Clouds Hill, Dorset

Clouds Hill was the country retreat of T.E. Lawrence – Lawrence of Arabia – when he was stationed at Bovington Camp in Dorset.  It’s reached by walking along a gorgeous, green lane, made tunnel-like by the trees growing over it and getting you in the mood for this rural idyll before you reach it.  The house itself is tiny, brick built in the early 1800s and still without electricity or an indoor loo.  Rather than these tedious encumbrances it is stuffed even now (many of Lawrence’s personal effects were removed by the family when he died) with evocative and astonishing features.  The first room I went into contained a large daybed and was lined with books, with a mullioned stone window he had installed.  There was a strong smell of leather in the room and this, coupled with its stillness and slight gloom, made it atmospheric although not eerie.  A couple in the ajoining room were guffawing loudly with the custodian, so I lingered in the little room, admiring Lawrence’s carefully designed reading chair, plush with deep sheepskin cushions and wide arms to accommodate candles and cups of tea.  When the jollity next door subsided I edged my way in to the bathroom, complete with its gleaming white tub and walls lined in cork, a snazzy design feature if ever I saw one.  I continued getting a real sense of the man who had lived here and tailored it exactly to his liking, and started to get an inkling of inspiration!

Upstairs the other custodian, wife of the gentleman downstairs and equally friendly and helpful, explained more about Lawrence and his tastes – the mantlepiece at the correct height for him to eat from (he was 5’ 5”), the aluminum foil lined spare room-cum-larder where his friends had to sleep next to huge cheeses and bottles of fruit if they wanted to stay over and the top of the range gramophone with its papier mache horn.  Declaring a terror of touching it, lest it should break, this lady summoned her husband aloft and he was delighted to play us a record on it. 

What a unique moment, standing in a slightly chilly, 200 year old cottage in rural Dorset, the weak August sunlight filtering through the windows, listening to music pour from Lawrence of Arabia’s gramophone.

Outside I scrambled up the steep path to see the view which EM Forster urges you to do in a recording playing in the tiny garage which serves as a museum to the house.  Even on such an overcast day it was spectacular, and to be looking at it, surrounded by the rhododendron bushes Lawrence cut for firewood, one had no choice but to be very much in the present moment, whilst beckoned gently by the past.

It was here I thought about our country’s rich trove of historical houses and gardens and wondered if anybody had ever visited them all...and why shouldn’t I?!  I can hardly think of a more pleasant way to spend an afternoon, so why not exploit that, educate myself, enjoy myself and inject my life with some much-needed perspective – as well as a challenge?