Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today however we are to the west of London, in nearby Buckinghamshire, at Dorrington House, a smart Jacobean manor house of the late 1600s built for a wealthy merchant, situated in High Wycombe, where Lettice’s elder sister, Lalage (known to everyone in the family by the diminutive Lally), resides with her husband Charles Lanchenbury and their three children, Harrold, Annabelle and baby Piers. Situated within walking distance of the market town’s main square, the elegant red brick house with its high-pitched roof and white painted sash windows still feels private considering its close proximity to the centre of the town thanks to an elegant and restrained garden surrounding it, which is enclosed by a high red brick wall.
Following the death of Lord Sherbourne Tyrwhitt, patriarch of the family living on the estate adjunct to that of Lettice’s parents, Lettice and her sister Lally returned to their grand Georgian family home of Glynes in Wiltshire to attend the funeral of the man they have both grown up calling Uncle Sherbourne even though he was no blood relation. Indeed, the Chetwynds and the Tyrwhitts were only formally joined in November last year by the marriage of Lord Sherbourne’s only daughter, Arabella, to Viscount Wrexham’s eldest son and heir Leslie. With the funeral over, Lettice has agreed to keep Lally company in her empty home for a few days whilst her husband and children are away. And so, we find the siblings sitting at the round Georgian table of the bright and airy breakfast room of Dorrington House with its Dutch yellow painted walls, Chinese silk carpet, elegant Eighteenth Century furnishings and artwork as luncheon is being served.
“Will there be anything else, Mrs. Lanchenbury?” Edgars, Lally’s butler, asks politely as he deposits a partially filled decanter of red wine on the table.
“I don’t think so, Edgars, but I’ll ring if I do.” Lally replies with a reassuring smile from her seat at the round table. “Thank you.”
Lettice and her sister sit quietly at the table, backs straight in their Georgian chairs, not commencing either to serve themselves luncheon or to speak until the butler has retreated discreetly through the door and closed it behind him. As his footsteps echo down the hallway outside, the siblings release the pent-up breath they both have held within their chests whilst Edgars was serving their luncheon. They look at one another and both laugh, a glint in their eyes.
“Mater would be pleased with us, wouldn’t she Tice?” chuckles Lally.
“Don’t talk in front of the servants, dear.” Lettice imitates their mother’s overly plummy intonations, making them both laugh again.
“What astonishing bad luck we have,” Lally remarks a little despondently. “Arriving back here on cook’s day off. With only cold pork pie,” She gingerly lifts the scalloped edge of the covered serving dish at her right and peeps at what lies beneath it. “And some warmed potato au gratin to serve you. I’m sorry.”
“Oh, I don’t mind.” Lettice bushes her sister’s apologies aside. “One of Mrs. Sawyer’s pork pies is a feast in itself, Lally. Edith is a good plain cook, but nothing beats pastry made by a woman born and bred in the country.”
“And you don’t mind us dining in the breakfast room, rather than the dining room?” Lally asks with a lilt of concern in her voice.
“Goodness no, Lally!” Lettice replies in an effort to assuage her sister’s worries. “What’s the point when it is only, we two here. No, this is a nice cosy room with a cheerful fire going, which is perfect. We can take all our meals in here whilst I’m stopping if you like. Shall I pour?” She indicates to the crystal decanter containing a rich red wine in its bulbous base.
“If you would, Tice.” Lally acquiesces.
“So where has Charles gone? I know you told me before Uncle Sherbourne’s funeral, but I’m afraid with everything that went along with that, for the moment I can’t remember.”
“Oh, I don’t expect you to. Plate, Tice.” She indicates with a gesticulating hand for Lettice to pass her dinner plate - Lally’s everyday dinner service - to her, accepting it and depositing a scoop of steaming golden yellow potato au gratin onto her plate. “He and Lord Lanchenbury have set sail for Bombay on the P&O*.”
“And why have they gone to India?”
“To look at a new tea plantation.”
“Why?”
“Well, ever since Maison Lyonses** at Marble Arch and in Shaftesbury Avenue have accepted Lord Lanchenbury’s Georgian Afternoon Tea blend to serve as their own on the beverages menu, he can’t seem to supply enough of the stuff for the tea drinking populace of London. He and Charles are looking to expand the tea export business there.”
