George Bernard Shaw’s UK idyll
Keith McDonald visits the home of the only person to win both an Oscar and a Nobel Prize.
‘All I want is a room somewhere, far away from the cold night air,” Eliza Doolittle sang in My Fair Lady. “With one enormous chair ... Aow, wouldn’t it be loverly?”
And Eliza’s creator, George Bernard Shaw, knew all about a “loverly” place — the old rectory, now known as Shaw’s Corner, in the village of Ayot St Lawrence about 30km north of London.
This was where the eccentric writer and his wife, Charlotte, had their home for 44 years far enough away from London’s madding crowd and where the Irish playwright wrote some or all of Pygmalion, the play which was turned into the musical hit, My Fair Lady.
It is open to the public and preserved much as it was in his lifetime, with the star attractions being his Oscar and Nobel Prize.
Shaw was born in Dublin in 1856 and left Ireland for London at the age of 20. He was a prolific writer of novels, short stories, arts criticism, plays, essays and letters. He is reported to have written a staggering 250,000 letters.
His greatest mark was as a playwright. Among his most famous were Arms and the Man (1894), Caesar and Cleopatra (1898), Man and Superman (1902), Major Barbara (1905), Pygmalion (1912), Back to Methuselah (1921) and Saint Joan (1923).
Shaw was also an ardent socialist and member of the left-wing Fabian Society. His political views are at the heart of his plays too.
He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1925 “for his work which is marked by both idealism and humanity, its stimulating satire often being infused with a singular poetic beauty”. In 1938 he won an Oscar for his work in adapting Pygmalion into a film starring Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller, thus becoming the only person ever to win the two awards.
By 1904, he was one of the biggest celebrities of his day and that was why he started looking for a country retreat where he could work undisturbed.
Ayot St Lawrence, 5km from Welwyn, Hertfordshire, is down a series of idyllic, English country lanes. Idyllic, that is, despite most Perth driveways being wider than these winding lanes dwarfed by giant hedges.
At Ayot St Lawrence he kept his distance from the local community but he wasn’t a hermit. He donated prizes for village competitions and gave talks to the Sunday school, including one on why he was so ugly, and to the Women’s Institute on how to argue properly.
When writing, he moved between his study and a hut at the bottom of his 1.4ha garden. The hut has been preserved as it was in Shaw’s time, right down to the spartan furnishings, including a bed. The hut revolved and Shaw would turn it to get better light or a better view.
On a glorious summer day when I visited, the garden was as big an attraction as the house.
Shaw and his wife would walk more than 1.5km on a set route around the garden, passing a statue by artist and neighbour Clare Winsten of St Joan as a girl in peasant clothing. The statue is still there.
The house — built in 1902 as a rectory — is much as it was when Shaw died on November 2, 1950 and the National Trust opened it to the public four months later. Shaw first offered it the house shortly after his wife Charlotte’s death in 1943.
Inside the front door a hat stand contains some of his idiosyncratic hats — wool felt hats for summer and straw hats for winter, a miner’s hat for when he chopped wood.
The east-facing study, which caught the morning sun, still has his writing desk, bought for £6 18s 6d in 1932. In those pre-computer days he would cut and paste drafts of his text and the floor would be littered with scraps of paper.
On a bookcase in the drawing room is Rodin’s bust of Shaw. He travelled to Paris in 1906 specially to pose for Rodin. The room also has another Rodin sculpture, the head of Balzac. The dining room features photographs of people Shaw admired, including Gandhi, Lenin, Stalin and Ibsen. In 1950, after a fall, he had his bed moved into this room and died there.
The kitchen has Shaw’s crockery and utensils such as scales and jugs, and the original range cooker and sink and table.
Upstairs Shaw’s bedroom still has the screen he used to shield him from draughts when he slept with the window open. The wardrobe contains some of his clothes including tweed suits and plus-fours. His wife’s bedroom features both his Oscar statuette and his Nobel Prize book.
Shaw’s Corner certainly is “loverly”.
FACT FILE
Shaw’s Corner is in the village of Ayot St Lawrence, near Welwyn, Hertfordshire, about 30km north of London. +44 (0) 1438 821 968, shawscorner@nationaltrust.org.uk or nationaltrust.org.uk/shaws-corner.
It reopens for the 2015 season on March 21. Admission costs £7.25 ($14.25), children $7.15 and family tickets are $35.65.
By car, take the A1(M) and leave at Junction 4 or the M1 and leave at Junction 21A. From there you will need a sat nav or map or alternatively phone 01438 820 307 for directions.
By train, get off at Welwyn North (7km), Welwyn Garden City (10km) or Harpenden (8km) and take a taxi.
