Understanding Tyntesfield. The Al Jazeera programme, Perilous Jobs in Peru.

1862. William Gibbs (centre), the devout Christian man who built Tyntesfield from the money he made from the thousands of Chinese slaves who were worked to death on barren toxic islands off the coast of Peru.

I have written several times about Tyntesfield, the National Trust property near Bristol that was built from the money made by William Gibbs from the labour of thousands of Chinese slaves who were worked to death in the mid nineteenth century, decades after slavery was officially abolished in Britain.

The slaves were used to mine bird droppings (guano) on islands in the South Pacific. The great idea of importing guano into the United Kingdom occurred to William Gibbs’ agent in Lima in 1840. In the beginning, the project seemed hare-brained and unprofitable to Gibbs. But, before he could say no, the agent had signed an agreement with the Peruvian government to buy the guano. Luckily for Gibbs, in Victorian times there was an extremely lucrative demand for all things which boosted horticultural production and the bird droppings proved to be a powerful fertiliser. The guano sold like hot cakes, for want of a better expression.

The guano was obtained from the Chincha Islands, situated off the Peruvian coast. At that time they were covered in a layer of seabird droppings some thirty metres thick, mainly the excrement of Boobies, the so-called blue-footed albatross. There were millions of tons ready to go.

In limited quantities, the guano, full of nitrates, phosphates and potassium is an ideal fertiliser. But its enormous concentration on the Chincha Islands made them a caustic environment, very harmful to the health of any human being exposed to it for a prolonged period. Nothing flourished in such hostile and acid conditions, least of all the men who were forced to work there.

At the beginning the digging was mainly done by prisoners, recaptured deserters from the Peruvian army and slaves. In this way the Peruvian government kept the cost of production to a minimum and made the venture as profitable as possible.

In 1849 when replacement workers were needed (presumably because the original ones had perished), they began to import “indentured” Chinese labourers, kidnapped or duped in China and held in barracks until they were transported to Peru in prison ships reminiscent of those used to carry black slaves from Africa to Latin America.

In the 19^th century, estimates of the mortality rate of these Chinese forced labourers varied from investigator to investigator. Some estimated that between 1847 and 1859, 40% of these coolies died on the sea journey to the islands. Others said that two thirds of those who survived the crossing died during their “indenture”, the duration of said “indenture” lasting 5 or 7 years. Moreover, if they lasted to the end of the “contract” the Chinese were forced to continue working until they dropped dead. (Words like indenture and contract were used in an attempt to avoid allegations of slavery which could have ruined the business).

In 1860 it was calculated that not one of the 4,000 Chinese who had been transported to the islands since the beginning of the industry had survived. The brutality of the suffering of the Chinese made the islands more like Nazi concentration camps and less like the traditional slave plantations. The savagery of the regime with which the Peruvians governed the workers was common knowledge. All the witnesses — and there were many — attested that discipline consisted of whipping and torture. And there was no escape. At a distance of 25 kilometres from the coast it was impossible to swim to the mainland. The only infallible escape was suicide. According to the Journal of Latin American Studies an American sailor alleged that there was a case in 1853 in which 50 Chinese linked hands and jumped from a precipice to their death in the sea.

All the crews of the dozens of boats that came to fill their holds with the sacks of guano commented on the barbarity of the conditions and it would have been impossible for any dealer in guano not to be aware of the subhuman conditions that obtained in the islands.

For some perverted reason, the National Trust continues to refuse to fully explain that the Gibbs fortune was based upon the death of thousands of Chinese slaves. Does the NT feel somehow ashamed of the history of the house as if, having bought the place, they are, like the Gibbs family, inevitably complicit in the hidden horrors of its past or is it simply that they’d really like to hang on to the fairy tale that they have told for years of the nice Christian man who made his money from selling bird poo? Under pressure, The National Trust now admits that “living conditions were poor” for the Chinese who lived in “slavery-like conditions”. This is like saying that in Auschwitz things were tough for the Jews. We can only hope that one day, somebody with an interest in the truth will inherit the job at the top of the Trust.

