Sir Charles Trevelyan was one of the first aristocrats to ensure that his stately home would be enjoyed by the public inalienably. Alan Sykes reports
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Posh, but generous and true to their socialist beliefs. A teacup in the play's title symbolises the Trevelyans' universal hospitality. Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty Images
A new play takes its audience on a promenade performance around Wallington in Northumberland, one of the grandest houses in the north, and one of the first stately homes to be given to the National Trust.
The audience will experience the house in three streams, and from three different points of view. Notable moments from the house's history are explored, focussing on Sir Charles Trevelyan, who gave the house and its huge estate to the National Trust. Episodes include when he and his wife Molly took in an entire school from the west end of Newcastle to escape from the bombing of Tyneside during the war – the evacuees will be played by children from Cambo First School, which was built in the 1880s by Sir Charles' grandfather. Gertrude Bell, Molly's half-sister, also puts in an appearance.
Wallington, in its "peculiar Northumberlandishness". Picture: National Trust The play is called Teacups, Zebras and Dancing Kaisers. The teacups refer to the Trevelyans' hospitality – and the tea the audience will enjoy after the performance - the zebras are named after a word game the Trevelyans used to play, and the Dancing Kaisers refer to a ball given by the Kaiser that Lady Trevelyan attended in the 1900s. The play is a joint production by the National Trust and the November Club, a Northumberland-based theatre company that specialises in site-specific productions – usually with a strong visual element - in unusual venues.
Engagement photograph of Charles Trevelyan and Molly Bell Sir Charles Trevelyan was an idealistic and generous politician who twice served as a Labour education secretary. He moved into Wallington with his six legitimate children in 1929, and the family found the house slightly somnolent, so they all let off a great communal shout to wake it up a bit. A few year later, in 1936 he explained his reasons for giving the estate to the Trust:
I do not believe in private ownership of land. By pure chance I own Wallington. I regard myself solely as a trustee for the community, and I have been putting back into the estate, during the seven years I have been here, all, and more than all, I have ever drawn from it in rents. But I can have no guarantee that in the future there might not come owners of Wallington who might want to make money out of the land again – who might no longer want to keep Wallington House and grounds open to the wider public who now so much and so increasingly enjoy it.
Contemplating what he's given away: Sir Charles Trevelyan on the clocktower at Wallington. Picture: National Trust The house has since the 19th century had associations with literary and artistic life. Augustus Hare, visiting in the 1860s, complained that the then Lady Trevelyan, a friend of the Pre-Raphaelites, gave him lunch which consisted of "feeding solely on artichokes and cauliflowers." He thought his room was "quite horrid, and it opens into a long suite of desolate rooms by a door which has no fastening." His host, Sir Walter Trevelyan, was a fervent teetotaller, which didn't add to Hare's enjoyment of his stay. Ruskin was another regular visitor, and waxed lyrical about it, calling it "the most beautiful place possible" and praising its "particular Northumberlandishness".
Sir Walter left Wallington and its 22,000 acres (which produced an income, in the 1870s, of over £16,000 a year) to his cousin, Sir Charles Edward Trevelyan, grandfather of the Sir Charles who gave it to the National Trust. Lampooned by Trollope as Sir Gregory Hardlines, Sir Charles Edward Trevelyan is still loathed by many in Ireland, as he was the treasury secretary responsible for famine relief during the "Great Hunger". He closed down the soup kitchens in 1847, half way through the famine, and then went off for a family holiday to the Loire valley complaining of "two years of such continuous hard work as I have never had." He thought the famine was a
mechanism for reducing surplus population
and, unlike with previous famines where the ports had been closed to stop food being exported, kept the ports busy and helped ensure that Ireland was a net exporter of beef and grain throughout the famine – for example, 6624 barrels of oats were exported from Kilrush to Glasgow during the first nine months of 1847.
The central hall at Wallington. Picture by Andreas von Einsiedel/National Trust Wallington, with its grand central hall – created by John Dobson in the 1850s when he closed over what had been a courtyard - is an ideal setting for a theatrical performance. Previously, Pimlico Opera staged a memorable version of The Turn of the Screw there, featuring a member of the Trevelyan family on the viola, and with the ghost of Peter Quint eerie in the upper colonnade. Although Augustus Hare did complain that
bodiless people unpack and put away their things all night long, and invisible beings are felt to breathe over you
there should be no ghosts to disturb the audience in Teacups, Zebras and Dancing Kaisers. The evening finishes in the central hall, after what the organisers promise is "an energetic tour" of the house, where there will be tea and traditional border dancing for audience and performers alike.
