Experiment and Tradition at Voewood

Mary Gaitskill at Voewood

I love Norfolk in the summer. Made the most of the glorious weather this weekend at the Voewood Literary Fete, High Kelling, Holt. Set in the grounds of the beautiful country house Voewood, it was the perfect setting for a picnic and my first delicious Pimms of the summer (why does the first Pimms always taste the best?). I enjoyed Mary Gaitskill's lyrical, poetic reading from her new novel Veronica and although I had no idea what Yang Lian (poet now resident in London after his work was banned in China) was reciting in Chinese, it sounded beautiful. His short, sharp, heavily punctuated words seemed to bounce seamlessly through the humid evening air.

Met Voewood's eccentric proprietor Simon Finch and marvelled at his exquisite taste in furnishing and renovating this fine example of Arts and Craft architecture. Voewood was built by E.S. Prior for Percy Lloyd between 1903-5, and cost the staggering sum of £60,000 to construct. A rich combination of concrete, flint, and stone decorate this fine example of the Arts and Craft movement. Pervsner praises Voewood as by ‘far the most interesting building in this part of Norfolk a violently idiosyncratic house reminiscent of Gaudi’s work in Barcelona’.

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