Batemans
Kipling on Batemans
The main lawn at Batemans
In his autobiography 'Something of Myself', Kipling writes candidly of his first experience of Batemans and it is immediately apparent that the writer was overwhelmed by the sheer beauty of the house.
Note - Kipling's reference to 'the Committee of Ways and Means' is, in fact, a term he used to describe his wife!
"it was the heartbreaking Locomobile that brought us to the house called 'Bateman's'. We had seen an advertisement of her, and we reached her down an enlarged rabbit-hole of a lane. At very first sight the Committee of Ways and Means said 'That's her! The only She! Make an honest woman of her - quick!'.
We entered and felt her Spirit - her Feng Shui - to be good. We went through every room and found no shadow of ancient regrets, stifled miseries, nor any menace though the 'new' end of her was three hundred years old..."
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