Meanwhile, for the rest of those currently at the top of the National Trust (who may simply have no imagination of how the Chinese were worked to death), there is an interesting TV documentary on the current working conditions in the guano industry. In June 2019 the news and documentary channel Al Jazeera made a programme called Perilous Jobs in Peru in their series Risking It All. Perilous Jobs in Peru | Poverty and Development . It showed that the industry of harvesting bird droppings continues but is no longer unregulated. Even so, the work is still almost unbearable for those who volunteer for the job. The programme makers visited Asia island, a barren rocky place, a couple of kilometres off the Peruvian coast. Guano is mined here. Many men who come to work here for the first time only stay for a month, sometimes they can only stand it for a week. These are fit young men from the mountains who are used to tough manual labour. They come well equipped. They earn double the minimum wage and are also fed and housed for free. But there is no fresh water on the island and they have to make do with 8 litres a day for washing and laundry. A boat makes a weekly delivery of water. Work starts at 5 am because of the equatorial heat. The digging is all done by hand as machines would scare off the birds. The men use picks because the guano has set as hard as cement. The dust is very irritating, the ammoniacal smell is almost unbearable and even short periods of exposure to it will damage lungs. Sifting out feathers and stones and packing the dung into sacks produces clouds of dust. To combat this the men wear scarves over their faces. The government provides masks but the men don’t use them as they clog up with dust so they cannot breathe. Likewise they dispense with the perspex goggles that are provided as they cannot cope with the volume of grime. The guano and the insects that live in it are damaging to the inside and outside of the human body. The island is swarming with ticks which suck the blood of the workers. The guano itself produces an allergic reaction on their skin. In no time at all the arms and legs of the workers are covered in bites and sores. The men harvest about 50 tons a day, during the course of which each man carries 100 sacks weighing 50 kilos uphill to the loading platforms. Once work is over for the day there is nothing to do. One of the men commented with an ironic smile that the place was like a prison.

Surely it is not difficult to see how undernourished Chinese men who were thrown into the holds of prison ships and brought right across the Pacific and released in their debilitated state on to the guano islands without safety equipment, protective clothing or washing facilities and then given an insubstantial diet, would easily succumb to the hellish conditions and the physical violence that was regularly meted out. They could not have lived longer than a few months or a year at the most. They were simply worked to death.

Tyntesfield, Transparency and the Chinese Slave Trade (3)

In the television series Great British Railway Journeys, Michael Portillo got off the train to visit Tyntesfield¹. One of the guides showed him around and explained to him that William Gibbs had no responsibility for the enslavement of the Chinese. He said, “It was the Peruvian government who were doing the mining”. In another typically British euphemism the guide admitted that the working conditions were “pretty grim”. There was no mention of the thousands of Chinese slaves who were worked to death mining the guano. Instead of this we heard that William Gibbs was teetotal, a pillar of the Establishment, a member of the High Anglican Church and believed in prayer, both in the morning and in the evening.

Then in 2018 came the programme in which Alan Titchmarsh eulogised William Gibbs using a tone that was deferential, respectful and, it has to be said, frankly sycophantic².

You will remember that it was after this that I wrote to the customer services department at the National Trust (NT). As you know, they assured me that everything was changing at the NT: the programme presented by Titchmarsh was now two years old and they would never again speak of Tyntesfield in the same way: “we are now working to do more to talk about the horrific history of the guano industry and how it brought wealth to the Gibbs family”. In the future they would present “an accurate, open and inclusive history of the property including the link to the guano industry”.

But afterwards, only a few weeks ago, came the programme that the NT made in collaboration with Channel 4: in George Clarke’s National Trust Unlocked ³ they again painted William Gibbs as a very successful trader who made his fortune from a heap of bird droppings. Once again, we heard the same innocence, we heard the same old cliches, we heard the same ‘humorous’ remark and we heard the same expurgated version of what happened.

