Kenwood: more cupboard.

The cupboard is currently on view at Christie's South Kensington branch, and, of course, I couldn't resist heading down for a shufti. The staff are extremely helpful; photos allowed, as was opening it up and poking about, missus:


I asked about the vendor: naturally, they can't divulge identities, but they did say that it came via a friend of the housekeeper at Kenwood. I'd guess Dot got it when Cynthia cleaned the place out, and then passed it on to her mate.


The interior shows some paint and the holes used to fix it to the wall. Riveting:



Pleasingly, they have left it entirely "as is", including cobwebs, spider corpse and, intriguingly, some flakes of tobacco on the lower shelf:


6-800 pounds seems a bit low to me. Having said that, there's a recession on, so who knows?

Kenwood: wall cupboard.

Where has this popped up from? Almost (but not quite) unbelievably, the wall cupboard, famous from the dining and living rooms, is up for grabs at Christie's next week:


Estimate? 6-800 pounds. Dimensions, in case you care, are 37.5x32x11in. or 95x81x28cm..
And what else might the vendor have squirreled away?

Kenwood: dining room, 1965.

Joe Baiardi has uncovered another shot of the dining room from 1965, which gives a little wider perspective. This corner, of course, provided the location for one of the most famous photos taken at Kenwood:


The house was re-vamped yet again shortly after this, in order to get rid of most of Ken Partridge's initial interior design; how that affected the dining room I dunno - the wall cupboard was moved to the main sitting room, as seen in Cathy Kelleher Sarver's photo from 1968, but no photos of this room (in the Lennon-era) post-1965 have surfaced as yet.
As has been previously noted at nauseating length, the long table from the dining room (an acquisition of Partridge's of which John actually approved) played a further part in Beatles history, after it was taken to Tittenhurst; in August, 1969, it was shown being huddled around by the Fabs, for what may well have been their final meeting (certainly their final photo session):


Anyway, the dining room at Kenwood didn't look that different in 2005; how it looks now is anyone's guess:


Thanks, as ever, to Joe.

Kenwood: dining room, 1965.

The location of the 1965 family shots of John, Cynthia and Julian can now be definitively established, thanks to the above, uncropped photograph. Although it's not perfect quality, the two framed pictures can be seen clearly enough to establish the identity of the right hand one; compare with the following, sold at auction in 1996:


In fact, both of the reproductions in the first photo were sold by Cynthia in the same auction as a job lot. They are in the style of Basilus Besler, and, obviously, have a botanical theme. Here's a closer look at the visible portion in comparison - clearly the same picture:


We can pinpoint this as the dining room thanks to the note from Cynthia which accompanied the lot, stating that the pictures (which are actually colour) were originally bought by Ken Partridge, and were hung in the dining room. Estimate in 1996? £150-250.
Many thanks to Jeannette and Lynn Mayes for tracking the uncropped picture down.

Kenwood: dining room?

Having obsessively picked apart Joe Baiardi's Kenwood video, the only bit left now is the second pic here. Assuming this was shot in the dining room, then that would tend to confirm the hypothesis that the pic with Cynthia and Julian was also taken there - that doorway looks identical to me. However, the wall clearly isn't identical, which is possibly down to renovation, and, equally, possibly not. Until a complete set of plans from the Lennon era turns up, all this amounts to nothing more (or less) than havering, which is a polite Scottish word for what it amounts to.

Kenwood: dining room table, part 3.

Two more featuring that table again, or at least a leg thereof.

Kenwood: dining room table, part 1.

Some upgrades of these photos from the dining room. The rather "worried" table, which Ken Partridge obtained from a farmhouse, was a source of displeasure to Cynthia... There weren't many dinner parties chez Lennon if you don't count those involving the other Beatles, but those guests who were invited tended to be Bob Dylan or Peter Cook or Joan Baez or Mike Nesmith or etc. It's also possible that this was the table around which the Beatles convened with a medium for a spot of light seancing following the demise of Brian Epstein. Thanks to Joe Baiardi for one of these, and more on a theme of worried dining room table to follow.

Kenwood: 1965 - dining room?

Jeannette has very kindly sent this bigger and better version in. She reckons it could be the dining room, in front of the doorway leading to the internal hall, which in turn took you to the sunroom. That could well be correct - even in 2006 this doorway was small, and there is clearly a big window quite close by which would fit with the dining room theory. She also says she has seen an uncropped version of one of the other pics in the last post (the one with Julian in the foreground and John/Cyn behind), which shows the musical instrument lithographs on the wall, meaning those pics were taken in the drawing room (to use its 2006 nomenclature). That makes sense, given the other photos from the same session taken there (ie the George and Pattie visit). Many thanks to Jeannette for the scan and the information.

Kenwood: 1965 (& 1967).

Some more of these oft-seen family shots from 1965. It's impossible (UPDATE - no, it's not. These were taken in the dining room. See later blather for the details.) to tell where exactly in Kenwood these were taken - except for the one of Julian with the small piano. That's the same keyboard as can be seen against the wall in the '67 small room shot with the Fool, and I'd guess that is the small room in the Julian shot. The radiator also looks the same as in the other '67 small room shot (remember the different window position would have resulted in a bigger stretch of wall during the John-era - as if you could ever forget), and the wall colour does too. Clicking on the panorama image will give you a closer comparison.

Dining room: 1965.

Dining room: 1965 & 2006.

These familiar photos of the Lennons in the dining room in 1965 were taken beside the window, as seen in the same spot ca. 2006. To add to the almost unendurable excitement, some obscenely priced cutlery, sold by Cynthia at auction, and used by esteemed diners at the house in the mid 1960s.