My family’s (very) tenuous connection with rock royalty
Thursday, January 20, 2022 at 16:58 I went to a funeral yesterday.
It took place in a 14th century church in Wiltshire and there was barely a spare seat in the Grade 1 listed building, a fitting tribute to a kind and popular man.
The ‘best’ funerals - if such a thing exists - celebrate a life well lived and inspire both sadness and laughter. This was one of them.
After the service we walked up the hill to the village hall where refreshments included tea and coffee, sandwiches and cake.
As friends and family mingled and chatted I was introduced to a second cousin I last saw in the Sixties, before we moved to Scotland.
Back then she and her family lived in an old Victorian house in Chertsey, Surrey, in a wooded area known as Monk’s Grove, and we would visit them occasionally from our home in Maidenhead.
I remember the name (Monk’s Grove) but I don’t remember much about the house apart from the fact that it seemed quite big from the outside and had a drive and a large garden.
The interesting thing is what happened subsequently.
In the late Sixties the house was bought by Peter Collison who directed The Italian Job. According to reports Collison ‘blew it up’ and built a modern four-bedroom bungalow which sounds quite modest but there was more to it.
Named Tara House (after the mansion in Gone With The Wind apparently) it has its own entry in Wikipedia where it is described as follows:
The roof peaked in five pyramids, one on each corner of the house and one in the centreover a large sunken lounge. It featured French windows, a master ensuite, a study and the lounge. The house was semi-transparent, minimalist modern style pioneered by public galleries and recording studios (such as Tittenhurst Park), and included futuristic appliances and labour-saving devices. The unusual roof emphasised post-war abstractism as opposed to art deco simplicity. The grounds included an extensive lawn, wooded areas and a large pond.
Subsequent owners were Keith Moon (The Who), Kevin Godley (10cc) and Vince Clarke (Erasure).
However, when Clarke bought the property (circa 1990), he ‘had the contemporary building demolished, and constructed a home and studio on the site called Ammonite.’
See ‘Concrete circles and glass spirals’ (Independent, July 2003.) Ammonite is also described here and here.
Unfortunately - and let this be a lesson to us all - the design was so individualistic it was on the market for the best part of a decade after Clarke moved to America in the early Noughties.
It eventually sold in 2013 for £1.9 million, £600k less than the original asking price, but such is its fame in design circles it was featured briefly in an episode of Grand Designs in 2019.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is my family’s extremely tenuous connection - via my second cousin and her family - with rock royalty.
Update: For more info about Tara House I recommend Keith Moon’s Living Arrangements (Just Backdated). It’s quite funny although much of Moon’s life wasn’t.
Reader Comments (1)
My very ‘ tenuous’ claim to fame is that my dad , CJ Smith owned The TV and electrical shop in Chertsey. And was a frequent visitor to Tara house when Keith Moon lived there. .. he used to tell many stories about the antics that Keith got up to ..