The 2024 plans for the Bell House Garden are “the bee’s knees!”

The 2.5 acre site at Bell House provides the garden team with plenty of scope to create a range of habitats for wildlife and different garden spaces for visitors and volunteers.

Work began in the autumn to create a series of new flower beds around the main lawn to be filled with plants for pollinators.  Paths will take visitors through drifts of bulbs, perennials, grasses and shrubs chosen to provide pollen, nectar and interest through the year.  Volunteers will learn to grow the plants from seed, cuttings and small plugs, potted out and brought on in the polytunnel.  Hornbeam and yew hedges will frame the beds, providing a backdrop to the planting and a shelter point for birds foraging in the garden.  Lavender will surround the terrace to bring colour, scent and attract pollinators.

A new native hedge will be planted in the Pickwick garden, with willows and Dogwoods to soak up the ground water.  The plants are part of a grant awarded by The Tree Council to support community engagement, enhance wildlife and education around on-going care.  

Parts of the Pickwick garden are very wet after the winter, so swales will be dug to allow water to collect naturally, creating temporary lagoons now and sunny hollows in the yearsummer.  Soil removed will be left exposed as banks for mining bees to tunnel and nest.

The Bell House honeybees are now settled in a new apiary under an oak tree surrounded by a low log wall built by the volunteers.  All fallen branches and cuttings are kept on site and added to log piles, the dead hedges and stumpery.  The stumpery, where logs are stood, half buried in the soil, was built by three volunteers one Saturday and will be a valuable resource for beetles, woodlice, wood wasps and other insects who need deadwood for survival. 

In the walled garden the vegetable beds have been mulched and weeded ready for this year’s growing season.  Two new apple trees, a morello cherry and mulberry have been planted in the orchard.  Each has been chosen by our visiting orchard expert to cross-pollinate with our existing trees and be resistant to disease.  Heritage varieties were chosen, which could have been planted by the Victorian owners when the new servants’ wing was added to the house.  

Come and see the garden and our plans for 2024 on the first Saturday of every month, 11.30pm to 1.00am.

Tickets for the Easter Open Garden: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/bell-house-open-garden-tickets-254615781657

If you’re interested in volunteering in the garden: https://www.bellhouse.co.uk/volunteering?mc_cid=d3b7a446cf

Bell Health - Here to Help

Is there a health issue you’d like to talk about with an expert and fellow sufferers - to learn and share knowledge and experiences?
​
Bell House is renowned for its support of Dyslexia - in fact it was the raison d'être for the original conception of the charity. Over the years there have been so many other different health initiatives for the body and mind. For example, Bell House is currently offering a course on menopause and have a talk planned on men’s mental health in April.

Bell Health is a new team tasked with further developing health support and events at Bell House, with an important focus on demand from the Bell House community.

In fact a perfect example of what Bell Health plans is the current ‘Menopause Connections’ - an Holistic Approach to Menopause, proudly presented by a team of local menopause practitioners. Menopause Connections covers nutrition, fitness and pelvic health, as well as medical and natural approaches to managing menopause symptoms. Take a look online to get an idea of how it is being run. The feedback has been very positive: ​“What a great session, so informative.” and “The best talk on menopause that I’ve been to. Informative and clear.”  The course will be a template for future events. 

So what would you like to learn more about? Anxiety or depression; sleep issues; coping with arthritis; dealing with IBS; building greater self confidence; dermatological problems; loneliness; the list is endless.

Bell Health's aim is to create a safe space at Bell House to run support groups with a common health issue  - where attendees can learn from an expert, feel comfortable asking questions and, as a result, share their experiences. When you’re part of a community, you not only learn more about the subject but also more about yourself. 

As this initiative is demand-led - we are dependent on you talking to us.  We need to hear from members of our Bell House community - that means we need to hear from you! Use the link below to contact Bell Health. Please take a little time to tell us about the health issues you’re interested in, or to tell us about any specialist subject support you could offer:  [email protected]

Please help us build a thriving Bell Health community at Bell House - we’re here to help.

Magic can happen in a Shared Reading Group

During lockdown in 2020, Bell House hosted an ‘Elevenses’ coffee morning on Zoom for volunteers to chat and support each other. At one of these meetings, they were introduced to Ben Abel and the concept of “Shared Reading”.  And so the Bell House “Shared Reading Group” was born. As a long term member says: “It saved my sanity during lockdown and was great fun.”

