Apple Trees, Norton Conyers

Description

• Title: Apple Trees, Norton Conyers
• Medium: Acrylic & mixed media
• Substrate: Conservation board
• Size: 61cm x 56cm
• Style: Contemporary
• Frame: No
• Prints available: Yes

David’s Yorkshire studio is set in the beautiful grounds of Norton Conyers Hall, a late medieval manor house near Ripon. Adjoining the studio is the walled garden where there are many lovely old apple trees; the inspiration for this painting. The garden is open to visit most days during the week and head gardener Brad is often on hand to offer gardening tips and advice.

Norton Conyers house was first mentioned in Domesday Book but recent discoveries suggest that the site has been inhabited since Viking times and except for the twenty years between 1862 and 1882, has been in the Graham family since 1624. Both King Charles I and King James II stayed here en route to Scotland. The house has had a considerable amount of rebuilding and restoration.

The exterior elevations of the house have distinctive Dutch-style gables and the interior contains fine 18th century plaster ceilings in the principal rooms, fine furniture, and many portraits of the Graham family, and a famous John Ferneley hunting group, ‘The Quorn Hunt in 1822’.

The house has had many noteworthy visitors over the years including King Charles 1 in 1633, James II 1679 (The bed they traditionally slept in is still on display), and Charlotte Brontë in 1839.

Charlotte Brontë visited Norton Conyers in 1839 and heard the legend of a mad woman locked away in the attics in the previous century, this may have given her the idea for the mad Mrs Rochester in ‘Jane Eyre’, and the house’s interior,  ideas for Mr. Rochester’s ‘Thornfield Hall’. In 2004 a blocked staircase leading to the attics was discovered and clearly mentioned in the novel which aroused further interest in Norton Conyers as the possible inspiration for ‘Thornfield Hall’.