Sylvia Grant-Dalton was the custodian of a grand Victorian house that she never liked and never modernised, failing to replace peeling wallpaper, fraying carpets or broken shutters.
Nor was she able to sort out rampant rising damp or multiple pest infestations. For all of that, English Heritage is profoundly grateful.
“She never did modernise, thank goodness,” said Eleanor Matthews, a curator at Brodsworth Hall, near Doncaster in South Yorkshire. “It is one of the reasons the house was saved for the nation.”
The house is a Victorian time capsule and its survival is very much down to the grit and determination of Grant-Dalton, who lived there more than five decades, until her death in 1988.
This weekend, an exhibition opens to the public celebrating Grant-Dalton by telling the story of her true passion: gardening and flowers. Curators have mined her extensive collection of floral paraphernalia and decorative art and objects to create an exhibition they hope will bring some much-needed joy. “We’ll definitely perk people’s spirits up,” said Matthews
Grant-Dalton lived at Brodsworth Hall between 1931 and 1988, longer than anyone else. She said she disliked it, preferring Georgian interiors and houses. But her marriage to Charles Grant-Dalton, who inherited the house, meant she was stuck with Victorian.
Despite the antipathy and the endless costs of maintaining a house such as Brodsworth, Grant-Dalton was committed to keeping it as best she could after her husband died in 1952. It was left in trust to their daughter Pamela, and Sylvia viewed following that through as a lifetime commitment.
“She was wonderfully eccentric, fiercely independent, charismatic,” said Matthews. “When younger relatives came to stay, they would slide down the banister of the main staircase and cycle around. I think she would have loved all of that. Apart from when she was very old, I always imagine she would have joined in.”
In her later years, with just her and a devoted cook-housekeeper living in the house, she was regularly seen zooming through the house’s corridors on her mobility scooter.
Her true passion was the house’s magnificent gardens, where she endlessly pottered. She enjoyed painting flowers, cataloguing them, reading horticultural books and making floral displays, with no sink or toilet safe from her guerrilla flower arranging.
Among the objects on display are two recently restored gilt goat-footed jardinières and a pair of gaudy flower-encrusted 19th-century German candelabras – in the style of Meissen but definitely not Meissen. “They’re wonderful,” said Matthews. “They’re hideously fabulous. They are awful, but I love them at the same time.”
In the dining room, curators have hung Grant-Dalton’s favourite painting, a copy of Jan van Huysum’s dazzling Flowers in a Terracotta Vase, which hangs in the National Gallery. Nearby, floristry students from Doncaster College have created a massive and magnificent floral table display inspired by the painting.
One of the highlights of the exhibition is a recreation of Grant-Dalton’s flower preparation and potting room, together with sounds from the garden of leaves rustling, birds singing and secateurs clipping.
Elsewhere, there are historic photographs, oral interviews and images of people who worked at Brodsworth, the smell of roses and forget-me-nots and a display of fresh flowers from the garden, which will be changed regularly.
After Grant-Dalton’s death, Pamela gave the house and gardens to the nation on the condition its collections were purchased. One reason the deal was done, with English Heritage taking it on in 1990, was because of how unmodernised and fantastically Victorian it remained.
While many grand English Victorian houses were demolished, Brodsworth survived. “It hung on,” said Matthews, “because Sylvia was here.”