“Isn’t it funny, Lally?” Lettice remarks, accepting back her plate and pushing her sister’s full glass of wine across the table.
“What is, Tice?”
“That you still call your father-in-law Lord Lanchenbury, just as I do.”
“Well, with those glowering looks of his, his Victorian mutton chops*** and his equally severe and old fashioned manners hardly endear him to me or make me want to call him anything less.” She glances at her sister with serious eyes. “And, I don’t think he would appreciate me calling him ‘my dear George’ either.” Both girls chuckle at the thought. “Even Charles calls him Sir, in preference to Father or Pappa.”
“Too many years an old bachelor for Lord Lanchenbury, with no female company to soften the hard edges since his wife’s death.” Lettice pours herself a glass of wine.
“Oh I don’t think he’s short of female companionship.” Lally remarks as she stands up, reaches over and lifts the plate on which the pork pie sits and brings it closer to her. “If you understand my meaning, Tice.”
“Lally!” Lettice gasps, almost dropping the carafe in her hands, as her sister resumes her seat.
“What?” replies her sibling with a peal of laughter. “Don’t tell me that I’ve shocked you, Tice?”
“You have!”
“I’d hardly expect you to be shocked by the idea of a gentleman, even if it is crusty old Victorian Lord Lanchenbury, accepting a little paid female company, Tice. After all, you are the adventurous and worldly one, living amongst all the Bright Young Things**** up in London, whilst I have a much more sedate and conventional life here in Buckinghamshire.”
“Oh it isn’t the act itself, that shocks me, but rather hearing it spoken of from my sedate and conventional sister’s mouth, that does.”
“I’m not that unworldly, Tice.” Lally giggles.
Lally slices the pie generously, the silver knife cutting into the crisp golden crust with a satisfying crunch, revealing the richly coloured spiced meat interior and releasing the delicious smell of the cooked pork. Lettice lifts her plate and Lally plonks a slice of the pie on her plate before depositing one onto her own.
“I really can’t thank you enough, Tice, for agreeing to come and stay with me for a few days, directly from Glynes.”
“Oh I was only too happy to get out from under Mater’s own glowering stares, Lally.” She lifts her glass to her sister. “Cheers to happy sisterly relations.”
“Cheers indeed, Tice.” She raises her own full glass.
Their glasses clink cheerfully.
“Although admittedly, I probably wouldn’t have come if you’d asked me a few years ago.” Lettice admits with a tinge of guilt. “But only because of that poison Mater injected on purpose to strain our relationship.”
“Yes, I’m glad all that bad blood between us, created by Mother’s games of one-upmanship between us, is over and done with. I like having my little sister back again, Tice.” She smiles gratefully at Lettice.
“And I’m glad to have my elder sister’s confidence again too, Lally.” She reaches out and wraps her hand around Lally’s and gives it an encouraging squeeze.
“I just don’t think I could have faced coming home to an empty house after Uncle Sherbourne’s funeral.”
“Yes, it is a rather disparaging thought, isn’t it? Coming back to a silent house after all the dourness of the last few days. Where are my beloved nephew and niece, by the way?”
“After hearing about Uncle Sherbourne’s turn and knowing I had to get to Glynes quickly, I hurriedly packed a valise and gave Nanny money enough to take the children to Lyme Regis for a few days.”
“They’ll have the sun in their cheeks and the sea air in their hair when they get back.”
“They should be back the day after tomorrow according to the note Nanny left, so you will get to see them.”
“That will be nice, Lally, and it still gives us a whole day to ourselves before they do.” Lettice remarks.
“Yes,” muses her sister. “It will.”
The two sit in companionable silence for a little while, the sound of their cutlery scraping against their plates, their quiet chewing, and the crackle of the fire in the grate all that breaks the quiet peace of the breakfast room. Occasionally birds twitter from the shrubbery outside the window, and somewhere in the village beyond the high stone front wall, a horse clops by on the street, the scratch of cart or carriage wheels reminding Lettice of just how much of a world away High Wycombe is from the hustle and bustle of London, even if it is only twenty-nine miles away.
“You know, I always thought it would be Aunt Isobel who would go first.” Lally says, breaking the silence.
“I think we all thought that, Lally. After all, Aunt Isobel is the one who has always been sick.”
