Architecture
In Defence of the Dark Study
Paint the shelves the colour of a storm and the books will thank you. On why the gloomiest room in the house does the most work.
12 June · 9 minutes
Est. 1897
Curated with unnecessary formality.
ashcroftmanor.com
ASHCROFT MANOR
EST. 1897
An editorial on art, architecture & living well just outside the city · curated by Bea
The Feature · No. 1
What the Blueprints Don't Tell You
Every old house keeps two sets of records: the drawings it was built from, and the decisions made when nobody was drawing. I have spent the better part of a year learning to read the second set — and it has changed how I walk through every museum, gallery and draughty parish church since.
By Bea · From the print room at Ashcroft · 14 minutes
Read the featureThe Journal
All entries →
Living
Navy Velvet, and Knowing When to Stop
A sitting room needs exactly one grand gesture. The rest is restraint, brass lamps, and a rug older than everyone in the room.
28 May · 7 minutes
Curating
Blue and White, Within Reason
How to collect transferware without your dining room becoming a gift shop. Rules I break, and the two I never do.
14 May · 8 minutes
The Manor Diary — brief notes, kept honestly
31 July
The print room flooded. Only slightly. The Palladios are fine; my composure is not.
24 July
Took the 9:04 to see a parish church with a hammerbeam roof. Worth every one of the four changes.
17 July
A reader sent me a 1911 survey of the Manor. The east wing has been lying about its age.
9 July
Bought nothing at the antiques fair, which I am recording here as a personal triumph.
The Museum Directory
Every house museum, print room and provincial gallery worth the fare — anywhere.
Sixty-nine entries across six continents. Kept by hand, visited in person where I can manage it, and organised the way one actually plans a day out — by region, by kind, and by the quality of the tearoom.
Browse the directory
The Curator's Shelf
Things I own, use, and would buy again. Some links earn the Manor a small commission.
product shot — brass picture light
The Brass Picture Light
Hardwired flattery for anything in a frame.
product shot — book, 'The Architecture of Northumberland'
The Architecture of Northumberland
The book on my drafting table in every photograph, for good reason.
product shot — archival print frame
A Proper Archival Frame
Because prints are ruined by kindness and cheap glazing.
product shot — linen-bound notebook
The Site-Visit Notebook
Linen-bound, ruled faintly, tolerant of rain.
Letters from the Manor
One letter, most Sundays. What I've seen, what I'd hang, and where you should go before the crowds work it out. No noise, ever.
About Bea
"I curate art, I read buildings the way other people read novels, and I live forty minutes past where the city gives up. The Manor is where all three habits keep their papers."
Bea is a curator and writer. Ashcroft Manor is her desk, her archive, and — on good weeks — her excuse for the train fare.