Welcome to our Summer newsletter - ‘our call out to help out’ edition!
A Call Out to Newsletter Readers….
This is a Call Out to Help Out to all our Newsletter Readers.
On June 8th, Bell House will be running The Big Help Out Open Day. The aim of the open day is to welcome more visitors to Bell House on the day itself, and to encourage visitors to become regular supporters. And of course, we want to spread the word about all the wonderful things that go on at the house.
In particular, we'd love to reach more local people who sadly don't know very much about everything that goes on at the house or how they can participate, get involved and generally lend their support.
We’re holding this rather special Big Help Out Open Day at Bell House on Saturday June 8th from 10am to 1.00pm with Free Entry for all visitors.
Our open day coincides with the second King’s Big Help Out Weekend. Countrywide, more than seven million took part in this last year.
As King Charles III says:"Whoever and wherever you are, each of us will have a chance to play a small part in helping transform our communities for the benefit of all".
As a newsletter recipient, could we please ask you to bring along a local friend or neighbour to visit Bell House, maybe for the first time? Our volunteers will show visitors around the house and garden, explaining our history and our aims and what is on offer. There is no need to book and no entry charge.
With your help, we'd love to double 2023’s visitor numbers on this, our second Big Help Out Open Day.
In addition to encouraging more visitors and newsletter readers, we also need more helpers. Bell House is dependent on its volunteers to run everything that goes on here for its community. (Our Big Help Out day is being run totally by volunteers.)
Volunteer roles are varied and can suit most people’s interests and available free time - just one hour can make a big difference. Some areas in which we'd love more support include: help with general marketing; social media; distributing posters/flyers; running an event; gardening; photography; catering for Open House/Garden events and so much more.
Interestingly, a recent poll found that nearly one in two 18-24 year olds want to volunteer. So if you have a child or grandchild in that age group, maybe you could tempt them to come with you - there will be refreshments available! But everyone of any age is most welcome.
Bell House is proud of the role it plays in the local community - it’s thriving but we can always do more. We’d love more people to sign up for our newsletter so they know what’s going on and can plan a future visit - to enjoy an event, learn a new skill, join a class - maybe even run a new class or sign up as a volunteer, but always to feel a part of our community.
We appreciate it is a bit short notice, but if you can spare a little time to bring a neighbour or South East London friend on Saturday, June 8th 10.00am to 1.00pm, our volunteers would be so very pleased to welcome you.
If you can't make the date, you can still help out by asking a friend to sign up to the Bell House newsletter.
Signing off with a ‘BIG THANK YOU FOR HELPING OUT’.
An interview with Bell House Artist-in Residence, Atalanta Xanthe - her first 6 months
1. You’ve been living in and working in Bell House for 6 months - what are your 3 most inspiring moments so far?
Walking in the garden on the first sunny day, and seeing how many hundreds of leaf shapes there were - it was like opening a thesaurus and realising the word you wanted to replace has thousands of synonyms, each of them brilliant.
It's not an individual moment, but in general, watching people express their own style while working in my art class is so exciting. Everyone starts out with the same instructions, but ends up with this beautiful chimera of the prompt I've given them, and the artistic tendencies they have inside them.
Also, during Dulwich Festival/Artists Open House I met a local composer, and we had such a great and energising conversation about theatre and art - we are now in the early stages of planning an installation together!
2. What impact do you think Bell House and its community has had on the way you approached and created your new series?
I think it's made me feel more empowered to make the work I want to make, and not to worry about the art world so much. Partly because Bell House feels so much like its own independent world - the galleries of Chelsea and Fitzrovia feel (and are) quite far away.
It's also been special watching different people, especially children, come into the studio and look at the work. One of my favourite interactions has been watching a kid come over and try and figure out the story behind each painting I'm making and ask me questions about the pictures - I didn't realise before how important it was for me to think of myself as a storyteller.
Being in such a big and old house creates this special kind of concentration and calmness when I'm in the studio, especially late at night when it's silent. I've been so much more productive than I was this time last year.
3. Every fortnight you run a Saturday morning creative workshop. Everyone who is lucky enough to get a ticket loves what you do. What do you think is the secret to your success?
