b'Fanny By Gaslight(On the trail to Bishop Wilton?) Kath NevensM ichael Sadleir wrote the novel Fanny Bybeing only one room thick, and even at that never Gaslight; it was considered to be more than aproperly finished. Behind the central section of the little risqu when it was first published in 1940 butfacade - and practically unaltered - lay the original despite, or because of, its reputation it turned into thehouse. It was a spacious, homely rambling house, first blockbuster of its genre, with a second reprint inwith no pretension to anything but roomy comfort. the same month of its launch. There had been a slight awkwardness in adjusting In 1944 it was made into a film, starring Jamesthe tall front windows to rooms barely high enough Mason, Phyllis Calvert and Stewart Granger. Theto accommodate them; but this surmounted, .?. author, although born in Oxford, had strong YorkshireHall lived on unchanged behind its pretentious connections - his mother was known to be a wealthymask.Yorkshire heiress.Along the main front ran a broad gravel terrace, One of the main characters in the book lived in afrom which a grass field, with cows grazing, ran Hall five miles from Gowthorpe and two miles from adown the hill to a country road. There was no village at the foot of the Wolds. public access to this terrace, although it had been The following extract is a description of the Hallintended as a main approach. But now shrubberies in the 1870s, which in the book is given a fictitiousclosed one end and the gardens the other, so name, and also of a house at Gowthorpe: that it remained a tranquil private walk, with a few .?. Hall stood on the brow of a low but steepishtrailing geraniums in pots and a slope of pasture hill, facing south west over a wide expanse offor a view. The gardens, simple enough but full of country, in the crease of which, about two milesflowers and fruit trees and casual strips of lawn, lay away, lay the village of (Bishop Wilton?) to the south east of the house. Behind, where the From the front the Hall looked to be a large house,original building could be clearly seen, were stables, for its stone facade was long and of somewhatouthouses and a large paved yard, onto which grandiose design, with a centre block crownedopened what was always used as the main entrance with a pediment and two balustraded wings. Builtto the house.in the early eighteenth century, the facade carried,So I came to Gowthorpe, five miles or so from on each of the three floors of the central block and.?. Hall. The place was grim enough - a stark box on the two floors of the wings, tall narrow windowsof old red brick, with no architectural ornament nor with rounded tops and keystones in relief. Thesecared-for garden to soften the bleakness. Yet it was windows, emphasised by the perpendicular lineswholly itself, and perfectly equipped for the purpose of the flat pilasters which rose at intervals from theit was designed to serve, standing in a cluster of ground to roof, gave the house a startled expressionbarns, rickyards and cow-byres, with a sombre - as though, with eyebrows raised in alarm, it weregroup of elms to northward and on every side the staring down the hill at some strange or fearsomefertile arable and pasturelands which make the Warp sight. Land the richest agricultural district in the county The buildings look of dismay was intensified byof York. These surroundings - the only convincing the presence, at various points along the parapet evidence of farming possibility and farming skill which hid the actual roof, of huge birds with wings- were the core and justification of Gowthorpe. half spread. These carved monsters were out ofThe unbeautiful house was in fact subsidiary to proportion to the rest of the house and, rising clearwhat went on outside it, a necessary but minor of the roof, made it look as though its hair wasappendage to the real business of a farmers life.standing on end.I missed the comforts of the Hall, accustomed The interior of .?. Hall both in atmosphere andto taps which brought hot water to the sink; to construction presented a strong contrast. To beginindoor lavatories; to a wire mattress; to meals on with, the impression of size given by the faadetime for their own sake and not dependent on the was a misleading one. The imposing stretch ofprogress of work in the fields. I faintly resented stonework, with its columns and balustrade, hadthe assumption that a house must necessarily be been overlaid by an ambitious early-Georgianservant to a farm.ancestor on an old-fashioned Yorkshire manorThe author states in a forward to his book that house. Probably he planned to rebuild the whole,Care has been taken to maintain period accuracy and and gradually bring the rest of his house up to theto give invention a basis of fact. The question must scale of its new front; but his plan was never carriedbe: is the Hall a fact, and if so, where might it have out, with the result that the only section of the housebeen, or indeed still be?with any depth was the central block, the wings BULLETIN 2 19'