After my last blog post I wrote to Hilary McGrady, the Director General of the NT, asking her the reason why it was that the NT continued to talk about the guano without mentioning the slaves and the role that each and every one of them played in the creation of the Gibbs family fortune. Ms McGrady has spent a lifetime working in marketing. She understands very well the benefits of good publicity and the value of a good relationship with her public.

She did not deign to reply.

I do not understand why the NT considers itself obliged to be an apologist for a man who built his stately home on the profits he obtained from a Victorian concentration camp. I do not understand the reasons why the NT continues with the charade of insisting that William Gibbs was an honourable gentleman and an ingenious businessman.

Does the board of governors of the NT think that people will stop visiting Tyntesfield if it becomes known that it was built upon the torture and death of the real creators of the fortune that gave rise to the house and its grounds? I think this is an example of upside-down thinking. Generally speaking, the NT public is well educated and middle class and is comprised of people who would prefer to be informed of the true history of the place.

The reality is that the majority of NT members only want to have a nice day out with the family, going round a house of historic interest, strolling through the well-kept gardens and having something tasty to eat in the restaurant.

It is grotesque and deceitful that the NT should continue to limit itself to saying that it is most amusing that a man should have made a fortune out of the poo of South American birds. Because it is not true. The value was created by the slaves. Without the kidnapped Chinese workers imprisoned on the Chincha Islands, Gibbs could not have bought the guano at such a low price and sold it at such a profit. Not to recognise this is an insult to the intelligence of NT members. Moreover, it is an insult to the Chinese people who were sacrificed on those barren, remote and desolate islands.

Chinese lives matter as well.

References

1 Great British Railway Journeys S7 Ep 14. BBC 2015. At present this episode is not available on the BBC ¡Player. However, there is a poor-quality copy on YouTube.

2 Secrets of the National Trust S3 Ep 6, 08/08/2018. Channel 5

3 George Clarke’s National Trust Unlocked S1 Ep 4, 13/09/20 Channel 4

La exposición, “William Gibbs, Desde Madrid a Tyntesfield.”

(A translation into English can be found below)

Su padre, Antony Gibbs (1756 – 1816), en su carrera inicial, fue representante de una empresa inglesa que exportaba tejido de lana. En 1778 Antony volvió a su patria chica, el condado de Devon en Inglaterra donde estableció su propia fábrica de tejidos. Sin embargo, el negocio fracasó y Antony fue declarado en quiebra.

En 1789 Antony se decidió a volver a España con el intento de liquidar sus deudas, restableciéndose como agente de varias empresas exportadoras británicas. Le acompañaba su mujer. Su hijo, William, nació en Calle Cantarranas 6, Madrid, el día 22 de Mayo del año 1790. Pero, su madre no soportaba el calor de los veranos madrileños y en 1792 ella decidió a volver a Inglaterra, llevando consigo a los 3 hijos, Harriet, Henry y el bebé William.

Los fines del siglo dieciocho y los comienzos del decimonónico fueron tiempos difíciles para cualquier persona que quisiera establecer y sostener relaciones comerciales entre Inglaterra y España. Las guerras se sucedieron una tras otra: la Guerra anglo-española (1796–1802), otra Guerra anglo-española (1804-1809) y la Guerra de la independencia española (1808 – 1814).

Fue durante este período que Antony Gibbs decidió a centrarse en América Latina en busca de nuevos socios comerciales. Entre los comerciantes británicos de la época esta estrategia comercial ya se había hecho la sabiduría convencional. Todos se habían dado cuenta de que los países suramericanos estaban buscando su independencia de los imperios español y portugués y preferían fortalecerse y aliarse económica y políticamente por un intercambio de bienes con países europeos prósperos y antagónicos a España. Los comerciantes británicos reunían ambas características. Para 1808 un 40% de las exportaciones británicas ya estuvo destinado a suramérica.

Antony Gibbs tenía dos ventajas sobre sus competidores. No solo sabía español sino también contaba con mucha influencia en el sistema judicial británico: su tío Vicary Gibbs, era fiscal general y fue por su intervención que Antony pudo obtener permiso en 1806 por su barco, Hermosa Mexicana, a pasar sin trabas por el bloqueo naval británico que controlaba las aguas costeras de Francia y España.

