- Camden Park Rd, Chislehurst, Kent, BR7 5HJ, United Kingdom
Camden Place: the Making of Chislehurst’s Château Wednesday 18th November at 4pm
Camden Place typifies the shifts in English architectural taste through its layered building history. It reflects both a fascination with French design and an appetite for the salvaged antique. We are delighted to be welcoming back to Camden Place Alice Blows. Alice is a Curator of the Royal Palaces and a real friend of Camden Place. Her earlier planned talk at 2pm is already sold out and Alice has agreed to a second talk at 4pm. Alice will explore the history of architectural salvage at Camden Place, Victorian approaches to interior decoration, and the enduring obsession with all things French
In the 1860s, Camden Place was dramatically transformed by its Francophile owner, Nathaniel Strode and its dining room was fitted with a panelled interior from the Château de Bercy near Paris. Today, this magnificent interior remains an exceptionally rare survival of early 18th-century French craftsmanship, remarkably preserved within the golf clubhouse.
Whether Strode was simply indulging a Victorian penchant for French design or secretly fashioning a sanctuary for the deposed Emperor Napoleon III remains a captivating mystery; nevertheless, the rooms stood ready when the imperial exile arrived.
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