PARIS DECO OFF
The iconic British company, Watts 1874, a fifth generation family firm, returns to Paris Déco Off to launch a collaboration with the mighty baronial Eastnor Castle.
Driven by the hand of the 3rd Earl, a lover of all things Renaissance, the castle interiors are a smorgasbord of bold eclectic European historic ornament;
Watts 1874 X Eastnor Castle Portfolio of Design captures that colourful spirit of romance and daring.
Watts 1874 @ Paris Déco Off 2025, Pop-up venue
Galerie La Forest Divonne, 12 rue des Beaux Arts.
WATTS 1874 X EASTNOR CASTLE
"Watts 1874 has proved the ideal partner."
Looks can be deceptive. From the outside, Herefordshire’s Eastnor Castle, designed by architect Robert Smirke in a Norman revival style, is imposing – brutal even – all 4,000 tonnes of stone and turrets. Yet on the inside is a mind-boggling mélange of generations of shifting Regency, Victorian, and Italianate tastes with a generous topping of ‘Moorish’ architecture. Developed in the western Islamic world Built for the 2nd Baron (Lord) Somers between 1810 and 1824, the house bears the imprint of successive generations and has seen both glory days and dormant decay.
Today, Imogen Hervey-Bathurst, daughter and owner of James Hervey Bathurst, is master minding the castle’s next chapter, and making its sensorial overload a calling card. “Eastnor is highly immersive it is about the design and the experience and I felt part of the retelling could be through creative collaborations”. The threads between Eastnor and Watts1874 twist back through time and personalities. Friends and colleagues in the mid nineteenth century the third Earl Somers and George Gilbert Scott, prolific English Gothic Revival architect and founding father of Watts & Co. moved and played in the same fashionable proto bohemianism of that period.
Much later in the 1990’s, following decades of decay and neglect when Sarah Hervey-Bathurst, Imogen’s mother was charged with the task of an entire make over of the castle to bring warmth and colour into the rooms, Watts was her initial go to for inspiration and supply. Entirely fitting that 150 years later there is a meeting of minds and the art and antiques acquired by the third Earl creates the dipping pool for a deserving collaboration.
THE COLLECTION
The romanticism of Eastnor stems from the life and passion of Imogen’s ancestor the third Earl Somers.
“He was a big collector, random in his taste and must have burnt through a fortune,” smiles Imogen.
But the earl’s indulgences may prove gold. An inveterate traveller, a great collector, a lover of all things Renaissance his influence is “felt” throughout the castle.
He wanted to be an artist but was prevented as not befitting for a peer, but he moved in literary circles, was well acquainted with the pre-Raphaelites and the fashionable proto bohemianism in the mid nineteenth century.
THE MAKING
It is this legacy of sophisticated decorative ornament that is the impetus for the collaboration.
“ There is pattern everywhere ….. embellished textures in wood, stone, wall and lacquer. For me, it is instantly inspirational – a feast ” describes Watts’s creative director, Fiona Flint.
The tiered density of layer upon layer of decoration, floor to panelling, to papered wall, inlaid precious stone to wool tapestry and on up to the hand painted coffered ceiling without pausing for breath, this is Eastnor but it is Watts look.
THE PROCESS
The seeds of the partnership were sewn in the summer of 2022, and in
January 2023 our studio team moved in and began the meticulous work of
visual research and recording.
Using geometric calibration cameras and
digital mapping, a library of design gradually emerged and the richness and
variation of every surface captured became apparent.
Over and beyond the
practicalities of this process, we were so privileged to be immersed for that
intense capsule of time in the magic of the castle.
A Portfolio of Designs
A sense of order was required and duly the visual library was split into type tapestries, paravents, furniture, walling and more. Each surface held potential to be developed into a medium that was sympathetic to the character of the form. Above all from conception it was the robust ‘European’ power of the pattern that fuelled all design intent.
Anthony & Cleopatra
£5.00
Salacia
£5.00
Medici Print Room
£5.00
Queen Mary Chinoiserie
£5.00
Japonica
£5.00
Seedpod
£5.00
Gooseberry
£5.00
Storks
£5.00
THE ROOMS
Queen Mary's Bedroom
This is the symbolic heart of the castle and is used now as a drawing room, as it was in the Edwardian era. Tall and imperious amidst the sea of furniture and objets d’art proliferating the floor space stands a titanic paravent. Painted and gilded in imitation coromandel lacquer, this 18th century six -leaf japanned and painted leather objet d’art is just one of four that led the way to the development of what is now the ‘paravent’ collection.
Christened Trastamara with a nod towards the southern European medieval origin, with a series of cartouches depicting vases of flowers and temples with figures, the richness and highly patterned surface is a compelling vision. Now redrawn and created as an ornamental design for both printed velvet and wallpaper, the jewel like colours and a crazed cork texture, capturing the intrinsic characteristics of this historic embossed surface.
The Great Hall at Eastnor Castle
Trastamara Old Teal
THE ROOMS
The Long Library
The aesthetic delights of this room are immense.
A decorative feast of fine inlaid woodwork, carved
Istrian stone chimney pieces, some 5000 books
and tapestries everywhere. Spoilt for choice our
focus is dominated initially by the tapestries. To the
left rising to the coffered ceiling, are seventeenth
century Goblein hangings illustrating scenes from
a poem dedicated to Catherine de Medici, which
compares her life to the story of Queen Artemisia
and her son, Lygdamus, and came from a palazzo
in Mantua, purchased of course by the Third Earl.
Marching determinedly down the whole length of
the library above the impenetrable book shelves,
soldiers at arms enact with gracious dignitaries set
against classical architecture and the gentle Tuscan
landscape.
How to do justice to such treasures. In short it
is impossible and for now we have created the
‘Medici’ print room paper tiering the tapestries and
reducing the scale dramatically thereby minimising
the colossal nature of the subject, whilst retaining
the dense complexity of the pictorial and enjoying
the subtlety of colour.
17th-century mythical seascape tapestries hang
to the right of the Long Library filling the space
between the windows. The five hangings have
been stripped of borders and artfully pieced
together to present one mural spanning a total
length of 650cm x 300cm high. Polar opposite to
the soldiers marching on the other side of the Long
Library, Salicia Neptunus is a bacchanalian frolic in
the waves attended by sated damsels and wayward
youth.
Translated into a lengthy figurative panorama, and
available as a print production on any cloth or
paper medium.
The Long Libary
Medici Print Room
Salicia
THE ROOMS
Queen Mary's Bedroom
This room and its neighbour (originally the dressing
room) reflect the British fascination with the orient.
Hung with eighteenth century Chinese wallpaper and
furnished with 19th century furniture in the Chinese
style, these were the best guest bedrooms in the castle
and were used by Queen Mary on her visit to Eastnor in
1937.
The chinoiserie walling is a botanical treat, a carousal of
beautifully drawn seedpods and flowers. Capped by a
hand painted ceiling, a summer sky dotted with almost
comical storks bombing around the room.
Wishing to celebrate the ambition of this massive
chinoiserie, in excess of 20 metres without a repeating
passage, specific botanical motifs have been zeroed in
on and redrawn as solo floral patterns.
Queen Mary & Friends
A collection which includes the ‘Queen Mary Chinoiserie’ in all its finery, plus Japonica, Gooseberry, and Seedpod a supporting cast printed as papers and linen in punched up contemporary colours.