Looking for an antidote to Kondo-mania?
This stretches the spark of joy test to the limit.
Meet a man, Charles Paget Wade, who in the early 20th century
assigned a whole house, Snowshill Manor, to his 22,000 piece collection of
toys, furniture, bicycles, spinning wheels, suits of Samurai armour,
chests, model boats - you name it and if he thought it exemplified
good design or craftsmanship,
then he had to have it.
Crucially, for him, good workmanship that might be lost to posterity sparked joy.
Nothing shall perish
was his family motto.
The collection is so vast and varied that it is not catalogued or labelled.
One visitor, I was told, likes to bring and place a new object each time he comes
to perplex the curators and present custodians, The National Trust.
I would argue with his assertion that each room has a restful atmosphere.
I found it overwhelming and was repeatedly drawn to the windows
for respite from the Stuff.
But Snowshill Manor House was a home to things not people.
It is a vast cabinet of curiosities,
a giant version of the one that his strict granny used to let him open
on a Sunday if he had been good all week.
He lived in the tiny dark Priest's House in the garden.
When he eventually married aged 63, his wife was not keen to
make it the marital home -
this is the bathroom
and there was no electricity or heating
so you rather sympathise.
Luckily they were able to decamp to the family's
sugar plantation in St Kitts.
And like the doves from his dovecot
I was glad to escape into the warm Cotswold sun.
