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This painting is located in the billiards room of Charlecote House and it’s of George Lucy (1714-1786) who was also known as the Bachelor Squire. The painting is by Pompeo Girolamo Batoni (1708 – 1787) and it’s that which I’m most interested in here as George had a long and complex life that is far beyond any short blog post. Batoni became famous for painting members of the British aristocracy, and indeed many others, who were visiting Italy as part of the Grand Tour. George Lucy himself noted:

“I have shown my face and person to the celebrated Pompeo Battoni, to take the likeness thereof. These painters are great men, and must be flattered for ‘tis the custom here, not to think themselves obliged to you for employing them, but that they oblige you by being employed.”

George Lucy arrived in Naples in 1756 and soon realised that he didn’t quite look the part and he promptly asked for his clothes to be shipped from Charlecote to Italy. I’m not sure how you would go about doing that, as UPS weren’t quite fully formed at that point, but it didn’t do much good as the vessel they were on was promptly intercepted by Moorish pirates and his fineries ended up in Algiers. It was in 1758 that he moved onto Rome, with what I assume was a new wardrobe he had acquired out there, as he was clearly in no rush on this Grand Tour, and it was then that he commissioned Batoni to paint him. This was a considerable honour, the artist didn’t speed paint and he was careful what work he took on.

Lucy paid 40 guineas for this artwork which was completed after he had left Rome and so it was shipped back, fortunately not being intercepted by pirates on this occasion. He looks very on-trend in the painting, he’s wearing fancy and fine clothes, he looks elegant and he looks very travelled. Batoni was often said to have inspired Thomas Gainsborough and on Lucy’s return he also had a painting commissioned by the British artist. The phrase Bachelor Squire was polite, he was known by others as the “wild bachelor”, obsessed with travel, society and food. I make no comment. Lucy found the process a bit of a faff, he had to sit on three occasions for Batoni and he wrote to his housekeeper at Charlecote that “he would not undertake to do me in less time”.

Batoni’s paintings are scattered everywhere today, but this one of George Lucy hasn’t gone anywhere far since it was installed in Charlecote in the late 1750s. Along with the entire house, it was given to the National Trust in 1946.

This artwork is located in the billiards room at Charlecote House and is a painting of Colonel Sir Henry Fairfax-Lucy (1870-1944). The date of the artwork is unknown, but the artist was Alfred Edward Borthwick (1871-1955) and he has painted Fairfax-Lucy wearing the uniform of the Royal Company of Archers.

As some background, he was born Henry William Fairfax on 25 September 1870 in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire and he was the eldest son of Sir William George Herbert Taylor Ramsay-Fairfax, 2nd Baronet, whose family seat was Maxton in Roxburghshire, Scotland. His education followed the conventional path for his class, attending Eton College and it was evident that he would go on to do great things. Upon the death of his father on 19 January 1902, he succeeded to the baronetcy, becoming the 3rd Baronet Ramsay-Fairfax-Lucy (the ‘Lucy’ having been added previously into what was becoming a ridiculously long name if I’m being honest, although I’d likely take a double barrelled name if I got a country house from the arrangement). Alongside the title, he inherited the family estate of Maxton and at this time has embarked on quite a successful military career. He also managed to become a chartered accountant, which doesn’t feel like an obvious fit alongside a military career and numerous political responsibilities, but I suppose that someone has to do it.

As for the link with this property. On 26 July 1892, Sir Henry (then Henry William Ramsay-Fairfax) married Ada Christina Lucy (1866-1943). Ada was the eldest daughter and, crucially, the heiress of Henry Spencer Lucy of Charlecote Park. Her father had died in 1890, and Ada inherited the historic Charlecote estate. This marriage thus brought Charlecote Park, with its centuries of Lucy family history, into the sphere of the Ramsay-Fairfax family. Despite the historical significance and grandeur of Charlecote Park, Sir Henry reportedly preferred to live in Scotland, presumably at his ancestral estate of Maxton. Nevertheless, he remained involved in the parish life of Charlecote. During the Second World War, he offered his services in an advisory capacity to Winston Churchill, though this offer was apparently not taken up which I imagine Sir Henry felt was sub-optimal.

I was interested in Henry (if I might call him that) as this was the last real period when the property was run as a country house. Following his death in August 1944, the baronetcy and the associated estates, including the financially strained Charlecote, passed to his eldest son, Sir Henry Montgomerie Cameron-Ramsay-Fairfax-Lucy (1896-1965), who became the 4th Baronet. It seems that there are numerous factors here including the more obvious death duties which would have been substantial. However, his interest in his Scottish estate did mean that there had been a lack of investment at Charlecote and it wasn’t in the best state of repair, another factor as to why it was all given to the National Trust in 1946. The decision was also clearly being made much earlier, as the Stratford-upon-Avon Herald reported on 1 June 1945 that the property was likely being given to the Trust, so discussions about this seem to have begun shortly after the Colonel’s death.

So, as a painting, this feels important as Henry was a pivotal figure. I can’t imagine that he could have saved Charlecote in terms of keeping it as a family house, and the National Trust deal did mean that the family could continue to live in one wing of the property permanently anyway. His life was certainly an interesting one, even if he didn’t get to work for Winston Churchill…..

I can’t imagine that I’ll ever need to live in a large house, not least as it would be expensive to heat, complex to maintain and I would fill it with books. But, if I did, I’d have a snooker table in it. Putting that thought to one side, this room is located on the ground floor of Charlecote House and is part of the original Tudor house and was part of a suite of three rooms and it might have been a bedroom. It was later changed into a dining room but was remodelled under the guidance of Mary Elizabeth Lucy to become a billiards room in the 1850s and the Elizabethan style ceiling was installed here at the same time.

These billiards rooms were the on-trend thing to have in country houses in the late nineteenth century, a place for gentlemen to retire after dinner to smoke, drink port and play billiards (this was before the time of snooker being commonplace).

The room guide told me that when the National Trust acquired the house they got rid of the original snooker table, which had some considerable heritage, as they didn’t intend to put it on display when they laid the room out as a dining room. When they decided later on that they did want to put one on display they then couldn’t get back the one they’d flogged off which all feels a bit sub-optimal. The replacement table has the annoying attribute that there are two baulk lines slightly out of alignment. The room guide also said that the National Trust believe that the lighting set-up above the table is original, that apparently went into storage but they were able to recover it (there’s a pun there about re-covering a billiards table, but I won’t labour that point).

The rules of billiards are on the wall and they certainly go into some detail here. Anyway, this was one of my favourite rooms in the property and I’ll just have to console myself that I won’t ever own a snooker table, but maybe a bar billiards table one day….