“Yes, and Uncle Sherbourne was always so hale and hearty.”
“Oh must you use that term, Lally? Hale and hearty, is all I’ve heard to describe poor Uncle Sherbourne for the last few days from every villager, mourner and well-wisher I’ve shaken hands with or spoken to throughout the whole ghastly ordeal.”
“Oh, I’m sorry Tice.” Lally apologises. “I guess the term must be catching, as now I think about it, it isn’t one that I usually use myself. Like you, I think I’ve just heard it so much over the last few days.”
“Well, do desist, my dear sister, of I shall be forced to reconsider my stopping here with you.” Lettice jokes as she cuts another thin sliver of pork pie and puts it to her mouth.
“Garstanton Park won’t be the same without him, will it?”
“Indeed no, especially the musical evenings Uncle Sherbourne was known for.”
“Will Nigel carry on do you suppose?”
Lettice looks anxiously at her sister, before quickly glancing back down at her plate, focusing upon the creamy white potato au gratin. She silently wonders how Lally knows about the financial difficulties the new Lord Tyrwhitt, Sherbourne’s only surviving son Nigel, has uncovered. From everything Nigel confided in her when they were in Gartsanton Park’s library cum music room after the funeral, Lettice thought she was one of the very few to be in his confidence and know the truth about the financial straits the Tyrwhitts now find themselves in.
“Having musical soirees, I mean.” Lally clarifies, sensing a lack of comprehension from her sister.
Lettice quietly releases a long breath before replying, “Well, Nigel does love that Bechstein***** as much as his father did. And even though I don’t really wish to say this with Uncle Sherbourne only freshly laid to rest, but Nigel plays it far better and more naturally than either Uncle Sherbourne or Aunt Isobel ever did.”
“Oh, Aunt Isobel always preferred the violin anyway. That was her instrument when she was younger before her hands became riddled with arthritis.” adds Lally. “But going back to my point, Garstanton Park will be awfully empty, with just Nigel and Aunt Isobel rattling around inside of it, with no Bella now she’s married to Leslie and living in the Glynes Dower House, and no sign of Nigel settling down and having a family yet. If I can feel lonely here at Dorrington with Charles and the children gone, I can only imagine what it will be like in such a big and drafty old place like Garstanton Park.”
“I imagine they’ll make the best of it. Nigel is often in their London house anyway, so no doubt he’ll just bring Aunt Isobel up with him when he comes, now.”
“Aahh yes,” Lally murmurs. “I tend to forget that you see Nigel quite often because he spends more time up in London than in Wiltshire. That will have to change.”
“Why should it change, Lally?”
“Well,” Lally scoffs. “Nigel can’t very well carry on a bachelor life in London and manage Garstanton Park at the same time, now can he?” She pauses and thinks for a moment. “They will stay on, won’t they?”
Lettice wonders whether she should disclose what Nigel told her about his doubts around keeping his great Victorian family home in his possession, but decides that discretion is better, even with her elder sister, considering the fact that he told her in confidence. “How can you give life to such a thought, Lally?”
“Oh I know, Tice.” Lally dabs the edges of her mouth with her damask napkin. “I feel like such a traitor by even uttering it, but ever since the war, with death duties being so high******.” Her voice trails off.
“Oh, I’m sure Nigel will make a good fist of it*******.” Lettice defends her friend with a false joviality that does not reflect the feeling growing in the pit of her stomach. “For as long as we and Pater can remember, there have always been Tyrwhitts at Garstanton Park. Why should the status quo change?”
“I know a number of people who have sold off their country houses since the end of the war and reside in reduced circumstances in London,” Lally remarks dourly, picking up her glass. ‘Not badly off of course, but certainly not in the style of the old family estates that they used to have before the war. Father is very lucky that Leslie made suggestions to modernise the Glynes estate.”
“Leslie was lucky that Pater could be persuaded.” Lettice replies.
“Well, that’s also true. I know Mother thinks it a poky little place, but I’m only grateful that Dorrington House,” She waves her hand around expansively about the tastefully decorated room with Dutch yellow walls and Georgian furnishings and artworks. “Is a more modest residence. I don’t need a whole retinue of staff to run it, nor a vast fortune to maintain it, so Charles and I can live very comfortably here, even with post-war economic inflation.”
