Prospect Cottage is a house on the coast in Dungeness, Kent. Originally a Victorian fisherman's hut, [1] [2] the house was purchased by director and artist Derek Jarman in 1987, and was his home until his death in 1994. [3]
Prospect Cottage is a house on the coast in Dungeness, Kent. Originally a Victorian fisherman's hut, [1] [2] the house was purchased by director and artist Derek Jarman in 1987, and was his home until his death in 1994. [3]
Jarman bought the house following the death of his father, at a time when he was looking to leave London. [2] Actress and friend Tilda Swinton recalls Jarman buying "gallons of pitch black paint" to redecorate. [2] The cottage facade of tarred boards and bright yellow paintwork were maintained by the previous owners.[ citation needed ] The timber walls of the cottage are weatherproofed with tar, and one wall is decorated with lines from the John Donne poem "The Sun Rising". [4] Jarman's 1990 film The Garden was filmed at the house. [5]
Jarman cultivated a garden in the shingle surrounding the cottage, a mixture of sculptures assembled from driftwood and other flotsam from the beaches of Dungeness, [4] and hardy plants which could survive the coastal weather, [6] supported by manure from a local farm dug into small holes in the shingle. [7] Writing of his early months at Prospect Cottage, he said that initially "people thought I was building a garden for magical purposes - a white witch out to get the nuclear power station". [7] Jarman described his garden as "a therapy and a pharmacopoeia", [7] and would go on to write a book about it, Derek Jarman's Garden, illustrated with photographs by Howard Sooley and published posthumously in June 1995. A set of prints of the photographs was acquired by the Garden Museum for its collection in 2012. [8]
Prospect Cottage, its garden and the surrounding nature of Dungeness are heavily featured in entries from his journals from 1989 to 1994 that were later published in the collections Modern Nature and Smiling in Slow Motion. [6]
The gardeners Beth Chatto and Christopher Lloyd stumbled across Prospect Cottage and its garden in the summer of 1990; the garden became the inspiration for the Gravel Garden at Beth Chatto Gardens at Elmstead Market in Essex. [9]
After Jarman's death in 1994, the cottage was bequeathed to his partner Keith Collins. The house was put up for sale in 2018 after Collins' death, [3] its interior still contains artwork by Jarman's friends and admirers, including Maggi Hambling, John Maybury, Gus Van Sant and Richard Hamilton. [10]
The cottage and its garden were the subject of an exhibition at the Garden Museum in London in 2020. [11] In April 2022 the cottage featured in the episode of the BBC Two series Secrets of the Museum. [12]
With the possibility of the house being sold privately, Art Fund launched a campaign in January 2020 to raise money for "a permanently funded programme to conserve and maintain the building, its contents and its garden for the future". [3] The appeal was featured on an episode of BBC1's Countryfile in February 2020, with rare filming inside the cottage allowed for the programme. [13] As part of the fundraising efforts, costume designer Sandy Powell, a friend of Jarman's, collected film stars' signatures on her cream calico suit at the 2020 BAFTAs award show [14] and 2020 Oscars ceremony, [15] with the suit auctioned online between 4 and 11 March by Phillips auction house, London, and selling for £16,000. [16]
It was announced in April 2020 that, thanks to these fundraising efforts, Prospect Cottage had been saved for the nation with Creative Folkestone becoming the custodians of the property. [17] In 2022, a job advert was reported seeking a guardian for the property. [18]
Blue is a 1993 British drama film directed by Derek Jarman. It is his final feature film, released four months before his death from AIDS-related complications. Such complications had already rendered him partially blind at the time of the film's release, only being able to see in shades of blue.
Michael Derek Elworthy Jarman was an English artist, film maker, costume designer, stage designer, writer, poet, gardener, and gay rights activist.
Katherine Matilda Swinton is a British actress. Known for her roles in independent films and blockbusters, she has received various accolades, including an Academy Award and a British Academy Film Award, in addition to nominations for three Golden Globe Awards. In 2020, The New York Times ranked her as one of the greatest actors of the 21st century.
Sandy Powell is a British costume designer. In a career spanning over three decades, she is recognized for her prolific work across independent films and blockbusters. She has received numerous accolades, including three Academy Awards, three BAFTA Awards, and two Costume Designers Guild Awards. Powell was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2011 New Year Honours for services to the film industry.
The Dungeness nuclear power stations are a pair of non-operational nuclear power stations located on the Dungeness headland in the south of Kent, England.