Mientras tanto, su hijo, William, asistía al cole en Inglaterra y dividía su niñez entre Inglaterra y España. De 1806 a 1808 fue aprendiz en Bristol en la compañia naviera de su tío paternal, George Gibbs, un hombre que se había hecho rico, entre otras actividades comerciales, en la trata de esclavos. En 1813, a la edad de 23 años William se hizo socio del negocio de su padre, trabajando de gestor de la sucursal de Cádiz.

En 1816 su padre murió y William y su hermano Henry se hicieron con el control de la empresa. La gran idea de importar guano al Reino Unido no se le ocurrió a William hasta 1840 cuando ya tenía cinquenta años. En sentido estricto la idea no vino de él sino de su agente en Lima. A principio, le parecía a William un proyecto descabellado y poco rentable. Pero, antes de que el pudiese decir que no, el agente había firmado un acuerdo para comprar el guano del gobierno peruano. Por suerte, William había subestimado la manía victoriana por la jardinería. El guano se vendía como pan caliente, por decirlo así.

Obtuvo el guano de las islas Chincha, situadas frente a la costa peruana. En aquél entonces estaban cubiertas de una capa de treinta metros de profundidad de excrementos de aves marinas, en su mayoría los de los pájaros bobos, los llamados alcatrazes piqueros. Había millones de toneladas listas para llevárselas.

En cantidades limitadas el guano, lleno de nitratos, fosfatos y potasios es un fertilizante ideal. Pero, su enorme concentración en las islas Chincha las convertía en áridos y cáusticos entornos muy dañinos a la salud de cualquier ser humano expuesto a ellos a lo largo de un período prolongado. Nada florecía en condiciones tan ácidas y hostiles, mucho menos los hombres que fueron mandados a la fuerza a trabajar allí.

A principio, las excavaciones fueron llevadas a cabo mayormente por presidiarios, desertores del ejército peruano recapturados y esclavos. De esta manera el gobierno peruano mantuvo el coste de producción a un nivel mínimo e hizo que la extracción fuera lo mas rentable posible.

En 1849, cuando se necesitaban mas trabajadores forzados se empezaba a introducir mano de obra china “contratada”, este término siendo un eufemismo para la esclavitud. Estos peones eran secuestrados o engañados y luego detenidos en barracones antes de ser transportados al Peru.

En el siglo decimonónico las estimaciones de la tasa de mortalidad entre los chinos raptados varían de investigador a investigador. Algunos estimaron que entre 1847 y 1859 murieron un 40 por ciento de estos culis (coolies en inglés) durante la singladura a las islas Chincha. Otros dijeron que más de dos tercios de los sobrevivientes fallecieron durante su período de “contratación”, la duración de un “contrato” siendo típicamente de unos 5 o 7 años. Además, si duraron al final del “contrato” los chinos se vieron forzados a continuar a trabajar hasta que cayeron muertos. En 1860 se calculó que no sobrevivió ni un solo chino de los 4,000 transportados a las islas desde el comienzo de la industria. Si solo un 50 por ciento de estas afirmaciones fuera verdad las islas tendrían menos de esclavitud y más de campos de concentración nazis.

Lo que no está en duda es la índole del régimen de brutalidad con el que los peruanos gobernaban a los trabajadores. Todos los testigos – y hubo muchos – atestaban que la disciplina consistía de flagelaciones y torturas. A unos 25 kilometros de la costa, era imposible que los esclavos escaparan nadando. El único método de evasión infalible fue el del suicidio. Según el Journal of Latin American Studies un marinero norteamericano alegó que hubo un caso en 1853 en el que 50 chinos se cogieron de la mano y se lanzaron de un precipicio a su muerte en el mar.