“Oh let’s talk about something else, Lally.” Lettice remarks, trying to change the subject as she feels Mrs. Sawyer’s delicious pork pie start to turn to stone in her stomach.
“Yes, let’s talk about something jolly instead. We’ve been so consumed by Uncle Sherbourne’s death these last few days. Gerald was telling me at the wake that you have a Mrs. Hawarden who wants you to decorate her house in Ascot, but you don’t want to accept her commission?”
Lettice rolls her eyes. “I thought you said we were going to talk about something jolly, Lally.”
“Well, I’m intrigued.” her sister replies, placing her cutlery on the painted edges of her plate as she sits back in her chair and looks to Lettice with undivided attention. “It seems your article in Country Life******** has done your reputation the world of good if you are now being selective as to whom you decorate for.”
Lettice settles back in her own seat and cradles her glass of wine in her hand thoughtfully as she contemplates how to reply without sounding conceited. “It is true that Henry Tipping’s********* article about the interior designs I created for Dickie and Margot has certainly been a boon for business, but I would turn down Mrs. Hawarden even if the article had never been.”
“Why Tice? What’s wrong with her? Gerald tells me that she’s the wife of a fabric manufacturer from Manchester.”
“Yes, Mrs. Evelyn Hawarden is the wife of Joseph Hawarden of Hawarden Fabrics, and she is positively ghastly, Lally. Absolutely ghastly!”
“How so, Tice?” Lally asks, her interest piqued.
“Well, she wants me to redecorate rooms that I feel should really be left as they are, but she is a tinkerer. She keeps talking to me, no, at me,” Lettice corrects herself. “Demanding that I ruin them with inferior fabrics and, quite frankly, ghastly ideas about what she thinks makes for tasteful redecoration and modernisation.”
“Which evidently aren’t tasteful, looking at your expression, Tice.”
“Far from it, and I want to turn her down.”
“And what is it that’s stopping you.”
Lettice sighs and shakes her head. “She is horribly domineering, I’ve discovered. She is quite convinced that I am the only interior designer who has her vision.”
“Which you don’t.”
“Which I don’t.” Lettice sips her wine. “I have made a few suggestions that counter her own opinions as to what is tasteful and what is not, but she just talks over the top of me. She telephones almost every day in an effort to wear me down. I make Edith answer the telephone all the time now, which she hates, and lie to Mrs. Hawarden and tell her I’m not at home, which she hates even more, just so I don’t have to speak with the ghastly harridan.”
Lally picks up her own glass and contemplates for a few moments before answering. “Well, maybe you’re going about refuting her the wrong way, Tice.”
“What do you mean, Lally?”
“You say that she has some ghastly ideas that you have tried to counter. Why don’t you agree instead?”
“Agree? I don’t want to agree with her. Then she’ll have a pot of wallpaper glue and a brush in my hands quicker than you can say knife!”
“What I mean is, why not agree that her taste is very modern and forward thinking, far too modern and forward thinking for you. Remind her that you are a,” Lally pauses again as she tries to recall the description from the Country Life article. “A Classical Revivalist, was it?”
“A Modern Classical Revivalist.” Lettice corrects her sister.
“There you go! Show her that she is too modern for you, and convince her that you are too classical and old fashioned for her. If this Mrs. Hawarden is looking to use your skills to help her advance herself socially by modernising her home, you just need to plant the seed that you aren’t as forward thinking as she is, or that she thinks you are. Once the doubt is planted in her mind, it will quickly take root.”
“Do you think so, Lally?”
“Trust me, Tice. I’ve seen my father-in-law and my husband do it when they have had business propositions and advances from men they don’t wish to deal with.”
Lettice considers what her sister has said, and a small smile teases the edges of her mouth upward ever so slightly as an idea begins to formulate in her mind. “I do declare, Lally, you may be right in your way of thinking.”
“Of course I am, Tice,” Lally purrs as she takes another sip of her wine. “I’m your elder sister.”
