Our volunteers and events co-ordinator, Louise Brangwin, will be working hard to create some new decorations crafted around the animals that feature in Kipling's stories and featuring the opulent colours of the Indian sub-continent where Kipling spent much of his early life.
What was your inspiration for Bateman’s Christmas theme?
Following on from the success of last year's Christmas, we wanted to create even more magic this year, kindled by Kipling's fairy tale stories which were inspired by the local Sussex landscape. Kipling loved this area and he drew upon it a lot for his writing. The books we’ve chosen to focus on are ‘Puck of Pook’s Hill’ and ‘Rewards and Fairies’ set in the local area.
The colours in the theme reflect the valley scenery around the estate – the greens and browns of the woodland, the copper of autumn leaves. We are bringing the natural environment inside. Our tea room eaves will be a lovely feature with lights and hazel above the beams. We’ll gather the natural elements from the estate.
Will there be decorations in the house?
There’ll be plenty of fresh and dried floral arrangements around the house. These will reflect different poems from the two Sussex fairy tale books. Visitors will be introduced to these poems through elements of the stories.
A lot of the poems are very well known in their own right. The nation’s favourite poem, ‘If’, originated in ‘Rewards and Fairies’.