, or the room designed in the style of a Great Hall …

[JB]
So we leave the French salon, we open the door and we’re into the Great Hall, yes?

[CNP]
And in that Great Hall you will see a massive tapestry. Now the tapestry is quite large, and the wall literally had to be made higher and wider just to fit the tapestry. So, all the rooms on the lower floor were literally designed around pieces either of furniture or clocks or tapestries or just because of some Chippendale-style furniture.

[JB]
Let’s find out about the mind of the man whose idea all of this was. This is the owner; this is Frederick Sharp. He was a collector of fine furniture and tapestries. Tell us more about Frederick.

[CNP]
Frederick Sharp grew up in a house that was very Gothic, very Victorian, with small rooms, lots of rooms – small rooms, small windows, everything very dark and full of knick-knacks. And he wanted the opposite. He wanted big rooms, high ceilings, really big windows that bring the outdoors in … and this is what was absolutely achieved.

[JB]
Where did the money come from?

[CNP]
The money came from the jute industry in Dundee. His grandfather had invented a heckling machine to help separate the jute fibres when they came over from India.

[JB]
So did that make the money then?

[CNP]
Sadly, it did not. He died in debt, but Frederick’s father John, also known as Honest John, he made money in the jute industry. He had three jute mills, quite a lot of workers that worked for him and he was able to leave his children £750,000, which at the time of his death was an absolutely vast amount of money.

[JB]
Can we translate that into what it might be today?

[CNP]
Well, it might be something like £124 million. A lot of money.

[JB]
OK, so he was quite well set up and he married Beatrice, again who wasn’t short of funds.

[CNP]
Oh, absolutely not. Her family was also in the jute and the linen industry.

[JB]
So the Sharps had money, but what they didn’t have, and what you couldn’t buy, you couldn’t buy yourself into the aristocracy. This was the time of this new, fabulously wealthy middle class. They wanted to become part of the fabric of society here. So how did they do that? Was the house part of it?

[CNP]
The house was part of it, but the land the house is on is part of it because this land belonged to a family called the Wemyss, who were very well connected. The hunt met here. To join the aristocracy, you go hunting with them. Frederick was a great huntsman, so he really enjoyed that, and he was a great golfer. St Andrews Royal & Ancient was another place where you could meet and get connected to the gentry.

[JB]
So they had the land. They needed a house. Who better to design the house than one of the most influential architects of the time?

[CNP]
Absolutely. They just asked a friend, who Frederick was introduced to at a dinner party at Earlshall in Leuchars, which is still a privately owned castle. William Mackenzie, who owned it at the time, he was friends with Robert Lorimer’s parents.

[JB]
Sir Robert Lorimer, no less.

[CNP]
Mm hmm. William Mackenzie had Robert Lorimer design a couple of rooms in his castle and introduced him at a dinner party to Frederick Sharp and to William Burrell.

[JB]
But it wasn’t just a house that was significant because it was built to house particularly a collection. We're talking now – I think the house was completed in about 1908 – it was a house that had extraordinary mod cons.

[CNP]
Oh yes, it had central heating. It had hot and cold running water. It had two bathrooms upstairs, a big cloakroom downstairs. Electricity. An electric fireplace.

[JB]
An internal phone system, I read!

[CNP]
It wasn’t just internal; that was even in 1910. Frederick actually had the line connected and the first number was Lethem 27. And the 2 7 is still the last two digits of our telephone number today and that means it was never disconnected in all that time.

[JB]
So Frederick and Beatrice had a fabulous home. They had a place in society and the picture was complete. They had two children. Tell me about their children.

[CNP]
They had Hugh. He moved in here with his parents in 1908. And baby Elizabeth, she was born in the house in 1910, and one of the wings was turned into a nursery wing for baby Elizabeth.

[JB]
So how old was Hugh when he came here?

[CNP]
He was about 11; so he was 12. He was nearly 13, actually, when Elizabeth was born, which meant that Elizabeth basically grew up as an only child because of the fact that when he was 13, he was sent to Rugby in Warwickshire in England, where he went to boarding school.

[JB]
So you would imagine that when he was home, there was an idyllic scene here and the family were all sports-mad. However, the shadow of World War One loomed. What happened then?

