Main entrance, Lydiard Tregoze & Empty Dining Room, Lydiard Tregoze

The two watercolours were produced by the respected Canadian watercolourist and muralist Tinning to accompany a newspaper article by the acclaimed English writer, Aldous Huxley, best known for his novel depicting a fantasy of the future, ‘Brave New World’. The article ‘A Tour Through Time’ was published in 1951 and recorded Huxley’s visit to Lydiard House and nearby St Mary’s Church, while researching the place of the country house in 1950s Britain. Tinning was commissioned to produce the watercolours to support this article and the scenes record a significant moment in time in Lydiard House’s recent history. They show the house shortly after its purchase by the Swindon Corporation when the house’s future was uncertain and the building was in disrepair. Huxley wrote in the 1951 article: 'The roof leaks. The ceilings, with their delicate Italian plaster-work, have begun to disintegrate. The paint is peeling, the watercolours are blotched and leprous with damp. In the library, in the great drawing rooms, in her lady’s boudoir there is a sepulchral smell of mildew and dry rot. Ichabod, Ichabod – the glory is departed.'