Eagle House

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The Eagle House around 1904
South side of the Eagle House, 1890

The Eagle House (dt. Adlerhaus ) is a Listed monument (stage 2) in Batheaston, Somerset , near Bath . Before the First World War , the house had a spacious plot of land.

When Emily Blathwayt and her husband Colonel Linley Blathwayt owned the house, it was used from 1909 to 1912 as a refuge for suffragettes released after prison terms and hunger strikes. It became known as Suffragette's Retreat . Emily Blathwayt was a suffragette and a member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WPSU).

Between April 1909 and July 1911, trees were planted on nearby property to commemorate certain suffragettes; at least 47 were planted. It was named after Annie Kenney as Arboretum Annie's called. The trees were destroyed in the 1960s when an urban housing estate was built. Only one tree, an Australian pine, remains; it was planted in 1909 by Rose Lamartine Yates.

Architecture and history

The two-story Bath Stone house is built from hewn stone blocks and covered with slate . The Ionic columns on both sides of the portal have a triangular pediment . The south side consists of five axes , while the east has only three. The interior contains an 18th century staircase and fireplace. In the garden there is a chapel with a tracery window from the early 19th century.

Eagle House, around 1890

The house was built in the late 17th or early 18th centuries, then rebuilt as a separate house in 1724 and again in 1729 by the architect John Wood the Elder . The building was later brought into association with John Wood the Younger .

In 1882, Eagle House became the residence of Colonel Linley Blathwayt, his wife Emily, and their children William and Mary Blathwayt . Linley Blathwayt had been a Colonel in the Army in India and moved into the house when he was retired. His interests were insects and photography, Emily Blathwayts the garden. The couple owned a large library that contained hundreds of botany and nature drawings.

Women's suffrage activism

Annie Kenney on left, Mary Blathwayt in the middle and Emmeline Pankhurst , with the spade, near Eagle House in 1910

Emily and Mary Blathwayt first attended meetings of the Bath Women's Suffrage Society. In 1906 they gave three shillings to the WSPU. Mary met Annie Kenney at a WPSU meeting in Bath; she then agreed to help Kenney, Elsie Howey , Clara Codd and Mary Phillips run a local women's suffrage campaign. Mary received a financial grant from her family to help her work for women's rights.

On April 28, 1909, Emily Blathwayt wrote in her diary that “the idea of ​​a field of trees grows” (German: the idea of ​​a field with trees grows ). The site chosen was a two- acre field on the side of Solsbury Hill. It shouldn't be a simple forest. They planted individual evergreen shrubs and trees to honor women who worked for the women's cause, with those militant women who had been imprisoned being honored with a special conifer . Each was given a different species , and flower beds were made around each tree. The planting was carried out during a visit by the suffragette, who then posed next to a plaque made for the purpose. This was photographed by Colonel Lindley; he also took a portrait photo of the suffragette. These recordings were signed and sold in the WSPU shop in Bath.

Mary Blathwayt's diary also contains details of the sexual relationships between many of the movement's participants, many of which took place at Eagle House.

Eagle House became an important refuge for suffragettes released from prison after hunger strikes. Each tree was planted to commemorate an individual suffragette - at least 47 trees were planted between April 1909 and July 1911, including those by Emmeline Pankhurst , Christabel Pankhurst , Annie Kenney, Charlotte Despard , Millicent Fawcett and Constance Lytton.

Many important people from the suffragette movement were invited to stay at the house and plant a tree to celebrate a prison sentence. The tree planting was named after Annie Kenney as "Annie's Arboretum". There was also a pond named after Pankhurst on the property.

When Vera Wentworth and Elsie Howey attacked Prime Minister HH Asquith , it crossed a line for the Blathwayt family. Arson and other attacks on someone else's property carried out by suffragettes, one even near Eagle House, had disappointed the Blathwayts. Emily Blathwayt subsequently resigned from the WSPU and Linley Blathwayt wrote letters of protest to Christabel Pankhurst , Howey and Wentworth. Pankhurst was told that Howey and Wentworth would no longer be allowed to enter their home. Wentworth wrote a long reply letter in which she regretted her reaction, but also remarked, "if Mr. Asquith will not receive deputation they will pummel him again". (German: if Mr. Asquith does not receive the delegation, they will attack him again .)