[JB]
Hugh had joined the Army Reserves at school and of course then, when he was of age, he was just 18 when he joined the Corps. Just a couple of weeks before his 19th birthday, he was sent to the Western Front.

[JB]
And I understand that he saw some of the most horrific and famous battles there was.

[CNP]
Yes, he was in the Battle of the Somme, the Battle of Ypres, Passchendaele, and then he also took part in campaigns in Italy.

[JB]
Do we have any indication of what he was doing in the war?

[CNP]
Well, we believe him to have been a forward observation officer.

[JB]
What was that?

[CNP]
That is somebody who goes right to the front line and just makes sure that the actual shelling is hitting the target.

[JB]
So he was part of the artillery regiment?

[CNP]
Yes. And then he goes back and reports, a bit more to the left, a bit more to the right, and you’ll be hitting what you’re meant to be hitting. And also, he had to go right to the front to get some reconnaissance, just to find out who’s there, what they’re doing, and then report all that back.

[JB]
And it was an extremely distinguished career.

[CNP]
Oh, it absolutely was because he got the Military Cross twice.

[JB]
Twice!

[CNP]
Absolutely. Once on 13 February 1917 and then again on 26 November 1917. And there was a lovely, lovely little article in the London Gazette about his Military Cross for the February. It said ‘it was with conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. He went forward to capture position and returned through a heavy barrage with valuable information. On many occasions during a long period he has made valuable reconnaissances under rifle and shellfire.’

[JB]
So Hugh, immense bravery on the western fronts; and the family helping with the war effort at home. I know they were involved with local nursing units here. Let’s take a break, Claudia, and we’ll move location if we may, because I know that Hugh’s bedroom is preserved here. So, let’s head there, and when we come back, we’ll pick up our story.

[MV]
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[JB]
Welcome back. Claudia, we are now in a surprisingly small room, but I suspect of course Hugh was just a boy when he came here and then left to go to boarding school for most of it. But this is Hugh’s bedroom, dominated by a fantastic portrait of a young lad of about 9 or 10 in a kilt. I take it that’s Hugh.

[CNP]
That is Hugh. We have a photograph of him dressed very similarly and we do know that he, as a boy, played golf in his kilt as well.

[JB]
Not an easy thing to do. Now, we left Hugh in World War One with a distinguished military career. Let’s pick up the story there.

[CNP]
He was also awarded the Italian Silver Medal for Valour. And he was also given the French Medal of Valour, presented to him by the French President himself. So, he had quite a war.

[JB]
And remarkably, and thankfully, he came out of the war alive unlike so many of his comrades who were in the thick of the action. What did he do then? Because we’re talking now … I think it was 1919 by the time he was demobbed?

[CNP]
Yes, he went back to Oxford for a year after he was demobbed, but left Oxford in 1920 with no degree.

[JB]
Do we know why? Did he ever write letters home explaining that?

[CNP]
Sadly, we do not have letters.

[JB]
You could presume though, based on no fact whatsoever, if you have had that sort of experience, then you want to live life a little … if four years of your life have gone.

[CNP]
Yeah, I always like to think, well, he just thought, after what I’ve been through, quite honestly, this isn’t for me anymore. He decided to become a banker like his dad, so he went to London and went into the banking industry in the City. And he enjoyed life in London.

[JB]
Is that a euphemism?!

[CNP]
Well, yeah, he did. He enjoyed life. He just really lived.

[JB]
Well, he was a wealthy man about town. I come back to that depiction that he was an action man, because the walls here are also adorned with lots of photographs of Hugh hanging off a number of crevices. So he was into his rock climbing, mountain climbing?

[CNP]
Oh, he absolutely was. And someone actually wrote about him: ‘The first climbing he did was at the Aviemore Meet of 1922. He was so thrilled with getting to the top in very bad conditions that, for the next 12 years, he was seldom away from the hills.’

[JB]
He had so many outdoor pursuits but I presume that, alongside mountaineering, golf was a love not only for Hugh, but of his father Frederick – to the extent that one of the famous aspects of Hill of Tarvit Mansion is that it has its own golf course outside. I can see it from the window here.

[CNP]
Yes, and apparently, well, there is a rumour – we can’t prove it – but the rumour is that Hugh persuaded his father to build their own golf course, and they both had a hand in the design of it.

