WHAT A FIND! BRITAIN’S NATIONAL TRUST reports discovery of “A Display of 17th Century Papercuts,” July 15, 2024.
Fallen Through Sutton House Floorboards. “Originally built for one of Henry VIII’s statesmen,” the National Trust writes, “Sutton House has been used for a variety of purposes over the years, becoming a school in the 17th century. During this time, it’s thought that paper shapes cut out by schoolgirls slipped through gaps in the floorboards, remaining undiscovered until now.”
The Trust describes, “Among the finds volunteers discovered a small number of delicate cut-out paper designs, only a few centimetres in size. Eight of these have been dated to the late seventeenth century when papercutting as a pastime in the UK was in its infancy and are extremely rare survivals.”
The trust sums up, “The discoveries include an intricate folded paper star, hand-coloured cut-outs of a fox, and a female figure bathing, and a hen with added green and pink silk embellishment, along with black and white cut-outs of a bird and a country couple in clothing of the period.”
“The Little Chamber at Sutton House, where paper cuttings were found on a lintel during restoration. They are assumed to have fallen from the floor above.” Image from the National Trust/Dennis Gilbert.
The Hobby of Paper Cutting. Maev Kennedy writes in The Art Newspaper, July 16, 2024, “In the 17th century, the house was a school, where the trust believes girls may have learned the hobby of paper cutting from their teacher Hannah Woolley, who included it in her 1668 book of household management, A Guide to Ladies, Gentlewomen and Maids. She described ‘cutting of prints, and adorning rooms or cabinets, or stands with them’ as skills which ‘I shall be willing to impart to them, who are desirous to learn.’ ”
Hannah Wooley’s A Guide to Ladies, Gentlewomen and Maids, 1688. Image from the Folger Shakespeare Library via The Art Newspaper.
“Wooley,” Maev Kennedy recounts, “had her own school in Hackney, then a recognised centre of education for girls, but the trust believes she taught at Sutton House after she was widowed in 1661.”
Sutton House Origin. Kennedy writes, “Sutton House was built in the 16th century, in what was then semi-rural Hackney, for Ralph Sadleir, a close aide of Thomas Cromwell in the court of Henry VIII.”
Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel, Henry Holt & Company, 2009.
Viewers of the Wolf Hall TV series, based on Hilary Mantel’s wonderful trilogy of the era, may recall Rafe Sadler, who joined the Thomas Cromwell household (“around age seven,” says Wikipedia; “at the age of 14,” writes the National Trust). There, he learned to read and write and become fluent in French, Latin, and Greek. Rafe grew to be quite the horseman and falconer.
Portrait of a Man (Sir Ralph Sadler?), 1535, from the Workshop of Hans Holbein the Younger. Image from Wikipedia.
The trust recounts, “At Cromwell’s house Sadleir met his wife Helen Barre, who was working there as a laundress. By 1535 he had built his family a three-storey, brick house in semi-rural Hackney, which became known as ‘the bryk place’.”
Sutton House in 1948. Image from the National Trust/A.F. Kersting.
Other Happenings. The residence had been owned by a silk merchant, split in two in 1751 into Ivy House and Milford House, the latter an academy for girls. By 1891, it was rejoined into St John’s Church Institute, which the trust recalls “was affectionately known as ‘the Tute.’”
Just prior to World War II, the National Trust took ownership with thoughts of reinstating its Tudor features. Sutton House served various trade unions beginning in the 1950s though by the early 1980s fell into disrepair.
The Blue House. The trust notes, “From 1985 the house was occupied by squatters and was re-named the ‘Blue House’. A range of community activities were held here, including a café and cultural workshops – and rock concerts and club nights in the barn.”
This “Squatter’s Eye” wall painting in the Exhibition Room dates from the Blue House period. Image from the National Trust/Dennis Gilbert.
Quite a contrast from the delicate paper cuttings of sweet young ladies some 350 years ago. The paper-cuttings will be on display at Sutton House from July 19, 2024, until December. ds
© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2024