Dartington Hall Estate Gardens

Dartington Hall, near Totnes, Devon, England, is a medieval hall built between 1388 and 1400 for John Holand, Earl of Huntingdon, half-brother to Richard II. After John was beheaded, the Crown owned the estate until it was acquired in 1559 by Sir Arthur Champernowne, Vice-Admiral of the West under Elizabeth I. The Champernowne family lived in the Hall for 366 years. Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1154x776, 180 KB) Dartingon_Gardens@_Photo_by_Meladina. ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1154x776, 180 KB) Dartingon_Gardens@_Photo_by_Meladina. ... Totnes (IPA: ) is a market town in South Devon, England. ... “Devonshire” redirects here. ... Motto (French) God and my right Anthem No official anthem - the  United Kingdom anthem God Save the Queen is commonly used England() – on the European continent() – in the United Kingdom() Capital (and largest city) London (de facto) Official languages English (de facto) Unified  -  by Athelstan 927 AD  Area  -  Total 130... A hallway at the Royal York Hotel Look up Hall, hall in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... John Holland, 1st Duke of Exeter (c. ... Richard II (January 6, 1367 – February 14, 1400) was the son of Edward the Black Prince, Prince of Wales, and Joan The Fair Maid of Kent. He was born in Bordeaux and became his fathers successor when his elder brother died in infancy. ... Sir Arthur Champernowne (1524 – March 29, 1578) was a Vice-Admiral of the West who lived at Dartington Hall in Devon. ... The title Vice-Admiral of the West is sometimes applied to holders of the crown appointment Vice-Admiral of the Coast of counties in the South West of England. ... Elizabeth I redirects here. ...

The hall was mostly derelict by the time it was bought by Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst in 1925. They renovated the buildings, replacing the magnificent hammerbeam roof on the Great hall, and set about their goal of introducing progressive education and rural reconstruction into what was then a depressed agricultural economy. In 1935 the Dartington Hall Trust, a registered charity, was set up and it has run the estate since. Leonard K. Elmhirst June 6, 1893 - April 16, 1974, a Yorkshire clergymans son was an agronomist working in India, and was co-founder with his wife Dorothy Straight of the Dartington Hall project in progressive education and rural reconstruction. ... Dorothy Payne Whitney (January 23, 1887 – 1968) was an American-born social activist and philanthropist and a member of the prominent Whitney family. ... This photograph from 1896 shows the hammerbeam roof of Westminster Hall. ... A great hall was the main room of a royal palace, a noblemans castle or a large manor house in the Middle Ages, and in the country houses of the 16th and early 17th centuries. ... Educational progressivists believe that education must be based on the fact that humans are social animals who learn best in real-life activities with other people. ... A charitable trust is a trust established for charitable purposes. ... A charitable organization (also known as a charity) is a trust, company or unincorporated association established for charitable purposes only. ...

The estate has been the site of many events, conferences, and social experiments, certainly since the Elmhirsts renovated the place with this vision in mind and hosted a variety of social and artistic groups to work there; however there is a growing controversy over the trust's apparent decision to evict Dartington College of Arts. Dartington College of Arts is a college in Totnes, Devon, South West England, specialising in Post-dramatic Theatre, Music, Performance Writing and Visual Performance, focusing on a performative and multi-disciplinary approach to the arts. ...

Dartington Hall School

Dartington Hall School, founded in 1926, offered a progressive coeducational boarding life. When it started there was a minimum of formal classroom activity and the children learnt by involvement in estate activities. With time more academic rigour was imposed, but it remained progressive and had good success educating the children, sometimes the more wayward ones, of the fee-paying intelligentsia. A noted alumnus was Lord Young, a founder of Which? and the Open University. Lucien Freud also attended the school for two years, but mostly played truant. At its peak the school had some 300 pupils. However, with the advent of state-based progressive education, the death of its founders, an increasing number of 'wayward' pupils, and finally a major scandal involving the headmaster and his wife, the school suffered a dramatic drop in recruitment. Despite support from the Trust, the closure of the school was inevitable and it finally shut its doors in 1987. Its alumni website [1] indicates a vibrant society with some 4000 former pupils listed. Michael Young, Baron Young of Dartington (August 9, 1915, Manchester - January 14, 2002) was a British sociologist, social activist and politician. ... Lucian Freud OM (born December 8, 1922) is a British painter and printmaker. ...

Dartington International Summer School

Dartington International Summer School is a department of The Dartington Hall Trust. The Summer School is both a festival and a music school, with teaching and performing happening on site all day, every day. Participants spend the daytime studying a variety of different musical courses, and the evenings attending, or performing in, concerts.

The Dartington Estate

The gardens were created by Dorothy Elmhirst with the involvement of major landscape designers Beatrix Farrand and Percy Cane and feature a tiltyard (thought actually to be the remains of an Elizabethan water garden) and major sculptures, including examples by Henry Moore and Peter Randall-Page. There is an ancient yew tree (Taxus baccata) reputed to be nearly 2000 years old and rumour has it that Knights Templar are buried in the graveyard there, although there is no evidence to substantiate this. Landscape design is a part of landscape architecture. ... A tiltyard (or tilt yard or tilt-yard) was an enclosed courtyard for jousting (also known as tilting). Tiltyards were a common feature of late medieval castles and palaces. ... Reclining Figure (1951) outside the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, is characteristic of Moores sculptures, with an abstract female figure intercut with voids. ... Binomial name Taxus baccata L. Taxus baccata is a conifer native to western, central and southern Europe, northwest Africa, northern Iran and southwest Asia. ... The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon (Latin: Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Solomonici), popularly known as the Knights Templar or the Order of the Temple, were among the most famous of the Christian military orders. ...

The estate comprises various schools, colleges and organisations, including Schumacher College, Dartington College of Arts, Dartington Arts, the Summer School of music, the Cider Press Centre and High Cross House (open to the public). In North Devon the Beaford Centre, set up as an Arts centre by the Trust in the 1960s to bring employment and culture to a rurally depressed area, continues to thrive. Schumacher College was founded in 1991 in Dartington, Totnes, Devon, UK by Satish Kumar. ... Dartington College of Arts is a college in Totnes, Devon, South West England, specialising in Post-dramatic Theatre, Music, Performance Writing and Visual Performance, focusing on a performative and multi-disciplinary approach to the arts. ... The Beaford Centre is an arts centre located in Beaford, a small village in north Devon, England. ...

The Hall now functions as a conference centre and provides bed and breakfast accommodation for people attending courses and for casual visitors. The cinema and the White Hart Bar and Restaurant are used by estate dwellers, residents from the surrounding countryside, and visitors alike. Tourists of various nationalities chatting over breakfast at a B&B in Quebec City. ...

References

• Anonymous, Dartington, Webb & Bower, 1982
• Young, Michael, The Elmhirsts Of Dartington, The Creation Of A Utopian Community, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982

Michael Young, Baron Young of Dartington (August 9, 1915, Manchester - January 14, 2002) was a British sociologist, social activist and politician. ...

Further reading

• Bonham-Carter, V. Dartington Hall: The Formative Years 1925-1957. (Phoenix Press 1958; Exmoor Press 1970)

External links

• Dartington Hall
• Dartington Hall Trust
• Dartington International Summer School
• Dartington College of Arts
• Battle to save celebrated cradle of cutting edge art