[JB]
Do you know what? I think if your only beloved son comes back from the trenches, you would do anything for him. And if you have the land, building him a golf course is possibly the least of them. So, the family spent many, many happy hours leaving the front door and they were on their own hickory golf course, which is the last in Europe, I believe.

[CNP]
It is, yes. It’s a very special course.

[JB]
Is it still playable?

[CNP]
It is! Absolutely. Anyone can book on to try. We provide all the equipment – so they get a pencil bag and all the old hickory clubs; and after their round, we provide shortbread and ginger beer!

[JB]
Lovely. Now, Hugh and his dad, they didn’t just share the love of golf; they also shared that love of collecting. Hugh began what became an impressive book collection.

[CNP]
Yes, he did. There were over 1,200 books that he collected.

[JB]
I was trying to look them up and he had first editions of Jane Austen, of the Brontes, of Mark Twain. He even had a first edition of the King James Bible and, like everything he did, he attacked it with gusto.

[CNP]
Oh, he absolutely did. The Sharp family I don’t think did anything by halves.

[JB]
I think that’s very true! Talking of not doing things by halves, one thing he didn’t do was get married, and I suppose that was expected of him.

[CNP]
Well, yes, as the son and heir to an estate like this, I suppose your first job in life should be thinking about a wife and producing an heir. And when he lived it up in London, he must have … It must have slipped his mind, I suppose.

[JB]
While Hugh was living it up, and understandably so, came Frederick’s death in 1932, just a week short of his 70th birthday. Hugh was reluctant even then to settle down, but eventually he met a love: Mabel Hogarth.

[CNP]
That’s right.

[JB]
What do we know about Mabel?

[CNP]
Mabel was from a shipping family over on the west coast of Scotland. What we do know is that Mabel attended a hunt ball in Perth in September 1931, and a Mr Hugh Frederick Bower Sharp – our Hugh – was also in attendance that day, so I suppose you could surmise they might have met there.

[JB]
They got engaged after quite a short courtship. He was nearly 40 at the time, wasn’t he?

[CNP]
Yes. They got engaged in the October of 1937, which meant he was actually 40 years old.

[JB]
But then, tragedy.

[MV2]
Words are inadequate to describe the tragedy of the train disaster at Castlecary, the worst crash since the first year of the war. Through the biting frost of a night blizzard, men have been working feverishly without ceasing to bring out the living; to recover the dead. Coaches were smashed like a matchbox crushed in the hand; a whole side torn away. In the wreckage, 35 were carried to their death, nearly 100 injured.

[JB]
And of course, Hugh Sharp perished in that crash. Do we know the circumstances of why he was on the train that day?

[CNP]
He was on the train because he wanted to go and see Mabel on the west coast. They were planning a big engagement bash in the village of Ceres, which is close here to Hill of Tarvit, and he was going to go and finalise details with her and her family. Because it was snowing that day, he decided against taking one of his Bentleys and he just decided to take the train, thinking he’d be safer.

[JB]
And it must have come, obviously stating the obvious here, as an absolutely devastating loss to Beatrice and to Elizabeth. Do we know what happened then, how they coped?

[CNP]
Well, they were absolutely grief stricken. It is said that the ladies had a bonfire with a lot of family photographs, family outings, Hugh’s photographs … and a lot of paperwork was allegedly burnt in that bonfire. Because they were so grief stricken, they just couldn’t bear to have it anymore.

[JB]
Gosh. Eventually, after bequeathing Hugh’s amazing book collection to the National Library of Scotland, Elizabeth carried on with her philanthropy. She was very keen on doing good work, so she was heavily involved in the Girl Guiding movement.

[CNP]
Oh, she was. She loved the outdoor life. Somebody called her ‘a creature of the open air’ and she really came to life outside. We have been given some photographs and found some clippings in newspapers, and you can see whenever a photograph was taken indoors, she doesn’t look happy; but yet when she’s outside, she’s smiling, she’s laughing. She’s there for her girls and with her girls, and she absolutely loved that life.

She was the District Commissioner for Fife for the Girl Guides. And she was the Commissioner for Camping. She did a lot of war work as well with the Guides, and she wrote a booklet about the village of Ceres and also what to do in case of a gas attack.