Todas las tripulaciones de las docenas de barcos que acudían a las islas para llenar sus bodegas con los sacos llenos de guano comentaban sobre la barbaridad de las condiciones y habría sido imposible que ningún comerciante de guano no hubiera sido consciente de las condiciones infrahumanas que existían en las islas.

Con la fortuna que ganó con la venta del guano William Gibbs hizo construir en un valle pintoresco de la campiña inglesa, a unos kilómetros al oeste de Bristol, la enorme mansión de lujo, Tyntesfield.

Es la casa emblemática del estilo gótico victoriano. El arquitecto Marc Girouard ha dicho de la casa que, “Estoy seguro de que ya no hay otra casa señorial victoriana que represente tan suntuosamente su época que la de Tyntesfield”.

Durante la segunda mitad del siglo veinte la condición de la casa se deterioró hasta que las reparaciones que hacían falta hubieran costado otro dineral. La familia nunca se las llevaron a cabo. El último habitante de la casa, Richard Gibbs, un soltero que vivía solo y en sus últimos anos únicamente ocupaba tres de las habitaciones mas pequeñas, decidió que la casa debiera ser puesta en venta a su muerte.

En 2002 la casa fue comprada por The National Trust, una sociedad benéfica dedicada a la conservación del patrimonio nacional de Inglaterra, Gales, e Irlanda del Norte.

Es aquí donde se sitúa este otoño la exposición, “William Gibbs, From Madrid to Tyntesfield”, una muestra subtitulada, “A story of love, loss and legacy,” un cuento de amor, pérdidas y herencias. Muchos de los objetos expuestos son obras de arte coleccionadas por William Gibb en España y América Latina. Son en su mayoría cuadros religiosos, entre los cuales destacan varios: el de San Lorenzo llevando la parrilla en la que los romanos le quemaron vivo (William compró este cuadro creyéndolo una obra de Zurbarán aunque hoy en día está atribuido a su contemporáneo, Juan Luís Zambrano de Córdoba; la Inmaculada Concepción de Alonso Miguel de Tovar, una copia del cuadro de Murillo que hoy se expone en el Prado; hay también uno de Murillo si mismo, uno de sus varios Mater Dolorosa. Sin embargo, la más impresionante de todas las obras exhibidas es la exquisita Madonna col bambino e Giovanni Batista de Giovanni Bellini pintada alrededor del año 1490. La exposición también incluye muebles, libros, retratos de la familia y otros dispositivos misceláneos. De estos últimos cabe destacar un par de pequeños sahumadores peruanos en forma de pavos reales hechos de filamentos dorados y utilizados como incensarios por los Gibb, una familia anglo-católica. (En la cornisa de madera en la biblioteca está grabado en castellano, “En Dios mi amparo y esperanza”, el lema personal de William Gibbs.)

En paralelo con esta exposición, Tyntesfield pone otra pequeña muestra fotográfica en la que se contrastan la aridez, esterilidad y desolación de las islas Chincha con la opulencia de la casa y la lujuria de los jardines que la rodea. Esta pequeña exposición adicional durará hasta el 4 de noviembre.

Cosa interesante: cerca de la despensa del mayordomo en la planta baja de la casa hay un vitral, una ventana en la que el vidrio contiene hileras de imágenes, alineadas al tresbolillo, de los alcatraces, los pájaros que hicieron la casa posible. (No se ven conmemorados los chinos.)

Además de los jardines ornamentales, la casa posee un huerto amurallado en que se cultivaban las frutas y hortalizas para el consumo de la familia. Al lado hay varios invernaderos, uno de ellos una orangery, una estufa especial, diseñada para el cultivo de naranjos (cosa nada fácil en el clima inglés).

La capilla es inmensa y da la impresión de un mini-catedral. Está modelada en la Sainte Chapelle, el templo gótico situado en la Íle de la Cité en Paris. El trabajo es impecable.

Como ya se ha notado, William Gibbs fue un anglo-católico devoto y después de que se jubilara dió enormes cantidades de dinero para la construcción de iglesias, capillas y otros edificios asociados con su fe, los más famosos siendo la capilla y el gran salón de Keble College, Oxford.