Legacy and aftermath

“Annie's Arboretum” at Eagle House, around 1910

The Town and Country Planning Act 1947 stipulated that forests of historic importance should be preserved. But the importance of this property was never established. Indeed, the Somerset archaeological society was consulted about a plan. And she stated that the property was “not very attractive”. In 1961 the “Local Planning Authority” overruled the local objections that did not mention the garden. The house was preserved, but its contents were auctioned. There was also a "Boadicea brooch" (Boadicea brooch) that Annie Kenney had given to Mary Blathwayt. The garden was not entirely overlooked as a local journalist stated that the contents of the building were insignificant compared to the suffragette's garden.

The trees in Annie's Arboretum were cleared to make way for a settlement around 1965. Helen Watts wrote one of the last known reports of Annie's Arboretum at Eagle House. She returned to the place in 1911 when she was honored there. She visited him in 1962 and took a Juniper branch as a souvenir. The local newspaper reported that she could not find her badge. But she found beautiful trees and with the help of Colonel Blathwayt's photo she identified “her” pine (Juniper).

One of the trees, an Australian pine, is left over. It was planted by Rose Lamartine Yates in 1909. In 2011 it was announced that the trees would be replaced with new ones in Bath's Royal Victoria Park, Alice Park and Bath Spa University .

The house was divided into four apartments.

literature

  • Cynthia Imogen Hammond: Architects, Angels, Activists and the City of Bath, 1765-1965: Engaging with Women's Spatial Interventions in Buildings and Landscape. Routledge, 2017, ISBN 978-1-351-57612-3 .

Web links

Commons : Planting suffragette trees at Eagle House  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Commons : Eagle House, Batheaston  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Eagle House at Historic England. Retrieved May 8, 2019.
  2. ^ DG Amphlett: Bath Book of Days. In: The History Press. Volume 179, 2014, p. 306.
  3. ^ Nikolaus Pevsner: North Somerset and Bristol. Penguin Books, 1958, OCLC 868291293 , p. 138.
  4. ↑ Cynthia Imogen Hammond: Architects, Angels, Activists and the City of Bath, 1765-1965: Engaging with Women's Spatial Interventions in Buildings and Landscape. Taylor & Francis, ISBN 978-1-351-57613-0 , pp. 163-170.
  5. ↑ June Hannam: Mary Blathwayt. Oxford University Press 2004, Retrieved May 10, 2019.
  6. ↑ John Simkin: Mary Blathwayt. In: Spartacus Educational. Retrieved May 9, 2019.
  7. ^ Hammond, 2017.
  8. ↑ Vanessa Thorpe, Alec Marsh: Diary reveals lesbian love trysts of suffragette leaders. In: The Observer. Retrieved May 9, 2019.
  9. ↑ Cynthia Imogen Hammond: Architects, Angels, Activists and the City of Bath, 1765-1965: Engaging with Women's Spatial Interventions in Buildings and Landscape. Taylor & Francis, ISBN 978-1-351-57613-0 , pp. 163-170.
  10. ↑ June Hannam: Suffragette Photographs . In: Regional Historian . No. 8 , winter, 2002 ( uwe.ac.uk [PDF]).
  11. ↑ Book of the Week: A Nest of Suffragettes in Somerset. Woman and her Sphere. Retrieved October 27, 2017 .
  12. ↑ a b Vera Wentworth. In: Spartacus Educational. Retrieved October 27, 2017 .
  13. ↑ The Suffragette Garden. Suffragette Life, accessed October 27, 2017 .
  14. ↑ Claire Eustance, Joan Ryan, Laura Ugolini: Suffrage Reader: Charting Directions in British Suffrage History . A&C Black, 2000, ISBN 0-7185-0178-0 , pp. 54-65 ( google.co.uk ).
  15. ↑ Cynthia Imogen Hammond: Architects, Angels, Activists and the City of Bath, 1765-1965: Engaging with Women's Spatial Interventions in Buildings and Landscape. Taylor & Francis, ISBN 978-1-351-57613-0 , pp. 198-.
  16. ^ Trees honor Bath's suffragettes. In: BBC News. March 9, 2011, accessed October 25, 2017 .
  17. ↑ Cynthia Imogen Hammond: Architects, Angels, Activists and the City of Bath, 1765-1965: Engaging with Women's Spatial Interventions in Buildings and Landscape. Taylor & Francis, ISBN 978-1-351-57613-0 , pp. 232-.
  18. ^ Eagle House and the Suffragettes' Trees. Historic England. Retrieved October 27, 2017 .
  19. ↑ 8 bedroom property with land for sale. On the Market, accessed October 27, 2017 .

Coordinates: 51 ° 24 ′ 49.6 "  N , 2 ° 19 ′ 6.2"  W.