*In 1837, the Peninsular Steam Navigation Company first secured a Government contract for the regular carriage of mail between Falmouth and the Peninsular ports as far as Gibraltar. The company, established in 1835 by the London shipbroking partnership of Brodie McGhie Willcox (1786-1861) and Arthur Anderson (1792-1868) and the Dublin Ship owner, Captain Richard Bourne (1880-1851) had begun a regular steamer service for passengers and cargo between London, Spain and Portugal using the 206 ton paddle steamer William Fawcett. The growing inclination of early Twentieth Century shipping enterprises to merge their interests, and group themselves together, did not go unnoticed at P&O, which made its first major foray in this direction in 1910 with the acquisition of Wilhelm Lund’s Blue Anchor Line. By 1913, with a paid-up capital of some five and half million pounds and over sixty ships in service, several more under construction and numerous harbour craft and tugs to administer to the needs of this great fleet all counted, the P&O Company owned over 500,000 tons of shipping. In addition to the principal mail routes, through Suez to Bombay and Ceylon, where they divided then for Calcutta, Yokohama and Sydney, there was now the ‘P&O Branch Line’ service via the Cape to Australia and various feeder routes. The whole complex organisation was serviced by over 200 agencies stationed at ports throughout the world. At the end of 1918, the Group was further strengthened by its acquisition of a controlling shareholding in the Orient Line and in 1920, the General Steam Navigation Company, the oldest established sea-going steamship undertaking, was taken over. In 1923 the Strick Line was acquired too and P&O became, for a time, the largest shipping company in the world. With the 1920s being the golden age of steamship travel, P&O was the line to cruise with. P&O had grown into a group of separate operating companies whose shipping interests touched almost every part of the globe. By March 2006, P&O had grown to become one of the largest port operators in the world and together with P&O Ferries, P&O Ferrymasters, P&O Maritime Services, P&O Cold Logistics and its British property interests, the company was, itself, acquired by DP World for three point three billion pounds.
**J. Lyons and Co. was a British restaurant chain, food manufacturing, and hotel conglomerate founded in 1884 by Joseph Lyons and his brothers in law, Isidore and Montague Gluckstein. Lyons’ first teashop opened in Piccadilly in 1894, and from 1909 they developed into a chain of teashops, with the firm becoming a staple of the High Street in the United Kingdom. At its peak the chain numbered around two hundred cafes. The teashops provided for tea and coffee, with food choices consisting of hot dishes and sweets, cold dishes and sweets, and buns, cakes and rolls. Lyons' Corner Houses, which first appeared in 1909 and remained until 1977, were noted for their Art Deco style. Situated on or near the corners of Coventry Street, Strand and Tottenham Court Road, they and the Maison Lyonses at Marble Arch and in Shaftesbury Avenue were large buildings on four or five floors, the ground floor of which was a food hall with counters for delicatessen, sweets and chocolates, cakes, fruit, flowers and other products. In addition, they possessed hairdressing salons, telephone booths, theatre booking agencies and at one period a twice-a-day food delivery service. On the other floors were several restaurants, each with a different theme and all with their own musicians. For a time, the Corner Houses were open twenty-four hours a day, and at their peak each branch employed around four hundred staff including their famous waitresses, commonly known as Nippies for the way they nipped in and out between the tables taking orders and serving meals. The tea houses featured window displays, and, in the post-war period, the Corner Houses were smarter and grander than the local tea shops. Between 1896 and 1965 Lyons owned the Trocadero, which was similar in size and style to the Corner Houses.
***Nineteenth Century sideburns were often far more extravagant than those seen today, similar to what are now called mutton chops, but considerably more extreme. In period literature, "side whiskers" usually refers to this style, in which the whiskers hang well below the jaw line. The classic mutton chop is a type of beard in which the sideburns are grown out to the cheeks, leaving the moustache, soul patch, and chin clean-shaven. As with beards, sideburns went quickly out of fashion in the early Twentieth Century. In World War I, in order to secure a seal on a gas mask, men had to be clean-shaven; this did not affect moustaches.
****The Bright Young Things, or Bright Young People, was a nickname given by the tabloid press to a group of Bohemian young aristocrats and socialites in 1920s London.
*****C. Bechstein Pianoforte AG (also known as Bechstein), is a German manufacturer of pianos, established in 1853 by Carl Bechstein (1826 – 1900).
