TITANIA’S PALACE.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13181, 13 February 1936, Page 2

TITANIA’S PALACE.

UNIQUE TREASURE HOUSE,

QUEEN MARY’S TOPICAL GIFT

Nearly 30 years ago a child playing in an Irish garden claimed to have seen a fairy disappear into the foot of a gnarled tree. This incident inspired her artist lather, Sir Ncvile Wilkinson, to create a Lilliputian palace so magnificent that the fairies might be lured from Hieir underground haunts, bringing with them their treasures. Since then Titania’s Palace has travelled many thousands of yniles and, in delighting children and grown-ups alike, has been the means of raising huge sums for crippled, neglected and unhappy children. It was (formally .opened in Auckland by the Governor-General, Viscount Galway, and will be on exhibition in Palmerston North on February ltth until March 4th. The proceeds of the display will be devoted to the Manawatu branch of the Crippled Children Society. It took 15 years of patient worn: to create this exquisite dwelling, and it was fitting that Her Majesty Queen Mary should have opened it with a golden key on her own birthday and signed her name in the tiny Royal visitors?' book which is only the size of a postage stamp. Since then Her Majesty has never ceased to take the keenest interest in it and lately there arrived a piece of the Duke of Gloucester’s wedding cake as a special gift to Titania from the Queen herself. MANY EXHIBITIONS. For three years after its completion the palace was shown in the British Isles, lollowed by three more years in America. It returned to En gin lid and then was sent to the Argentine Exhibition. In the next year it was in Amsterdam and then commenced its trip to the Antipodes with a most successful tour of Australia, where upward of 200,000 people were privileged to see it. A catalogue of the treasures within the palace would occupy a volume. Nowhere in the world could there be assembled in such a small space so many tiny antiques. Many of them are centuries old, the work of patient craftsmen of many countrits. Each object seems to have a history of its own. Thus the throne of Queen Titania has inlaid into the back a diamond peacock made for the Paris Exhibition in 1856 and valued at £6OO. It carries a pair of tiny gold figures said to have been the work of the great Cellini, and the seat is made-from a piece of fossil mastodon bone from Colorado. U XIQUE FU R NITURE. Other such treasures are a cannon made by a Nuremburg armourer about the year 1580, an original Book of Hours illuminated about 1450 and a set of Bristol glass over 100 years old. The pictures on the various walls represent a collection of miniatures by famous artists through the centuries, while the furniture comprises a unique collection of “tmycraft.” J n one room is a perfectly proportioned bookcase containing 75 volumes printed, illustrated and bound in calf. Throughout there are many examples of the beautiful work of Sir Xevile 'Wilkinson, friezes, mosaics and mural decorations, while his gifted friends have contributed incredibly small musical instruments, pictures, inlays, stained enamels, and many other objects. Throughout its tours the palace has received numerous gifts from craftsmen and collectors, enough to fill a large case having been accumulated on the present trip. Some have already found their way into the palace and visitors will see wliat must surely bo the tiniest set of bowls ever made, perfect even to the bias, and a rack of brooms made of Australian woods and the hair of an Airedale dog. Over 1,000,000 visitors have viewed these exquisite examples of miniature craftsmanship and already it has contributed over £50,000 to child welfare work. The custodians of the palace,' Miss H. M. Leslie and Miss F. A. Mills, have been associated with it for a number of years, with the responsibility of erecting and dismantling it and packing its numerous treasures. It occupies 63 square feet and stands 27 inches high and, when packet! for transport, weighs 3/; tons. When complete it is lighted and heated by electricity, and is carefully designed to withstand changes of climate.