LONDON'S OLD HOUSE OF MUSIC

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22949, 29 January 1938, Page 9 (Supplement)

LONDON'S OLD HOUSE OF MUSIC

QLD Devonshire House rose from the ashes of the Great Fire when Christopher Wren was rebuilding London. Major Benton Fletcher has filled it with music. was beginning its career as a kind of Mayfair of the rich and noble when sonle architect following in the great Christopher's train designed the house for Lord Cavendish, third son of the Earl of Devonshire. But after two centuries of affluence on the outskirts of Bloomsburv's garden city it fell into reduced-circumstances, and became a lodging-house. It might have gone farther downhill if Major Benton Fletcher had not recognised the beauty of its noble brick exterior, and the possibilities of the fine old rooms and staircases which lie behind its sash windows and classical doorway. He bought it and rescued these beauties ior future generations by presenting the reconditioned old house to the National Trust. He did more: he filled it with old furniture of the century of its birth; and added to its furnishings his collection of harpsichords, clavichords, and virginals. Oil such instruments the compositions of English composers, Byrcl and Purcell, Arne and Green, were first played; and at-Old Devonshire House are played "till, because one of Major Benton Fletcher's hobbies is that of presenting .00000000000000000000000000

such musical entertainments to his guests. Thus from now onwards any passerby going along Devonshire Street after leaving the clamour of Theobald's Road may be surprised to hear the strains of old melodies trickling out from the old house, as if it were a musical-box. The nobleman's mansion enters on a second life. The old composers wake again, and the ancient rooms are filled with their music as they dreamed it. Architecture and music, these are splendid hobbies, but Major Benton Fletcher has another. It is that of slum clearance, and to study it he went about the slums as a licensed pedlar.