Annual Delaware Antiques Show 2019

trimmed lawns—can no doubt expect a longer life in the twilight, but for those of us who require our masonry to crumble and our ivy to clamber, the experience will always disappoint. When the vegetation is swept away, so too is imagination’s opportunity. The romantic ruin is a neglected ruin, and this is where an element of capriciousness occurs. “To delight in the aspects of sentient ruin might appear a heartless pastime,” Henry James confessed in Italian Hours (1873), “and the pleasure, I confess, shows the note of perversity.” No one should delight in decay, and yet there is a kind of pleasurable grief in coming across an abandoned building onto which all sorts of invented histories can be projected. For those of us who relish such experiences, they usually come unexpectedly. Often it occurs on one of the country’s minor roads where above an untrimmed hedgerow comes a glimpse of what appears to be remains of a once-significant structure. A certain amount of stalking then follows. The challenge is to find an approach to the building in question, rarely an easy task. Sometimes, if luck holds, around one more corner will be found the dilapidated lodge, the rusted gates, the rutted track disappearing into overgrown woodland; the prize is within reach. Once found, the place must be explored, a process that can involve startling rooks and occasionally livestock that have taken up residence. The floor will be covered with disintegrating timbers and mouldering plaster; the ceiling, if it still exists, will Entrance hall of Sopwell Hall, County Offaly, Ireland. — 18 —