******Modern inheritance tax dates back to 1894 when the government introduced estate duty, a tax on the capital value of land, in a bid to raise money to pay off a £4m government deficit. It replaced several different inheritance taxes, including the 1796 tax on estates introduced to help fund the war against Napoleon. The earliest death duty can be traced back to 1694 when probate duty, a tax on personal property in wills proved in court, was brought in. When the tax was first introduced it was intended to affect only the very wealthy, but the rise in the value of homes, particularly in the south-east of England, it began to creep into the realms of the upper middle-classes. From 1896, it was possible to avoid estate duty by handing on gifts during the life of the donor. To counter avoidance through last minute transfers, gifts handed over a limited time before death were still subject to the tax. Initially the period was one year but that rose to seven years over time. Freshly recovering from the Great War, the hefty death taxes imposed on wealthy families such as the Tyrwhitts in the post-war years of the 1920s, combined with increases to income taxes on the wealthy, caused some to start to sell off their country houses and estates, settling in more reduced circumstances (still very luxurious by today’s standards) in their smaller London homes.
*******It is seldom heard in the land of its origin — the United States. When you make a good fist of something, you succeed in doing it. You do a good job and achieve a certain degree of success. According to some scholars, the word 'fist' in the expression is used in the sense of 'hand' — someone who does physical work.
********Country Life is a British weekly perfect-bound glossy magazine that is a quintessential English magazine founded in 1897, providing readers with a weekly dose of architecture, gardens and interiors. It was based in London at 110 Southwark Street until March 2016, when it became based in Farnborough, Hampshire. The frontispiece of each issue usually features a portrait photograph of a young woman of society, or, on occasion, a man of society.
*********Henry Tipping (1855 – 1933) was a French-born British writer on country houses and gardens, garden designer in his own right, and Architectural Editor of the British periodical Country Life for seventeen years between 1907 and 1910 and 1916 and 1933. After his appointment to that position in 1907, he became recognised as one of the leading authorities on the history, architecture, furnishings and gardens of country houses in Britain. In 1927, he became a member of the first committee of the Gardens of England and Wales Scheme, later known as the National Gardens Scheme.
This neat Georgian interior may appear like something out of a historical stately country house, but it is in fact part of my 1:12 miniatures collection.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
The round breakfast table in the centre of the room, which tilts like a real loo table, is an artisan miniature from an unknown maker with a marquetry inlaid top, which came from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop in the United Kingdom. On its surface the crockery, silver cutlery, two glasses and decanter of red wine, which are made from real spun glass, came from online stockists of miniatures on E-Bay. The serviettes with their napkin rings also came from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House Shop, as does the silver tray on which the decanter of wine sits. The Georgian style silver lidded serving dish and the Georgian style gravy boat come from Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. The pie at the forefront of the image has been made in England by hand from clay by former chef turned miniature artisan, Frances Knight. Her work is incredibly detailed and realistic, and she says that she draws her inspiration from her years as a chef and her imagination.
The Chippendale style chairs surrounding the round breakfast table, and the carver chair in the background, are very special pieces. They came from the Petite Elite Miniature Museum, later rededicated as the Carol and Barry Kaye Museum of Miniatures, which ran between 1992 and 2012 on Los Angeles’ bustling Wiltshire Boulevard. One of the chairs still has a sticker under its cushion identifying which room of which dollhouse it came. The Petite Elite Miniature Museum specialised in exquisite and high end 1:12 miniatures. The furnishings are taken from a real Chippendale design.
The sideboard featuring fine marquetry banding and collapsible extensions at either end appears to have been made by the same unknown artisan who made the round table. This piece I acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop at the same time as the table. The Georgian style silver lidded tureens on the sideboard’s surface I also acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop. The vase on the sideboard is made by M.W. Reutter Porzellanfabrik in Germany, who specialise in making high quality porcelain miniatures. Made of polymer clay the irises and foxgloves in the vase are moulded on wires to allow them to be shaped at will and put into individually formed floral arrangements. They came from a 1:12 miniature specialist in Germany.
The Regency corner cabinet with its elegant gilt detailing and glass door is made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, Bespaq. The beautiful collection of china on display inside the cabinet, like the vase on the sideboard, is made by M.W. Reutter Porzellanfabrik in Germany.
The Georgian style paintings of silhouettes hanging around the room came from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House shop, and the Chinese silk carpet came from an online stockist of 1:12 miniatures on E-Bay.