The reading group is now run by Guilia Cellerini who joined Ben in the early days, then subsequently took on the role of host. Giulia is a recently-qualified Primary teacher working in Kennington. But what is really fascinating is how she became involved in Shared Reading.

After reading English at London University, Giulia was applying for a PGCE teaching qualification and wanted to strengthen her personal statement. Her professor recommended that she look into the charity 'The Reader'.

The Reader is a national charity, originating in Liverpool, that wants to bring about a Reading Revolution “so that everyone can experience and enjoy great literature”, which the charity believes is “a tool for helping humans survive and live well".

It is free to all and available to everyone. The charity reads with schools, families and looked-after-children, adults in community spaces, people in care homes, people with physical and mental health conditions, those coping with or recovering from addiction, and people in the criminal justice system - globally.

The Reader has extensive reading resources but groups can also choose their own pieces. The meetings happen in all kinds of places - libraries, community centres, shops and high-street cafes and in the case of Bell House, on-line.

Research shows Shared Reading improves wellbeing, reduces isolation and helps us find new meaning in our lives. 

“Hearing others read aloud and taking time to pause and reflect, is a therapeutic experience.”

”Shared reading supports me through difficult times.”

“Reading together, you can end up sharing things that you may not share with others - you’re not hiding these things - they just haven’t come up before.”

Giulia successfully applied to The Reader, was trained and then was recommended to Bell House in 2020.

Her groups are small; she has some regulars, others drop in. One regular lives alone and values the company; another is unable to leave her home; and further afield there’s a regular attendee from Canada, who joins the session at 5am in the morning. This lady is always very relaxed, she may be looking out of her window sipping a coffee and may or may not participate vocally - but she tells Giulia she very much values the group. There are even drop-ins from North America, India, Sri Lanka and Eastern Europe to name but a few!

Giulia says that the most popular reading subjects are about Nature, Familial Relationships and the Emotions of Love - so very much reflecting lived experiences. As one of her regulars says: “I love the varied programme with lots of literature I would not have known about.”

When asked about her feelings on her Shared Reading group, Giulia says: “I surprised myself. I have found that I get from these sessions exactly what the groups are set up for - a feeling of community and a coming together for the pure joy of reading. Sharing a poem or a short story creates precious moments of connection and intimacy - the impact of shared reading is profound.”

Bell House Shared Reading sessions are run on a Wednesday at 6.30pm  - March sessions 13th, & 27th. Why not drop in? You just need to register and the sessions are free.

As Giulia says: “Something magical happens in a shared reading group.”

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/shared-reading-sessions-tickets-106747881788

If you’d like to learn more about The Reader charity and maybe get involved, here’s their link: https://www.thereader.org.uk

Dulwich Players - A Private View - A sell out!

Could the Dulwich Players match last year's festive offering, the beautifully staged Christmas at Bell House? They could and they did. A Private View was a promenade around the roomsof Bell House, watching Picture Gallery paintings come brilliantly to life and tell their stories, and making full use of Bell House’s architecture and atmosphere.

From the moment we crossed the threshold, we were in a post-WW2 Bell House, enjoyingmulled wine and mince pies while listening to a cocktail pianist. Then Sir Gerald Kelly,President of the Royal Academy, and Anthony Blunt, Surveyor of the King’s Pictures (cue laughter from the audience who knew he was also moonlighting as a Soviet spy at the time), explained that we would see four vignettes based on Gallery paintings that had been storedand repaired at Bell House after their wartime evacuation to Wales. Following a surprise visitfrom the Queen (later the Queen Mother) who graciously met some audience members, we were divided into four groups and ushered into the plays.

As we walked into the first room, we saw an enormous frame, with Rembrandt’s ‘Girl in the Window’ within it and two figures standing outside discussing the painting’s subject. We laughed as the Poussin expert Sir Guy Cairncross fawned over a Woosterish Lord Lamptonde Worm, who beseeched him not to be so formal: ‘Just call me Sir’. But then we watched as the Girl came to life and rolled her eyes at Sir Guy’s objectification of her looks and dismissal of her views because he had assumed she was a working girl or a prostitute. Cairncross’s views led to even the seemingly hard-of-thinking Lampton trying to speak up for the Girl, at which point we silently cheered as she took the narrative into her own hands with a loud ‘Enough!’. The scene ended as she told the two men who she really was but as she whispered it to them, we only have their impressed reaction. Perhaps they’ll listen before opining in future.

