Poor old house

         You may remember that back in September I wrote about the Scottish launch of Justine Picardie's biography Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life at which Justine talked extensively about Chanel's connections with Scotland and her many visits to the Duke of Westminster's estate here. On Cornflower Books today I've written about the biography itself (and I recommend it thoroughly), but on this site I wanted to go back to those holidays in Sutherland where, in tweeds and Fair Isle knitwear, the designer played consort to the richest man in Britain.

    One of several grand houses owned by the duke up in the north of the country was Rosehall, which you can read about here. Winston Churchill stayed there in May 1928 and wrote to his wife, "This is a vy. agreeable house", but nowadays it is, sadly, in a poor state of repair, though if you were to venture in (and Justine did so during her research) you would see the interiors which Chanel herself designed - have a look! (More pictures here).

    Now there is to be a television programme discovering the social history of buildings going to rack and ruin, Rosehall is to be one of its subjects and the producers are looking for photographs and first-hand accounts of life at the house - I hope they'll fnd some.