La casa está abierta todos los días menos el día de Navidad y la exposición durará hasta el mes de diciembre. El horario de Tyntesfield y el precio de las entradas se ven en la web del National Trust.

The exhibition, “William Gibbs, From Madrid to Tyntesfield.”

His father, Antony Gibbs (1756 – 1816), in his early career, was an agent for an English exporter of woollen cloth. In 1778 Antony returned to his childhood home, the County of Devon in England, where he started his own cloth-making factory. However, the business failed and Antony was declared bankrupt.

In 1789 Antony decided to return to Spain with the intention of paying off his debts. Once again he acted as an agent for several British exporters. He was accompanied by his wife. His son, William, was born at 6 Calle Cantarranas, Madrid, on 22 May 1790. However, his mother was unable to bear the heat of the Madrid summer and in 1792 she decided to return to England, taking with her the 3 children, Harriet, Henry and the baby William.

The end of the 18^th and the beginning of the 19^th centuries were difficult times for anybody seeking to establish and sustain business links between England and Spain. Wars came one after another: The Anglo-Spanish War of 1796 – 1802, another Anglo-Spanish war 1804-1809 and the Peninsular War of 1808-1814).

It was during this period that Antony Gibbs decided to look towards Latin America in his search for new business partners. Amongst British merchants this commercial strategy had already become the conventional wisdom of the age. They had all realised that South American countries were seeking independence from the Spanish and Portuguese empires and preferred to strengthen their position by seeking to ally themselves economically and politically through an exchange of goods with prosperous European countries that were thriving and antagonistic to Spain. British firms fulfilled both of these characteristics. By 1808 40% of all British exports were destined for South America.

Antony Gibbs had two advantages over his competitors. Not only could he speak Spanish but he could also rely upon the great influence he enjoyed in the British judicial system: his uncle, Vicary Gibbs, was Solicitor General and it was through his intervention that Antony was able to obtain permission in 1806 for his boat, Hermosa Mexicana, to pass without hindrance through the British blockade that controlled the seas around the coasts of France and Spain.

Meanwhile, his son William was going to school in England and dividing his childhood between England and Spain. From 1806 to 1808 he was apprenticed to the shipping firm belonging to his paternal uncle, George Gibbs a man who had made himself rich, amongst other commercial activities, through the slave trade. In 1813 at the age of 23 William was made a partner in his father’s firm, managing the Cadiz branch.

When his father died In 1816 William and his brother Henry assumed control of the business. However, the great idea of importing guano into the United Kingdom didn’t occur to William until 1840 by which time he was already fifty years old. Strictly speaking, the idea didn’t come from William but from his agent in Lima. In the beginning the project seemed hare-brained and unprofitable. But, before he could say no, his agent had signed an agreement with the Peruvian government to buy the guano. Luckily, William had underestimated the Victorian mania for gardening and the guano sold like hot cakes, for want of a better expression.

He obtained the guano from the Chincha Islands, situated off the Peruvian coast. At that time they were covered in a layer of seabird droppings some thirty metres thick, mainly the excrement of Boobies, the so-called blue-footed albatross. There were millions of tons ready to go.

In limited quantities, the guano, full of nitrates, phosphates and potassium is an ideal fertiliser. But its enormous concentration on the Chincha Islands made them an arid and caustic environment, very harmful to the health of any human being exposed to it for a prolonged period. Nothing flourished in such hostile and acid conditions, least of all the men who were forced to work there.

In 1849 when more forced workers were needed, they began to import “indentured” Chinese labourers, this term being a euphemism for slavery. These labourers were kidnapped or duped and held in barracks until they were transported to Peru.

In the 19^th century estimates of the mortality rate of these Chinese forced labourers varied from investigator to investigator. Some estimated that between 1847 and 1859 40% of these coolies died on the journey to the islands. Others said that two thirds of the survivors died during their “indenture”, the duration of said “indenture” lasting 5 or 7 years. Moreover, if they lasted to the end of the “contract” the Chinese were forced to continue working until they dropped dead. In 1860 it was calculated that not one of the 4,000 Chinese who had been transported to the islands since the beginning of the industry had survived. If only 50% of these claims were true the islands would have been more like Nazi concentration camps and less like slavery.