The second room held Gainsborough’s ‘Linley Sisters’. They stepped out of the frame, at first bemoaning the length of time they were having to pose, then moving on to discuss their concerts and Eliza’s slightly rackety private life (should an unmarried girl even have had a private life in 1772?). These musical sisters were beautiful, well-paid celebrities yet in their conversation we recognised themes such as their lack of agency, their dependence on others for money and their reputations being carelessly traduced; themes mirrored in literature like Pride and Prejudice and even in today’s world, with Britney Spears’ conservatorship. Mary lightened the mood by singing and Eliza joined in, their beautiful harmonies brought the vignette to an end.

Moving upstairs, we walked into a darkened room where Sarah Siddons, The Tragic Muse, sat behind her frame. Macbeth, her greatest role, was being filmed in front of her, with the actress playing Lady Macbeth, the director and the producer becoming increasingly at odds about the film’s direction until the production broke down completely, at which point Mrs Siddons crossed the frame to rescue the film. The Gallery’s painting is a 1789 replica, the 1784 original is in California, so we now had the delightful development that the Californian Mrs Siddons (much younger and more glamourous and, well, American) followed her out of the frame. There followed some quick repartee, including quotes ranging from Hamlet to Star Trek Next Generation then with the explanation that anyone can step into a painting, ‘relax’ and be absorbed into it leading to the director being tricked into assuming Mrs Siddons position while she became the actress (‘never actor’) and the actress became the director, not that the Tragic Muse needed direction.

The final painting, ‘Three Peasants at an Inn’, is the only painting not currently on display at the Gallery which didn’t matter as the Players staged it so that we know exactly how it looks. It was being explained to the Queen by Mrs Newton-Sharp, a society lady and keen amateur art historian (her day job was at Harrods). The Queen was given the conventional discourseon this type of painting: ‘a motley slovenly crew’, a display of peasant foolishness and self-indulgence with drunkenness to the fore. Unlike the other vignettes, nobody noticed that the painting’s subjects could talk, allowing them to give a running commentary on thisdescription of their characters. As the women left, the peasants rose from the frame, stretched their limbs and explained that they were in fact a revolutionary, a scientist and a musician. Many of us in the audience will be looking at such genre paintings in a new way in future.

How lucky we are to have such paintings on our doorstep and such talented people as the Dulwich Players to bring them to life in this innovative way.

  Photo credit: Ian Jones

Pottery Progress

The pottery is finally beginning to take on its true identity and atmosphere. The building is nearing completion, with windows now giving an open view of the gardens, and internal fixtures and fittings making it more recognisable as a studio. In case you missed it, our video telling the ‘Inside story’ of the pottery, in which I interview Ed Burgess, the architect, about his design, is still available on YouTube.

For those involved in setting up the courses, deliveries of equipment and materials over the next few weeks are adding to the excitement and anticipation of opening the facility and welcoming the first students.

August will be a month for fundraising to pay for some essential equipment such as the kiln, wheels and pug mill.  If you have expressed an interest in supporting the pottery in any way, whether as a volunteer or by making a donation, please click on the following link to be taken directly to our crowdfunding page.

On the practical side of things, we are delighted that a technician has been appointed to help with the smooth running of the courses.  Birgit, one of the tutors, has been doing an amazing job, leading on the practical development of the pottery. Among her many organisational tasks and despite all the work involved preparing for her own shows up and down the country, she is busy making plaster batts for future students to use!

The pottery wheels and other equipment will be arriving at the end of August in good time for the pottery opening. The first courses will start on 19 September. In fact, plans are being developed as far ahead as Christmas, when we hope to join in the usual Dulwich Village festivities with a Bell House Pottery stall. There will also be some whole day masterclasses for more experienced potters. Watch this page to keep up to date with the new courses as they are finalised: www.bellhouse.co.uk/pottery

If you are still thinking about joining in with this new venture there are some spaces, particularly on afternoon sessions in the Autumn. Courses are also now available to book through to the end of November.

In the meantime, if you have already signed up for a class in September, a holiday is a great opportunity to find some inspiration for patterns and designs in objects and nature around you, as demonstrated in the design below- product of a holiday in Cornwall.

Pottery inspired screen print by Jim Belbin

The next news update will be the last before the opening. Time flies.

Jacqui Pick - Volunteer

August 2023