Dungeness is a headland on the coast of Kent, England, formed largely of a shingle beach in the form of a cuspate foreland. It shelters a large area of low-lying land, Romney Marsh. Dungeness spans Dungeness Nuclear Power Station, the hamlet of Dungeness, and an ecological site at the same location. It lies within the civil parish of Lydd.
Edward II is a 1991 British romantic historical drama film directed by Derek Jarman and starring Steven Waddington, Tilda Swinton and Andrew Tiernan. It is based on the play of the same name by Christopher Marlowe. The plot revolves around Edward II of England's infatuation with Piers Gaveston, which proves to be the downfall of both of them, thanks to the machinations of Roger Mortimer.
Andrew Logan is an English sculptor, performance artist, jewellery-maker, and portraitist.
Naumkeag is the former country estate of noted New York City lawyer Joseph Hodges Choate and Caroline Dutcher Sterling Choate, located at 5 Prospect Hill Road, Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The estate's centerpiece is a 44-room, Shingle Style country house designed principally by Stanford White of McKim, Mead & White, and constructed in 1885 and 1886.
Nick Patrick is a British actor, best known for playing the part of SRO Julian 'JT' Tavell, in the ITV police procedural The Bill from 2005 to 2006. He also played the killer, Hamish Endicott in Prime Suspect, Season 4 "Inner Circles".
The Garden is a 1990 British arthouse film directed by Derek Jarman and produced by James Mackay for Basilisk Communications, in association with Channel 4, British Screen, and ZDF. The film is loosely based on the story of Christ's crucifixion, except the figure of Christ is replaced with a gay male couple. The film has been seen as an allegory of the suffering gays were going through during the AIDS crisis and their ostracism by most of society. The film was entered into the 17th Moscow International Film Festival.
The Last of England is a 1987 British arthouse film directed by Derek Jarman and starring Tilda Swinton.
Wittgenstein is a 1993 experimental comedy-drama film co-written and directed by Derek Jarman, and produced by Tariq Ali. An international co-production of the United Kingdom and Japan, the film is loosely based on the life story, as well as the philosophical thinking of philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. The adult Wittgenstein is played by Karl Johnson.
Delphinium: A Childhood Portrait of Derek Jarman is a 2009 short film based on the early years, work, and legacy of British artist and filmmaker Derek Jarman. The film was written and directed by Matthew Mishory and produced by Iconoclastic Features. It was executive produced by Andreas Andrea. Keith Collins, Jarman's surviving muse, participated in the making of the film. Jonathan Caouette served as a creative advisor. It is the first narrative work about the life of Derek Jarman.
Troy House is a Welsh historic house, on a "ducal" scale, north-east of Mitchel Troy, Monmouthshire. The original house belonged to Blanche Herbert, Lady Troy, of the Herbert family of Raglan Castle, who owned great estates in South Wales as Marquesses of Worcester and later Dukes of Beaufort. The present structure, overlooking the River Trothy was constructed from 1681 to 1684 as a wedding present for Charles Somerset by his father, Henry Somerset, 1st Duke of Beaufort. Troy House is a Grade II* listed building and its gardens and park are listed, also at Grade II*, on the Cadw/ICOMOS Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales.
Michael Clark is a contemporary British artist. His work spans a broad range of media including painting, drawing, sculpture, film, photography, installation, video, performance and artist's books. Clark was born in Manchester and lives and works in London.
Derek is a 2008 British documentary film directed by Isaac Julien. It uses archive footage to depict the life of Derek Jarman.
Gipsy House is a house in the village of Great Missenden in the English county of Buckinghamshire. It was the home of the writer Roald Dahl and his family for several decades. The house is situated on Whitefield Lane, an old drovers' road on the outskirts of the village. It is currently privately owned but the writing hut is on display at Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre.
The Creative Folkestone Book Festival is an annual event held in Folkestone, Kent, England. The 2021 edition is scheduled to be held 4–13 June 2021.
During the film awards season in early 2020, costume designer Sandy Powell wore a cream calico toile two-piece suit of her own design, and collected celebrities' autographs on it in permanent marker. The suit was then auctioned to raise funds for the purchase of artist, filmmaker and gay rights activist Derek Jarman's cottage at Dungeness in Kent, England. The suit was bought by Edwina Dunn, who then donated it to the Theatre and Performance Collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London. In April 2022 the suit featured in an episode of the BBC Two series Secrets of the Museum.