[JB]
Even though she was a member of an exceptionally wealthy family from an enormous country house, she didn’t dress as such, did she?

[CNP]
Oh, she absolutely didn’t. She was much more comfortable in, shall we say, less fashionable clothes than the fashion of the day. She would be walking around more in trousers than in skirts. But with her uniform came a skirt, so she would wear that too. She was described as being very different. There is a little quote by one of the Girl Guides saying: ‘Elizabeth used to run the messages from Hill of Tarvit barefoot across the hill into Cupar.’

[JB]
Sounds like an interesting woman to have known. But then there was more sadness for her because, I think, 7 years after Hugh’s death, she lost her mother Beatrice.

[CNP]
That’s right, yes.

[JB]
But then, more tragedy.

[CNP]
Yes, she was 34 years old when in 1944, she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. And the sad thing about it is her mother Beatrice passed away knowing there was never going to be an heir to all of this that her and Frederick had built.

[JB]
How utterly sad. But true to her father’s memory, Elizabeth just before she died … and how old was she when she finally passed?

[CNP]
She was 38 years old.

[JB]
… she had made provision because she was so keen that her father’s beloved collection and his house stayed together. How did she do that?

[CNP]
She knew a man who was Head of the Trust. His name was Jo Grimond. He had been a family friend. He became a Member of Parliament, I think, in the 1950s. He was from St Andrews, so he was a friend of her father’s. Jo Grimond and her must have obviously had a conversation at some point. And she decided to leave Hill of Tarvit to the National Trust for Scotland because she wanted people to be able to come and view it, especially the paintings. She was part of the Cupar Art Society and she would often lend the paintings to exhibitions in Cupar. I think it was really close to her heart that everyone would be able to come and enjoy the grounds – because they are magnificent, they are tranquil, they are just the most beautiful setting to walk your dog or just go for a walk yourself.

And she really wanted people to come in and enjoy the collection her father had built.

[JB]
There was another chapter in the history of Hill of Tarvit, because people did indeed receive solace from the house because it became a convalescence house for Marie Curie.

[CNP]
We were very lucky that the Marie Curie Foundation decided to rent it from 1952 to 1977. They rented the whole house. The patients moved into the bedrooms and the dressing rooms. Marie Curie had the house. They had the wings where the nurses would stay in the old servants’ rooms and Matron took over the old nursery where Elizabeth stayed her whole life. The Assistant Matron, she was in Forester’s Cottage, which is now the golf cottage of course. They had the grounds as well to look after. So, they paid the peppercorn rent of £1 a year, but they had all the overhead costs.

[JB]
When was the house restored to the perfect state it is today?

[CNP]
They started restoring it in the early 2000s, up here for the centenary celebrations in 2006. And we take that date from when the Great Hall was finished, because the fireplace is dated 1906. They started, especially with this back end of the house where Hugh’s bedroom is, and they came in with all kinds of different machineries to measure the walls, to find out about the colour pigments on the walls, just to see the colour scheme the Sharps originally had and try to recreate it as best we could.

[JB]
It is a time capsule of an Edwardian era, and a reminder to us all, though, that no matter how much you have, we’re all human. And I bet Beatrice would have given it all up just to know that her son and daughter could have lived long and happy lives.

[CNP]
Oh, absolutely. I agree with you there.

[JB]
Well, thank you so much, Claudia, for sharing the house and its story with me. And a footnote that even in the 21st century, through its charitable trust, the Sharp family was still creating jobs and opportunities in nearby Dundee. And Hugh’s book collection at the National Library of Scotland is also a reminder that many of our wealthy families gave back to the country as much as they made.

I heartily recommend you come to visit Hill of Tarvit. For opening times, go to the National Trust for Scotland website. You can also find information on the hickory golf course here, the only one left in Europe, I believe. Look out for its centenary in 2024 and if you’re heading to St Andrews, you can don your plus fours and have a hit around as if you are Hugh and Frederick on their front lawn.

It’s been a pleasure being here. I hope you join us for another podcast very soon. But from me, for now, bye bye.

[music plays]

[MV]
Love Scotland is brought to you by Think and Demus Productions on behalf of the National Trust for Scotland; presented by Jackie Bird.

For show notes and more information, go to nts.org.uk and don’t forget to like, subscribe, review and share.