What is not in doubt in the nature of the brutality of the regime with which the Peruvians governed the workers. All the witnesses — and there were many — attested that discipline consisted of whipping and torture. At a distance of 25 kilometres from the coast it was impossible for the workers to escape by swimming. The only infallible escape was suicide. According to the Journal of Latin American Studies an American sailor alleged that there was a case in 1853 in which 50 Chinese linked hands and jumped from a precipice to their death in the sea.

With the fortune he made from the sale of the guano William Gibbs built, in a beautiful valley in the British countryside, a few kilometres to the west of Bristol, an enormous luxury mansion called Tyntesfield. It is the archetypal Victorian gothic mansion. The architect Marc Girouard has said of the house, “ I feel quite confident in saying that there is now no other Victorian country house which so richly represents its age as Tyntesfield.”

During the second half of the 20^th century the house became dilapidated to the extent that the necessary repairs would have cost another fortune. The family never carried them out. The last inhabitant of the house, Richard Gibbs, a bachelor who lived alone, and in his final years only occupied 3 of the smaller rooms, decided that the house ought to be put up for sale upon his demise.

In 2002 the house was bought by The National Trust, a charitable society dedicated to the conservation of sites of national heritage of England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

It is here, this autumn, that The National Trust is showing, “William Gibbs, from Madrid to Tyntesfield”, an exhibition subtitled, “A story of love, loss and legacy”. Many of the objects on show are works of art collected by William Gibbs. They are in the main religious paintings, amongst which the most outstanding are: Saint Lawrence carrying the grid iron upon which he was to be roasted to death (William bought this painting believing it to be by Zurbarán, although nowadays it is attributed to his contemporary, Juan Luís Zambrano of Córdoba; the Inmaculada Concepción of Alonso Miguel de Tovar, a copy of the painting by Murillo that today is on show in the Prado; there is also one by Murillo himself, one of his several Mater Dolorosa. However, of all the works exhibited is the exquisite Madonna col bambino e Giovanni Batista by Giovanni Bellini, painted around the year 1490. The exhibition also includes items of furniture, books, portraits of the family and other miscellaneous devices. Outstanding amongst the latter are a pair of small Peruvian perfume burners in the form of peacocks fashioned from gold filament and used as censers by the Gibbs, an anglo-catholic family. (Engraved in Spanish on the wooden cornice in the library is the personal motto of William Gibbs, “En Dios mi amparo y esperanza”, “In God my Refuge and Hope”.)

Running in parallel with this exhibition Tyntesfield is also showing another small exhibition of photographs which contrast the aridity, sterility and desolation of the Chincha islands with the opulence of the house and the lushness of the surrounding gardens. This additional exhibition runs until 4^th November.

An interesting note: near the Butler’s pantry on the ground floor there is a stained-glass window which contains images, arranged in staggered lines, of the albatrosses which made the house possible. (There is no homage to the Chinese.)

Besides the ornamental gardens, the house possesses a walled garden in which were grown the fruit and vegetables for the consumption of the family and staff. By the side of this there are several greenhouses, one of them an orangery, a hothouse specially designed for the cultivation of oranges (not an easy thing in the English climate.)

The chapel is immense and gives the impression of a mini-cathedral. It is modelled on the Saint Chapelle, the gothic temple situated on the Íle de la Cité in Paris. The building is impeccable.

As we have already seen, William Gibbs was a devout Anglo-catholic and after he retired he paid enormous amounts of money for the construction of churches, chapels and other buildings associated with his faith, the most famous of these being the chapel and Great Hall of Keble College, Oxford.

The house is open every day except Christmas Day and the exhibition will run until December. The opening hours for Tyntesfield and the price of admission can be found on the web page of The National Trust.