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Foreword to

John Fowler

The Invention of the Country-House Style

Foreword by Sir Neil Cossons, Chairman of English Heritage

It is a testament to John Fowler’s career that over twenty years after his death a day dedicated to a discussion of his work could generate so much interest. During the course of his long career John Fowler worked as an interior designer in some of Britain’s most important historic buildings. His career spanned the pivotal post-Second World War period when there was a tremendous interest in renewing the country house and a great increase in visitor numbers.

Fowler drew his inspiration for his interior schemes from the past and devised a new style that was enormously popular. Using his innate good judgement and personal flair he created serene and subtle interiors that provided a wonderful background for old collections. He was ever anxious to avoid the ‘dead hand of the restorer’. In these interiors nothing ever jarred and they were completely in keeping with the romantic taste of the period.

The papers included in this book discuss some of John Fowler’s projects in detail but also broaden the discussion to include a consideration of how historic interiors were presented in the past and how we should be presenting them in the future. Of course the key to these issues is the acquisition of a full understanding of the history and development of these buildings. Without fully understanding Fowler’s aims and objectives we cannot make a serious assessment of his work and cannot formulate policies for the future conservation of his extant schemes.

In his book on the work of John Fowler The Inspiration of the Past, published in 1985 (which is undeniably the most significant work to date on John Fowler), the architectural historian John Cornforth seemed to have anticipated these discussions. He predicted that in the future, ‘when … it becomes possible to look at the history of the country house in the twentieth century and see it in the perspective of the previous four centuries it will surely seem a surprising one’ (p. 9). He wondered how we would view Fowler’s schemes as decorations when they were no longer in pristine condition.

As we start the twenty-first century, how we understand and choose to present Fowler’s comparatively recent decorative schemes may offer an opportunity to establish protocols for the treatment of all historic interiors. Decorative finishes, textiles, and architectural fittings are very vulnerable and are so easily lost or destroyed by well-meaning but over-zealous refurbishment. To this end English Heritage is working with UKIC (United Kingdom Institute for Conservation) to highlight the conservation problems facing these fragile areas within historic buildings.

Original Fowler schemes which have not been repainted or obliterated are becoming increasingly rare. What action should we be taking now? Is it better to retain the faded glory of his original work or redecorate to recapture the spirit of his original intention? Have we the knowledge, skill, and materials to recreate the subtleties of the original scheme?

Fowler worked for private clients but his most accessible and familiar projects are those he carried out for the National Trust. His work was also disseminated during his career through the illustrations of Country Life. The impact he had on his contemporaries was immense and long-lasting, so much so that today the ‘Fowler style’ has come to be considered by some as the only style for the decoration of a country house.

Fowler’s work may be considered as a distinct period style of the mid-twentieth century, as yet another accretion to the evolving country house. Perhaps John Fowler’s legacy is that he developed his own period style that reflected contemporary taste. We advocate the conservation and retention of historic schemes in some buildings and pursue accurate academic recreations in others; perhaps we should also be encouraging modern designers, as our predecessors have done for centuries. Perhaps we lack the confidence to work within the historic interior developing styles of the twentieth-first century.

The seeds for the conference were sown at an earlier conference organized by the Traditional Paint Forum (TPF) at Kelmarsh Hall in November 1999. That event looked specifically at the work carried out at Kelmarsh by John Fowler working in collaboration with the owner Nancy Lancaster. Fowler and Lancaster had a fruitful if turbulent professional relationship and were once described as ‘the unhappiest unmarried couple in the world’.

Although the TPF is only a small, newly formed society it has established a reputation for organizing stimulating conferences. We are very happy to collaborate with them to present these papers and look forward to other joint ventures in the future.

Sir Neil Cossons
Chairman of English Heritage