Knapp Farm barns – a watercolour

Our stock of artistic interpretations of the local scene has increased considerably in recent times. Today we are looking at the Knapp Farm barns before their conversion to dwellings. Sadly this is unsigned and undated but we still think it is a lovely image.

Knapp Farm barns – a watercolour image

This picture is in a sealed frame behind glass. The slightly squiffy angle of the photo prevented too much reflection off the glass.

This lovely gentle picture actually looks much like a photo of the scene we showed last August (click here). That dates from 1998. This could be a little earlier.

We think the artist may have been Patrick Manley but we would appreciate advice on that.

The Grove – a water colour

Many people say that a photograph may capture the truth but a painting captures the spirit of the place. So perhaps, today, we are capturing the spirit of The Grove area or perhaps our artist has caught the spirit of the past.

The artist set up his easel somewhere near the church and looked out to the west over what was still, then, the fields of Grove Farm.

The Grove – a 1986 water colour by Norman Miller

Beyond the pastoral scene, with grazing sheep we see a more sylvan backdrop which, perhaps, makes Lavington School look just a bit surprising.  The houses on Park Road do seem to lead the eye to the school building – very much in the style of the 1960s.

Beyond the trees there’s a hint of Salisbury Plain and above all, cumulous clouds rise up to mask most of the blue sky.

The artist was Norman Miller (1906-1995) who worked, this time, in water colours. This was painted in 1986.

Norman, a retired church minister, lived in Easterton. We have a couple of his paintings in the museum.

Northbrook Cottage

A recent gift to the museum is a watercolour painting depicting the former Tudor cottage on Northbrook. The cottage stood close by the bridge which carried the road called Northbrook over the stream of the same name.

The Tudor Cottage on Northbrook – a watercolour by Roy McGrath

The artist (who was not the donor) has signed his work.

He was R McGrath – Roy.

At present we cannot be 100% sure just who he was, but we believe he married Linda Sheppard in 1937 in Market Lavington and that the couple lived on the sands just to the north of the village centre. We also believe that the McGrath family moved to Tisbury in the early 1950s so we can probably date the painting to that period of time.

Roy also titled his picture.

Of course, we’d have recognised the scene without a title. This delightful little cottage was well known and certainly was the home of Tommy Burden for many years.

To be generous to developers, the old house had passed its use by date and one day it was demolished and a house more suited to family life was built in its place. Many villagers think it was an act of wanton vandalism but very few people will say they’d have liked to have lived in the old cottage.

Roy, perhaps, has captured a lady who did live there.

We think this painting is absolutely fantastic. It needs a little frame restoration and then we’ll find space for it, somewhere, on the walls of the museum.

Huge thanks to Gaile, the donor. Her parents had been friends of Roy.