Everyone makes art as a child and I think every adult still wants to - even if that interest has been crushed by a fear of not being good enough, or not knowing where to start. I try to make my classes really encouraging and approachable, but also packed with teaching.
And for those who haven't been able to get a ticket, my class usually has one or two no-shows, so you are welcome to show up on the day and we can probably squeeze you in!
4. What are you planning for the second 6 months of your residency?
So many things! I have a solo exhibition I'm preparing for in October with my gallery Alice Black. I want to run some plein-air painting workshops in the garden in July or August.
There's still so much for me to do in terms of widening the outreach for the classes I'm running; I've been talking with two local women's refuges about doing partnerships with them, so I'd love to get that up and running.
I'm really excited about this collaboration I've started with local composer Pete Wyer - we are hoping to do a small presentation of my paintings and the soundscapes inspired by them in late August, so it will be nose to the grindstone.
5. Rumour has it that you had an unusual morning routine when you lived in the States. What was it and have you been able to carry on here in Dulwich?
I used to start the day with an hour or two of wrestling, at a Brazilian jiu-jitsu gym - I loved it so much! Nothing wakes you up like trying to escape a sweaty headlock.
Now, I go for a morning walk in Dulwich parks most days. Dulwich is so beautiful and calming. When I lived in Brooklyn, I used to wake up in my bedroom (a large sofa cushion on the living room floor) and then cycle through heavy traffic to my gym then studio, counting how many dead rats I passed.
Now, alas, I descend from my beautiful bedroom to have tea in the garden and watch foxes, crows and magpies gambol around the roses - not a headlock in sight.
One must suffer for one's art.
A Call Out to Instagram Users….
Are you on Instagram? Please support our Call Out to Help Out by promoting Bell House's Instagram account @bellhousedulwich to help us increase our followers.
Instagram reaches 2.4 billion people, and this number is growing daily. To put this into context, 24,000 users represents just 0.0001% and Bell House currently has a following of just over 2,800 - about 0.000012% of all users. With your help, we'd love to be able to double that number.
However many followers you have ... every little helps ... as Tesco has been telling us for years.
How can you help? Whenever you see a Bell House post online, please ‘like’, ‘comment’, follow’ and ‘share’ the post with your Instagram followers to help spread the word about Bell House and to increase local awareness of everything that goes on here.
It really is as simple as that.
And you’d become a social media volunteer for Bell House at the same time!
Thank you.
Residents in Residence - the Bell House Podcast
Image: Original deeds showing plan of Bell House courtesy of Dulwich College Archive
Bell House has been home to many wealthy individuals and their families over the centuries - immigrants, self-made entrepreneurs, reformers and philanthropists among them. The lives of Bell House's residents chart the country’s social and economic changes through time.
In the Podcast The Residents of Bell House, local historian Sharon O’Connor tells their often surprising stories. Discover which future Lord Mayor of London, and son of a pastry cook, built the house in 1767 and which resident was responsible for the first ever department store (and no, it wasn’t Mr Selfridge).
You’ll also hear about wanton drunkenness, teenage high jinx, blended families, patriotic grief and theosophy (we had to look this up!) and the strange tale of the man who kept his coffin behind his chair in order to be forever reminded of the inevitability of death.
Visit our website to listen to the Podcast and you can also view the History section to find out more about the many families that have taken up residence in Bell House.
Just one to whet your appetite. Sydney Fordham was a butcher in Rye Lane, Peckham. Born in Islington in June 1885, he went on to work as a Smithfield meat market clerk and in 1909 married Ella Gertrude Parsons.
Sydney and Ella set up house together in Elmwood Road before moving to 58 Chestnut Road in Norwood. They moved into Bell House with their two children, Leslie Sydney Victor and Eileen Ella in 1924, with an annual rent of £225.
Whilst living in Bell House, they rented the Lodge to the families of two of their servants: the Wells in the top flat and the Riches in the lower flat, for 15 shillings a week each, as well as letting a bungalow in the garden to the son of the gardener at Dulwich Picture Gallery.
Sydney had a butcher shop at 228 Rye Lane where Leslie later joined him. However, the Fordhams didn’t stay at Bell House for long, as they left in 1925, moving on to Beckenham.